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Richard Fish wrote: |
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> On 9/18/06, Grant <emailgrant@×××××.com> wrote: |
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>> I'm putting together a new system and I'm considering going 64-bit. |
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>> Is the benefit of such a system pretty much speed? What are the |
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>> drawbacks of using a 64-bit system with Gentoo? |
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> |
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> You'll only notice a speed increase with applications that need to |
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> caculate very large numbers, like encryption keys and certain |
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> scientific apps. Everything else will basically run just as fast in |
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> 32-bit mode as it will in 64-bit. There are exceptions in certain |
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> media encoders that don't have hardware optimizations for 64-bit, that |
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> may actually run faster as 32-bit apps. |
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Applications compiled in 64-bit mode can address larger blocks of memory |
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without paging. Memory intensive applications can greatly benefit from |
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this. Another minor difference is that chess engines based upon |
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bitboards (i.e. Crafty and GnuChess), when compiled in 64-bit mode will |
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perform much faster due to the fact that an entire board representation |
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fits into a single WORD. On 32-bit systems, such a board is split |
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between two words and there is overhead with juggling this deficit. |
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Tom Veldhouse |
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-- |
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