32bit vs 64bit OS

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Quote:

I've been using a 64bit OS since the mid/late 1990's. So all just now moving to 64 bits, welcome back to the previous century, LOL.


Funny, the last company making a 64-bit OS is having the most problems with it...


NT4 was available in Alpha (64-bit) and that was the mid 90's. As somebody else mentioned, NT5 (Win2K) was also initially supported on the Alpha platform.

MS has had 64-bit support for a long time.

My favourite 64-bit OS is still IRIX. It's ugly to some, but.... I dunno

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: digitalSniperX1
I am an integrated circuit designer. I do run single applications that execute fine on a 2G machine running a 32 bit executable and a 32 bit version of linux.

The same application with a 64 bit executable will swamp my workstation (RSS > 4G and VIRT >>> typical) now running the 64 bit OS. If I run a 32 bit version on the same 64 bit OS, it does use more memory than the 32 bit OS (some 30%), but won't venture out to disk all the time.

Now is this a function of the application, the 64 bit compiler, the OS or something else?

I'm not entirely sure.

Having said that, there only 64 bit native data type I know of is double precision floating point. Some applications are floating point intensive. Many are not.

Most data types are handled nicely in 32 bits or less.

In a 64 bit machine/OS..is the the compiler wasting memory with 64 bit instructions/data that are more efficiently handled by 32 bit instructions/data?

I'd have to do a bit of study to answer that.


If you have the time, I'd like to know what you find. It is a topic that interests me and a question to which I also am curious to know the answer.

 

[javacontour]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
Quote:

I've been using a 64bit OS since the mid/late 1990's. So all just now moving to 64 bits, welcome back to the previous century, LOL.


Funny, the last company making a 64-bit OS is having the most problems with it...


NT4 was available in Alpha (64-bit) and that was the mid 90's. As somebody else mentioned, NT5 (Win2K) was also initially supported on the Alpha platform.

MS has had 64-bit support for a long time.

My favourite 64-bit OS is still IRIX. It's ugly to some, but.... I dunno

The hardware was 64 bit, but the O/S was still 32 bit. (or 2 bit)

 

[javacontour]

According to what I've read, MS never publically released a 64 bit O/S until 2001.

All versions for the Alpha were 32 bit.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

The DEC Alpha was 64 bit. Tru64 ran on it as well. NT 3.1 - Win2000 Beta ran that same platform.


2001 was the ill-fated Itanium 64bit platform.

 

[OVERKILL]

Yes, NT3.x/4 for Alpha were 32-bit, but it was still a 64-bit architecture that MS was catering to, and doing so in the mid-90's. They had also worked extensively on fully native 64-bit stuff, but when Compaq axed Alpha, that ceased. That's why Win2K's Alpha release was axed, even though it was almost ready for RTM.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Wow. didn't know that! I always thought that the Alpha version of NT was 64 bit. I stand corrected.

 

[javacontour]

And I didn't realize that Tru64 came out so early.

So 64bit has been commercial since 1993 in the Unix world, if I understand correctly.

 

[digitalSniperX1]

Ok, I've done a bit of comparing 32 bit Linux executables vs. 64 bit linux executables.

The tools used for this are:

ncverilog // this is a compiler/simulator for digital IC design. Version 8.2
synplicity // this is a tool for synthesizing verilog into a hardware level (gate level) netlist..version 9.6.2
xilinx ise tools // these tools place and route a netlist onto/into a target FPGA (field programmable gate array)

The 64 bit exe's vs. 32 bit exe's showed no real performance gains running simulations that would run for days and place and route times that run for several hours. The 64 bit runs did however require considerable more memory. The simulation was 700M vs. 1G. The place and route, 2.6G peak to 4.9G peak.

I'm not sure if this proves anything, but with this limited set of comparison's, the 64 bit versions of these tools increased required memory, no real performance difference.

 

[simple_gifts]

Quote:

MS has had 64-bit support for a long time.


From a practical viewpoint they are last to the table...

Support and having had something in the past is different. 8)

A seamless 32/64 bit environment, like Suns, apparently isn't anything they have achieved; there aren't mulitple "bit" versions of Solaris; there is just one.