The Layman?s Guide to 64-Bit

Not exactly the correct question. The notebook itself is 64bit capable. What determines after that is OS. So if you get with 64bit OS it will be 64bit. If you get with the standard then 32bit is what it will be.

 

thank you i understand it better now

 

I have a rather silly question.

The memory that isn't used by the RAM will be used for 'other processes', right?

So if I have an integrated gfx card that leeches off my memory, and a 32-bit system... and I upgrade the RAM to 4gb... Does that mean that my gfx card will perform on par with those that have dedicated memory?

 

It will not be used and no it will not perform on par with dedicated.

Point one what it can not see it can not use it might as well not be there.

Point two, system RAM just lacks the bandwidth of dedicated that is one of the main reasons for IGP sub par performance. 8400m GS bandwidth 9.6GB/s PC5300 about 10.4GB/s (Dual Channel) but must share with CPU and that sharing kills bandwidth to GPU.

 

Ok, please forgive me for not understanding all this. I honestly did read most of this thread, hoping to answer my own question, but it's still a little foreign to me.

I just ordered a Studio 1535, Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 w/ Windows Vista Home Premium. I intended on reformatting/reinstalling Windows when I receive it. Will the Windows disc Dell (hopefully) provides allow me to choose 32 OR 64-bit, or are they completely different Vista products?

 

Like 32bit can only use till 3g ram
how much can the 64bit comp use ?
cos the coming with 8g ram now days
so is it worth getting the 8g ram ?
thxs

 

So then which would be better to go with, if considering that no later upgrading would be done: Go 32bit, with 3gigRAM, but a card, like the 256MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 3650, which has it's own memory, right? Or get 64bit, with 4gigRAM, but has Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, integrated?

The only program that I will use, that will be RAM hungry would be Photoshop, and I think CS4 that is coming out, will support 64bit. But with all the other hangups, and since the 64bit version of the laptop I want comes with integrated card, but the 32bit version comes with the better vid card, which would you suggest? Seems like about even?

 

I'm just wondering why computer games would need to use doubles. You wouldn't think they would need that many decimal digits.

floats are 32 bits, which gives you 7 decimal digits. (5.6809326)

doubles are 64 bits, which gives you 15 decimal digits. (5.680932603814585)

Why the need for such precision? This is a video game. Usually you want to avoid the need for this kind of precision, and do what is "just good enough".

 

Nope, the memory that isn't used by RAM doesn't exist, since RAM *IS* your memory.
The memory *addresses*, or the parts of the CPU's memory space, which aren't used for RAM, are what you meant, and yes, those addresses can be used to point to "something else" such as GPU memory.

But this is only a matter of what each address points to, it doesn't affect where the memory is physically located or how fast access to it is.

As said above, a system with integrated GPU will use system RAM for GPU memory, and system RAM is a lot slower than dedicated GPU RAM, has lower bandwidth, and is shared with everything else.

A 32-bit CPU uses a memory space of 2^32 bytes, or 4GB.
A 64-bit CPU uses a memory space of 2^64 bytes = 16 exabytes. (1 exabyte = 1 billion gigabytes)

That's how much the CPU can see. Other factors can limit this further, and modern chipsets can only handle somewhere between 8 and 64GB typically. The OS might also be limited to only using X GB of RAM. But most 64-bit systems should be able to work with 8GB RAM, at least, but you'll only benefit from this if you have enough data to put in all that memory. If everything fits in the first 4GB, you won't gain anything by adding 4GB more.

Games usually *do* use floats for almost everything, for exactly the reason you said. But sometimes, you may need greater precision, either for complex computations (because the precision loss accumulates so after a sequence of computations, you end up with a hopelessly inaccurate result, or just because you need to represent a larger area, say, an entire planet. You need more than 7 decimal digits to do that with decent precision)

 

Are there any popular applications that cannot run on a 64bit OS?

 

Wow, a useful post from Lithus for a change. (You should know I'm just kidding ).

 

I would like to know this too Plz



Also is it be better to wait
till Vista SP2 will be out so more
drivers will be updated ?


& 64bit will run better

 

Great guide answered some of my questions

 

I'm sure there are specific business applications that don't run on Vista x64. I cannot think of any popular applications off the top of my head that don't run on Vista x64, though I'm sure there may be some. If you're worried about a particular/specific application, I would look it up using Google.

One program of note that doesn't work on Linux x64 is Adobe Flash.

 

NHC doesn't work in Vista 64. 32-bit apps that need to install a driver won't work in a 64-bit OS.

Apart from that, there isn't any software I've come across that doesn't run in Vista 64.

 

Good post man. Good info in this thread overall.
What I want to know is, where can I read the unicorn vs horse thread???

 

I need a software, which will allow me to
keep My work files (excel, etc)
in a Folder with a Password

on the desktop, so even if Friends
use my Laptop, i dont need to worry if
they are going through my Folders

Cos im getting 64bit Laptop, would like to know
if theres a software to do that
Please Help

 

I'm sure there is software like that, but I do not know which...

 

google.com/search?q=lock+windows+folders

 

unicorn vs horse.... i searched for it and cannot find it

 

Thankyou so much
God Bless You