when vista comes out will 64-bit become much more common?

[avi85]

when vista comes out will 64-bit become much more common? or will it be a "niche" product like XP 64-bit

 

[Smilin]

I think it will become much more common, yes.

XP x64 is such a niche product because nobody wants to get off their butt to write drivers for it and there is no penalty for this. Vista really won't have this problem. Write those drivers or you are going to miss the bus!

I think Vista will be the real beginning of 64bit. XP 64 wasn't the beginning at all.

FYI, Microsoft Exchange 2007 will not even run on 32bit machines. Longhorn and Vista are the last OSs from MS that will support 32bit.

 

[Nothinman]

It'll help speed up driver development, but the majority of your apps will most likely still be 32-bit since very few apps actually see any real gains from being built for a 64-bit target. And in some cases it actually hurts performance because 64-bit binaries bigger. For instance /bin/ls is 76k on my x86 machine and 104k on my Alpha, sadly I don't have an AMD64 machine to look at yet.

 

[drag]

I think that the goal is pretty much to make Vista 64bit mainstream and make the 32bit version the nitch product. Hence why they won't support HDCP on 32bit version. (they could if they wanted to, but they don't care that much to go through the effort)

Although I expect that most apps will be 32bit for a while.

also keep in mind that it'll probably be 2 years or so before you start seeing Vista in significant numbers (compared to XP) so by that time all new computers being sold will be 64bit.

 

[ViRGE]

It'll cease being a niche product the minute a must-have game comes out that can use more than 2GB of RAM(the traditional limit of Win32).

Oh, and drag, the HDCP thing is because x86 doesn't require signed drivers, x64 does.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
It'll cease being a niche product the minute a must-have game comes out that can use more than 2GB of RAM.

Chicken & egg.

 

[akshayt]

AFAIK Vista is the last windows. After that in 2011 a new OD from MS is to be expected.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: akshayt
AFAIK Vista is the last windows. After that in 2011 a new OD from MS is to be expected.

Don't hold your breath. It's too difficult to know what is going to happen 2 years from now, much less 5. I think that it's just as likely that Microsoft gets a next-generation operating system out by 2011 as Microsoft not actually existing in it's present form by 2011.
(which is to say neither is paticularly likely.)

To put it in perspective Vista was originally supposed to have shipped 3 years ago. And going from a widely used and supported NT to something completely new is a much more difficult technical challenge then go from NT Windows XP to NT Vista.

I expect that the 64bit version of Vista is going to be around as a mainstream and very common operating system for about 7-8 years and probably the most common desktop operating system for at least 4 or 5 of those years.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Madwand1

Originally posted by: ViRGE
It'll cease being a niche product the minute a must-have game comes out that can use more than 2GB of RAM.

Chicken & egg.

A chicken and an egg are laying in bed. The chicken is laid back, puffing on a cigarette, but the egg looks frustrated. Then the chicken says, "well I guess we answered THAT question." :laugh:

Sorry, I couldn't help it.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Madwand1

Originally posted by: ViRGE
It'll cease being a niche product the minute a must-have game comes out that can use more than 2GB of RAM.

Chicken & egg.

Not really. We're already 1 year in to 2GB being the optimal amount of RAM for gaming(meaning games are already eating up more than 1GB). Give it another year, 2 at the very most, and games will have ballooned past 2GB.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Not really. We're already 1 year in to 2GB being the optimal amount of RAM for gaming(meaning games are already eating up more than 1GB). Give it another year, 2 at the very most, and games will have ballooned past 2GB.

It's actually 3GB (with the /3GB switch), and having some high-end configurations benefit from > 3 GB is nothing; having mass requirements for > 3 GB is a huge deal and very unlikely in the volume gaming market until > 3 GB hardware is actually common, which it is still very far from being.

AT is not representative of hardware and performance in the wider gaming community; you might be surprised at the general spread. High-end requirements are fine for the niche, but by definition, a niche configuration is not widespread adoption.

 

[Nothinman]

It's actually 3GB (with the /3GB switch),

And the executable still has to be marked as "3G aware" otherwise NT still gives it only 2G of VM.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

It's actually 3GB (with the /3GB switch),

And the executable still has to be marked as "3G aware" otherwise NT still gives it only 2G of VM.

Of course, but if the devs are going to use that much RAM, presumably they'd have set the link flag. But you could even set this flag yourself in a pinch after the fact with the right utility. Whether or not it'd do you any good is another matter, and would depend on the coding.

FWIW, with Win64, this same feature gives another 1 GiB address space boost for such 32-bit applications.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
For instance /bin/ls is 76k on my x86 machine and 104k on my Alpha, sadly I don't have an AMD64 machine to look at yet.

Just musing, alpha, being risc, would have much more verbose machine code, no? The size stuff makes sense, but seeing the exact equivalent on an amd64 would be a much better comparison.

Incidentally, ls on my i386 OpenBSD is 167k and on a solaris/sparcIII machine at school it's only 18k. Different codebases and openbsd binaries have alot of debug stuff in them, but the 64 bit one is way smaller.

 

[Nothinman]

Of course, but if the devs are going to use that much RAM, presumably they'd have set the link flag.

One thing I've learned is that Windows developers love to make assumptions, so I would be really surprised if any but the most niche players even know that you're limited to 2G of VM on Windows. I've seen some of the one or two memory hungry 3D renderers fall flat on their face on large memory machines and there was no way you could get them to use >2G of VM.

Just musing, alpha, being risc, would have much more verbose machine code, no? The size stuff makes sense, but seeing the exact equivalent on an amd64 would be a much better comparison.

I just remembered that we have a few AMD64 boxes here at work, looking at FC2 AMD64 box /bin/ls is 96k, still ~30% bigger than the i386 version on my Debian machine. The differences in compilers will have some affect though.

Incidentally, ls on my i386 OpenBSD is 167k and on a solaris/sparcIII machine at school it's only 18k. Different codebases and openbsd binaries have alot of debug stuff in them, but the 64 bit one is way smaller.

You have to at least compare the same codebase, who knows what linking magic Solaris people are doing. I don't have a Solaris x86 box around either, but I might grab one of those OpenSolaris live CDs and see what they look like tonight.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
You have to at least compare the same codebase, who knows what linking magic Solaris people are doing.

Originally posted by: Solaris
$ ldd `which ls`
libc.so.1 => /usr/lib/libc.so.1
libdl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libdl.so.1
/usr/platform/SUNW,Sun-Fire-880/lib/libc_psr.so.1

Originally posted by: OpenBSD
$ ldd `which ls`
/bin/ls:
ldd: /bin/ls: not a dynamic executable

Whoops.

 

[newmachineoverlord]

software optimized for 64 bit windows will become mainstream once 2GB RAM DIMMs reach the $100 price point. The standard amount of RAM has been typically around $100 worth, with hardcore gamers paying 2-4x that, for a long time now (8+years), and that is not likely to change. Based on $/MB progression in the past, we are only about 2 years away from reaching the price arena where 64 bit becomes important. In particular, manufacturers are soon to be liberated from producing legacy ddr ram as ddr2 becomes mainstream, which will allow greater economies of scale due to focusing on a single product line.

 

[Rilex]

Applications can easily address up to the maximum amount of RAM a 32bit machine provides.

The /3GB switch has absolutely nothing to do with physical RAM. E.g., the /3GB USERVA=3030 is recommended on Exchange regardless of installed memory on a 32bit system, where-as if you have Virtual Server installed, you should never use the switch, regardless of installed memory.

I'm surprised that this confusion between physical RAM and VAS still exists.

 

[Makaveli]

I don't think vista will do anything for 64bit on offical release. Most of this is just wishful thinking. One of the major benefits is being able to use larger amounts of ram etc etc.

To this date how many people have 4GB Desktop systems at home. how many Common appilcations for home pc's use that much ram there is barely any. If we are talking Servers and highend Workstations then yes. don't get caught up in the hype. It will be a few years still before 64bit systems become standard I believe.

And once the price of ram drops, and more applications start pushing high memory usage maybe. Until then drop the just because its bigger its better approach, it doesn't mean much for home computers.

 

[Nothinman]

software optimized for 64 bit windows will become mainstream once 2GB RAM DIMMs reach the $100 price point.

Doubtful, the majority of applications out there have absolutely no reason to be 64-bit and recompiling them with a 64-bit target is usually pretty simple. Look at all of the Linux released for AMD64, just about everything works fine already with no extra work on the developer's end.

Applications can easily address up to the maximum amount of RAM a 32bit machine provides.

Easily is subjective, I doubt many developers want to mess with AWE on Windows.

I don't think vista will do anything for 64bit on offical release. Most of this is just wishful thinking. One of the major benefits is being able to use larger amounts of ram etc etc.

If manufacturer's want their drivers to get the Windows Logo they'll need to release 64-bit versions alongside the 32-bit ones, so yes Vista will help quickly.

 

[Rilex]

Easily is subjective, I doubt many developers want to mess with AWE on Windows.

Since when does AWE have anything to do with less than 4GB RAM? Never!

AWE is for an application to address over 4GB RAM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Windowing_Extensions

 

[Nothinman]

Sorry, I misread your post the first time.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Rilex

Easily is subjective, I doubt many developers want to mess with AWE on Windows.

Since when does AWE have anything to do with less than 4GB RAM? Never!

AWE is for an application to address over 4GB RAM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Windowing_Extensions

Doesn't matter.
What your dealing with is that all applications are going to end up with a limitation on the amount of RAM allowed to them by Windows.
With standard windows you have 2 gigs for applications and 2gigs for kernel.
To alocate more then 2 gigs per application you can do the option 3gig/1gig split if you realy want to.

With widnows 2003 they changed the name of the switch from /3GB to /4GT, but it's still the same 3gig/1gig share, I beleive.

But even if you have a PAE machine with large amounts of RAM then the maximum any single application can get is still going to be that 2-3gigs.

If you want to get past that then your application must use AWE.

This is my understanding with it.

In other words if you want a single application to utilize more then 2-3gigs of RAM in a machine with more then 4 gigs of RAM then you can use AWE. It's a bit confusing.

.....

Needless to say Vista 64bit will be the mainstream next-generation operating system from Microsoft.

Vista 32bit will be a nitch system like XP 64bit is.

It's obvious to me that that is Microsoft's position on it. They aren't even bothering to enable their DRM scemes on 32bit Vista, for instance. Personally I wouldn't waste my money on buying 32bit Vista.

Look at it this way:

Is there any machine that is being sold currently and being advertised as 'Vista Ready' that doesn't have a 64bit CPU in it? Probably the only reason they realy have it (32bit version) is because MS knows that application compatability and driver compatability is going to be a PITA for people to deal with otherwise.

 

[Rilex]

drag, there is no limitation (except by the installed OS) on the amount of /RAM/.

The only limitation is the amount of VAS, not physical memory.

I'm not so sure why this is that difficult to understand.

With widnows 2003 they changed the name of the switch from /3GB to /4GT

No, the switch is still /3GB (you can find it splashed across Exchange 2003 documentation if you really care, or search for the /4GT on Google...The Technet article will point you to Windows 2003 documentation that tells you to use the /3GB switch).

 

[bsobel]

(they could if they wanted to, but they don't care that much to go through the effort)

Not without effectively blacklisting all known 3rd party drivers and started a confirmed driver list from the start.