Are You Switching to 64-bit Processors?

chip_whisperer asks: "I used to be a big time custom desktop builder, making many working boxes per year, but I've been off the bandwagon for about four years now and am trying to get back into it now that Ars Technica has just released their recommendations. The standard seems to be heading towards 64-bit processors, but I'm wondering if it worth it to run a box on XP-64? I've heard that driver support for 64-bit processors can be a hassle. Also, for you fellow Linux geeks, how are current distros (like Suse, Ubuntu, Debian, and others) doing in supporting 64 bit processors?"

Comments

Make a list

[traindirector]

Make a list of what XP-64 will do for you that XP won't. If there's anything on that list that really entices you, consider XP-64. If not, forget it, and go along your merry way. XP-64 is guaranteed to give you more driver problems than XP, so if there are no added benefits in using it (which there probably aren't for you, unless you want to use over 2GB of memory), there's no reason for the headache.

Perhaps a more interesting question would be whether the Windows-users in the Slashdot community plan to run 64-bit Vista, considering its enhanced security (PatchGuard et al.) as well as its enhanced possibilities of restricting you from doing things on your own computer.

Re:Make a list

[Mark-Allen]

I am currently running my new Compaq laptop (nx6325) with Vista RTM 64-Bit. Installed in 20 minutes, and found all hardware. It has a Dual-Core 2GHz Athalon and runs pretty good. But the base 1GB is not sufficient so I immediately ordered another 1GB for CHF 220.00 (about USD 183.00). The 2GB modules are still over CHF 1,000.00 so I'll wait for now.

The default apps and such defaulted to the 32-bit versions, so I had to make some changes to the paths but after that all works well. It has been running non-stop for over 7 days, without a single problem. Actually, I haven't rebooted it at all after the installation, so I haven't much experience. This evening I ran through Windows Update and it updated a few things, but didn't require a reboot which was surprising.

The speed isn't bad for a 64-bit system but Vista is ram-hungry, so I won't be able to see much improvement until I add the extra memory.

In the future, I will not buy anymore new 32-bit systems, only 64-bit. I will, however, continue to check out vintage 32-bit systems for a good price, if necessary. At Christmas, Santa Clause is bringing me 2 DL-360s, which he only paid Euro 250.00 each. I'll use these for W2K3, and all the server-related apps.

But the future is 64-bit and so far, so good.

Just my 2 centimes,

Mark-Allen

Re:Make a list

[Phil John]

Vista is more RAM hungry than XP, but not by a vast amount.

If you see that you have very little free memory, this is probably because Vista has a completely new memory management system that learns the apps you most often use and pre-loads them into RAM to speed things up. As soon as you actually need any of that memory it starts unloading things.

Granted, 1 gig won't really cut it if you're using Visual Studio or SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition (that's why I'm still on XP - plus I'm waiting on SP2 for SQL Server for Vista Compat), but for most tasks and gaming 1 gig will still be ample.

Re:Make a list

[ottothecow]

I've been switching to 64-bit processors since the month the clawhammer core was released. The box I am typing this on is an A64-3200+ (commemoratively named hammertime). Its a socket 768 with AGP which has severely hurt my upgrade options (although it was fine at the time of purchase). At that time even in 32bit mode they provided better preformance for the price than the intel chips and they had the ability to go 64 when needed. Everything I have built for people since has been 64...it just makes sense.

XP-64 doesnt matter. It kinda sucks and I dont use it on this box. If I wanted a 64bit, I would boot linux and be confidant in the fact that it would run just as well as it does on my 32bit linux box (unlike XP where there are huge differances)

Re:Make a list

[traindirector]

Don't you mean 4GB? Last time I checked 256^(32/8) == 4294967296 or 4GB :/

4GB is the amount of addressable memory, but that number doesn't take into account the way Windows handles that memory. Because of the way its memory management scheme works, 32-bit Windows can only address a total of 2GB of kernel memory and 2GB of memory for a single application. With 4GB of memory, a single application could not access 3GB. Additionally, the limitation of 2GB of kernel memory poses problems for terminal servers and other applications that may use more than 2GB of kernel memory. See The 4GB Windows Memory Limit: What does it really mean? for more information.

My point in recommending the consideration of 64-bit Windows for amounts of memory over 2GB is that you may start to run into these limitations in 32-bit Windows with over 2GB of memory. If you actually have a reason for putting more than 2GB of memory in your computer, these limitations, and a 64-bit operating system, are things worth considering depending on your application.

Why would I?

[NineNine]

This is kind of a dumb question. If you need the processing power, then switch. If not, then don't.

I have no need for 64 bit processing in my business (retail and web). Computer upgrades have to be worth it, from a financial standpoint. There's no reason for my business to spend any money on 64 bit processors.

Re:Why would I?

[Fry-kun]

Your processing power won't improve at all by switching to x64. The only improvement is that you will be able to address more RAM and HD space, nothing else.
In fact, you will even lose out - 64 bit systems waste more memory than 32 bit systems. That's primarily because the 32-bit structures take up 64 bits on 64 bit system, while not carrying any more data. And all the pointers are suddenly 64 bit in length, etc.
In other words, it's worth switching only if you have and plan to use a reasonably larger amount of RAM/HD space than the 32 bit max limit. (in other words, if you want to switch to use 5gb, i'd recommend sticking with 32 bit system, but for 6gb or 8gb the pros start outweighing the cons)

Re:Why would I?

[WalksOnDirt]

Most programs run at about the same speed, but some programs gain a lot from running in 64 bit mode.

One example is that bit-board chess engines, including the current top engine Rybka, are much faster. Non bit-board engines gain little or are slower (The extra registers! They do nothing! Or at least not enough to do more than make up for the code bloat).

Large number arithmetic (e.g. encryption) gains even more because one 64 bit multiply does more that twice the work of a 32 bit multiply.

Re:Why would I?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's primarily because the 32-bit structures take up 64 bits on 64 bit system, while not carrying any more data.

I can't speak for x86-64 because I've never seen it, but I've played around with 64-bit PowerPC, and that's really not true. Or not necessarily, anyway. Note that in 64-bit PowerPC, there are no "modes"; all registers are 64 bits in width. However, that doesn't stop 32-bit code from running unmodified.

Basically what it comes down to is: it's not the size of your register; it's the size of your load/store. Having 64-bit registers doesn't stop you from doing a "store word" (32-bit store). It would even be somewhat natural to have 48-bit pointers if you wanted. What defines the size of data in your data structures is what conventions you (as an assembly programmer) decide for your loads and stores. As a C programmer, of course, it then comes down to your compiler implementation. On OS X, anyway, the convention is to use 32-bit pointers in 64-bit code.

So it's misleading to say everything is 64 bits in size. You get to play around with 64 bits when it's in your register, but that doesn't dictate how much memory you'll consume.

Re:Why would I?

[bubbl07]

Basically what it comes down to is: it's not the size of your register; it's the size of your load/store.

Yea, you try explaining that to my girlfriend.

Re:Why would I?

[sowth]

Yes, but if he doesn't need an upgrade, then it is much cheaper to not buy any hardware at all. ;-)

Re:Why would I?

[kestasjk]

*Rushes out to get a 64-bit processor, to be able to play games with bit-board chess AI faster!*

Re:Why would I?

[6Yankee]

It'd take a while... use a lot of breath... in fact, by the time I'd finished, she'd probably be fully inflated!

Re:Indeed

[Metasquares]

I'm using ~amd64 and have had no problems whatsoever related to 64-bit compatibility (though if I wanted to install a 32-bit driver, that could change). A few apps, such as Firefox, needed to be 32-bit because of things like the Flash plugin, but for the most part everything is 64-bit.

It's natural that Gentoo would be good at this, considering it's a source-based distribution.

switched already

[Keruo]

I switched all my boxes to 64bit at spring.
Only 32-bit systems left are my laptops and I'm not in hurry to replace those.
After selling the old components, I was left to pay $50-100 per system for the upgrade.

As for XP-64, don't bother, its utter crap. No drivers whatsoever, and the ones you can find are buggy as hell.
If you want 64bit win, you'll have to wait for vista.

For linux, I'd recommend gentoo, but if you're unsure and don't want to compile the entire system, suse or ubuntu works aswell.

Not right now

[Hexedian]

If you're building boxes for friends or customers, you'll want to consider the fact that Macromedia has not released a 64-bits version of Flash player, meaning users have to use a 32-bits browser to see flash animations. You don't start appreciating having flash around until you load the latest YouTube movie.

Re:Not right now

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't start appreciating having flash around until you load the latest YouTube movie.

Why? Did VideoDL start requiring flash?

large virtual address spaces

[LordMyren]

x86-64's main use is its address space. 32 bits places a 4 million word limitation on your addressing. systems like zfs that are heavily heavily transactional end up addressing a lot more objects than this. once you've breeched your 32bit addressing, the performance of native 64 bit addressing v. some kind of page extension mode is night and day. zfs's _need_ for x86-64 stems from this; it'll run on an "old" athlon, but in 64bit mode it flies.

my personal belief is that the future, the nebulous area Stroustroupe outlines as "better concurrency," is really going to be implemented at a platform level as this kind of deeply nested transactional data structuring, where instead of overwriting your object to change its state, you simply append the new state in a new part of memory. thus each object accumulates address space (referentiability) as it changes across time. i'll leave the full details implementation & ramifications of Copy on Update up to the user for now.

otoh, a lot of science people want double floats and 64 bit words, but look at the big boys, nvidia. it may bite them in the @#$@# someday, but for now they're sticking to a strong party line: 32bit floating point is sufficient. this works alright for video cards & games, since 4 channels of 32bit fp is an 128bit fp buffer. thats large, but still not entirely that accurate. i'd like to see a time when even game worlds are so massive they straight up require 64bit fp. i'd like to see nvidia release consumer cards with 64bit float performance sometime soon, but i dont think the odds of that happening are very big: its new technology with only a couple scientifc users making any use of it. just as it took the boys at Epic, Sweeny & CliffyB both stating the xbox needed more video ram, without vocal powreful demand we probably wont see it for a while.

hopefully we'll be doing more distributed dispatching with gpus in the future. 64 bit ints are going to be required there.

lordmyren
by 2012 -- the end of time

Re:large virtual address spaces

[jlarocco]

x86-64's main use is its address space. 32 bits places a 4 million word limitation on your addressing.

That's not entirely true. The new 64 bit extensions also added 8 new registers. That doesn't necessarily speed up most apps, but they do allow for more function parameters to be passed in registers. Theoretically it could reduce the number of memory accesses required, too.

otoh, a lot of science people want double floats and 64 bit words, but look at the big boys, nvidia. it may bite them in the @#$@# someday, but for now they're sticking to a strong party line: 32bit floating point is sufficient. this works alright for video cards & games, since 4 channels of 32bit fp is an 128bit fp buffer. thats large, but still not entirely that accurate. i'd like to see a time when even game worlds are so massive they straight up require 64bit fp.

Graphics cards usually stay with 32-bit floats because they're "good enough." For 32-bit RGBA color, four 32-bit floats get shoved into 32-bits for display, so a whole 32-bits per component is already overkill. Position data is a little different, but adding more bits still wouldn't make much of a difference.

Scientific programs already use 64-bit and higher floating point. GCC, for example, offers the "-m128bit-long-double" compiler switch to use 128-bits for the "long double" type. For x86_64 GCC uses 128-bit long doubles by default.

I am going to 65

[Timesprout]

cos I always want to have that extra bit from my machines.

Re:I am going to 65

[CaptainCheese]

Timesprout: "You see, most blokes will be coding with sixty-four bit registers. You're on sixty-four, all the way up, all the way up...Where can you go from there? Nowhere. What we do, is if we need that extra push over the cliff...sixty-five. One bigger."

DiBergi: "Why don't you just write a integer maths library that can virtualize any size you define, and make that a little bigger?"

Timesprout: (baffled) "This goes up to sixty-five."

How to decide between XP and XP-64

[Sloppy]

..but I'm wondering if it worth it to run a box on XP-64?

If you're even considering Windows, then that suggests you have some kind of heavy legacy requirements. Those legacy applications are what matters; check to see if they have been re-compiled. That's how you'll decide which way to go. If your legacy is ready for 64 bits, then maybe you are too. If your legacy isn't ready, then what's the point?

The answer is: because you don't have a choice.

[mrchaotica]

All the new processors from AMD and Intel (and IBM, for that matter) are 64-bit. Therefore, if you get a new PC, you have no choice but to get a 64-bit processor in it. And since they're all backwards-compatible to 32-bit, there's no downside.

The only relevant issue here is whether you want to run 64-bit or 32-bit software on it.

Re:The answer is: because you don't have a choice.

[MojoStan]

Also, Intel's current entry-level notebook CPU, the Yonah-based Celeron M, is still 32-bit and won't be upgraded to the 64-bit Merom core until Q1 2007. This is the CPU you'll likely find in many sub-$600 notebooks and has more than enough performance for most users, IMO. I thought Apple should have used it in a sub-$500 Mac mini (it can use the mini's chipset).

So for this significant portion of the notebook market, I think the transition to 64-bit will probably stretch out past Q2 2007. It might go quicker than most, however, because Merom uses the same chipset as Yonah.

Re:The answer is: because you don't have a choice.

[mrchaotica]

Uh, I hate to break it to you, but the newer chips have other virtues than just being 64-bit: they're also considerably faster (and possibly dual-core). Why are you going out of your way to get a slower chip?

Re:The answer is: because you don't have a choice.

[mrchaotica]

Dual core, just like 64-bit, is mostly a fad. Dual processor setups don't exist for speed, but to keep a system up. Dual cores came into existence because of a recent lack in innovation for single core processors, just like 3dfx' Voodoo series back in the day.

The difference is that the situation seems likely to persist this time.

Furthermore, dual core is being advertised as being double as fast as single core processors, which is not true. At the most, you get a 50% increase.

No, at most you'll get a 100% increase (assuming you're doing two different CPU-intensive tasks that don't need to pass data back and forth at all). 50% is closer to an average figure (unless you spend all your time doing only a single CPU-intensive task, that can't be multithreaded).

Again, unless you're into advanced stuff like heavy sound/video editing, you don't need these super CPUs.

Or gaming (soon, when more games become multithreaded), or running Folding@home, or compiling Seamonkey in less than 50 minutes...

Re:The answer is: because you don't have a choice.

[WuphonsReach]

This is one of those areas where I feel that AMD was about 2 (3?) years ahead of Intel.

They came out with a 64bit CPU that, unlike Itanium, performed just as fast on 32bit tasks as the predecessor. Which meant that buying AMD 64bit chips was a no-risk decision. You could get a 64bit chip (future-proof) but without sacrificing performance on existing 32bit workloads. I don't know if it was an engineering or marketing decision, but it was an important one.

Imagine a world where Intel's Core 2 was the first 64bit chip for x86. It would've pushed the move to 64bit back to 2010 instead of possibly happening as soon as 2007.

(Not sure when the 64bit Xeon CPUs first hit the market. We've been buying all Opteron systems.)

But 64-bit is overkill for a lot of us

[MarcQuadra]

I just bought a Core 2 Duo board and processor. I immediately installed the native 64-bit Gentoo on it, but after two months, I decided to go back to running the x86 distribution. I've been using Linux since 1998, and Gentoo on x86 and PowerPC since before 1.4, and I wasn't very happy with amd64.

I'm a desktop user with 2GB RAM, the server is a PowerPC with 1.5GB RAM. I've never seen a system munch memory like this box when it was running 64-bit Linux. Running all those compatability libraries (for Firefox, OpenOffice, and several other apps) seemed to eat a ton of RAM.

Until every app and plugin I use is 64-bit native, I think I'll stay with 32-bit operating systems.

As for 64-bit hardware, you really don't have much choice if you want to buy new hardware. There's no reason NOT to buy 64-bit processors these days, you get the best bang for your buck with AMD64 or EMT64 CPUs. 32-bit operating systems benefit from the new processors almost as much as 64-bit systems do, so go ahead and 'go 32 on 64' if you want a modern computer.

Re:But 64-bit is overkill for a lot of us

[MrNemesis]

Ditto for my experience. On getting a shiny new desktop system with an almost-top-of-the-line A64 3500, I was excited as hell to try out 64bit Linux.

Indeed, once it was all up and running, I did notice some great speed benefits - OpenSSL simply flies, and many CPU-heavy multimedia apps such as LAME and mplayer showed slight improvments.

But the userland was another story. Since so much near-essential stuff* is still 32bit (thanks, mainly to sloppy coding [hello OOo...!] and closed source stuff [Flash]) you pretty much have to keep an almost entire 32b userland running at the same time as your 64bit DE. I guess I was kinda lucky in that Opera is my fave browser, and it being 32bit only I had no problems with 32bit flash, and it was still fairly quick to load. Starting a 32bit FF when you're running a 64bit KDE installation required me to load all of the 32b GTK libs before firefox could begin to think about executing. Combine that with the (slightly) inflated binary sizes of 64b executables and the higher memory requirements of running applications in a 64b envionment and you end up with a machine that is slower overall.

So, to cut a long story short, marginal improvements in some apps were countered by horrendous usability problems on the desktop.

If you're running a server (or any other machine that doesn't require 32bt niceties), 64bit Linux just rocks.

DISCLAIMER: I relaise that issues with 64b Linux on the desktop aren't Linux's fault, just like XP64's problems with drivers aren't MS's fault either. They're just issues that most would like to avoid

* Yes, I'm aware that Flash can be ignored by many people, but it's a deal breaker for the WAF. Similarly OpenOffice, whilst techically replaceable with things like Koffice that don't hog so many resources, is still the de-facto standard that all other office apps have to measure up to.

Re:But 64-bit is overkill for a lot of us

[The_Dougster]

Oh yeah, the flash player. No you're right it doesn't work in 64bit. Can't say I miss it though. All it does is enable annoying ads on webpages. I usually regret installing it everytime I do. I think that the mplayer plugin is working though. Java is working but somewhat crashy.

Amd64 is an experimental system, so not everything is as fully supported as in regular x86. I can live with it. I have been considering rebuilding a small 32bit x86 system too to play older commercial Linux games, but its pretty low priority. I really haven't tried the 32bit emulation libs so I can't say one way or another but I'd assume some kind of performance hit would be involved.

x86-64 is a piece of cake

[(H)elix1]

Win64 is a piece of cake, for the most part. I picked up an NForce4 AMD64 board about a year and a half ago - they had drivers for all of the on board kit (Ethernet, usb, sound, firewire) and NVidia had drivers for the video cards I had as well. As a server or workstation (lines get fuzzy on a dev box), I had very little problems with finding drivers for even the SCSI kit I added into the mix. I also had 4x1G RAM, which Win64 picked up. I ended up going with Win2003-64 and Win2003-32 (with limited access to all 4G, closer to 3.5G with switches, etc) for the Windows environments as it had better support than WinXP-64. 3rd party hardware stuff may be iffy... scanner/printers seem to get forgotten.

64-bit Gentoo and SuSE both worked like a charm too - but you asked about Windows. Nice to have multiple HDD chassis. (grin)

The thing that you might have problems with were programs. I found that the 'default' install path for the 32-bit stuff would cause some of my programs to trip up. Things like the 32-bit DVD/CD burning software and a few other programs. But anyhow - should you go with a 64-bit CPU? Yes. Win64 is probably more trouble than it is worth for 'generic' gaming rig today. As Vista goes into mainstream, those using a 32-bit processor will be the odd man out.

What doesn't work...

[straponego]

In my experience, both in Windows and Linux, what doesn't work is almost always non-free software. Flash, Java, LOTS of Windows drivers (like cpu monitoring/throttling stuff, etc), and Windows games are examples. There are workarounds for some of these, and some of them will eventually be patched. But it's a good rule of thumb to keep in mind: open source stuff will be updated much faster than commercial.

You can get by pretty well with 64 bit Linux. I see no compelling reason to run 64 bit Windows yet, unless you need lots of memory. Yeah, you could get a small boost from having more registers, and yeah, it's cool; but the Windows world is just not used to porting to other architectures :). The CPUs have been out, what, 3 years? And it is still a royal pain. And if you game... get used to things like Neverwinter Nights 2 going through the entire 6 cd install, only to tell you "Oh, by the way, 64 bit doesn't work. Ha-ha!"

Yes! It's faster even on moderately sized problems

[Soong]

I'm not exactly sure what confluence of compiler, instruction set and silicon technology is going on, but on one test I found that compiling a float-intensive compute problem I run the EM64T (x86-64) version was faster. This is on my new MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo with GCC 4.

Wrong Question

[frovingslosh]

You're asking the wrong question. Of course you should buy a 64 bit system if you're building a new system, unless you have a specific need for a 32 bit system and plan on replacing it within the year. Ther real questions are: Do I want dual core chips (and the really slick hardware virtualization that comes with the dual core chips)? Do I want Intel or AMD? (I'm a long time AMD fan but the Intel dual core chips are getting better buzz than the AMD dual core chips, although you may want to price out the whole systems, not just the CPUs, to get a real idea. And, have other have mentoned here, do I want to run a 64 bit OS or a 32 bit OS? Even with a 32 bit OS you can switch to 64 later (at no cost if you use Linux) as long as you started with a 64 bit CPU.

Windows user

[Savage-Rabbit]

Perhaps a more interesting question would be whether the Windows-users in the Slashdot community plan to run 64-bit Vista, considering its enhanced security (PatchGuard et al.) as well as its enhanced possibilities of restricting you from doing things on your own computer.

I spoke to the /. community's resident Windows user and he is refusing to come out his closet unless you will personally guarantee that the hoard of torch and pitchfork wielding penguins outside won't tar and fether him.

Re:Windows user

[Anonymous Coward]

...unless you will personally guarantee that the hoard of torch and pitchfork wielding penguins outside won't tar and fether him.

You just don't understand how open source works, do you? If for some reason the Slashdot penguin horde promises to stop tarring and feathering Windows users, I'll just fork the project and start my own horde!

Re:Windows user

[artifex2004]

I spoke to the /. community's resident Windows user and he is refusing to come out his closet unless you will personally guarantee that the hoard of torch and pitchfork wielding penguins outside won't tar and fether him.

fether? Is that a new compression algorithm I missed?

Re:Windows user

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Kind of. You see, once you label him as a Windows user with the feathers, half an hour later what's left of him will be so small that you could transport or store it in a tiny fraction of the space originally required. Rumour has it that the algorithm is somewhat lossy, however.

Re:Windows user

[n9hmg]

It's a common mistake. Just remember: four tines, it's a pitchfork; three prongs, it's a trident.

WRONG... it's not the tine count. It's the shape.
I have used a three-pronged pitchfork (as well as 4 and 5-tined pitchforks, and a 12-tined ensilage fork). A trident is a three-head spear (with the heads in a line instead of a triangle), and as such, the axis of the heads is parallel to the shaft. You don't want to stab and have the impact offset from the thrust, or worse, have an impaled opponent fall in such a way as to trap your weapon. A pitchfork is a material-handling tool, with the tines offset from the shaft in order to permit better retention of the load.

Re:Windows user

[Drooling Iguana]

That's just 'cause we all browse from work.

Don't Bother With XP64 Especially on Corp Network

[thomsonr]

XP64 never reached critical driver support. I do high end GIS at work and thought XP64 would be great for a workstation......wrong. I can't find drivers for many of the printers on the network and my scanner does not work. Also many of the software developers for don't support XP64 so if you have a problem they'll blame it on XP64 noteably Autodesk with their latest bug ridden Autocad Map program. Also during the Vista beta program I had nothing but trouble with Creative products using Vista 64. All problems disappeared when using Vista 32. I am removing XP64 from both my home and work computers. Not a chance I'd buy Vista 64.

XP-64

[mcbridematt]

XP 64 is a workstation OS (and has always been marketed that way by Microsoft, FYI). Unless you're doing heavy stuff, or your hardware loves it (i.e Dual Opterons with NUMA), stay out. You can chuck all your older hardware while you're at it too. Personally I haven't had any real problems with it, apart from it being a massive I/O hog.

XP 64 is based on the WinServer 2003 x64 base, and IMO, Server 2003 x64 makes a better 64 bit workstation OS. I guess M$ frucked up big time when adding all the consumer end stuff to it. Pity 2003 x64 doesn't have the full multimedia support that its 32 bit version does.

No issues here..

[Pluhveso]

I am currently running Windows XP Professional x64 with 64-bit processor types nearly since its release.

The only potential hiccup I encountered was finding an x64 driver for my HP printer; but there is a nice group that came out with drivers that while they claim aren't perfect, I have never had any problems with (both printing and scanning).

If you've ever low-level coded for x64 it can be slightly more painful or new; but its definitely worth it in the end (as well as multi-core).

Ubuntu x64 here

[Orange Crush]

Add me to the tally of folks running 64 bit Linux. For most purposes, the performance boost is unnoticable. However, I do get a few more FPS when transcoding video and I've noticed no other difficulties compared to 32bit Ubuntu. As others, I run 32 bit Firefox, but this is a breeze to install via automatix. About the only things that don't work for me are Google Earth and RealPlayer. I haven't bothered to look for others having similar troubles with Google Earth (app loads just fine, but imagery is all scrambled) and I don't care that much that RealPlayer barely runs (skips, audio out of sync, hangs inexplicably . . . but it did that on 32bits too).

As far as general day to day use goes, if you've got a 64 bit proc w/ a 32 bit OS, it's probably not worth the hassle to reinstall 64 bit builds. If you're starting over from scratch anyway, you might want to give it a shot.

Re:Ubuntu x64 here

[SLi]

I have been using Debian-amd64 for bit over a year now. In my benchmarks, the 64-bitness definitely helps performance; e.g. LAME (the mp3 encoder) is 50 % faster when compiled for amd64 than the x86 version.

I'm running Debian unstable, and I think things break a bit more often for 64-bit architectures than 32-bit. For example, recently apt-get source broke on 64-bit architectures. I think there are enough people however running 64-bit Debian to ensure no such flaws ever get to testing or stable. If you don't like to tinker with things like these, you obviously shouldn't run unstable.

There are some issues you might want to consider. I think there still is no Flash plugin, should you want that (I wouldn't install it on my computer if I could). Wine doesn't work, neither does MPlayer support win32 codecs. Also OpenOffice was for years very badly broken on 64-bit architechures (apparently it had so much hardcoded 32-bitisms). Debian unstable (and possibly testing?) has recently gained a 64-bit OpenOffice. I would assume it's still not quite as stable as a 32-bit version, but it's definitely getting there. I run MPlayer from a 32-bit chroot, that works nicely but is a bit of a hassle. I also run OpenOffice from the chroot, but that's just a relic from the times when there was no working 64-bit OO, so I can't comment on the stability of the 64-bit version.

Overall I'm very happy with amd64-Debian.

64 is better on Linux than Windows

[darkonc]

From what I've seen people using Windows-64 have had far more problems than people running Linux. Linux 64 bit support has been out for a long time now and is pretty stable.

XP-64 seems to have all sorts of driver problems that are unlikely to go away as Vista comes out.

Vista-64 has the problem that you've got the uncertain future of a heavily DRMed machine. This may or may not prove to be a show-stopper, so I'd say wait and see..

64-bit Vista works well

[rbonine]

I've been running Vista since Beta 2 and decided to hold my breath and try the 64-bit version when the RTM was released to MSDN a month or so ago. So far, much to my surprise, it's been rock solid. it worked with every piece of hardware I have, including a Dell dual-tuner TV card, a no-name Web cam, a couple of digital cameras, and my ATI X1300 video card. No software problems to speak of either - the only thing I can think of that didn't work right off the bat is the MS SyncToy application.

I can't speak to WinXP 64-bit, but I can highly recommend it on Vista.

64 bit hardware vs. 64 bit software

[wolrahnaes]

The hardware is ready. As others have mentioned, it's basically impossible now to buy a 32 bit desktop (the only one I know of still for sale is the Mac Mini) and the laptops will follow as soon as Intel phases out the original Core line.

Personally I've been 100% 64 bit on the hardware side for a while now. Athlon 64 X2 in my desktop, Core 2 Duo in my laptop, and even a triple-core 64 bit "Xenon" PowerPC derivative in my game console (though I recently sold that for a Wii, I'm not sure whether "Broadway" is 64 bit or not).

Software, it's a different story. I'd have no problem running a 64 bit OS on a server or workstation where I can be certain it'll be doing a set group of tasks, but on the desktop no way.

On both Windows and Linux, drivers are the biggest issue. Linux obviously less than Windows, because all but my video drivers are open source and many were 64 bit ready before AMD ever shipped a single Opteron, but the user-level 64 bit support is less. On Windows, it was mainly driver issues and a few games that balked at the NT 5.2 (Win2003) kernel under XP64. On Linux, the biggest problem was related to plugins and codecs. I didn't have Flash or Java in my web browser and a lot of codecs either weren't there or required building from source which I prefer not to do if I have a choice. I know I could have installed 32 bit Firefox and the 32 bit plugins would have worked, but just like with the codecs it was more work than I was willing to put in to it.

In both cases 64 bit gained me nothing other than being able to say I'm running in 64 bit mode while causing quite a bit of extra work. The tradeoff wasn't worth it, so I went back.

Depending on how things develop, I might try 64 bit Vista a few months after the official release, and of course Leopard will bring my Macbook a fully 64 bit OS, but for now I'm happy with 32 bit Vista on the desktop, 32 bit Tiger on the laptop, and 32 bit Ubuntu on both.

64 bit - drivers

[mabu]

About two months ago I installed XP-64 on a new Athlon system I was upgrading. I didn't realize that I'd have to update all my drivers and some software might not work, but the biggest problem was the drivers, however, I custom-built this PC and used popular components so, with the exception of AVG Free (which doesn't have a 64-bit version), I was able to upgrade my entire system. If you're running more obscure peripherals, you should fully-research the availability of drivers before you upgrade.

hardware yes - software no(t yet)

[CranberryKing]

The machine I am typing on is AMD64, but I wouldn't think of XP64 (although you can download the image unlike xp32). when I boot into linux i have lots of application problems because no one supports it yet.

Just forward planning. For a serious server application, of course. But for a real workstation, you are going to have all kinds of problems for a while.. xp and linux.

"People get ready"... for a while probably.

ok shit. Believe it.

Re:Debian AMD64 is Awesome

[jgrahn]

I built an Athlon64 machine a while back and put Debian Etch on it, and it's awesome. You have to use the testing or unstable branches to get AMD64 support until the 4.0 release, but testing (Etch) has been working perfectly for me.

Debian Sarge for x86_64 is perfectly well supported; you don't have to run testing/unstable.

With very little work, I've even been able to get the few 32-bit apps I need to work. Without a chroot I have Opera (with Flash), the 32-bit proprietary video codecs, and a few others working perfectly.

Without a chroot? How? Opera is my only problem -- I don't want to bother with chroot environments, so I'm stuck with the statically linked 32-bit version. The Opera people don't make it a priority to release a 64-bit version, unfortunately.

It depends on your environment.

[Z00L00K]

I have tried both XP-64 and Linux in a 64-bit x86 distro and I can outright say that XP-64 seems to be more a special feature useful for those that really need the use of the 64-bit processing (larger memory available). This especially since the availability of drivers is a problem, but also that it lacks support regarding anti-virus and third-part firewalls. The built-in firewall is in my opinion not good enough.

On the other hand there is no reason to not use 64-bit Linux on a machine that is capable of 64-bit processing. Very few of the frequently used drivers are 32-bit only. The advantages is not only due to the fact that you are able to access large amount of memory, but you will have less problems with larger files (Above 2GB). If there are any real disadvantages I haven't seen them here.

If you plan for Vista - I don't see any reason to stick with 32-bit. This since it seems likely that the major focus on Vista development will be on the 64-bit variant. Remember that the recommended minimum RAM is 1GB and new applications are likely to use more RAM so the 4GB barrier present in 32-bit is not too far away.

Re:um. 32 bit?

[sporkme]

I am glad that flash-32-bit has been working in many Linux-64-BIT distros. This is a testament to the spirit of the hard-working folks behind our favorite flavors of the best OS. This does not excuse the dragging of feet on the part of Adobe. There needs to be a central release and some code for the aforementioned hard working people. RELEASE A LINUX-64-BIT VERSION OF FLASH NOW, you brown-nosed bastards. How can we make this any more clear?

/3G (Re:Make a list)

[mi]

You can start many applications with the additional switch /3G, which will cause Windows to split the 4Gb of the process' address space 3:1 between user and kernel space instead of the default 2:2. But that's it...

Windows is not the only OS like this. On AIX 32-bit processes are also limited to 2Gb, for example, while on Solaris you have your entire 4Gb.

That said, if maximum memory is not an issue for your program (as is usually the case), it is quite convenient (and fast) to have the same address space across user and kernel parts of the process. And 64-bit gives you both (even if all the pointer-fields in your structures double in size...)