That's incorrect, MS simply made the OS show the amount of memory the computers BIOS reports it has. It may say 4GB but it's not using any more memory than it did prior to Service Pack 1.

Point being that for an OS to be considered worthy, usage of minimal memory for the most efficient conditions can only mean better overall performance for everything else that MUST tag remaining system resources.

It's not the quantity of active memory, it's how the quality (or what principles, swap comes to mind) gets distributed amongst the bazillion of configurations possible.

I'm waiting for my next computer build to go to 64-bit.  By then I'm hoping most things are compatible - and I'll be actually wanting DDR3 RAM instead of wworrying about the latency issues with it.

I only have 2gb of RAM - but it's running at some insanely high speed I've Oc'd it to, and a quad-core processor (all four cores at 3ghz) so I can't complain about anything.  My only issue is DX10 being locked to Vista, but that's not my computer's fault, is it.

The ram isn't the issue at ALL, people keep on talking about ram, that is a straw man... the ram in 64bit is only an issue if you need 6 or 8GB of ram. Not 4GB.

 

The REAL benefit of 64bit is the vastly improved speed of computation. Certain hash calculations are OVER 300% (300% = 4 times faster) faster in 64bit! And I benchmarked a 7z compression to be 27% faster in 64bit compared to 32bit. (same machine, installed 32 and 64bit versions, compressed the same files with same settings with each one and timed it).

I've been running Vista Ultimate x64 for about 6 months.

I absolutely love it! Will never turn back.

Well it looks like we are ready for the end of the 32 bit age and moving forward to the 1st full release of a only 64 bit windows version in the makings!!!

Yes it is in the makings and I hope it will be ready for testing soon. I believe the world is going to more secure using such softwares and/or OS types of systems. Besides all the problems with people not liking it for the reason of drivers not being written as such yet. Lately this has been changing and things are getting  ready to be very different soon.

64 Bit has so many possibles... the numbers are endless and with a lot of looking at what is to be and not considering what it is now. We are about to look into the new future of computing with this in mind. Just the taste of the 64 bit system is a good thing. 6 years in the makings and we will have what is coming. A system without crashing - easily recovered and backed up completely. Even play those video games we like and work at the sametime too. Like I said endless are the ways you can do things with more at work for you.

I await for the newest ideas for the next OS Windows beyond Windows 7 ...  "Windows 8"!

Er ... incorrect. 64-bit has 2 advantages which are not dependant on the OS: You have twice the registers, and you can (in some cases) do 2 mathematical operations at once, compared to 32-bit. Because of the way modern CPUs are designed, single operations on very large numbers dont really go any faster than before, because the bottleneck there tends to be IO, and that hasnt changed much.

The only problem is, there arent very many applications where this is actually possible. Only specific types of computations really take advantage of this ability to run 2 mathematical operations on different numbers at the same time, and that's mostly the various types of Digital Signal Processing - audio/video (de)compression - and other DSP-like tasks, namely data (de)compression and encryption/decryption, and these are higly dependant on the algorythm used.

This is partly due to compilers (especially on windows, if youre using msvc++, since its fairly horrid and generally lags well behind ICC in compiler evolution), partly due to limitations in the CPUs logic, but mostly down to the reason that makes programming for parallel supercomputers so very hard - its really hard to parallelise serial mathematical tasks.

If you bench Max on a C2D, 32 and 64-bit are almost the same speed. On most things, its within statistical error limits. The gap on AMD processors is a bit larger because differences in architecture penalise 32-bit a little, but that's because of CPU design. Even having twice the registers makes almost no difference on most tasks.

So yes, 7zip will be 25% faster, and so will turning raw video into mpeg4, or compressing a cd into a lossy/lossless codec (though higly dependant on the codec). Everything else however, will be running at the same speed.

If you think this is disappointing, imagine how disappointing it is when you move from a target-compiled 32-bit linux installation to one in 64-bit.
Even though youve compiled all the OS, kernel, drivers and userland for that specific CPU, 99% of tasks will run at the exact same speed, and on top of that, things like flash dont work on 64-bit linux (or at least not easily)

Mac OS X uses a 32 bit kernel but can use much more than 4 GB of memory. (I think it works like Windows 95 did, with 32 bit routines running inside compatibility mode and called when needed.)

I don't have any computers with more than 3 GB of RAM.

I use Vista 64 on my iMac in a VM for compatibility reasons. (At work we use 64 bit servers.)

 

For me, it's all about the RAM. 8GB of RAM is a game changer.

Think how long many of you have been stuck at 2 or 3 gigs.

Quick personal time line:

1992: 8MB

1993: 16MB

1996: 128MB

1999: Windows NT: 256MB

2000: Windows 2000: 512MB

2001: Windows XP: 1GB

2003: Windows XP: 2GB

2008: Windows Vista: 3GB

32bit computing stopped me 5 years ago from expanding my memory. 

It's not just about loading up more "crap" into memory. It's also things like disk caching.  Disk caching used to represent 3/4ths of my memory use from a performance point of view.  On a 32bit machine, it's maybe half at best.

The lack of disk caching is the single biggest limitation in performance today IMO.  I would love to have 16GB right now with 12 of it being disk caching. Talk about a major performance boost, especially when combined with Vista's smart loading features.

I live in a rented flat. Therefor I buy laptops and iMacs rather than towers. Unfortunately Apple limit RAM on iMacs and MacBooks to 4 GB, despite the fact that ever since the G5 Mac OS could support much more memory. (This bugs me. Apple have this actual advantage of an OS that can use more than 4 GB of memory AND 32 bit drivers and they don't use it!)

 

Soor, I assure you my benchmarks are correct, and the also the ones with the hashes (not performed by me, but by reliabily benchmarking sites). 2x the registers plus 2x calculations at once = 4x THEORETICAL maximum performance benfit on a task that really REALLY benefits from those specific tasks.

Show me where I Said that EVERYTHING runs faster. I said the absolute BEST result I have seen was 300% faster. I benchrmarked 7z file compression to be 27% faster, and I have seen tasks that were 0% faster. It varies by task. But the point it, it is usually faster to some degree. And it is a FREE speed boost, all it takes is is putting the disk labeled 64bit in instead of 32bit when you install your OS.

[quote who="Shelbygt_the_Car~!" reply="11" id="1893797"]Well it looks like we are ready for the end of the 32 bit age and moving forward to the 1st full release of a only 64 bit windows version in the makings!!!

Yes it is in the makings and I hope it will be ready for testing soon. I believe the world is going to more secure using such softwares and/or OS types of systems. Besides all the problems with people not liking it for the reason of drivers not being written as such yet. Lately this has been changing and things are getting  ready to be very different soon.

64 Bit has so many possibles... the numbers are endless and with a lot of looking at what is to be and not considering what it is now. We are about to look into the new future of computing with this in mind. Just the taste of the 64 bit system is a good thing. 6 years in the makings and we will have what is coming. A system without crashing - easily recovered and backed up completely. Even play those video games we like and work at the sametime too. Like I said endless are the ways you can do things with more at work for you.

I await for the newest ideas for the next OS Windows beyond Windows 7 ...  "Windows 8"!


[/quote]

So, just doubling the bit-path ends all crashes, etc?

 

What a dreamer.

What ignorance.

What stupidity.

 

I suppose you will be saying the same thing when the first 128-bit or 256-bit CPU/OS hits the market?

The mind is a terrible thing to waste. But your post shows that the wasting is in full swing.

A fiendly discussion of technology need not include attacks of a personal nature.

 

It most certainly DOES support 64bit, and has since v3 was released.  The link for the download is kind of "hidden" on the site, but again, it does support it.

Try here for starters.... http://www.eset.com/download/home-64bit.php

 

Moosetek13: He is probably refering to new stability improvements that made it into the x86_64 standard. 32bit for example had improvements that significantly improved stability compared to 16bit, it has nothing to do with doubling the bit path, but with architectural changes that are possible when you are already making something new.