64bit is ready for mainstream, says Microsoft

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gaganjain

gaganjain

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In a recent post over at the Windows Vista blog Microsoft's Chris Flores has stated that the 64bit market is ready to go mainstream with proof of that coming from the latest Vista stats gathered through Windows Update. As reported, the installed base of the 64bit version of Vista, as a percentage of all Vista systems, has tripled in the United States in the last three months.

Moreover, Vista 64bit is currently experiencing a growth that surpasses that of the 32bit version thus signaling that more and more people upgrading to Vista go for the 64bit version. With DDR2 being pretty low, a lot of users choose to equip their PCs with 4GB of RAM and go for Windows Vista 64bit in order to be able to use the full memory amount and even though 64bit-optimized apps aren't as common as they should, they can safely use 32bit software with Vista's built-in emulator. We're not in a 64bit (consumer) world yet but we're picking up speed to get there.
64bit is ready for mainstream, says Microsoft
 
agreed... i hope eventually when the time comes for the Windows 7 launch they make it 64 bit only...of course it could have "WOW" to support running of older 32 bit apps
 
KingKrool said:
^^Won't happen because OEMs like Dell refuse to support 64 bit.
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why not?

thats the current status right? what about a few years from now?

ps-which dept/division are you working in?
 
praka123 said:
the main problem with 64-bit currently is lack of support for flash etc plugins. :|
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what crap?

i use 64 bit windows. hve been using for the past 12 months. never had a SINGLE problem whatsoever with driver support/software compatibility
 
I dont see why it wont be embraced by oem's pretty soon, with most systems now coming out with 4gb memory 64bit will be main stream sooner then we think! And I hate 3gb configs! :P
 
i_max2k2 said:
I dont see why it wont be embraced by oem's pretty soon, with most systems now coming out with 4gb memory 64bit will be main stream sooner then we think! And I hate 3gb configs! :P
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gotta start loving them sooner rather than later.. Triple channel baby :ohyeah:
 
@stklar :

I meant for 64-bit OS's .not with windows. In 64-bit linux(ubuntu,fedora or whatever) ,you need nspluginwrapper setup to enable flash9 to run.tedious task until adobe releases a 64-bit flash version.
 
praka123 said:
@stklar :

I meant for 64-bit OS's .not with windows. In 64-bit linux(ubuntu,fedora or whatever) ,you need nspluginwrapper setup to enable flash9 to run.tedious task until adobe releases a 64-bit flash version.
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bah.. *nix.. who cares..

ps-j/k lets not start another os war :P
 
We'll leave out where I work since I'm not really showing any inside knowledge off here. My point was only that Dell does not currently support 64 bit Vista at all (in the consumer segment anyway, they'll gladly sell you a 64 bit Server 2k8). They wouldn't be able to shift to 64 bit only in a couple of years. This is true of some other OEMs too. There are OEMs who do currently support 64 bit Vista, and they would be better placed to do so.

Frankly, if I were an OEM I'd definitely choose 64 bits. Why? Because I can then sell more memory AND it is much stabler. Much more secure. Most warranty support on these systems is people calling in because a virus deleted some program or the other, or they loaded some crappy driver. x64 has better defenses (patchguard is a work of beauty) against unsigned driver loading attempts and kernel exploits. Why not take advantage of it?
 
I'm pissed by the fact that apps don't make use of 64-bits, other than to access more ram. e.g. for 3d renderings - using 32-bit or 64bit 3ds max doesn't make any difference in render times.
 
And why would it? What does 64 bit have to do with render times? Unless you claim that 64 bit integers are a common calculation, there is no reason why there would be any speed improvement.

Of course it is not as simple as that, but the other improvements in the instruction set are not that likely to bring about massive speed improvement.
 
KingKrool said:
Of course it is not as simple as that, but the other improvements in the instruction set are not that likely to bring about massive speed improvement.
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So why bother with 64 bit then.

The shift from 16 to 32 was much bigger back in the day, but i'm not getting why 64 is so great.

There has to be more to it than just security.
 
They've added a large number of registers for one. That is a big improvement, but it mostly makes the lives of compiler writers / assembly coders easier.

If you have a point other than "there must be something", let me know. It will be fun to know what people think 64 bits really mean.
 
sTALKEr said:
gotta start loving them sooner rather than later.. Triple channel baby :ohyeah:
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I smell you :P , but the 3gb I'm talking about is sold as 1gb+2gb sticks :( , and yea tri channel would be 2x3 slots I would guess.:ohyeah:
 
KingKrool said:
They've added a large number of registers for one. That is a big improvement, but it mostly makes the lives of compiler writers / assembly coders easier.
If you have a point other than "there must be something", let me know. It will be fun to know what people think 64 bits really mean.
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I'd always assumed that 64-bit integers would mean a big leap in performance :(
 
KingKrool said:
If you have a point other than "there must be something", let me know. It will be fun to know what people think 64 bits really mean.
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All i 'get' from 64bits is you can use more memory. Period!

Useful for a server but maybe overkill for a desktop.

Course that never stopped them introducing more bloated software to make use of it and deprecating the older stuff.

If you're an end user there is no real pressing reason to go for it, at the moment.
 
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