64 Bit OS question

[ZombieJesus]

If I were to install windows xp 64 with all 64 bit drivers except for the soundcard would a 64 bit game or application run correctly?

 

[blurredvision]

Theoretically, yes. But be warned that XP64 and the drivers aren't all that stable. That's why it's still in beta phase. But my guess is that everyone would run smoothly, as the last time I checked out XP64, everything was working pretty good.

 

[Nothinman]

Probably, just without sound. You do realize you can't install 32-bit versions of the sound drivers, right?

 

[ubercaffeinated]

curious about the 64 bit oses that are coming out. how will it affect users? will we all have to change to the 64 bit platform and upgrade our machines relatively soon? or will it be a gradual phase out?

 

[Nothinman]

curious about the 64 bit oses that are coming out. how will it affect users? will we all have to change to the 64 bit platform and upgrade our machines relatively soon? or will it be a gradual phase out?

You'll probalby be dead before 64-bit machines are required for everyone. The need just isn't there. A lot of people are buying them because they're cool and the Athlon64s aren't too much more expensive than the 32-bit Athlons, but they still end up running a 32-bit version of Windows on their 64-bit hardware and most likely will for many years. Or at least they'll be running many, many 32-bit apps on their 64-bit OS.

There have been 64-bit computers for many years, DEC and Sun have been selling them since I was in high-school, and today the only things to really benefit from a 64-bit address space are things like Oracle, 3D renderers, maybe large graphics or sound editors, etc. MS is just now catching up and some of their things like MS SQL and Exchange will benefit, but that's about it. I'm sure some game developers could find a use for the additional address space, but I'm also sure they'll be producing 32-bit versions of the same games for years because people are slow to upgrade. I mean hell, people are still running Win98 and think it doesn't suck.

 

[TSDible]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

You'll probalby be dead before 64-bit machines are required for everyone. The need just isn't there.

Wow...

This quote from a lifer?

I think I will just add it to...

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. - Ken Olsen DEC

640kb ought to be enough for anybody. - Bill Gates Microsoft

Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics 1949

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. -- Thomas Watson, IBM

 

[ubercaffeinated]

so my guess is, no one is really sure where 64 bit windows will take us, except it won't be over night, but it will definately happen sooner or later. and 32 bit stuff will still be around for a long while. am i wrong?

 

[Nothinman]

Wow...

This quote from a lifer?

Note I said required. If 64-bit computing was important to regular users they would have been using Alphas and UltraSparcs a long time ago and NT would have started out with a 64-bit port instead of waiting 10 years. Can you named 1 thing on your machine that would benefit from a 64-bit address space?

And as I said, I'm sure game developers will find uses for the extra address space but they'll be stuck either maintaining two versions or just not using the extra addresses for at least 5 years while people upgrade.

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. - Ken Olsen DEC

At the time he was right. And look, he never said "never".

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. -- Thomas Watson, IBM

Also at the time he was probably right. At the 60s, 70s and even 80s, who would have thought the Internet would become so popular?

no one is really sure where 64 bit windows will take us

Sure, it'll put millions of more dollars in MS' pocket as people upgrade and replace their current copy of XP with another for no good reason.

 

[TSDible]

Of course my quotes were tounge-in-cheek.

Yes those quotes were valid at the time they are made but that doesn't make them any less ironic now.

Think of all of the changes that have happened the last 50 years in computing. Many of them, people thought we would never need.

I can think of lots of things that really weren't necessary, but are nice none the less

The GUI
The Mouse
LCDs
32-bit processing. I wonder if someone thought the same thing about this.

I figure I have at least 50 more years in me, and I'm sure that given the rate of change, we will see something even better than 64-bit processing in my lifetime.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: TSDible
Of course my quotes were tounge-in-cheek.

Yes those quotes were valid at the time they are made but that doesn't make them any less ironic now.

Think of all of the changes that have happened the last 50 years in computing. Many of them, people thought we would never need.

I can think of lots of things that really weren't necessary, but are nice none the less

The GUI
The Mouse
LCDs
32-bit processing. I wonder if someone thought the same thing about this.

I figure I have at least 50 more years in me, and I'm sure that given the rate of change, we will see something even better than 64-bit processing in my lifetime.

Well LCDs still suck.

My personal prediction is that they will be replaced by a newer technology like OLED displays before they surpass CRT displays in capabilities and lower prices.

CRT's get better color, much faster refresh rates, much faster response time, much higher dynamic range (greater difference from "black to white"), much better viewing angles, and are cheaper.

LCDs have sharper image (generally speaking) and have smaller footprint.

Stuff like OLEDs fix the issues with dynamic range (since LCDS are backlit and oLEDs generate their own light, and black is realy "off"), viewing angles and probably price (you could pretty much print them out with special ink jet printers on a plastic film with embedded "invisible" wires.). Probably colors, too.

As for 16bit vs 32bit... People knew that was coming from the beginning. The difference from 16bit to 32bit is gigantic in terms of aviable storage space and memory addressing. And the difference between 32bit and 64bit is almost unimaginable.

Then you have 128bit, which we probably won't see in our lifetimes in terms of addressing ranges. You'll see 128bit being used for getting very high prescisions for rendering 3d images (many modern CPU's have 128bit parts in them), and scientific measurements and stuff like that.

Hell, even early x86 proccessors didn't have 16bit addressing range. A 8086 had 20bit memory range, that gave it a maximum of ONE MEG of RAM.

A 80386 had a maximum addressable range of 16MB due to it's 24bit addressing range.

How does 16bit vs 24bit compare?

If you have a maximum address range of 16bits you have 64k.
If you have a maximum address range of 20bits you have 1024k.
If you have a maximum address range of 24bits you have 16384k
If you have a maximum address range of 32bits you have 4194304K.
If you have a maximum address range of 36bits you have 67108864k. (this is what current "32bit" proccessors support)
If you have a maximum address range of 64bits you have 1.80143985095 * 10 ^ 16 k.
Or more then 18000000000000000k
Or 17,179,869,184GB.



32bit isn't NEEDED nowadays. Having 64bit proccessors have some other aspects. For calculating precisions to get high fidelity images in 3d stuff you need 64bit colors. You can hold very large numbers without having to use floating point caclulations, and you can hold very large databases in RAM.

Also there are architectural improvements in things like Power970's and AMD64 proccessors over their older siblings. They restructured the x86 instruction set (for IBM they mostly removed the distinctions between POWER vs PowerPC, or it seems like it to me) to make it more efficient and removed functionality that most people don't use anymore.

Basicly the move to go from 32bit to 64bit was more of a excuse to break some backward compatability rather then actually gaining 64bit-ness.

 

[Nothinman]

I can think of lots of things that really weren't necessary, but are nice none the less

The GUI is necessary for many things, imagine trying to do image editing from the cli. And the mouse is necessary for the GUI to work well, as much as I love keyboard shortcuts and the cli I still use my mouse a decent amount of the time, especially for FPS' =)

And 32-bit processing was necessary. 16-bit addressing with segmented memory was huge hassle for developers and limited what they could do quite a bit. With 32-bit processing they got 4G of flat address space which simplified development and generally made things better. But even today most things don't come close to exhausting the 2G VM made available to them and with PAE the OS can support up to 64G physical memory, so where is the rush for a bigger VM address space?