The road to 64bit computing has started..

[riprjak]

As for standards, its basically just x86 with extra registers and longer words; its already a "standard". Ok, new instructions exist like NX etc... (ok, NX isnt new, its just been reborn on x86 architecture , but the only thing I see holding back 64bit is the mass of 32bit optimised development. Also, since Intel have copied the x86_64 concept, it would seem to be a "standard" of its own now.

 

Hmm you didn't quite read one of my posts. 64 bit needs to stadarsise some things. In AMD's case they need a standard socket, decide which bus they are going to use PCI or PCI Express, and if DDR 2is what they want. As I stated when AMD makes a move to these probably with in the next few months to a year the early adopters get screwed. I mean they have already made the move to socket 939 and said it was their standard now, and PCI express boards if I remember correctly are on the move as we speak. AMD needs to decide what they are going to do and do it. I am not bashing AMD I just want them to hurry up.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

PCI-X and DDR2 will trickle in, as with microsoft and the 32bit burden, there is so much momentum out there that mass manufacture of the "new" standards will lag. I doubt if we will see the death of AGP+PCI motherboards in favour of PCI-X in the near future. If you want to wait for this, it will be the scale of YEARS. For now, if you want PCI-X/DDR2, you will pay more.

 

The problem with moving exclusively to PCI-X is then you have alot of pissed off demographic with their latest "uberl33t" agp graphics card which has become useless. Unfortunately I think that consumer volumes of PCI-X are the chicken and larger volumes of PCI-X graphics cards are the egg.

 

err!

jak.

[riprjak]

It seems odd that win32 is limited to 2GB per app, seems odd not to use or make available PAE addressing.

 

I am not real sure why you see this as odd. All you have to do is take into account the average amount of ram per pc. Now does that mean there aren't people who use more? No not at all but if you take an average it is usually a small percentage of people that need more than that. It was apearantly something Ms felt was a low priority.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

When I say "odd", I mean strange design descision. It is poor form to hardcode limitations into software that dont exist in hardware. PAE (Physical Address Extension) allows a 32bit x86 processor to address 64GB, prior to 64bit x86, this was the only way to enable serious database/content serving on x86 boxes. This feature has existed since Pentium Pro's and it doesnt seem logical for an operating system not to provide access to it. I also fail to understand why windows cant address greater than 2GB for a single app, that seems like nothing more than an arbitrary limit.

 

addendum; according to microsoft.com, windows 2000 allows PAE at boot

"multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 Advanced Server" /PAE /basevideo /sos"

in the "boot.ini" enables this; which Im assuming is the config file for the windows bootloader.

 

err!

jak.

[Dakoth]

When I say "odd", I mean strange design descision. It is poor form to hardcode limitations into software that dont exist in hardware.

 

That is not exacty true I can not count the times I have seen older computers from all the big name manufacturers that have limited the amount of ram per slot. Sometimes as low as 64 MBs with only 2 slots that doesn't make a condusive environment for high amounts of ram. It is much better now but you know as well as I do computers and software are legacy animals, which is probably their biggest problem.

[riprjak]

When I say "odd", I mean strange design descision. It is poor form to hardcode limitations into software that dont exist in hardware.

 

That is not exacty true I can not count the times I have seen older computers from all the big name manufacturers that have limited the amount of ram per slot. Sometimes as low as 64 MBs with only 2 slots that doesn't make a condusive environment for high amounts of ram. It is much better now but you know as well as I do computers and software are legacy animals, which is probably their biggest problem.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hence AMDs brilliant yet flawed descision to make 32 bit capable 64bit chips guarantee that 32bit will be around for at least the next product cycle...

 

We are all chained to history; and IT still hasnt "matured" in that new products are, by and large, significant improvements over their predescessors and appear almost daily. Eventually (perhaps in a couple of hundred years they will settle down and be more like cars and fridges, functional life spans measured in years, not minutes

 

Course, as a compulsive early adopter of technology, I could be considered part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[Dakoth]

PCI-X and DDR2 will trickle in, as with microsoft and the 32bit burden, there is so much momentum out there that mass manufacture of the "new" standards will lag. I doubt if we will see the death of AGP+PCI motherboards in favour of PCI-X in the near future. If you want to wait for this, it will be the scale of YEARS. For now, if you want PCI-X/DDR2, you will pay more.

 

I never meant completely move away from more like the move from sdram to ddr. While sdram was still supported on AMD boards AMD made it clear they had ddr in mind for the future. Now that that future is relised we see few boards with sdram slots. While board manufacturers have said they like both DDR2 and PCI-X they really haven't commited to anything. DDr 2 is wholly dependant on AMD as the memory controller is onboard I wish AMD would get off their but and just say they like it and plan to use it in the future. One good thing is AMD has finally standardised their socket with the 939 socket so all cpus will work in all boards.

[JugglerTheJester]

There was a time when all the game devlopers thought that Glide would be the thing... and then there was Open GL and Direct 'somesuch'. Anyway.. on my old PC I used to buy games thzt my system requirements "met" but never worked really well because they were built for Glide and Glide was scrapped. Or was ment for Open GL, but Open GL was scrapped.

 

Right now there may be 64 bit in the beta... but we don't KNOW for sure which 64 bit standered will become, "The Standered". Sure, Nvidia is top dog now, and I like them A LOT .... but who's to say what tomarrow will bring.

 

I personally fear them going with an untested platform on which to build.

 

Aren't Graphics in games SUPER COOL already? On top of that, I see most people complaining about the game mechanics.. the "rules" of the game so to speak, and the "depth of story". NWNs graphics were not all that hot... they were sub-standerd and the game still rocks.

 

I say let the concentrate on the things that will make us most happy. Which I've heard most people say, "Closer to D&D".. Z-Axis, Climging, Swiming... Clothing and Armor stacking.... A large veriety of Items to chose from... (Like ropes you can climb or balance on)...

 

Will "Dark Vision" actually work like it's supposed to? How about "True Seeing?" And Scrying! (I say go with an invisble magic eye for scrying.. like an invisible famililure...) anyway.... story's with depth...

 

Working on a graphics card & drivers that isn't tried and true could really slow things down. I want better graphics to, but it's not on the top of my list.... it may sound dumb to say it, but it's more like on the bottum of the list... so it's on the list.. just not importaint to me.

 

Well, there's my two bits.

[Dakoth]

What you have to remember is more power more abalities and 64 bit means more power.

[xanas3712]

I don't mind seeing some 64 bit optimizations to the game but I doubt it will be standard, and thus the game won't run much better with them, or worse without them

[ShadowDrakken]

What you have to remember is more power more abalities and 64 bit means more power.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

not true, that's a MAJOR misconception... 64-bit just means more accurate decimals

the boost in power is minimal.

 

the power boost you're seeing in 64-bit CPUs is due to the other aspects of the CPU that they've changed, not because of the extra depth of math

[xanas3712]

What you have to remember is more power more abalities and 64 bit means more power.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

not true, that's a MAJOR misconception... 64-bit just means more accurate decimals

the boost in power is minimal.

 

the power boost you're seeing in 64-bit CPUs is due to the other aspects of the CPU that they've changed, not because of the extra depth of math

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

64 bit means more mathematical precision, but this precision helps speed by being able to work with floating point values faster. Of course, still nowhere near a gpu which is why it's nto that great. I guess if you use software rendering though, you'll get big advantages with those cards in graphics

 

But anyway, the nice thing about 64 bit is that it can access more memory at one time and enables us to have more ram (though higher ram isn't going to be a necessity for awhile either since we can already have like 4 gb).

 

64 bit processors also have "wider" registers making them able to process more data at a time without having to go and fetch from ram again. This could be of use if things were optimized for it.

 

However, this is unlikely considering that 64 bit processors are not at all standard nor will they be in 2 years. When they are they will be better though for some things where all this matters.

 

It's kinda like a processor with extra l2 cache. It will help for some things but not for others.

[ShadowDrakken]

2005 is supposed to be the first consumer CMPs (cell micro-processors) and multi-core processors. I think these will have a greater impact than 64-bit will, and if CMPs are as good as Sony is bragging, then it may spur a "gold rush" in the computer industry where everyone and their mother is buying a new PC

[mkreku]

Does anyone know what other titles besides UT2k4 & Far Cry that support 64-bit at the moment?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I know STALKER will use 64-bit code.. Shadow Ops: Red mercury comes with a 64-bit version. Gaah! I've posted news about some more titles using 64-bit, but they seem to have slipped my mind at the moment.

[riprjak]

What you have to remember is more power more abalities and 64 bit means more power.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

not true, that's a MAJOR misconception... 64-bit just means more accurate decimals

the boost in power is minimal.

 

the power boost you're seeing in 64-bit CPUs is due to the other aspects of the CPU that they've changed, not because of the extra depth of math

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

64 bit means more mathematical precision, but this precision helps speed by being able to work with floating point values faster. Of course, still nowhere near a gpu which is why it's nto that great. I guess if you use software rendering though, you'll get big advantages with those cards in graphics

 

But anyway, the nice thing about 64 bit is that it can access more memory at one time and enables us to have more ram (though higher ram isn't going to be a necessity for awhile either since we can already have like 4 gb).

 

64 bit processors also have "wider" registers making them able to process more data at a time without having to go and fetch from ram again. This could be of use if things were optimized for it.

 

However, this is unlikely considering that 64 bit processors are not at all standard nor will they be in 2 years. When they are they will be better though for some things where all this matters.

 

It's kinda like a processor with extra l2 cache. It will help for some things but not for others.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The simple fact is that 64bit is SLOWER than 32bit as 32bit is SLOWER than 16bit using comparable techniques.

 

Speed increases come from changes in programming techniques to utilise methodologies which were not possible with smaller words. Certainly anything that involves heavy maths, particularly vector ops and matrices, will be sped up significantly due to less passes needed, and additional registers in x86_64 mode compared to x86 mode (amd64) further increase speed of processing, the inclusion of the mmu and agpgart on the CPU help to by reducing system overhead and latency.

 

The real advantages of 64bit, beyond the low hanging fruit of encryption/media encoding, are a few years away at least. Programmers have to get used to optimising for 64bit. Indeed, until 32bit ix86 is obsolete, we are unlikely to see significant speed increases at all.

 

err!

jak

[Judge Hades]

SPeed, accuracy, and all that jazz is irrelevant. Speak to me about costs. All I care about is the bottomline and how much will it cost me to upgrade and will it be worth it to upgrade. If not, then 64 bit is worthless.

[ieya]

You need more than 4GB of ram in your desktop system then do you??

Well, once you stick all the NWN stuff in a RAMdisk ...

[ieya]

Hence AMDs brilliant yet flawed descision to make 32 bit capable 64bit chips guarantee that 32bit will be around for at least the next product cycle...

I'd hardly call it a flawed decision.

 

The alternative, to produce a pure 64-bit processor, was done by Intel with the Itanic .. I mean, Itanium.

 

Which hasn't exactly sold like hot cakes.

[xanas3712]

SPeed, accuracy, and all that jazz is irrelevant.  Speak to me about costs.  All I care about is the bottomline and how much will it cost me to upgrade and will it be worth it to upgrade.  If not, then 64 bit is worthless.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

64 bit will be worthless for a long time, but the processors that use it have several other enhancements that make them significantly better than their predecessors. So all things being equal it's still worth upgrading just as much (though not more so) as it ever has been.

[Dakoth]

This one is fir Hades One this is a local computer parts retailer in the area I live in. Now that you have seen some prices you make the call AMD 64 or Intell Pentium 4.

 

Computer World

[Serious Callers Only]

The only thing that looks important in 64 bits right now is the enhanced register set. Programs compiled specificaly for use with 64 bit processors are quite likely to be faster because of that. That is also why its kind of useless for a non-opensource programs, since most produts are going to be sold to the 32 bit crowd.

[Child of Flame]

There have always been 64 bit OS's normally for servers though, as was stated because of that there are very few drivers for them.  Once again everyone talks as if 64 bit computing is something completely new.

 

Secondly what I read was that longhorn is scheduled for a 2005 release and will use true 64 bit computing.(also I have never heard of 64 bit XP)

 

When I said standards that is because people like AMD need to make upgrades easier.  People who bought the original 64 bit chips are screwed when the move to PCI express and DDR 2 come down the line.  All new boards that support AMD 64  will be socket 939 meaning no swapping an old board for a new one with out a new proc.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Which is exactly why I'm waiting as long as geekly possible to upgrade. If all goes well, it'll be around June next year when I have a real job.