Windows Beta 2

[metadigital]

That's the only thing, isn't it? "

[Judge Hades]

Oh, I am sure there is more. Direct X 10 is supposed to be a part of Vista.

 

Hmmm... In any case I will see how it goes soon enough.

[angshuman]

So, what's Vista suppose to improve exactly?

One thing that I'm really looking forward to is its promised focus on limited user accounts. Personally, I have always used Limited accounts on my Windows machine, and I have never faced any virus or security problems (obviously). However, switching to Admin mode on XP for administrative and installation tasks is a big hassle. It's not as easy as doing a "sudo" on a Linux system.

 

Bulk of the reason for the perceived security vulnerability of Windows platforms is the fact that Limited accounts are inconvenient AND under-advertised to the average user. Several applications flat-out refuse to function under non-Admin mode (Far Cry), and many others bitch and crib (NWN). Therefore, most people end up running their systems as Administrators. Can you imagine running a Linux system exclusively as root?

 

Well, Vista's supposed to fix all that. My understanding is that it will not only make sure all application programs are able to execute with limited privileges, but also provide nice hooks to quickly switch to Admin mode for common administrative tasks (a.k.a. "sudo"). I've also heard that the Terminal/Shell is a lot more feature-rich, unlike the god-awful afterthought-ish Command Prompt that has been a staple of all Windows distributions till date.

[jaguars4ever]

A fern is what a fern does.

 

I have decided to download the 64bit version since I have a 64 bit processor.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I too have a 64-bit processor, Hades. But will any of our software/games run faster even though the source code of said software/games is not coded to take advantage of 64-bit tech?

[metadigital]

Windows should be more stable in 64bit mode, as it is written in 64bit with multiple threads.

 

Other apps will just run in 32bit mode, until updated 64bit versions are released.

[angshuman]

A fern is what a fern does.

 

I have decided to download the 64bit version since I have a 64 bit processor.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I too have a 64-bit processor, Hades. But will any of our software/games run faster even though the source code of said software/games is not coded to take advantage of 64-bit tech?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Nope.

[taks]

even when the software IS coded to take advantage of 64-bit technology it won't necessarily run faster. the primary improvement is resolution in results. if anything, 64-bit will be comparitively slower, actually, since the data bandwidth requirements will immediately double.

 

taks

[Judge Hades]

Well, the download is complete. Now I need a blank DVD. Um... can anyone lend me the money for one. I'm kind of broke.

[alanschu]

even when the software IS coded to take advantage of 64-bit technology it won't necessarily run faster. the primary improvement is resolution in results. if anything, 64-bit will be comparitively slower, actually, since the data bandwidth requirements will immediately double.

 

taks

 

Though things like SIMDs have more bits to perform multple instructions with.

 

 

The biggest advantage IMO is memory.

Edited June 9, 2006 by alanschu

[Judge Hades]

It is said that Vista will make better use of larger RAM and make good use of Flash RAM. That remains to be seen.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I remember me and Ender bashing Vista because of cruddy OpenGl support, but what game uses openGL now?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Anything Carmack related it seems.

 

I know NWN was OpenGL. Though I believe Carmack himself is impressed with the improvements DirectX had made.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

The chief reason why Carmack stays with OpenGL is that it is infact multi-platform whereas DirectX is strictly limited to windows systems.

 

This is one of the reasons behind why there will be no Linux version of NWN2.

 

 

( and as a graphics whore/artist extraordinaire, I still think the D3 engine is extremely impressive )

[LadyCrimson]

I'm still getting used to XPPro. I won't be switching anytime soon...and by that I mean years.

 

But it's nice of Hades to be a guinea pig for the rest of us. If he can find the change for a DVD that is. Look under the couch yet? "

[alanschu]

It is said that Vista will make better use of larger RAM and make good use of Flash RAM.  That remains to be seen.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

You don't think programs will every consistently use more than 4 GB of RAM?

[Judge Hades]

Don't know much about it to tell the truth. I know how to put stuff in the computer and fiddle around with connections and drivers but the whys and hows are completely above my head and between my knees.

[alanschu]

32-bits = 2^32 which is roughly 4 billion or 4,000,000,000 unique numbers, which means you can easily jump to 4 billion different bytes in memory. 64-bits = 2^64 which is roughly 18,000,000,000,000,000,000. Assuming we still use bytes as our smallest unit (which I don't think will ever really change), that's about 18 ExaBytes (18 EB) of data that can be addressed in main memory.

Edited June 9, 2006 by alanschu

[Judge Hades]

Whoa.

[metadigital]

Just the thing for latest GPU and PPUs!

[Dark_Raven]

Really?

[metadigital]

Yes!

 

We'll have enough physics processing to CONTROL THE EARTH'S WEATHER! Like in Superman 3, with Richard Prior!

[Judge Hades]

[alanschu]

Errr, there's also no reason why databandwidths would necessarily immediately double.

 

Much of the instructions a CPU deals with doesn't even need to leave the die itself.

 

I'm pretty sure memory already has a 64-bit interface. Or did it go up to 72 with the new DIMMS?

 

The only place I can see there being a cause for a large bandwidth requirement is if everything suddenly needed 64-bit blocks. I imagine that a word of memory will move up to 8 bytes. But not everything is word aligned. Loading in a string will be faster, because it can read in twice as many characters. But you're still going to need to read in the whole string even in current 32-bit systems, so it's not like there's any real bandwidth savings there.

[angshuman]

Errr, there's also no reason why databandwidths would necessarily immediately double.

 

Much of the instructions a CPU deals with doesn't even need to leave the die itself.

 

I'm pretty sure memory already has a 64-bit interface.  Or did it go up to 72 with the new DIMMS?

 

The only place I can see there being a cause for a large bandwidth requirement is if everything suddenly needed 64-bit blocks.  I imagine that a word of memory will move up to 8 bytes.  But not everything is word aligned.  Loading in a string will be faster, because it can read in twice as many characters.  But you're still going to need to read in the whole string even in current 32-bit systems, so it's not like there's any real bandwidth savings there.

While the application-perceived Virtual Address space is 64 bits, the actual Physical Addresses that go out to DRAMs are 48 bits wide. Data Bandwidth however, is a different issue. Off-chip bandwidth used to be, and still is, 128 bits from the CPU to the DRAM system. This is exactly equal to the block size of the on-chip L2 cache.

 

On-chip, Intel and AMD have different cache configurations. I'm not sure about the bus widths and block sizes used between the cores and caches. Within the cores themselves, different ALUs (Integer, x87, SSE etc.) and their associated bypass networks have different Operand, Result and Bypass bus widths. My guess is that on the newest microarchitectures, the Integer networks are all 64 bits wide, but I'm not sure if this was the case on Intel's first few tacked-on 64-bit implementations.

[alanschu]

Could you get a link of stuff such as the DRAM interface (wherever you learned about it being 48-bits)

 

This is news to me and I'd like to read up on it.

[angshuman]

Doh... slight mixup... In past and current AMD and Intel implementations, Virtual Address is 48 bits wide and Physical is 40 bits. Other integer operations are full 64 bits. Intel's newest implementations (beginning from Yonah and Conroe, I believe), will have a full 64-bit Virtual Address, but the Physical Address will remain 40 bits wide.

 

References: Intel, AMD.

 

I'm pretty sure the off-chip Data bus is 128 bits wide. This and Physical Address width are limited by pin count, something that is not easy to expand.

[alanschu]

That would explain why some quick looking around had the latest DIMMs at 72-bit, since they have more pins.

 

Thanks!