Windows 7 32-bit vs 64-bit Performance?

[Csanyik Roland]

Because MS knows that hardware manufacturers and programmers are not ready (or don't care about) for 64 bit. It's very dissapointing when you plug in your webcamera or printer or whatever stuff you have and there's no way to find a 64 bit driver for it. 64 bit is faster only IF you use 64 bit programs on 64 bit OS. And common programs don't have 64 bit releases. The personal, home user doesn't need 64 bit, they need a fast relaible OS and computer, and that's not what 64 bit always gives you. And let's say you use your pc for home , personal usage, movies, some games, music... what's the point of 64 bit then?? most of programs will run in 32 bit mode anyway, that you use, like msn, winamp, media player (oh there's 64 bit of wmp wow that's cool!!! for what??? nobody knows... security reasons??? yeah.. of course:D if someone wants to find you, you can't hide ) :D

Well, this got pretty long.. :D

[hdood]

How does it surprise you when there is still 32-bit hardware out there (even current hardware like the mobile Intel Atom range), and plenty of customers are still using solutions that only work on a 32-bit OS (because of drivers, or because they interface directly with the OS, or because they're 16-bit)?

Microsoft would only lose by dropping 32-bit support. Microsoft exists solely to make as much money as possible and that means not excluding potential customers.

(oh there's 64 bit of wmp wow that's cool!!! for what??? nobody knows... security reasons??? yeah.. of course:D if someone wants to find you, you can't hide ) :D

Because Windows also has a 64-bit media framework and ships with 64-bit codecs for Windows Media and most MPEG formats. Technically, if there was a 64-bit version of Haali Media Splitter, you could play pretty much everything out there in the 64-bit WMP without any additional codecs and without the overhead of WOW emulation. You'd also get any performance benefits the 64-bit codecs might have.

[+SOOPRcow MVC]

Why is it that so many people think that the only major advantage to a 64bit OS is support for more ram? The processor also has 8 more registers (x86-64) for a total of 16 making it possible for the CPU to store more variables locally (less memory swapping). There are also double the amount of SSE registers (again 8 to 16). Then there is the increased security features talked about in this thread which can be further explained here.

So yeah, there are plenty of other reasons why a 64bit OS other then an increase in the amount of accessible memory so please stop spouting off that its the only reason or that it is even the biggest reason.

[ToneKnee]

Such as?

I've been corrected by hdood. :p

@hdood

I'd have to disagree with that notion about Microsoft. It's correct that they are in it for money, like nearly every single other company out there, but at the end of the day, 32-bit applications are mostly supported by Microsoft 64-bit anyways. The reason why there isn't a huge push is because this isn't the transition from 16-bit to 32-bit where we needed to move because 16-bit was so limited. It's only been the last couple of years when it's been realised that 32-bit can be limiting because companies are putting 4GB's memory into Laptops and Computers. OEM/System builders will have to use 64-bit if they want to utilise more memory. And it's true that native 64-bit applications can get performance gains as stated by someone else in this thread.

There are new ways how computers are being speeded up these days, multi-core processors are one of the majour pushes at the moment because it can really make a performance improvement. Also, even with applications/games which can address more than 2GB's of RAM, I read that it was only possible if you run a Operating System which is 64-bit rather than 32-bit. The reason why some games/programs are large address aware is because, when they get near that 2GB mark, they become unstable, so by making it large address aware in a 64-bit environment, the memory increase can go up a little more to fix that stability problem. Though, I'm not a programmer, so I'm not entirely sure I'm correct when saying that.

[Udedenkz]

The thing about this issue, Yes 64-bit advantage is a lot more memory (although M$ could have expanded the amount of supported memory for 32-bit home systems like they do with their servers), but what bothers me is that M$ has not shown a significant performance boost of running a 64-bit system over a 32-bit one - just running the system (The OS speed is not really improved...) - not apps - 7-Zip x64 is nicely faster for example than its 32-bit counterpart. Or is it just me?