Re: Question about 64-bit system

Dave Martindale wrote:

But unless you're already doing something that needs more than 2 GB per process, or more
than 3 GB total, you probably don't need a 64-bit OS yet. And as others have pointed out,
there are a number of things that won't work under XP 64.

Dave


There are a couple of other reasons for using 64-bit operating systems. On Solaris x86, which I am running on this laptop, one of the applications is only available as 64-bit.

http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/platforms/

Although 32-bit versions are available for linux, windows and Apple mac, for many other platforms there are no 32-bit versions.

Anyone with an interest in number theory, or have other reasons for using large integers, will find computers can do such calculations much faster if the CPU has more bits. If one wanted to calculate 100 factorial, the result is larger than even a 64-bit number. But the number can be calculated much quicker if the processor supports 64-bit integers.


100!=9332621544394415268169923885626670049071596826438162146859296389521759\
9993229915608941463976156518286253697920827223758251185210916864000000\
000000000000000000

But the number of people interested in such things, or factoring large primes is not huge.

A chess board has 64 squares and some chess programs work by allocating one bit to each square. Chess programs tend to work much better if 64-bit.

But for 99% of people, there is no advantage in 64-bits and very definate disadvantages.

Give it a few years, when a word processor needs 2 GB of RAM and there will be a need for 64-bit operating systems for general use. But there is not now, and there would not be if it was not for software bloat.
.