32 bit? that's so last millenium...

kye3k1 said:

Hi

I am new here but I love testing new operating system before everyone else, I tested vista when that came out and I would like to congradulate how stable this Public BETA is in comparison.

The reason for my post is simply why are they still releasing 32bit operating systems?

The only time I can think of a 32bit processor to be running Windows 7 is a laptop that shouldnt be running such an OS anyway.

Microsoft need to be pushing forward and forgetting about the past, this is what recovered apple from their disasterous times (merely and observation).

Releasing Windows 7 as 64bit only will for everyone to start coding for 64bit and finally we will see performance increases on the system.

I ask who has windows 7 32bit BETA who actually only has a 32bit processor. Its almost impossible not to have a 64bit CPU but I am waiting to be surprised. 64bit FTW!

Wow, so many things to comment on, well let's start from the top:

First of all, why is 64-bit necessary for today's computing? How many general use programs require 4GB RAM? Not many. Now that 64-bit is becoming fashionable, and MS is requiring hardware manufacturers to create 64-bit drivers to be WHQL signed, that is helping, but why do we really need 64-bit? So we can run mp3's faster?

Now your next comment is about Windows 7 on laptops. You do realize that laptops are currently outselling desktops, so they are a rather important market for MS. Granted most laptops today are 64-bit capable and can have 4 GB Ram, but there are plenty of Core 2 Duo laptops that have a 2 GB RAM ceiling. There is actually somewhat of a performance hit running 64-bit with only 2 GB RAM. (My situation. Why would I run and incur a performance hit?)

There are also still quite a few yonah laptops (Core Duo and Core Solo) that are not 64-bit capable.

Also note that in the corporate world (MS's largest customer), there are still plenty of 16-bit Visual Basic applets in use. When operating in 64-bit (i.e. Long Mode in AMD64 speak) 16-bit programs will not run.

So, 32-bit will be on the client side for some time. Note I believe that Server 2008 R2 is only available in 64-bit, but I may need to double check that.

PhreePhly

Cool so do I

Has anyone seen a tangible benefit of running 64-bit applications? Really I cannot see the difference in performance.

Games in particular run faster/smoother, assuming they are optimized for 64 bit

k56flex said:

the hold back of 64bit adaption is of course the relying on 32bit software compatibility. Microsoft just play it safe i think to release two version. Another thing that pushing the need of 64bit OS is the memory requirement of certain games, as well as the increase of frame buffer in GPU that certainly need more than 4GB addressing. I say, bring it on crysis alike games and we'll see more and more people going 64.

Are current games demanding more than 4GB of RAM? It's hard for me to believe that. Even if we are talking about frame buffer, since textures are usually stored in the GPU's RAM and that's usually <= 512MB.

Also, a common misconception is that 32-bit machines can't use more than 4GB of RAM. That's not true. Modern processors do support PAE that enables a system to use more than 4GB of memory. However, even with PAE, a single process address space is limited to 4GB.

I agree with you that 32 bit machines do take advantage of 4 gigs sometimes. But on the gamers enthusiast mind, the capability to go beyond 4 gigs would be pleasing to gain more FPS on newer games.

I want 64-bit too! But at the present 32-bit is the more convenient choice, so I'll stick with it for now.

I find it pitiful that most of you didn't read my post.
A 64-bit OS's only benefit != more RAM capability.
64-bit is a better instruction set. Being able to access more RAM is a benefit of x64, but it is NOT by all means the only thing going for it.

And who ever is fibbing about games not taking advantage of it...
The mere FACT that you have more RAM for your OS, more RAM free and more RAM for your games and what ever else you're doing is just EFFICIENCY in itself. Never mind the fact that you're executing more instructions at a time (or more efficiently I should say, but I've used that word too much).

...If that doesn't do it for you, 64-bit is a better instruction set in terms of processing capability.

Gilbertpwns said:

I agree with you that 32 bit machines do take advantage of 4 gigs sometimes. But on the gamers enthusiast mind, the capability to go beyond 4 gigs would be pleasing to gain more FPS on newer games.

You don't get a FPS increase. That is entirely based on your GPU and CPU. The only time your FPS is dependent on memory is when you're going into your swap file (which will result in a huge FPS drop). In which case you only need more RAM, and games rarely use more than 4GB of RAM by themselves. It's all whether you have the RAM to have your OS running efficiently in the background while the game/application is running. Or buying faster RAM, but today's hardware is bottlenecked by the CPU and the GPU.

Firestrider said:

Has anyone seen a tangible benefit of running 64-bit applications? Really I cannot see the difference in performance.

Well then you're not looking for it.

Gilbertpwns said:

Games in particular run faster/smoother, assuming they are optimized for 64 bit

Upon compiling a 64-bit binary, yes, you are allowing access to 128GB of RAM, but you won't ever require it nor will the RAM requirements be any different from the 32-bit binary AT ALL. Unless we're talking about games in the future, which will probably be more optimized... depending on the developer's laziness. No doubt 4GB of RAM will become mainstream and games will start demanding that much; but that's also a question of developers choosing to load more data into RAM. Applications like console emulators will benefit from the instruction set itself because the CPU on a console is often more complex, or is 64-bit (XBOX 360 for example).
Unless a game was designed on a 64-bit platform specifically, it will not benefit besides the obvious efficiency boost and extra resources capability. In fact, most of the games people play today are poorly designed or optimized for any instruction set at all (Assassin's Creed on XBOX 360 verses PC and PS3 for example; which is the typical PPC port).

EDIT:
Additionally, a wider BUS and wider register ALWAYS wins. I mean, that's just common sense.