32-bit vs. 64 bit explaination

I'm not very computer literate, but can someone please explain to me the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit and what these 2 things mean?

Thanks.

 

I have alot of information littered about in my various post and have even conducted performance benchmarks between the two.

In short tho what your asking can be answered as folows:

32bit is a 32bit runtime, this is what standard users use, however 64bit is avalible now if you use a 64bit cpu and operating system.

Is there any significant advantage or disadvantage?

Well I'll just sort off toss it into a pro/con comparison.

x64 vs x86

Pros:
> Allows the use of more than 3gb of ram inside windows given all other hardware requirments are met.

> Allows use of native 64bit applications, wich CAN be faster than 32bit but in general its give and take some things are faster, others slower so in the end its about equal.

> Protection of kernal mode, wich means increased security for your computer.

Cons:

> Protection of kernal mode, wich means harder to install certian 3rd party drivers

> Allows use of native 64bit applications, wich CAN be faster than 32bit but in general its give and take some things are faster, others slower so in the end its about equal.

> In general more incompatabilities, you need somtimes x64 drivers to run things, however support is not nearly as bad as most have made it out to be, there is only a very few things that I cant get to work on x64 that work in x86.

 

It really refers to the addressability. In theory, 32 bit can address roughly 2**32 bytes, or 4GB. 64 bit can address roughly 2**64 bytes. I say theoretically because...

BTW, 64 bit has been around on mainframes since around the turn of the last century.

 

Well, I ordered a Inpsiron 1520 (Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz, 2gig ram, geforce 8600 gt) with Vista Business and was mainly wondering if it was going to be 32-bit or 64-bit?

Do I really need to worry if it is 32-bit or 64-bit?

Also( dumb question), does Vista Business run on 1 processor, or will it run on both of them?

 

It will utilize both cores.

 

I just got a new system. per your last post, now i have a question. so my 32 bit OS doesnt utilize my x6800 cpu? i know my 4th gig of ram isnt being utilized yet really because i chose XP, but i know the 4th gig is probably being used in the bios for good measure. i chose XP for the SLI,game,and application stability.

 

Doesn't fully utilize your 64-bit CPU, yes, that is true. What 64-bit gives you is the potential to run 64-bit programs, which if coded properly could be faster than a similar 32-bit program. But you have to have the program first, which right now, is not the case. So you have nothing to worry about, you are using the best application available for the CPU. So in a way you are utilizing your CPU to its full potential.

Your BIOS isn't using the memory. Right now, frankly, you're just wasting the extra memory. But worry not, it'll be useful later when/if you upgrade your machine to use 64-bit OS. Later...hehehhe

 

Some applications will show a slight increase/decrease in speed while using 64bit operating system. It can utilise a huge amount memory that no personal computers have now.

 

Would it be worth it to go ahead and install 64 bit vista premium? noted that it would use all 4 gigs of memory, but isnt it a gaff? Say - Vista requires more minimum system RAM because of its advanced nature, whereas XP requires less RAM to run smooth because its older technology. XP utilizes 3 gigs and requires less, and vista recognizes my 4th gig but requires more to run. So doesnt it break even? Also- If i upgraded to such an OS, would I be constantly aggravated from software and compatability issues playing games? Let me hear everyones opinion on this.

 

Sorry for double post. I forgot to re-cap on my unanswered question. I use a core2 x6800. with 32bit XP pro, am I utilizing both cores?

 

I'd stick with XP for the moment. Vista is still in its infancy. 32 bit data does have a lower resolution than 64 bit data but it takes a longer time to transfer 64bit data.

As for RAM issues, if you aren't going to be running a million programs simultaneously you really don't need 4GB. 2GB should be fine..especially for XP which hardly ever goes above 1.5 GB.

 

My primary OS is Vista Ultimate x64, I like it, I use 3gb on my notebook and 2gb on my desktop and both do fine.

I still have xp on both tho as a boot option incase I want to play an older game that wont play nice with vista. So far I have no hardware that wont work with vista tho. Infact my webcam works better in vista than it does xp.

 

is it true games are running 20% slower i vista then xp?

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/index.html
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2097026,00.asp

 

In computer science/engineering/programming, there's a construct called an integer that has a specific range of values depending on the architecture of the system.

On many microprocessors and in operating systems in the old days, the architecture has been 16-bit, meaning that integers take up 16-bits of space, or 2 bytes. Since everything is binary, that means that it can only take on 2^16 values. Also, because integers serve as pointers to memory locations, that means it can only address up to 2^16 bytes. The processor is also natively capable of manipulating and working with these 16-bit integers.

Now, if you're using a 32-bit operating system, regardless of whether you're on a 32-bit or 64-bit architecture, that means your integer size will be 4 bytes, and you will be using 4 bytes to address memory. 2^32 is approximately 4 billion, which translates to the maximum 4GB address range for a 32-bit operating system (you will not see all of it because the operating system needs to reserve a chunk of memory to keep track of system level interactions). The processor is, like in the 16-bit example, capable of natively working with these 32-bit integers. 64-bit integers are supported, but they are basically handled in software and require more overhead, as the processor does not handle it natively.

A 64-bit operating system and arch will have integers that can natively take on 2^64 values, and the processor can work with these much larger numbers natively. The size of an integer is now 8 bytes, and since integers are used for memory addressing, you can now address up to 2^64 locations...think 4 billion squared.

The difference is mainly in implementation, so you may or may not experience different speeds depending on the application. If you are doing things that work extensively with 8 byte numbers, then you will more likely than not see an increase in performance.

 

What things would use 8 byte numbers? What things would use 4 byte?

 

Since everything is binary, 0's or 1's, you can only represent integers as a sum of powers of 2. For example, for an 8-bit (1 byte) unsigned integer, the numbers can range from 0 to 255. If it's signed, it can range from -128 to 127 (assuming two's complement). Adding more bytes, usually to a power of two (hence 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, etc.) allows you to increase that range.

Graphics processors, I would assume, use them very often because it's a nice way to make approximations since you're saying all these numbers have to be integers. Software such as MATLAB can benefit tremendously from 64-bit computing (see WinXP 64-bit edition + MATLAB reviews if you come across them). Programs that heavily use signal processing filters may see some gains from it (such as Photoshop or ffdshow).

Any application that needs a wider range than 0 to 4294967295 for unsigned int (32-bit) or -2147483648 to 2147483647 [signed] int (32-bit) should use long long, which is a 64-bit integer. I'm sure there's somewhere in the libraries that are compiled against that checks if the machine on application run-time to make sure that it doesn't do something stupid like emulate 64-bit integers when you have a 64-bit operating system. If not, well...blame the C standard library.

 

basically, things like photoshop, graphics (games), etc will see some* performance increases just from using a 64bit processor and a 64bit operating system (over a 32 bit operating system matched with either type of processor) - even if both systems have say 2 GB of ram.

no word on how much. probably varies widely. some specific applications might see large increases, average increase is more likely something like 5-10% perhaps?

 

I got Vista Ultimate for my new laptop (which I ordered sans OS) because I could get it for $11 through my school, but it turns out they only offer the 32-bit edition.

So my question is basically this: Which would you choose?
$97 64-bit Home Premium or $11 32-bit Ultimate?

 

There's no reason to get Vista Ultimate, unless you really have that much of a need for eyecandy. Look at the list they provide on microsoft.com...if you're really using your computer for your computer, and not for the extras they put in Vista, you should probably just stick with 64-bit Basic.

 

Basic?! No No No.

Use XP and get WindowsBlind for less than $99 for an upgrade to Basic from XP.

 

Yes, you are using both cores. If you look at the performance tab of your task manager, you should see two CPU graphs.

As for the reason you aren't seeing the other 1GB of RAM, it's because of your graphics card, hard drives, and other hardware in your computer. The computer needs to send data to those devices somehow, and it does it through memory addresses. Traditionally, those have been at the high end of the 4GB of addressable space with a 32bit processor, so a 512MB graphics card would take up something like the space from 3.5GB to 4GB. With a 64bit processor, it's nowhere near the limits, so you can use the 4GB of RAM for the system, and still have addresses available for all your hardware.

 

No, my implied point was that if you are going to need/want 64-bit processing, you are going off the deep end by installing Windows XP 64-bit, since a lot of companies are very stubborn and unwilling to release drivers for XP 64. XP 64 does not support the 32-bit drivers.

 

We'll have to wait till Windows "7" for more 64bit evolution.

 

There isn't too much a typical user can do on a computer that will need 4 gigs of RAM. This will become more important when quad or more core processors eventually become common. Right now, it's just unused RAM. Heck, I only have 1 Gig and I've never even come close to using it all when things are running on my Acer laptop. I run XP Media Center Edition on it, on half of the hard drive, and a 64-bit AMD64 version of Linux on the other half. I've also run the exact same Linux distro in 32-bit version, and I don't really think it makes any visible difference. There's no rush to move to a 64-bit world quite yet, since most software isn't 64 bits anyway. Subjectively, I think the AMD64 version might seem a little snappier, but it could be my imagination. The AMD64 processors do take advantage of some other slight improvements besides the 64-bit addressing when used in that mode. Right now, I wouldn't be willing to pay for a 64-bit OS (well, probably never now that I know how well Linux has progressed since I last used it).

 

If you're not a developer, you won't appreciate the amount of memory available to you. If you are one, feel free to malloc as much as you want to, the heap is there for the taking.

 

The difference between a 32bit and a 64bit is compared to a 16 lane highway instead of 8 lanes. More lanes equals faster information to take place. The problem is that developers hasn't upgraded their software/hardwares to take advantage of x64 configuration. Microsoft provided the codes but it hasn't been taken seriously and thus a stalemate. Developers say that not a lot of users will use x64 and so it's a standstill. There's an article on CNET regarding this matter.

 

An interesting article. http://64-bit-computers.com/windows-vista-32-bit-vs-64-bit-benchmark.html

I would imagine that if you have a core 2 duo processor which offers 64 bit proccessing, you would want to get an os/ programs that match. I think the time is close enough to care about the difference as it will only get more and more important over the next couple years.