32Bit To 64Bit Transition (Upgrading/MemoryLimitations/...)

Troy Martin · Post by **Troy Martin** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 9:18 pm

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x86 IA32 will be around for a while, cause nobody really wants to spend hundreds to a thousand bucks to go from 32-bit to 64-bit when 50-75% of folks don't really understand the pros and cons of x64...

Patrick, welcome back!

pcmattman · Post by **pcmattman** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 9:21 pm

cause nobody really wants to spend hundreds to a thousand bucks to go from 32-bit to 64-bit

Why would you spend hundreds to a thousand dollars? All of the Core 2 series chips support both 32-bit and 64-bit, as well as a fair few earlier versions of Intel's CPUs (note: Atoms aren't like this).

Troy Martin · Post by **Troy Martin** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 9:22 pm

Windows x64 is expensive, and some people still don't use 64-bit processors for some odd reason.

earlz · Post by **earlz** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 10:11 pm

Well, Windows 7 I believe will cost the same amount for 32 and 64 bit versions..

And true, crap I have in my possession right now a $30 Celeron processor supporting 64bit(1.6ghz is where they cut prices D: )

And I think even the next version of Atom will support 64 bit.. or maybe it's a true dual core.. I can't remember..

PatrickV · Post by **PatrickV** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 10:14 pm

Upgrading is an issue, for example windows xp to vista. That was a big issue. Just because vista was the latest and greatest thing people want to upgrade which cost money. They just wasted their money on a peice of junk witch worths less than they pay for. Far as i learned from my computer fundermental paper, it is not actualy 32 bit to be exact. it is like around 20 bit for 4 gb. We all know that 64 bit allows to go beond the address range of 4gb. So far we don't use up all 4 gb of ram on the computer. Most of the os project around here do are 1mb up 500mb of ram usage.

earlz · Post by **earlz** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 10:43 pm

PatrickV wrote:Upgrading is an issue, for example windows xp to vista. That was a big issue. Just because vista was the latest and greatest thing people want to upgrade which cost money. They just wasted their money on a peice of junk witch worths less than they pay for. Far as i learned from my computer fundermental paper, it is not actualy 32 bit to be exact. it is like around 20 bit for 4 gb. We all know that 64 bit allows to go beond the address range of 4gb. So far we don't use up all 4 gb of ram on the computer. Most of the os project around here do are 1mb up 500mb of ram usage.

20bit? I'm not following you. 32 bit computers actually use 32 bits. This is not so with 64 bits, where current implementations are 40 bits physical address space and 48 bits virtual address space...

And the biggest advantage of 64 bit over 32 bit is the virtual address space. Image mapping your entire 1 TB harddrive into memory. Now think. That's completely possible with a 48 bit address space.

You no longer have to worry about changing out address spaces. There will be no amount of applications no matter how bloaty that can fill up the entire address space(yet anyway.. I hear microsoft has something up their sleeve lol)

Troy Martin · Post by **Troy Martin** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 11:14 pm

earlz wrote:There will be no amount of applications no matter how bloaty that can fill up the entire address space(yet anyway.. I hear microsoft has something up their sleeve lol)

They do, it's called Windows 8!

(by the way, that's not a forum smiley. It's at http://www.smileyhut.com/laughing/rofl.gif for those who want to use it.)

JohnnyTheDon · Post by **JohnnyTheDon** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 11:37 am

Troy Martin wrote:Windows x64 is expensive, and some people still don't use 64-bit processors for some odd reason.

Actually, when you buy Windows Vista/7 they give you two disks: one 32-bit, the other 64-bit. And other than the Atom, I don't think Intel has any production processors that are 32-bit. Unfortunately HP and Dell (these are the two that I know of for sure) like to install 32-bit Windows on 64-bit processors, especially in laptops. I don't know if this is to reduce power usage or something like that, but it seems like a waste to me.

earlz wrote:There will be no amount of applications no matter how bloaty that can fill up the entire address space(yet anyway.. I hear microsoft has something up their sleeve lol)

Windows Vista and XP 64-bit editions (I don't know about 7) actually only allow use 16TB of the 256TB: 8GB for the kernel, and 8GB for each application. Windows Server might be different, but I'm not sure.

In any case, even if you use 32-bit addressing in your application and only use 32-bit integers a 64-bit processor still give you the advantage of lots of extra registers. It would be interesting to see the performance impact if Intel or AMD added a sort of 32-bit/64-bit hybrid mode that defaults to 32-bit addressing (allowing you to use 32-bit addresses without using a prefix) but can use the extra registers.

Troy Martin · Post by **Troy Martin** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 12:21 pm

JohnnyTheDon wrote:Unfortunately HP and Dell (these are the two that I know of for sure) like to install 32-bit Windows on 64-bit processors, especially in laptops. I don't know if this is to reduce power usage or something like that, but it seems like a waste to me.

I am a victim of that. I have a Compaq (HP) laptop with an Intel Core 2 Duo that's 64-bit in it but with 32-bit vista... /sigh

ru2aqare · Post by **ru2aqare** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 12:36 pm

Troy Martin wrote:
JohnnyTheDon wrote:Unfortunately HP and Dell (these are the two that I know of for sure) like to install 32-bit Windows on 64-bit processors, especially in laptops. I don't know if this is to reduce power usage or something like that, but it seems like a waste to me.
I am a victim of that. I have a Compaq (HP) laptop with an Intel Core 2 Duo that's 64-bit in it but with 32-bit vista... /sigh

Come on.. how hard is to install WinXP x64 (or Vista x64 for that matter) on a laptop? My Toshiba came with Vista x86 preinstalled... Poor thing only lasted one day before XP x64 replaced it. And with the exception of maybe one driver, all drivers had x64 ports as well. Okay, the OEM utilities may not have x64 versions, but I never used them in the first place.

JohnnyTheDon · Post by **JohnnyTheDon** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 3:35 pm

ru2aqare wrote:
Troy Martin wrote:
JohnnyTheDon wrote:Unfortunately HP and Dell (these are the two that I know of for sure) like to install 32-bit Windows on 64-bit processors, especially in laptops. I don't know if this is to reduce power usage or something like that, but it seems like a waste to me.
I am a victim of that. I have a Compaq (HP) laptop with an Intel Core 2 Duo that's 64-bit in it but with 32-bit vista... /sigh
Come on.. how hard is to install WinXP x64 (or Vista x64 for that matter) on a laptop? My Toshiba came with Vista x86 preinstalled... Poor thing only lasted one day before XP x64 replaced it. And with the exception of maybe one driver, all drivers had x64 ports as well. Okay, the OEM utilities may not have x64 versions, but I never used them in the first place.

The problem isn't that it is difficult. Anyone who cares about x86_64 vs x86_32 can install an operating system. The problem is that you have to pay for the 64-bit edition when you have already paid for the 32-bit edition.

earlz · Post by **earlz** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:09 pm

Come on.. how hard is to install WinXP x64 (or Vista x64 for that matter) on a laptop? My Toshiba came with Vista x86 preinstalled... Poor thing only lasted one day before XP x64 replaced it. And with the exception of maybe one driver, all drivers had x64 ports as well. Okay, the OEM utilities may not have x64 versions, but I never used them in the first place.[/quote]
The problem isn't that it is difficult. Anyone who cares about x86_64 vs x86_32 can install an operating system. The problem is that you have to pay for the 64-bit edition when you have already paid for the 32-bit edition.[/quote]

exactly.. when I bought a computer I asked specifically for one that was 64 bit. (I had development dreams of a 64 bit OS then and thought it would come in handy for a bit extra price back 2 or 3 years ago). I got a 64 bit processor and Vista 32 bit. I didn't even get the freaking Vista disk(32 or 64 bit) either I got some Recovery partition and thats it. I *hate* how HP does that. They think.. Oh.. their harddrive is never going to blow up or somethign so they don't need a spare OS disk...

but since then I've just put OpenBSD (64 bit) on it and never looked back.. what I'm posting on now infact..

Hey, who's the wise mod that put a 3 embedded quote limit?

Troy Martin · Post by **Troy Martin** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:45 pm

earlz wrote:Hey, who's the wise mod that put a 3 embedded quote limit?

Whoever programmed phpBB3. I don't think the mods had any say in that.

It might be able to be increased in the ACP, but I dunno.

<3 threadsplits

earlz · Post by **earlz** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:54 pm

Troy Martin wrote:
earlz wrote:Hey, who's the wise mod that put a 3 embedded quote limit?
Whoever programmed phpBB3. I don't think the mods had any say in that.

It might be able to be increased in the ACP, but I dunno.

<3 threadsplits

Lets attempt to get the most thread splits without getting banned lol

Well I've never had problems with embedding a lot of quotes before(which some threads get very bad at) I also remember a day way back when in the autodelete forum(or was it testing forum back then) someone proved that if you had over like 50 embedded quotes it completely messed up the entire page(as far as layout of HTML anyway).. heck that might have even been back in Mega Tokyo days though..

Anyway back on topic...

Is there really even a reason for not having a 64 bit OS the default. OEMs have got all the drivers by now. Heck, for one [HP?] laptop I *could not* find 32 bit drivers, only 64 bit.. do you know how strange I felt?

ru2aqare · Post by **ru2aqare** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 10:21 pm

JohnnyTheDon wrote:The problem isn't that it is difficult. Anyone who cares about x86_64 vs x86_32 can install an operating system. The problem is that you have to pay for the 64-bit edition when you have already paid for the 32-bit edition.

Oops. I forgot that. Power to all the MSDNAA users...

On another note. I see lots of "weird" acronyms popping up for the good old x86 architecture. x86_32 is a good example, but there was even x32... I was stunned to see that.

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