Filed under: Blogging
Now that we have Office, will 64-bit apps finally become more common?
Six years is a pretty long time in computer terms. My tower at work is now equipped with eight times as much memory, 50 times more capacity on its hard drive, and four processor cores instead of one. All those improvements, and yet I'm still stuck running primarily 32-bit applications on it.
What a waste. Perhaps now there's a light and the end of the tunnel.
I was thrilled when Adobe decided to release an x64 build of CS4 for Windows. Days ago I installed the Office 2010 technical preview - also a native 64-bit version. With two of the most prominent commercial application suites making the jump, maybe we're finally going to see more widespread development of 64-bit apps.
Can you imagine our systems not taking advantage of other hardware technology that's been around for six years - like SATA or 802.11g wireless, for example? It just doesn't make any sense, does it?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
r3loaded said 11:18AM on 5-18-2009
The reason has been partly sheer laziness - why compile to x64 code when the 32-bit code works fine? Of course, this has knock-on effects - the example in my mind is Adobe Flash. Adobe have been dragging their heels on 64-bit Flash, meaning that native 64-bit builds of IE/Firefox/Chrome are MIA as no significant plug-in is 64-bit.
Good thing that Microsoft tries to push things around, first with XP 64-bit, and now with Office 2010.
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Jon said 12:03PM on 5-18-2009
Silly screen shot .. 64x with 2 GB of RAM ... Might be better off 86x
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Lee Mathews said 12:31PM on 5-18-2009
I've got another 2gb sodimm ready to drop in, I just haven't busted out the screwdriver yet. ;)
Also, it's tricky to test Office 2010 x64 on an x86 install.
Drew Green said 1:34PM on 5-18-2009
I don't think x64 is going to take off for a while, still. Vista's memory usage forced me to upgrade to x64, but now that 7 is about to drop, and the resource usage is much lower, 4gb RAM will still be uncommon for average users. I read somewhere that if you have less than 3gb RAM, you actually get WORSE performance with x64 than with x86.
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dlfretz said 1:56PM on 5-18-2009
I installed 12 GB to my Intel x56 motherboard a month ago for my Vista 64bit Ultimate install. I have yet to run of memory. The good memory is dirt cheap.
I find it incredible that games like World of Warcraft crash when when using more than 2 GB of memory and only run in 32bit mode. The 64bit game selection is just as abysmal. However, I think Crysis has a version in 64bit mode.
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Anthony said 2:32PM on 5-18-2009
In a word: No.
Realistically, what does one gain from a 64-bit version of Office? There may be something to gain for Publisher or PowerPoint (I shudder to think), but Word? Excel? Outlook?
The overwhelming majority of desktop applications gain nothing from being 64-bit. Drivers and Shell Extensions are the most obvious exceptions because it's required in order for them to do their jobs at all. What else /needs/ 64-bit?
I'll concede games easily. Yeah. There's always some graphical wonder that's willing to gobble up every resource you make available and want more to look even better.
But there's no point in 64-bit versions of Firefox, Miranda IM, Launchy, ImgBurn, Foobar, or any of thousands of other stand alone apps. Even those ones that do have some shell integration only need 64-bit at the point where they interact with the shell itself.
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hazard said 10:42PM on 5-18-2009
Agreed, for consumer software 64bit support provides little benefit and PAE allows 32bit systems to use up to 64GB of RAM - though each app is limited to 4GB. For industrial and scientific purposes 64bit is obviously a different story.
Also most computer games would not get any benefit moving from 32bit to 64bit. In fact Crysis has a 64bit version and the benchmarks I've seen don't run any faster than the 32bit version.
James said 9:01AM on 6-12-2009
I think a lot of people don't really grasp the difference. They just see the higher number and say "but.... there's more bits? I paid for them; why aren't you using all my bits!?!? This is a ripoff!"
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