Why isn't 64-Bit Standard yet?

I have not run a 32Bit O/S for over 4 years now.

In the beginning XP64 certainly had a few hiccups.

For me, it was the Epson C42 and BT Voyager Modem. Both these were soon replaced however and since then, I have never had a single issue with drivers. Sure, there are still hardware issues with lots of hardware, but I have simply avoided hardware that is not fully compatible and its been all plain sailing.

As for the differences between 32 and 64 bit well, I find it laughable really.

Vista not so much so, but with XP, 32Bit is nowhere near as smooth as 64, all apps run much sleeker and better on XP64 than in XP32 and many games also benefit from being run on 64Bit too.

Sure, I have lost a few things also... I miss PageDeFrag, and the ability to play Midi Files in any decent quality, but then I have not been able to play MidiFiles in Linux for several years either ( Annoying for a Midi musician, so thats why I stil use my Atari's ) and only recently I wanted to play WarHammer FireWarrior only to find out that is not 64Bit friendly either.

But to say the only reason to go 64Bit is for the RAM must be the most retarded thing to say... The differences are sometimes immense between the two.

I myself would never go back to a 32Bit O/S apart from the few Win2000 Licences I still have and the one XP32 for my LapTop, but all others are now XP64 or Vista64.
 
Spooter said:
Businesses!

Lots use legacy software that would have issues with 64bit. Simple
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Hence XP Virtualisation mode in Win7 RC. They desperately need people to adopt Win7 in the way they didn't adopt Vista.

I mean, how many offices do you see that have had a corporate Vista rollout....? Hell, the places I was at tested it, then shuddered and decided to wait till it actually worked. It sort of works now, 32 and 64bit, but Win7 makes it look like the slapped ginger stepchild of the MS OS Family.

Right alongside it's twin brother, Windows ME....

64Bit Win7 is a very nice OS. Simple as.
 
Agree about that next MS OS itself should come out only as 64bit version.
You would think that already driver developers would start complaining when they have to do so many different versions.


StevenRaith said:
I can see x86, horrificallly inefficient though it is in comparison to SPARC, PowerX etc in many ways...
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And that inefficiency is surely the reason why it has gotten such foothold in supercomputers/computing clusters where OS limitations wouldn't require such "CISC" CPU...
And Apple's heretic move from "superior" PowerX to x86...
Funny thing how such zombie just keeps still going and going! Maybe it can evolve?
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/4q99/risc-cisc/rvc-1.html
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/2q00/x86future/isa-future-1.html
 
I've run 64-bit Windows on my machines pretty much since XP x64 edition came out, and never really had much trouble with it - although I've found not much software available - 64-bit PS CS4 is probably the first thing I've seen a real performance benefit in.

Funnily enough, running 64-bit code an AMD64 architecture chip should actually benefit more even where more address space isn't required than the more mature 64-bit architectures like UltraSPARC as AMD64 chips have double the usable registers running in 64-bit clean mode, wheras UltraSPARC, Alpha, etc weren't hamstrung by the need to maintain legacy support and have access to all their registers executing 32-bit code - hence the kernel in Solaris being 32-bit on my USII system in spite of its ability to execute 64-bit code in userspace.
 
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Silenced said:
80% of PC users are bloody stupid, I get rage when using a laptop....
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[cleveland]
Boom! And there goes the dynamite
[/cleveland]

I absolutely want to puke until I piddle blood rather than have to put up with a smegging laptop for my main work.

Sure, for accessing Emails, browsing or watching a movie or two when you are out camping, or maybe having the website done ready to let the customer view it before FTPing it or whatever, its a good little toy, but to have to use it as your main PC?

What a retarded thing to do!!!
 
FatRakoon said:
I absolutely want to puke until I piddle blood rather than have to put up with a smegging laptop for my main work.
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I'd pay money to see you post on a macbook subforum.

I have to agree, in part as i like my piddle the viscosity that it is [i mean ouch!], i've never found a practical use other than the above for a laptop. Anything that requires a lot of work becomes a major hassle on a laptop even if you do bastardize it to look like a mini desktop on a coffee table.

Bleah! - is my considered opinion.

Having said that you do get the oppurtunity to see your wife and kids in the evening - obvioulsly this is a subjective blessing but it works for me...
 
The statement of seeing your wife and kids for me, is a non-issue.

My Main PC is in the living room.

Everyone else wants to use mine and yet, what is really really really annoying about this, is that :-

1 - I have given the wife her own PC in the bedroom
2 - All 3 kids have their own PCs in their Bedrooms
3 - The Kids also have a laptop in their treehouse
4 - I have converted my loft purely as a computer room and they can all have their own PCs up there too!

But no, they want to use mine.

But can I go upstairs and play on a PC on my own?

Can I heck.
 
FatRakoon said:
My Main PC is in the living room.
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Well, they either really love your company - or they really love the wide screen plasma in the living room.

My recommendation is to invest in a den and disguise it's use under the pseudonym of a study - that's guaranteed to put kids off.

Edit:

FatRakoon said:
3 - The Kids also have a laptop in their treehouse
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Hats off to you for getting some alone time with that idea - have you slated the roof on that thing?

It's got me looking at my shed in whole different perspective...
 
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reflux said:
Indeed, not only are the Intel and AMD 64 CPUs not true 64-bit (they are x86-64, not x64), Vista 64 runs 32-bit applications via WOW64, a translation layer.
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And old argument and wrong, you might as well say that x86 is a 16bit processor. 8086 (x86) is 20bit addressing, 16bit registers, and 16bit wide connection to the motherboard.

x86-64, EM64T, x64 or AMD64 depending on what you want to call it, includes 64 bit addressing and 64 bit integer general purpose registers (a lot of these). Its true 64 bit no matter how you look at it. And the memory bus since Pentium 4 (perhaps even P3) is 64bits wide for speed, even wider on i7.

Just as the 286 added Protected mode, the 386 added 32bit "386 Enhanced mode", X86-64 adds 64 Long Mode, its a true 64 bit processor.

Add in 80bit floating point on the FPU, and 128bit single clock cycle SSE instructions, and really you cannot justfiy calling it a "not true 64-bit" design.

The only thing x86-64 isnt is compatibility with intels "workstation" IA-64 "Itanium" chips.

As for WOW64, its damn fast, there is very little difference in performance between most applications running on 64bit windows/Wow64 or natively on 32bit windows. And with games the drivers for sound/graphics are all native 64bit, so only the game engine itself is running in the WOW64 emulation. DirectX is 64bit native too.

PS, Our CPU's still start up in 16bit "Real Mode", they are switched to Enhanced mode, or 64bit long during bootup depending on what OS your running. Boot in DOS, and it will stay in real mode.
 
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StevenRaith said:
I can see x86, horrificallly inefficient though it is in comparison to SPARC, PowerX etc in many ways, being the dominant architecture for another ten years.
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That's only partially true these days, P6 (Pentium Pro) changed how x86 works. Instead of being a true CISC processor, P6 is a risc processor just like a sparc or powerX chip. But those clever chaps at Intel wrapped up their "micro-op" risc chip with a set of x64 instruction decoders, so you feed it x86 instructions (which a lot of programmers still know even in these days of "visual programming"), and it rips them apart into micro-ops which it can execute out of order to maximise efficiency.

To be honest, a 1Ghz Ultrasparc 3, bearly keeps up with a Pentium 3 1Ghz at integer, although the Ulltrasparc's FPU is much more powerfull clock for clock.

But add in the improvements and the massive clockspeed advantage a Core 2 Duo or I7 has over a Sparc IV+ from sun is 2.1Ghz, and then use compile for intel with SSE4 enabled, and even on complex "scientific" math the x86 is frighteningly good :P

Massive multiprocessing Niagra II is very good, but then again, now that i7 has reintroduced Hyperthreading, its 8 threads V 64coolthreads, but Niagra's not even close to i7 performance on a single thread. I wouldnt like to put money on the threaded performance of an i7 V Niagra2
 
I have a maths/physics degree, admittedly well past its sell-by-date now, and i still find myself 'gurning'(sp) while trying to follow the finer points of this thread.

I'm desperate to acknowledge a point well made - but you all seem very plausible to me.

I would quote pc-format but i feel the lowly publication is well out of its depth in this debate as am i...

Keep it coming it's turning into an interesting thread.
 
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Corasik said:
<snip>
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Two excellent posts
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Keep them coming :)
 
Plec said:
or they really love the wide screen plasma in the living room.
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Our main TV is still a CRT... Its a smegging 32" Bush too so nothing fancy at all.
Given that no one in our house watches TV that much and when we do, we are usually pretty much sat on top of it, anything bigger would be stupid.

My PCs however... Ah, now thats different.

All the kids have 19" WideScreens on their own PCs, but I gave Josh my old 22" cos I am running a Samsung 24" on this PC and ridiculously, Im running pair of HannsG 28" Screens on my No.2 ( Just for a kick more than real usefulness )

Plec said:
Hats off to you for getting some alone time with that idea - have you slated the roof on that thing?

It's got me looking at my shed in whole different perspective...
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LOL No... The Laptop I have put in there for them is only a cheap and nasty thing... If it gets broken or nicked, I wont give two hoots you know...

Its connected to the Network via a Linksys PCMCIA Card and has a couple of networked drives for the Music and Movies, so its really only in there for fun more than anything serious.

The treehouse is a fantastic thing too!

Really sad thing is that just for a laugh, we had a load of off-cuts of carpet left over and I have carpeted it for the kids, and then even more sad, I have since wallpapered it and painted it, and as a real hoot my daughter asked me to double-glaze it ( Yes, how idiotic was that, but I have done it...

2 sheets of 2' x 2' perspex with strips of 8mm dowel glued around the edges.

And of course... Curtains!

What you do for peace and quiet from your kids eh?
 
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