64-bit: More than just the RAM

Adrian Wainer · Aug 25, 2008

rasmasyean said:
The question then becomes...why should "everyone else" go Vista 64-bit. And that's what we want an answer to...imho.

Well if it costs much the same as Vista 32 which it does and if it does much same things as Vista 32 which it does and can do things which Vista 32 can't do like run 64 bit application software which it can.............I think you have got your answer.

Really if somebody wants the Best Vista system around it has to be Vista 64 ultimate, obviously there have to be caveats to this.... like don't expect to run 16 bit software on it, but since very many hang people on to their old computers; they often will have a XP machine to complement it, which solves all those issues.

Must say that MS are not really helping people adopt 64 bit by the fact they do not even mention it on their top end Vista product blurb
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/ultimate.aspx

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Adrian Wainer · Aug 25, 2008

KrossX said:
@Adrian Wainer: Yes, I really didn't think about it that way.

Although my point was, as Brink said, that there's more to the 64 bits than just more RAM. Wich is actually the topic's title...

And yes, time will pass until true 64bits applications are seen extracting juice from our super-multi-stuff-something-64-processors.... Maybe once 128bits processing is around for PC's and alike? And then... a new topic will appear! "128 bits: More than just cookies". Hehehehe

Hi Kross, the RAM which a 64 bit system will support is just so huge that from that aspect I can't see any need to go to 128 bits for a long time. what I will think will drive a migration from 64 bit to 128 bit computing will be home and work place robotics.

The fact that 32-bit systems only have 32-bits of data to work with means that they can only address up to 4 GB of RAM. A 64-bit system on the other hand could theoretically address up to 16 exabytes of RAM (That’s over 16,000,000 GB of RAM). In reality though, there are few, if any, 64-bit systems that support 16 exabytes of RAM. Building a machine that supports that much memory would be extraordinarily expensive. To counter this cost, many manufacturers impose RAM address space limits that fall somewhere between the 4 GB limit of 32-bit machines and the theoretical 16 exabytes that a 64-bit system should be capable of addressing. Most existing 64-bit systems limit physical RAM to somewhere between 8 GB and 256 TB.

Published: Nov 23, 2004

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/64-Bit-Computing.html

Bye the way, what flag is that?

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

SCSIraidGURU · Aug 25, 2008

64-bit apps should run faster than 32-bit, if written correctly. Since very few apps need more than 2GB of RAM to work properly, the only benefit for more RAM is being about to run more applications at the same time.

johngalt · Aug 25, 2008

Which is needed, when you consider how many *more* 'apps' the OS itself runs on a regular basis.

Never fear, the OS itself will force users to go to 64bit soon enough- but another benefit is that virtualization, both of servers and (especially of note for end users) desktops is taking off - so those that absolutely positively without a shade of doubt could not live without playing their little 8 and 16 bit games can still do so by virtualizing an older OS.

rasmasyean · Aug 26, 2008

Adrian Wainer said:
Must say that MS are not really helping people adopt 64 bit by the fact they do not even mention it on their top end Vista product blurb
Windows Vista Ultimate with Windows Media Center

Tell me about it...

They never really say anything useful about these in these descriptions. If they start linking MS technical pages, etc...heck that confuses IT pros, forget about normal consumers. They just won't buy it until they "figure out what it says"...which is never.

You have to like dig info up from all over the place to see what other people "translated" that hopefully gives you a hint of how it applies to "the real world".

At least these days there are some guru blogs (some who work for MS and can actually communicate and not just code) to help out in this regard. But it's still a real hassle for the average person to find because they won't know what to look for to begin with.

Perhaps it takes better marketing...or those details are best left for the pros to figure out.

rasmasyean · Aug 26, 2008

Adrian Wainer said:
KrossX said:

@Adrian Wainer: Yes, I really didn't think about it that way.

Although my point was, as Brink said, that there's more to the 64 bits than just more RAM. Wich is actually the topic's title...

And yes, time will pass until true 64bits applications are seen extracting juice from our super-multi-stuff-something-64-processors.... Maybe once 128bits processing is around for PC's and alike? And then... a new topic will appear! "128 bits: More than just cookies". Hehehehe

Click to expand...

Hi Kross, the RAM which a 64 bit system will support is just so huge that from that aspect I can't see any need to go to 128 bits for a long time. what I will think will drive a migration from 64 bit to 128 bit computing will be home and work place robotics.

The fact that 32-bit systems only have 32-bits of data to work with means that they can only address up to 4 GB of RAM. A 64-bit system on the other hand could theoretically address up to 16 exabytes of RAM (That’s over 16,000,000 GB of RAM). In reality though, there are few, if any, 64-bit systems that support 16 exabytes of RAM. Building a machine that supports that much memory would be extraordinarily expensive. To counter this cost, many manufacturers impose RAM address space limits that fall somewhere between the 4 GB limit of 32-bit machines and the theoretical 16 exabytes that a 64-bit system should be capable of addressing. Most existing 64-bit systems limit physical RAM to somewhere between 8 GB and 256 TB.

Click to expand...

Published: Nov 23, 2004

What You Need To Know About The Shift to 64-Bit Computing

Bye the way, what flag is that?

Best and Warm Regards
Adrian Wainer

Well, if this recent discovery works out to be commercially viable, maybe it will eliminate the hard drive and all you will have is a computer with a large amount of RAM? Who knows.

"Memristor could enable instant-on PCs, massive data storage and computers that think like humans "
HP Discovers Potential "God Particle" of Electronics | Popular Science

rasmasyean · Aug 26, 2008

rasmasyean said:
For the above scenario, workers will probably turn off Vista with the S3 sleep more because they can boot up in 5 seconds anyway…translating to a huge savings on energy consumption while still having their applications running and pre-cached as a bonus.

I found this article...which is kinda funny, because it's anti-Microsoft but promotes Vista. lol
How Windows XP Wasted $25 Billion of Energy : TreeHugger

sidewinder · Aug 27, 2008

Well, if you want to talk about specific snippets of mathematical code, in some cases, 64-bit systems will realize 4x speed improvements and sometimes more. This assumes the snippet of code is optimized for the 64-bit environment.

But, a 64-bit Vista system is not going to significantly faster than a 32-bit Vista system on normal day to day computing.

S-

johngalt · Aug 27, 2008

rasmasyean
August 27th, 2008 at 7:32 am

Sorry to say but your arguments are flawed because you missed some pretty critical information. And you appear to know little about Windows.

32-bit means it can only address 2^32 (2 to the 32nd power) = 4GB memory spaces.
That would be RAM + VRAM + other devices on Motherboard, etc.
e.g. If you have a 1 GB VRAM, you will prolly only be able to get 2.7GB user RAM approx.

Superfetch makes your computer’s “data-access” speed much faster the more RAM you have.

“There appears to be a shift taking place in the PC industry: the move from 32-bit to 64-bit PCs.
We’ve been tracking the change by looking at the percentage of 64-bit PCs connecting to Windows Update, and have seen a dramatic increase in recent months. The installed base of 64-bit Windows Vista PCs, as a percentage of all Windows Vista systems, has more than tripled in the U.S. in the last three months, while worldwide adoption has more than doubled during the same period. Another view shows that 20% of new Windows Vista PCs in the U.S. connecting to Windows Update in June were 64-bit PCs, up from just 3% in March. Put more simply, usage of 64-bit Windows Vista is growing much more rapidly than 32-bit. Based on current trends, this growth will accelerate as the retail channel shifts to supplying a rapidly increasing assortment of 64-bit desktops and laptops.”
Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows Vista 64-bit Today

rasmasyean
August 27th, 2008 at 7:41 am

And this is what they said as well…
“PC Accelerators built into Windows Vista, such as Windows SuperFetch, improve performance by keeping commonly used programs in memory, even when the program is closed. More memory capacity on 64-bit PCs allows SuperFetch to do its job more efficiently.”

Just an FYI, so you can include this in your analysis. I guess not many people know that Vista has this technology that sort of “redefines” traditional ways of computing. WPF is also something that introduces some new concepts from a “software engineering” point if you’re interested in checking that out as well. Perhaps it can give you some ideas that carry over to Linux.

Alexander Sandler
August 27th, 2008 at 9:11 am

Well… I am wondering if there’s a slight chance that at least some of my arguments are right…

As a rule you don’t need 64-bit support to have more than 4GB of RAM. Good old Pentium 4 is well capable to address more than 4GB of RAM with both Windows and Linux. However when you try to have more than 4GB of RAM there are whole bunch of limitations unrelated to either OS or the CPU. For instance, I have 4GB on my XP machine at home, but it only sees 3.2GB. Why? This limitation imposed by my MOTHERBOARD.

Still you are right. I missed this point. Someone considering to have more than 4GB of RAM should check out his computers specs. It is possible that 64-bit OS would be the only way for him/her to have that amount of RAM.

update: That’s not true. If your hardware supports more than 4GB, there is no reason to buy 64-bit Windows. 32-bit XP supports 4GB+. So it was right not to mention this because in terms of bitness it does not matter how much RAM you have. If your hardware does not support more than 4GB, then 64-bit OS won’t help you anyway.

johngalt · Aug 27, 2008

John L. Galt
August 28th, 2008 at 5:49 am

“update: That’s not true. If your hardware supports more than 4GB, there is no reason to buy 64-bit Windows. 32-bit XP supports 4GB+. So it was right not to mention this because in terms of bitness it does not matter how much RAM you have. If your hardware does not support more than 4GB, then 64-bit OS won’t help you anyway.”

Sorry, do the math.

2^32 = 4 GB. 32bit applications cannot access more than 4 GB of RAM.

Also, there are a few programs that can be recompiled for 64bit OS, especially open-source programs (as you have already noted) as well as others, provided a person has the know how and wherewithal to do so. Finally, The next version of Photoshop is going 64bit, just to name *one* prominent application.

sidewinder · Aug 28, 2008

johngalt said:
John L. Galt
August 28th, 2008 at 5:49 am

“update: That’s not true. If your hardware supports more than 4GB, there is no reason to buy 64-bit Windows. 32-bit XP supports 4GB+. So it was right not to mention this because in terms of bitness it does not matter how much RAM you have. If your hardware does not support more than 4GB, then 64-bit OS won’t help you anyway.”

Sorry, do the math.

2^32 = 4 GB. 32bit applications cannot access more than 4 GB of RAM.

Also, there are a few programs that can be recompiled for 64bit OS, especially open-source programs (as you have already noted) as well as others, provided a person has the know how and wherewithal to do so. Finally, The next version of Photoshop is going 64bit, just to name *one* prominent application.

John,

Didn't we learn anything from our 32-bit address space discussion a while back?

A 32-bit Vista system has a 4GB address space. Applications have a 4GB virtual address space and can access only 2GB of memory. The other 2GB is for the OS (Let's not bring up the IncreaseUserVA setting in the bcd file since no mainstream consumer apps support it). No 32-bit Vista system can access 4GB of physical RAM.

Here is where things get really bad for your comments:

Memory Limits for Windows Releases (Windows)

As you can see, using the PAE switch in the boot.ini file, several 32-bit Windows operating systems can access significantly more than the 4GB of physical RAM. Yes, they are all server operating systems, but they show what can be done with 32-bit operating systems and larger address spaces.

All 32-bit versions of Vista and XP support a 4GB address space. No more and no less.

S-

Brink · Aug 28, 2008

Thank you for the quotes JohnG.

I removed the article link from this thread. It just is not very helpful with that kinda of information. LOL

johngalt · Aug 28, 2008

sidewinder said:
johngalt said:

John L. Galt
August 28th, 2008 at 5:49 am

“update: That’s not true. If your hardware supports more than 4GB, there is no reason to buy 64-bit Windows. 32-bit XP supports 4GB+. So it was right not to mention this because in terms of bitness it does not matter how much RAM you have. If your hardware does not support more than 4GB, then 64-bit OS won’t help you anyway.”

Sorry, do the math.

2^32 = 4 GB. 32bit applications cannot access more than 4 GB of RAM.

Also, there are a few programs that can be recompiled for 64bit OS, especially open-source programs (as you have already noted) as well as others, provided a person has the know how and wherewithal to do so. Finally, The next version of Photoshop is going 64bit, just to name *one* prominent application.

Click to expand...

John,

Didn't we learn anything from our 32-bit address space discussion a while back?

A 32-bit Vista system has a 4GB address space. Applications have a 4GB virtual address space and can access only 2GB of memory. The other 2GB is for the OS (Let's not bring up the IncreaseUserVA setting in the bcd file since no mainstream consumer apps support it). No 32-bit Vista system can access 4GB of physical RAM.

Here is where things get really bad for your comments:

Memory Limits for Windows Releases (Windows)

As you can see, using the PAE switch in the boot.ini file, several 32-bit Windows operating systems can access significantly more than the 4GB of physical RAM. Yes, they are all server operating systems, but they show what can be done with 32-bit operating systems and larger address spaces.

All 32-bit versions of Vista and XP support a 4GB address space. No more and no less.

S-

No offense, but how is what I said incorrect, then? Or are you not addressing *me* but the author who replied to me? Remember this is not a forum post so it doesn't get broken into quotation boxes like posts here do....

Brink said:
Thank you for the quotes JohnG.

I removed the article link from this thread. It just is not very helpful with that kinda of information. LOL

Good. Although his info is not 100% wrong - *nix supports 64bit pretty much OOB these days, but for those wanting to build it....compiling is a PITA if you know nothing about CFLAGs and make and how to write / edit config files....

sidewinder · Aug 28, 2008

johngalt,

Well, to start off, this comment of yours is wrong:

"2^32 = 4 GB. 32bit applications cannot access more than 4 GB of RAM."

I was assuming your were disputing the claim made by Alexander Sandler that 32-bit systems could address more than 4GB of physical RAM. Why did I assume that? Because his quote you included made no mention of application limits. In fact his entire post from August 27th, 2008 at 9:11 am did not mention application limits. Maybe you meant applications but nothing in the thread from that site was about application memory limits. Maybe you are just confusing operating system address space limits with application address space limits.

While it is true that 32-bit XP and 32-bit Vista operating systems have a fixed 4GB address space, it's not true for all 32-bit operating systems.

S-

johngalt · Aug 28, 2008

fixed?

"32-bit XP supports 4GB+"

sidewinder · Aug 28, 2008

johngalt said:
fixed?

"32-bit XP supports 4GB+"

Care to explain what that means? You aren't being very clear in this thread.

S-

rasmasyean · Aug 28, 2008

johngalt said:
fixed?

"32-bit XP supports 4GB+"

I thought it was Windows Servers with PAE hardware that can do this.

sidewinder · Aug 28, 2008

rasmasyean said:
johngalt said:

fixed?

"32-bit XP supports 4GB+"

Click to expand...

I thought it was Windows Servers with PAE hardware that can do this.

PAE is a software switch in the OS but the hardware would need to support more than 4GB of RAM as well. And you are correct, only 32-bit Windows Server operating systems with PAE enabled support more than 4GB of RAM.

S-

johngalt · Aug 29, 2008

The author stated that 32bit XP could support 4GB+ - as in *more than 4 GB* - or at least that is how I read it.

roy69 · Aug 29, 2008

not wanting to be picy but the equations you are all using is wrong.
It is actually (2^32)-1

64-bit: More than just the RAM

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