Native 64bit Programs for Vista x64?

[Shawn]

I am currently using Vista x64 but it seems that every single program I use is still 32bit. I've been trying to find 64bit versions of programs I currently use but haven't really found anything yet. I can't even use the 64bit version of WMP because ffdshow is only 32bit so I have to use the 32bit version.

Anyone have a list of programs that are 64bit? I'm also looking for a 64bit bittorent client.

 

[bsobel]

I'm also looking for a 64bit bittorent client.

Unless your program needs more than 3gig (ish) of useable memory, what do you perceive as the benefit of having true 64bit versions (especially of a BT client)?

 

[Shawn]

Because what's the point of using a 64bit OS if all my programs are 32bit?

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Shawn
Because what's the point of using a 64bit OS if all my programs are 32bit?

Well, lets see on the windows platform: Usable access to >3gig of physcial memory with each 32bit app getting up to 2gig of user space (up to 4gig of they are LMA)

Basically if the app your running is never going to need to manage more than a gig or two of data their is no benefit in going 64bit with that app (you might be worse off with all 64bit apps, they at a minimum are usually larger since the code is twice the size).

For applications that need more than 2gig to 3gig of memory you definately want 64bit versions (Autocad, Photoshop, etc).

Trying to find 64bit versions of things like bittorrent clients is really just a solution looking for a problem.

Bill

 

[Mem]

There's 64 bit versions of Firefox,Thunderbird,also anti-virus software like Avast,Kaspersky.

O&O 8.6 & 10 for Vista x64 bit defragging software.


Have a look here for more 64 bit software etc...

 

[Nothinman]

Because what's the point of using a 64bit OS if all my programs are 32bit?

Maybe you should have thought about that before installing XP64?

 

[Synomenon]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Because what's the point of using a 64bit OS if all my programs are 32bit?

Maybe you should have thought about that before installing Vista x64?

^
What he said, but yeah if you want to access more than 3.25GB of RAM you'll need a 64-bit OS.

 

[Nothinman]

What he said, but yeah if you want to access more than 3.25GB of RAM you'll need a 64-bit OS.

Actually that's orthogonal to his desire for 64-bit programs to run on his 64-bit OS. And on top of that the number isn't always 3.25G, it's dependent on the hardware config.

 

[Synomenon]

^
What he said then.

 

[Sureshot324]

A well optimized 64 bit program should preform 10-15% better than a 32bit one, but I wouldn't go out of my way to find a 64 bit bittorrent client just for that.

 

[alent1234]

SQL 2008 has a CTP you can download that's x64 native

except for database related stuff, don't plan on native 64 bi windows apps for a while since there is no need. but if you have a 100GB or more db and you have people running 2 million row queries with all kinds of sorts and whatever than 64 bit is for you

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Sureshot324
A well optimized 64 bit program should preform 10-15% better than a 32bit one, but I wouldn't go out of my way to find a 64 bit bittorrent client just for that.

And the code size will be roughly twice as big, so if your not on a high memory system the memory is probably better suited for data than 64bit code.

Look, I'm definately for the shift to 64bit, this is the year its really accelerating. However for most users the primary benefit is the overall ability to break the 4gig barrier (which is really the 2.5g to 3.75g barrier) not to provide more than 4gig for any one application (except for special use cases, such as 3d, photoshop, vms, etc).

Games will be the first consumer apps that really do take advantage of the additional memory (IMHO)

 

[Nothinman]

A well optimized 64 bit program should preform 10-15% better than a 32bit one, but I wouldn't go out of my way to find a 64 bit bittorrent client just for that.

That only applies to CPU-bound processes which are the minority. Most processes spend their time waiting on user input, disk I/O, network I/O, etc so having them be 64-bit won't change anything unless they really need more than 2 or 3G of VM.

 

[Mem]

Native 64bit Programs for Vista x64?

I can see a time not far down the road where game developers will move to 64 bit for DX10/DX11 games etc..due to the superior memory handling and headroom etc....One thing you can count on with games is that over time they demand more ram.

Unless your program needs more than 3gig (ish) of useable memory, what do you perceive as the benefit of having true 64bit versions (especially of a BT client)?

That works both ways,why use a 32 bit version when you can have a 64 bit version with no disadavantages?

 

[Nothinman]

I can see a time not far down the road where game developers will move to 64 bit for DX10/DX11 games etc..due to the superior memory handling and headroom etc....One thing you can count on with games is that over time they demand more ram.

Maybe, but right now only a few require that much memory and I'm sure they don't want to kill their customer-base by requiring a 64-bit OS. And all they have to do is mark their 32-bit binary large address aware and it'll automatically be able to use the full 4G of VM on 64-bit systems IIRC.

That works both ways,why use a 32 bit version when you can have a 64 bit version with no disadavantages?

Because there are disadvantages like the program binary being bigger and requiring more memory to handle the same operation.

 

[bsobel]

That works both ways,why use a 32 bit version when you can have a 64 bit version with no disadavantages?

Sure if you could truely compare apples to apples. However you can't, two primary differences exist between the posters 32bit BT client and the 64bit BT client:

a) Memory overhead. Since 64bit programs are themselves larger and take more memory just to load, on smaller systems (<4gig) this may cause additional memory preasure itself. If there is no advantage, the 32bit programs are more appropriate. Now as we move the industry forward this will change. But unlike the 16bit to 32bit migration, there is no large overhead to running the 'older generation' code. The code in fact provides a benefit by being smaller allowing more room for actual data in memory.

b) The 32bit version of the client is available. This isn't trying to be flipant, but the fact that a 64bit version of something like this hasn't shown up is indicative of someone with a solution looking for a problem.

My 2 cents,
Bill

 

[DaveSimmons]

If an application has both 32- and 64-bit versions, the 32-bit version will be much more thoroughly tested, by users if not the software company or open source project.

Problems with the 32-bit version will also be given a higher priority in the work queue since 90+% of the users are affected vs. <10% for a problem with the 64-bit version.

Edit: but go ahead and be an early adopter, your suffering now will make things easier for me in a few years when I move to a 64-bit Vista SP2

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
If an application has both 32- and 64-bit versions, the 32-bit version will be much more thoroughly tested, by users if not the software company or open source project.

Problems with the 32-bit version will also be given a higher priority in the work queue since 90+% of the users are affected vs. <10% for a problem with the 64-bit version.

Edit: but go ahead and be an early adopter, your suffering now will make things easier for me in a few years when I move to a 64-bit Vista SP2

Actually I'm not suffering at all (best of both worlds as they say),my 64 bit software works great,true my 32 bit software works great too so you could say I don't need to wait for SP1 or SP2 to have a very stable Vista x64 OS,I look forward to the bug fixes in SP1 etc... however I'm looking forward more to new drivers down the road since that will improve performance in gaming .

Sidenote: Be interesting to see how 64 bit software/hardware improves down the road with regards to efficiency/speed /optimization etc...

 

[Nothinman]

b) The 32bit version of the client is available. This isn't trying to be flipant, but the fact that a 64bit version of something like this hasn't shown up is indicative of someone with a solution looking for a problem.

Actually there are 64-bit clients, rtorrent is one example that builds for AMD64 on Linux just fine. And since Python runs fine on AMD64 it's possible to run a 64-bit version of the base client although I'm not sure if it would actually change much.

 

[Shawn]

I was originally running Vista 32 but I added 2 more gigs of ram bringing me to 4gb. However I could only use 3.2GB of it so I went ahead and bought a new TV tuner card and a new scanner that had Vista 64 drivers. Unfortunately things are slower with the 64bit version with 4gb of ram than they were with the 32bit version with 3.2GB of ram. When I open the task manager all of my programs have *32 at the end.

When I first got Win95 almost everything was still being released in 16bit. It took companies forever to start making 32bit versions of their software. Sure the 16bit applications worked fine but does that mean that we should have stuck with 16bit? Of course not. I also want 64bit applications because I want to see if the slow down is being caused by running 32bit applications in a 64bit environment or if it's immature drivers that are causing the slow downs. I'm thinking about just living with less ram and using the 32bit version since it's faster.

 

[bsobel]

Unfortunately things are slower with the 64bit version with 4gb of ram than they were with the 32bit version with 3.2GB of ram.

You'll have to be more explicit than that, hard to fix 'slower' without parameters. I'm really surpised to hear that however, can you try to quantify it a bit so perhaps we can figure it out?

When I first got Win95 almost everything was still being released in 16bit. It took companies forever to start making 32bit versions of their software. Sure the 16bit applications worked fine but does that mean that we should have stuck with 16bit? Of course not. I also want 64bit applications because I want to see if the slow down is being caused by running 32bit applications in a 64bit environment or if it's immature drivers that are causing the slow downs. I'm thinking about just living with less ram and using the 32bit version since it's faster.

Irrelevant comparison. 16bit code running on Win95 had to go thru expensive transitions from the 32 bit environment. These cost a lot of cpu cycles and is why 16bit code on 32bit machines where so much slower. The model is much different in the 32bit to 64bit transition we are going thru now.

32bit on 64bit is completely different and for all practical matters runs at full speed. The ONLY difference a 32bit v 64bit app is going to give you in in available memory to the application. So worry about those apps which need more than the amount of user memory available to a 32bit app (which is 2-3gig on 32bit windows and 2-4gig on 64bit windows).

The other apps will get there over time, but unlike 16bit your not actually getting a penalty for them still being 32bit apps so the need to move is driven more by the apps that can perform better in the 64bit environment than just a port for ports sake.

 

[Synomenon]

Isn't your network connection and bandwith more important anyway when it comes to things like BT clients?

 

[Nothinman]

Unfortunately things are slower with the 64bit version with 4gb of ram than they were with the 32bit version with 3.2GB of ram.

Just saw a thread on LKML where someone upgraded from 4G to 8G and their box slowed down a lot because the firmware setup the MTRRs wrong so the kernel ended up in an section of memory that was uncachable. I doubt you're experiencing the same problem but it's worth checking if there's any BIOS updates available for your board.

I also want 64bit applications because I want to see if the slow down is being caused by running 32bit applications in a 64bit environment or if it's immature drivers that are causing the slow downs.

The former isn't the case, everyone running 64-bit Windows is using 32-bit apps because that's pretty much all that's available right now.

 

[Sureshot324]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Unfortunately things are slower with the 64bit version with 4gb of ram than they were with the 32bit version with 3.2GB of ram.

You'll have to be more explicit than that, hard to fix 'slower' without parameters. I'm really surpised to hear that however, can you try to quantify it a bit so perhaps we can figure it out?

When I first got Win95 almost everything was still being released in 16bit. It took companies forever to start making 32bit versions of their software. Sure the 16bit applications worked fine but does that mean that we should have stuck with 16bit? Of course not. I also want 64bit applications because I want to see if the slow down is being caused by running 32bit applications in a 64bit environment or if it's immature drivers that are causing the slow downs. I'm thinking about just living with less ram and using the 32bit version since it's faster.

Irrelevant comparison. 16bit code running on Win95 had to go thru expensive transitions from the 32 bit environment. These cost a lot of cpu cycles and is why 16bit code on 32bit machines where so much slower. The model is much different in the 32bit to 64bit transition we are going thru now.

32bit on 64bit is completely different and for all practical matters runs at full speed. The ONLY difference a 32bit v 64bit app is going to give you in in available memory to the application. So worry about those apps which need more than the amount of user memory available to a 32bit app (which is 2-3gig on 32bit windows and 2-4gig on 64bit windows).

The other apps will get there over time, but unlike 16bit your not actually getting a penalty for them still being 32bit apps so the need to move is driven more by the apps that can perform better in the 64bit environment than just a port for ports sake.

Wrong. A 64 bit processor has twice as many registers as a 32 bit one, so a CPU dependent 64 bit program will run 10-15% faster than a 32 bit one. Also, only the compiled binaries (the code) of a 64 program will use more memory than a 32 bit one. All other parts of a program (graphics, sound) will take the same.

 

[bsobel]

Wrong. A 64 bit processor has twice as many registers as a 32 bit one, so a CPU dependent 64 bit program will run 10-15% faster than a 32 bit one. Also, only the compiled binaries (the code) of a 64 program will use more memory than a 32 bit one. All other parts of a program (graphics, sound) will take the same.

:roll: You really think the bittorrent client (as an example) he's looking for is going to be 15% faster? It's IO bound like almost everything else consumers do.

Yes, native code not under memory preasure could be faster (actually it depends, as usual on many things). But for lower memory systems the tradeoff is generally not worth the larger code size to being with.

As to your code size comment, that's why I said code, sheesh, please at least read the post you respond to.