Performance of 64-bit vs. 32-bit Windows Dual Core

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech's Loyd Case has done extensive testing on the same dual-core Athlon X2 4800+ system to explore performance differences between Windows XP Professional x64 and good ole Win32. The biggest hurdle is getting the right drivers. There are a few performance surprises, particularly in 3D games."

Comments

Why doesn't the submitter do this?

[theGreater]

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =159811,00.asp
Printable Version
-theGreater.

Re:Better solution than Linux?

[nukem996]

Im on a 64bit system now. Every open source app that I use has been ported to 64bit. The few 32bit apps that I have run fine in a 64bit environment, all I have to do is make sure I have 32bit libs availible for them. Recent versions of gcc and glibc offer the ablity to do this without any trouble at all. The User Land 32bit was when the AMD64 CPU first came out but things have changed.

Architecture change

[fjf33]

From what I've been able to understand from other people that know a lot about this than me. The main gain in going from the classic 32bit x86 architecture to the AMD64/x86-64 is that they bring into play some of the things learned from the RISC architecture. Lots of registers that can be used instead of the much slower main memory. The speed comes not from the 64bit wide bus but from being able to use this very fast registers to hold and pass information. So until compilers optimize for using registers instead of the stack, then little will be gained except for higher memory requirements.

Not in these apps

[mobby_6kl]

None of thes programs they tested showed any significant difference, but scientific benchmarks seem to show significant improvement. Much smaller, but still detectable improvement in xvid/divx encoding. The 64-bit version of CINEMA 4D also benefits significantly in most cases (page 11).

Good to see them drop the old cruft... not quite

[HishamMuhammad]

A 32-bit application that has any remaining 16-bit code won't run, because WOW64 doesn't support any 16-bit code.

Hooray, it's about time. Further in the same paragraph:

"Program Files" is reserved for 64-bit apps, while "Program Files (x86)" is for 32-bit software. This will sometimes result in strange installer behavior, as with Steam, Valve Software's game download application. Steam insisted that the parentheses in "Program Files (x86)" were illegal characters, and refused to install. You can either install Steam into a different folder (e.g., \games\valve) or change the folder name in the installer to "Progra~2\valve".

Some things never change... ;)

Re:I'm taking a big risk by asking this..

[canadiangoose]

A new processor was required for the shift from 16-bits to 32-bits, but you may not have noticed because the processors came out well before the microsoft software that was available to support them.

The first x86 processor to feature 32-bit registers and addressing was the i386 released in 1985. Support for the new 32-bit features of the chip was added to Windows slowly starting with Windows 2.1 in 1987(also known as Windows/386), and provided support for virtual memory and somewhat improved multitasking. The 32-bit features in Windows were optional right through to Windows 3.1 in 1992, infact Win3.1 runs fairly well on a 286/AT with 2MB of memory. Although Windows included some 32-bit code as early as 1987, it did not provide a 32-bit API for applications until the introduction of the Win32 API with Windows NT 3.1 (1993) and Windows 95. There was also a free update released for Windows 3.1 called Win32s that provided a subset of the Win32 API for Windows 3.1 amd Windows for Workgroups 3.11, though it provided rather poor compatibility; major features like comctl32.dll and a real registry were not provided.

The first version of Windows to offer a complete 32-bit kernel and drivers was Windows NT 3.1. It provided proper support for the 32-bit funtionality as early as 1993, but it was not used much outside of a corporate environment. Home users had to wait for Windows 95, 10 frickin' years after the release of the 386!!! Even then, Windows 95 still contained a large ammount of 16-bit code!

Anyhow, I find it funny that people With Athlon64's are complaining about having to wait a year or two for a version of Windows that can make proper use of the processors. At least users now have the option of running 64-bit Linux or BSD, but alternative operating systems for the 386 didn't become available until 1993 with the release of BSD/386 and OS/2 2.0, neither of which were free.

Well, enough of my rambling. Hope that answers your question :)