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What advantage hold 64 bit programs over their 32 bit version?


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#1 MedEvil

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Posted 29 September 2012 - 03:49 PM

A lot of programs exist in 32bit and 64 bit versions these days.
Since the average program does not require or at least benefits from being able to address more memory than ~4GB, i fail to see the reason for the 64 bit versions.

Can someone enlighten me about the advantages of 64bit programs?

:cheers:
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#2 Max_Real Qnx

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Posted 29 September 2012 - 04:00 PM

I think the processors will have more power than the calculation. This can mean a faster the operating system and program. Best regards :hi:

#3 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 29 September 2012 - 04:09 PM

A lot of programs exist in 32bit and 64 bit versions these days.
Since the average program does not require or at least benefits from being able to address more memory than ~4GB, i fail to see the reason for the 64 bit versions.

Can someone enlighten me about the advantages of 64bit programs?

Do you want actually technical reasons or the usual fanboys' mumble-jumble? :unsure: [1]

Technical reasons (translates to none - exception made for the already mentioned advantage on a very small subset of programs):
http://www.ni.com/white-paper/5709/en

Not every application stands to benefit from the x64 architecture, and it will take time for 64-bit editions of Windows to gain widespread adoption, but the following types of applications are most likely to see performance benefits on Windows 7 x64 Edition, provided that both 64-bit application software and drivers are available:

  • Applications that require mathematical precision and floating-point performance
  • Applications that involve large, high-performance databases
  • Vision acquisition and analysis applications with large amounts of data moving directly into memory at rapid rates


64-bit versions of operating systems such as Windows Vista and Windows 7 are not automatically faster than their 32-bit counterparts. In some cases, they may even perform slower because of the larger pointers as well unrelated OS overhead. Overall, an application’s performance depends on what it is used for and how it is implemented.



Commercial reasons (Systemic obsolescence):
http://en.wikipedia....ic_obsolescence


:cheers:
Wonko

Notes:
[1] this post is made of 1 (one) rhetorical questions (hopefully) useful to avoid the usual fanboys' mumble-jumble

#4 Max_Real Qnx

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Posted 29 September 2012 - 04:14 PM

http://technet.micro...office.12).aspx

#5 coder

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Posted 29 September 2012 - 04:19 PM

Some day 32 bit apps will not be supported; you cannot expect developers coding their 64 bit versions just at that moment.
Running 32 bit apps on 64 bit platforms (at least in Windows) requires an extra layer (Windows-on-Windows WOW) providing the emulation of a 32bit engine on a 64 bit architecture; from a performance point of view this is not free.

probably your question should've been :
besides memory constrains; where are the reasons for running 64 bits OSs?
and the answer could've been something like, "because the hardware is out there at reasonable prices" :)

#6 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 29 September 2012 - 04:22 PM

http://technet.micro...office.12).aspx

Sure :thumbsup:, that's a typical example of a PROFESSIONAL only, SERVER only, ENTERPRISE only program that I am sure everyone will use at home to manage his/her several petabytes of data:
http://en.wikipedia....soft_SharePoint

http://technet.micro...-us/sharepoint/

SharePoint for IT pros

http://technet.micro...85(v=office.15)

:cheers:
Wonko

#7 MedEvil

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Posted 29 September 2012 - 04:48 PM

Should have been more precise.
The initial question was meant in the way, is there an advantage of using a 64bit program in a 64 bit Windows over using its 32 bit counterpart in a 64 Bit Windows. (For private use / use in a PE)

It was not the question, if one should use a 32 or 64 Bit Windows. I'm pretty clear on the (dis)advantages of one over the other.

The point i have no idea about is, how a cross mixing of architectures would impact the performance.

:cheers:

#8 Max_Real Qnx

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Posted 29 September 2012 - 04:52 PM

Sure :thumbsup:,


But most users use the computer to play the game. So this requires to use more physical memory. And the 32-bit operating systems have a limit of 4GB of physical memory usage.
Windows Server 2008 32-bit Enterprise supports 64GB physical memory. But it is very old operation system.


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_7


I have a method to overcome this situation :

pae = ForceEnable

But this feature is causing a lot of things to work incorrectly.

http://www.mediafire...7jusbzsi83jhc91


Edit: This is a utility that regard.

EasyBCD Community Edition 2.2.0.182
http://www.softpedia...s/EasyBCD.shtml

#9 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 30 September 2012 - 10:06 AM

Should have been more precise.

Yes :thumbsup:.

The initial question was meant in the way, is there an advantage of using a 64bit program in a 64 bit Windows over using its 32 bit counterpart in a 64 Bit Windows. (For private use / use in a PE)

And the answer is easy :): No.
The good news are that there is not any (noticeable) disadvantage. :thumbup:


The point i have no idea about is, how a cross mixing of architectures would impact the performance.

Nothing that you will ever be able to notice (talking of "normal" programs, not among the three "families" listed in the TI article previously linked to).

As often happens, OT :ph34r: (but not much) when some serious number crunching is needed, the new trend is to use one or more GPU(s) iinstead, some examples:
http://www.elcomsoft.com/edpr.html
http://www.elcomsoft...celeration.html
http://www.golubev.com/rargpu.htm
http://lastbit.com/gpu.asp
http://www.insidepro.com/eng/egb.shtml

:cheers:
Wonko

#10 Mikorist

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Posted 30 September 2012 - 10:46 AM

Here's the math for 32/64-bit systems:

32-bit:

2^32 = 4,294,967,296Bytes
4,294,967,296 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 4,096MBytes
4096 / 1024 = 4GB


64-bit:

2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616Bytes
18,446,744,073,709,551,616 / (1,024 x 1,024) = 17,592,186,044,416MBytes
17,592,186,044,416 / 1,024 = 17,179,869,184GBytes
17,179,869,184 / 1024 = 16,777,216TBytes or 16EB (exabytes)



The 64-bit addressing allows for much larger memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64


What are the benefits of 64-bit MATLAB versus 32-bit MATLAB?

http://www.mathworks...n/data/1-YVO5H/

#11 MedEvil

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Posted 30 September 2012 - 10:55 AM

Thanks Wonko!
Couldn't find any notable performance differences in my tests either. But then, i don't have any programs which really tax the computer.

:cheers:

#12 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 30 September 2012 - 01:05 PM

@Mikorist
From the same link you posted:

Note that changing from 32-bit to 64-bit MATLAB only allows for the creation and manipulation of larger variables but does not imply a boost in execution speed and can sometimes be slower than 32-bit.

(bolding is mine)

Of course MATLAB is a very common program, everyone has it, and obviously you use it mainly to work with larger than 2^31 sized arrays, as an example my mom uses it everyday to calculate the possible permutations of ingredients in recipes of cakes, and I know for sure how my neighbour uses them on week-ends to resolve n-dimensional towers of Hanoi with arbitrary number of discs....:whistling:

http://www.mathworks...it-windows.html

Does the 64-bit version of MATLAB offer performance benefits?

The ability to leverage more physical memory is the only significant performance benefit of the 64-bit version of MATLAB. While there are platform-specific differences, the 64-bit and 32-bit versions of MATLAB generally perform comparably as of R2011a. In R2010b and older releases, the 64-bit version can be slower than the 32-bit version.


:cheers:
Wonko




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