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64bit OS - Good or bad? — Parallax Forums

64bit OS - Good or bad?

MicrocontrolledMicrocontrolled Posts: 2,461
edited 2010-10-08 21:24 in General Discussion
Bounding off my other thread about computers, I have almost decided on this one
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6645059&CatId=4965
however seeing as most software is built around a 32 bit system, is a 64 bit system not going to run 32 bit programs, or is it only vise-versa? What are the ups and downs of a 64 bit system? And also would I need 64 bit Ubuntu?

Thanks,
Micro

Comments

  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2010-10-05 09:01
    32 bits can address 4GB of memory. If you want to have more than 4GB of RAM, you'll need more than 32 bits to address it and the next multiple of 2 is 64 bits. That's the main reason for going to a 64 bit operating system where all addresses are either kept as 64 bit values or somehow mapped into 64 bit values.

    Keeping lots of pointers as 64 bit values takes more storage and takes more execution time to manage than using 32 bit values. That's the tradeoff.
  • schillschill Posts: 741
    edited 2010-10-05 09:22
    I've been running Windows 7 64 bit on several machines for a while now and have had no issues.

    Except for memory usage (which hasn't been a problem), the only issues are programs that will not run under 64 bit or drivers that don't work. I haven't run into any of these problems on any of the machines I'm using. I wouldn't hesitate to run 64 bit - but you probably won't find problems until you try something and it doesn't work.

    I did install Windows 7 32 bit on one laptop because I was unsure of whether the drivers would work under 64 bit (laptop driver availability can be harder to work with than desktop sometimes). If I had it to do over again, I would just install 64 bit.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2010-10-05 09:43
    I use Win 7 x64 on my laptop and haven't had any problems, apart from a couple of ancient programs not working.
  • Erik FriesenErik Friesen Posts: 1,071
    edited 2010-10-05 10:15
    I drug my feet over 64bit 7 for a while, then gave in and installed it so I could properly debug a program. I was pleasantly surprised, for the most part. My computer is a vostra 420, and dell does not offer a 64 bit os for it. However, the intel chip supports it. There were no issues with the install, and so far, no reputable program has trouble running. x86 applications tend to run as 32 bit, sort of, anyway.

    One big advantage , or disadvantage, depending who you are, is, that 64 7 requires whql signed drivers. One thing this means for the end user is that windows keeps a copy of most drivers online, so when you plug in your printer, etc, you likely don't need a disk. The icd3 driver is an exception, but that is a custom usb device, and there was no issue getting it installed and working. FTDI drivers works fine.
  • Bobb FwedBobb Fwed Posts: 1,119
    edited 2010-10-05 15:32
    Mike Green wrote: »
    32 bits can address 4GB of memory. If you want to have more than 4GB of RAM, you'll need more than 32 bits to address it and the next multiple of 2 is 64 bits.
    And on desktop computers, part of the 4GB is allocated for video memory. So if you have a 512MB video card so you can play tetris, you will only have 3.5GB available for system memory.

    I have used XP x64 (Smile), Vista 64-bit, and Windows 7 64. Early adoption was a bust. There were almost no drivers that worked on 64-bit OS and many programs had problems. Nowadays, I haven't run across more than a program or two that won't work on Windows 7 64. The ones that don't run are usually not all that important. Sometimes certain programs (like Avast, and others) have reduced functionality on a 64-bit OS.

    But I have a Core i7, which means triple-channel RAM, which means memory sizes in multiples of three. So it was either 3GB of RAM (no way!) or 6GB. But on 32-bits I could only access 3GB (1GB video card) what a waste! Thus, I don't have a choice other than 64-bit OS. I have not been disappointed.
  • Invent-O-DocInvent-O-Doc Posts: 768
    edited 2010-10-05 17:47
    Driver certification by Microsoft required both 64 and 32 bit since Vista, hence just about everything works great in 64 bits. This was not the case with 64bit XP.

    In the long run, you will be better off with the larger memory capability. We've been using 64 bit processors for ears running 32 bit software.
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2010-10-05 18:55
    It is a common misconception that a 32 bit OS's can only access 4 GB of physical memory. The real constraint is that they can only support a 32 bit virtual address space for a single process. Physical memory is much less constrained.

    For example the x86 architecture supports physical address extensions (PAE) which allows for 36 bit physical addresses (considerably greater than 4GB). I know the Linux kernel uses PAE, and I just checked and so does Windows XP pro.

    A 64 bit OS makes PAE obsolete, but where 64 bits shines is when a single process needs to map to more than 4 GB of virtual address space. An example would be a large database which is memory mapped.

    Now I don't have a need for a 64 bit OS because a 4 GB virtual address space is fine for me. So I've stuck with 32 bit Linux and Windows. I imagine in a few years 32 bit versions will go the way of the dinos and then I'll upgrade.
  • Bobb FwedBobb Fwed Posts: 1,119
    edited 2010-10-05 19:05
    There are also commands in Windows and Linux to allow the OS to address 64 bits of memory, but it requires two cycles to do so. I tried it once, and for the most part it seemed fine, but heavy memory use like when gaming and video editing, it showed major performance issues, and it worked faster under these cases when I turned it back to 32 bit addressing.
  • P!-RoP!-Ro Posts: 1,189
    edited 2010-10-05 19:36
    By the way, why buy a computer with win7 and install ubuntu? You end up wasting about a hundred dollars of your money doing that.

    Edit: I found a laptop you may like. 2x the hdd space, .1 ghz faster processor (duo, so technically .2 faster) cheaper, ubuntu. Downfall: I'm not sure if it's 32 or 64 bit, and the ram is DDR2 and not DDR3.

    http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=STUDIO1745-061-LNX-16R&cat=NBB
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2010-10-06 01:45
    This all begs the question of what do you need 64 bit for?
    It you need more RAM addresses, you are likely in need of a server.
    If you don't need a server, there are driver availability issues as these have been slow to come out.

    I have a Intel Core 2 Quad machine and initially I was very upset that it came with Vista 32 bit (I felt cheated and wondered why anyone would put a 32bit OS on a 64bit machine).

    But it soon became obvious that retrofitting to existing hardware might be a key issue.

    As a result of the Vista being only Chinese, I loaded Ubuntu Linux in a dual boot. Initially I loaded 64 bit and found that things either didn't run right or were not available. So now I have both 32bit Vista and 32bit Ubuntu running on the 64bit machine. And since I am not doing any heavy lifting, the computer runs well.

    I suppose one day I will want the 64bit power, but I am not using even 2Gbytes of the install 4Gbytes of RAM - so why should I want or need more than 4Gbytes of RAM?

    The fact that the U.S. government runs 32bit OSes on 64bit machines is a great indicator of what is really the status of development.

    I suspect that if I could have gotten a Quad 32bit machine, that would have been quite adequate. And I know that everything runs faster and with less crashes in Linux. And I wonder why bother with 64bit for the usual desktop since Unicode is 32bit.

    One might argue that video need the power and I do have an Nvidia card on board. But all my attempts to watch video world-wide are thwarted by limited bandwidth once I get outside Taiwan.

    In sum, a 64bit desktop PC seems to be ahead of its time. Vista seemed to be excessively ambitious in trying to use the power and failed. And now Windows 7 32 bit runs nicely on my Toshiba NB-250 netbook.

    Still, I don't think one must hang on to XP to live in a 32bit world. Windows 7 accepted that 32bits would be around for some time. And as usual, Linux supports 32bit and does it with 1/4th the space and running faster than MS product and any machine - old or new.
  • Erik FriesenErik Friesen Posts: 1,071
    edited 2010-10-06 05:17
    Loopy Byteloose wrote: »
    This all begs the question of what do you need 64 bit for?
    It you need more RAM addresses, you are likely in need of a server.
    If you don't need a server, there are driver availability issues as these have been slow to come out.

    I felt that way til I tried it. 64 bit is no longer something to be afraid of, imo.
  • Bobb FwedBobb Fwed Posts: 1,119
    edited 2010-10-06 08:59
    Loopy Byteloose wrote: »
    I suppose one day I will want the 64bit power, but I am not using even 2Gbytes of the install 4Gbytes of RAM - so why should I want or need more than 4Gbytes of RAM?
    Well, operating systems adjust the amount of memory they use based on the amount available. So if you have a 1GB system (Windows 7's requirement) it will only use about 700MB (from observations). But if you have 6GB, it will use about 2.5GB (from observations).

    Another key thing to note is that once your RAM usage goes above 70%, performance (due to indexing) goes way down as it approaches 100%. You will find that about 82% of your RAM is the maximum Windows will allow you to use. If it still needs more, it uses virtual memory on your hard drive. Because after 80+% RAM accesses get closer in speed to hard drive accesses
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2010-10-06 16:52
    FYI, this MSDN entry does a good job explaining the virtual and physical limits of RAM for each version of windows http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/aa366778.aspx

    What is interesting is that they only turn on PAE for their data center editions of 32 bit Windows OS's. Those 32 bit flavors can support 64 GB of physical RAM.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2010-10-08 02:01
    FYI, I do have 4 Gbytes of DRAM installed and that is essentially topping out the motherboard. But my System Monitor software seems to never exceed even 1GByte in use.

    I specifically waited for a Core II Quad to become available as the Core II Duo's were getting bogged down with Vista. The low DRAM use may be due to the Quad and thier related cashes.

    At the time, I was thinking I might want to compile Linux Kernels, which is a rather intensive process. But since Ubuntu just keeps getting easier and easier, I abandoned that ambition and am not really in need of all this power. Of course, if I was a video gamer or a video editor, I might feel differently.

    In may case, the motherboard is physically limited to 4Gybtes of DRAM, so it seems 32bit is adequate.
  • Bobb FwedBobb Fwed Posts: 1,119
    edited 2010-10-08 08:21
    Loopy Byteloose wrote: »
    I specifically waited for a Core II Quad to become available as the Core II Duo's were getting bogged down with Vista. The low DRAM use may be due to the Quad and thier related cashes.
    Not how it works. If it's in cache, it's in RAM too. The system just trades out cache locations for existing RAM. The same thing happens as you go down the levels of cache, each smaller has portions of the larger, but is faster.

    Even if that is how it worked, you only have a few MB of cache, so there isn't much compared to the amount of RAM you use.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2010-10-08 11:15
    Well, I simply have no idea why I tend to use only 5-600mbytes of the 4Gbytes installed ram. The Linux Kernel is supposed to be specifically compiled for 4Gbytes as well as Vista. Nevertheless, I am happy with the setup as the computer zips along and is quite stable. It there are delays, it is usually a bottleneck in the ADSL.

    I just feel that at least the Core II 64bits was pretty well forced upon the consumer and I have similar doubts about the general need for 64 bit unless the world-wide web really does open up to TV on the internet. That is what I was really hoping for, and it just hasn't happened.

    I might use more DRAM if I drove some of the fancy video features that Vista offered, but I have Vista Home Basic and a $700USD upgrade is out of the question. It is prettier than Ubuntu and it allows me to have all the Parallax IDEs in a Windows OS, but that is about all.

    My Intel Atom powered netbook 32bit machine with Windows 7 Starter seems just as fast and was only $300USD compared to well over double that for the 64bit.

    Could it be something in the mysteries of BIOS? I have no idea. Or might it be that my processors are so efficient that I just can't load up the RAM. I feel like a little old man with a Ferrari.
  • Jim FouchJim Fouch Posts: 395
    edited 2010-10-08 17:39
    I've been running 64Bit OSs for about 3 years now.

    First was XP...on that one I had some issues with drivers and such. But the machine has dual Quad Core Xeons and 16 GBs of ram and running 32-bit would be a waste of money and resources. That machine has since been upgraded to Vista x64, then to Win 7 X64.

    On my last laptop it was maxed out at 4 GB, but I still ran Win 7 x64 to see the full 4gb of ram. A 32-bit Windows OS will only access about 3.25GB of ram. (Newer 32-bit OSs show 4 GBs, but really only see ~3.25GB)

    My new laptop has 12GB RAM, 980X 6 core CPU & 2 SSD in RAID-0 array. And of course it's running Win 7 x64. I have had zero issues with installs. That's not to say that older software will not have issues.
  • Peter KG6LSEPeter KG6LSE Posts: 1,383
    edited 2010-10-08 21:24
    just a data point here .

    OSX was NOT 64BIT native untill recently
    but it still supported 16 GIGs of RAM on a High end G5 tower .
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