Originally posted by: perdomot
Compatibility of apps is my biggest worry. I use a lot of freeware including my AV, firewall, etc. and lack of 64 bit compatibility will likely add to the cost of the upgrade.
Originally posted by: Mem
Originally posted by: perdomot
Compatibility of apps is my biggest worry. I use a lot of freeware including my AV, firewall, etc. and lack of 64 bit compatibility will likely add to the cost of the upgrade.
List your applications we can tell you what will work,common free software like CCleaner,Firefox,Defraggler,Avast,AVG,ALZip,Avira,7-Zip,OpenOffice,Spybot,SpywareBlaster,uTorrent,Thunderbird etc all run fine,most 32 bit software will work ok,its really only 64 bit drivers for your hardware and 16 bit software that cause the real headaches(no 16 bit support in Vista x64),providing you have 64 bit drivers for your hardware you should be fine.
Personally as an avid Vista x64 user I have all my 64 bit drivers and all my 32 bit software works fine,I do have a few 64 bit programs too....I'm very happy with Vista x64 for gaming and general use so no complaints from me.
Good site for 64 bit info and software is here.
I use AVG, zip genius, zone alarm, ad-aware, bitcomet, vlc player, objectdock and Firefox mostly so I guess it should be ok. I use itunes for my music so I hope it comes in 64 bit flavor. XP-64 is not supported by itunes for some reason.
Originally posted by: BonzaiDuck
I would think that all Windows software such as Office will run without a hitch.
Originally posted by: 450
If I have *only* 1-2GB of RAM is there I point in going to 64-bit? I have Windows 2003 Server Standard. I can get 32 or 64 bit.
Originally posted by: rooster2o8
Dumb question, but I just received what I thought was the 64 bit version of Vista from Newegg, but it turns out to be the 32 bit version (Home Premium). So do I have to return this one and go out and buy the 64-bit version or is there some sort of upgrade option available? It seems that every brick and mortar store sells only the 32-bit and I'd hate to have to wait by the mail box once again.
Originally posted by: Aberforthnative 64bit apps run 2X faster than 32bit
You know what's the point of 64bit? It's speed not the RAM capacity,native 64bit apps run 2X faster than 32bit naturally increasing the overall performance.
Originally posted by: 450
If I have *only* 1-2GB of RAM is there I point in going to 64-bit? I have Windows 2003 Server Standard. I can get 32 or 64 bit.
Originally posted by: pallejr
Originally posted by: Aberforthnative 64bit apps run 2X faster than 32bit
No!
Originally posted by: bsobel
You know what's the point of 64bit? It's speed not the RAM capacity,native 64bit apps run 2X faster than 32bit naturally increasing the overall performance.
I've seen lots of misinformation from you, but this is probably the worst. This is completely wrong.
A change from a 32-bit to a 64-bit architecture is a fundamental alteration, as most operating systems must be extensively modified to take advantage of the new architecture. Other software must also be ported to use the new capabilities; older software is usually supported through either a hardware compatibility mode (in which the new processors support the older 32-bit version of the instruction set as well as the 64-bit version), through software emulation, or by the actual implementation of a 32-bit processor core within the 64-bit processor (as with the Itanium processors from Intel, which include an x86 processor core to run 32-bit x86 applications). The operating systems for those 64-bit architectures generally support both 32-bit and 64-bit applications.
64-bit processors calculate particular tasks (such as factorials of large figures) two times faster than working in 32-bit environments (given example is derived from comparison between 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Calculator; noticeable for factorial of say 100 000). This gives a general feeling of theoretical possibilities of 64-bit optimized applications.
One significant exception to this is the AS/400, whose software runs on a virtual ISA, called TIMI (Technology Independent Machine Interface) which is translated to native machine code by low-level software before being executed. The low-level software is all that has to be rewritten to move the entire OS and all software to a new platform, such as when IBM transitioned their line from the older 32/48-bit "IMPI" instruction set to 64-bit PowerPC (IMPI wasn't anything like 32-bit PowerPC, so this was an even bigger transition than from a 32-bit version of an instruction set to a 64-bit version of the same instruction set).
While 64-bit architectures indisputably make working with large data sets in applications such as digital video, scientific computing, and large databases easier, there has been considerable debate as to whether they or their 32-bit compatibility modes will be faster than comparably-priced 32-bit systems for other tasks. In x86-64 architecture (AMD64), the majority of the 32-bit operating systems and applications are able to run smoothly on the 64-bit hardware.
Sun's 64-bit Java virtual machines are slower to start up than their 32-bit virtual machines because Sun has only implemented the "server" JIT compiler (C2) for 64-bit platforms.[9] The "client" JIT compiler (C1), which produces less efficient code but compiles much faster, is unavailable on 64-bit platforms.
It should be noted that speed is not the only factor to consider in a comparison of 32-bit and 64-bit processors. Applications such as multi-tasking, stress testing, and clustering (for high-performance computing), HPC, may be more suited to a 64-bit architecture given the correct deployment. 64-bit clusters have been widely deployed in large organizations such as IBM, HP and Microsoft, for this reason.
You know what's the point of 64bit? It's speed not the RAM capacity,native 64bit apps run 2X faster than 32bit naturally increasing the overall performance.
Originally posted by: bsobel
You know what's the point of 64bit? It's speed not the RAM capacity,native 64bit apps run 2X faster than 32bit naturally increasing the overall performance.
Apparently you can't read "64-bit processors calculate particular tasks(such as factorials of large figures) ". That does not mean that 64bit native apps run 2x faster than 32bit apps.
It's like talking to a brick, I swear. To realize a performance increase from a move from x86-32 to x86-64, either the application would have to be extremely bottlenecked by 64bit integer math, or highly register starved. There simply aren't any applications of the former, and the latter hasn't been a problem in ages due to well designed compilers. 64bit integers are extremely rare, so the whole thing is generally a break-even proposition; whatever performance improvement from the additional registers is usually offset by the performance penalty from longer instructions. You'll never find those kinds of performance improvements, so we don't even talk about them.Originally posted by: Aberforth
*stuff*
Originally posted by: perdomot
Compatibility of apps is my biggest worry. I use a lot of freeware including my AV, firewall, etc. and lack of 64 bit compatibility will likely add to the cost of the upgrade.