• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

What will 64bit applications be like?

Y

yo2tup

Senior member
when 64bit programs (and processors of course) are out, what will they be like? what can they do that 32bit applications can't do? 😕
 
Eat up huge memory, and possibly run slower, with a lot fuzzier architecture behind them.

64-bit takes the lid off memory addressing, mainly, that's always been the main appeal. Better opportunity for partitioned computing, with dynamic load-balancing across partitions, in a crossbar environment.

For the home user: one computer that can multitask dynamically, without performance hit (eventually). You put one box in, it handles everything -- lights, video, music, environment monitoring (temp, security, air quality, etc.), games, communications, information needs. Have a bunch of interfaces and monitors, all wireless, to access what you need, with the interfaces context-appropriate (i.e. you're not watching a movie on a screen designed for e-mail and word-processing, and you're not listening to music on tinny tabletop game theatre speakers).

There's probably more, but that's the basics. Lots of threads and parallelism, too! Giant headaches for developers!! 🙂

rt
 
I remember the jump from 16 bit Windows to 32 bit Windows. I was like, why is it so, so, slow? Why did we upgrade again?

Hehe, seems like they are just now really starting to take advantage of 32 bit operations, so it must be time to change the system.

Plus im sure the 64bit time line has been ramping up since AMD has been putting pressure on Intel. They want out of the 32 bit era asap. 🙂
 
realtrance
"Eat up huge memory, and possibly run slower, with a lot fuzzier architecture behind them."

That's pretty generalized with nothing to back it up.

They won't necessarily eat up more memory, they will simply have more memory available to them. 64 bit addressing gives a theoretical maximum addressable memory space of 16ExaBytes*. (The current Max for 32bit addressing is 2GigaBytes).

It is highly unlikely that 64bit applications on 64bit platforms will run slower then 32/32. Given the enhancements to the processor, SMT (Symetric Multi-Threading), branch prediction, instruction caching, Explicit Parallelism, etc...

I don't know what to say about your last point, I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to when you say "fuzzier" architecture. From my POV the architecture is just as clear as 23bit architecture is you just have to do your reading.

*Giga, Tera, Peta, Exa [10 to the 18th], zetta

Thorin
 


<<
Plus im sure the 64bit time line has been ramping up since AMD has been putting pressure on Intel. They want out of the 32 bit era asap. 🙂 >>



also, i think that microsoft has pushed this a bit by making win xp (pro and up) 64bit compatible
 
&quot;by making win xp (pro and up) 64bit compatible&quot;

Hmm didnt know that. I wouldnt think the 64 bit architecture would be sound enough to write a final OS for by November. Just goes to show how close Intel and Microsoft are.
 
Helznicht
&quot;Hmm didnt know that. I wouldnt think the 64 bit architecture would be sound enough to write a final OS for by November. Just goes to show how close Intel and Microsoft are.&quot;

64 Bit versions of Win2k, Linux, and Unix were demo'd more then 8 months ago.

Thorin

 
Re: 64-bit OS's.

Atm the only real options are UNIX/LINUX-based ... M$ will not be out with a 64-bit OS until at least 2002 (i guess mid-year-ish). But even the IX-es are still in beta. One of the reasons why Intel's Itanic may not have such a smoot start.

&quot;Yup - the CPU's out - but not much to use it yet.&quot; ... mind you, they're working on it 🙂.

Either way, M$ will be (as usual) a lot slower to incorporate new things in their OS. But I guess the benefits of &quot;open source&quot; are to be discussed somewhere else 🙂.

Either way - 64-bit CPU's should be fun ... can't wait for the little beasties 😀.
 
Seb
&quot;Oh and BTW Thorin the limit of 32bit is 2^32 = 4GBytes, but I'm sure you of all people knew that really&quot;

Yup you're right, I was going off the top of my head and didn't even stop do think about the Math.

Shathal
&quot;M$ will not be out with a 64-bit OS until at least 2002 (i guess mid-year-ish). &quot;

Based on what?

Thorin
 
Hi Thorin,

Only meant &quot;eat up memory&quot; and &quot;fuzzy architecture&quot; because all that addressable space will make both possible and, in the world of computing, the possible usually becomes the probable, then the inevitable, then the unavoidable, then the inescapable.

That's my own basic law of computing. <g>

But yes, technically, you're right, there's nothing requiring 64bits to be any fuzzier nor memory-hogging than any other -bit. Fortunately, 64-bit is mostly the world of UNIX at this point, an elegant, memory-efficient OS if there ever was one, in my personal opinion.

rt
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top