[gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Grant]

I'm putting together a new system and I'm considering going 64-bit.
Is the benefit of such a system pretty much speed?  What are the
drawbacks of using a 64-bit system with Gentoo?

- Grant
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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Rafael Barrera Oro]

Grant wrote:

> I'm putting together a new system and I'm considering going 64-bit.
> Is the benefit of such a system pretty much speed?  What are the
> drawbacks of using a 64-bit system with Gentoo?
>
> - Grant

Some stuff is not available for the 64 bit arch, for example you have to 
use a 32 bit firefox if you want to use flash. On the other hand, i 
recently installed a 64 bit gentoo and it runs very well!, nevertheless, 
i dont now if the speed increase is precisely enormous compared with a 
32 bit system.

hope it helps

Rafael
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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[alain.didierjean]

Selon Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>:

> I'm putting together a new system and I'm considering going 64-bit.
> Is the benefit of such a system pretty much speed?  What are the
> drawbacks of using a 64-bit system with Gentoo?
>
None if you don't need Flash. On the other hand, I needed and used integers > 32
bits in only one occasion in a development.
As for speed: boy, those new processors (an amd 3800 x2 in my case) are fast...
as are their 32 bits equivalent.
64 bits register have been available on every workstations architecture for
years, but on Intel / amd. Return to the present.

--
~adj~

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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Drew]

> As for speed: boy, those new processors (an amd 3800 x2 in my case) are fast...
> as are their 32 bits equivalent.

Considering the 3800+ x2 (ditto here) runs at a real speed of 2GHz vs
the 1.8GHz my old Athlon XPm2500+ did in stock configuation, I'd say
so. Of course tweak the XPm to a real 2.5GHz (or higher) and watch it
run circles around everything else in my collection.


Who needs ricer flags when you have ricer hardware? ;-)


-Drew
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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Richard Fish]

On 9/18/06, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm putting together a new system and I'm considering going 64-bit.
> Is the benefit of such a system pretty much speed?  What are the
> drawbacks of using a 64-bit system with Gentoo?

You'll only notice a speed increase with applications that need to
caculate very large numbers, like encryption keys and certain
scientific apps.  Everything else will basically run just as fast in
32-bit mode as it will in 64-bit.  There are exceptions in certain
media encoders that don't have hardware optimizations for 64-bit, that
may actually run faster as 32-bit apps.

Anyway, I think this article summed it up pretty well:

http://lwn.net/Articles/199229/

-Richard
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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Grant]

> > I'm putting together a new system and I'm considering going 64-bit.
> > Is the benefit of such a system pretty much speed?  What are the
> > drawbacks of using a 64-bit system with Gentoo?
>
> You'll only notice a speed increase with applications that need to
> caculate very large numbers, like encryption keys and certain
> scientific apps.  Everything else will basically run just as fast in
> 32-bit mode as it will in 64-bit.  There are exceptions in certain
> media encoders that don't have hardware optimizations for 64-bit, that
> may actually run faster as 32-bit apps.
>
> Anyway, I think this article summed it up pretty well:
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/199229/
>
> -Richard

Ok, doesn't sound like too much benefit for me.

- Grant
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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Thomas T. Veldhouse]

Richard Fish wrote:
> On 9/18/06, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm putting together a new system and I'm considering going 64-bit.
>> Is the benefit of such a system pretty much speed?  What are the
>> drawbacks of using a 64-bit system with Gentoo?
>
> You'll only notice a speed increase with applications that need to
> caculate very large numbers, like encryption keys and certain
> scientific apps.  Everything else will basically run just as fast in
> 32-bit mode as it will in 64-bit.  There are exceptions in certain
> media encoders that don't have hardware optimizations for 64-bit, that
> may actually run faster as 32-bit apps.

Applications compiled in 64-bit mode can address larger blocks of memory 
without paging.  Memory intensive applications can greatly benefit from 
this.  Another minor difference is that chess engines based upon 
bitboards (i.e. Crafty and GnuChess), when compiled in 64-bit mode will 
perform much faster due to the fact that an entire board representation 
fits into a single WORD.  On 32-bit systems, such a board is split 
between two words and there is overhead with juggling this deficit.

Tom Veldhouse


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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Pawel Kraszewski]

Dnia poniedziałek, 18 września 2006 17:49, Richard Fish napisał:

> You'll only notice a speed increase with applications that need to
> caculate very large numbers, like encryption keys and certain
> scientific apps.  Everything else will basically run just as fast in
> 32-bit mode as it will in 64-bit.  There are exceptions in certain
> media encoders that don't have hardware optimizations for 64-bit, that
> may actually run faster as 32-bit apps.

Well, the registers are not only twice longer, but there is twice as much of 
them as in 32-bit. And THIS is what optimising compilers are fond of. More 
registers mean less in-memory temporary variables, which in turn means less 
memory accesses. This gives speed improvement. For SMP systems it gives huge 
difference - as the memory is shared between CPUs and they must fight for it.

I have an amd64 system for over a year (or is it 2-yrs?). I had some glitches:

* Need to use binary 32-bit firefox to have flash - still have problems with 
  some fonts not appearing in flash
* Need to use 32-bit java to make 32-bit OpenOffice happy
* Some forensic packages won't compile on 64-bit due to bad coding techniques

But besides that - my AMD64 3000+ just rocks. I had definitely much more 
problems with 64-bit XP, but since getting rid of it (XP not problems) I am 
fully 64-bit positive :D

-- 
 Pawel Kraszewski
 www.kraszewscy.net

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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Grant]

> > You'll only notice a speed increase with applications that need to
> > caculate very large numbers, like encryption keys and certain
> > scientific apps.  Everything else will basically run just as fast in
> > 32-bit mode as it will in 64-bit.  There are exceptions in certain
> > media encoders that don't have hardware optimizations for 64-bit, that
> > may actually run faster as 32-bit apps.
>
> Well, the registers are not only twice longer, but there is twice as much of
> them as in 32-bit. And THIS is what optimising compilers are fond of. More
> registers mean less in-memory temporary variables, which in turn means less
> memory accesses. This gives speed improvement. For SMP systems it gives huge
> difference - as the memory is shared between CPUs and they must fight for it.
>
> I have an amd64 system for over a year (or is it 2-yrs?). I had some glitches:
>
> * Need to use binary 32-bit firefox to have flash - still have problems with
>   some fonts not appearing in flash
> * Need to use 32-bit java to make 32-bit OpenOffice happy
> * Some forensic packages won't compile on 64-bit due to bad coding techniques
>
> But besides that - my AMD64 3000+ just rocks. I had definitely much more
> problems with 64-bit XP, but since getting rid of it (XP not problems) I am
> fully 64-bit positive :D

That's what I just bought.  A Sempron64 3000+.  So, if there isn't an
amd64 package available, I can always use x86?  Does portage make it
easy to do this?

- Grant
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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Drew]

> But besides that - my AMD64 3000+ just rocks. I had definitely much more
> problems with 64-bit XP, but since getting rid of it (XP not problems) I am
> fully 64-bit positive :D

Getting a bit Off-Topic but I'm extremely disappointed with XP x64. I
upgraded from Pro (32) thinking I'd basically get XP but with a few
broken apps (nothing I run). Turns out ActiveSync won't run in x64
despite M$ saying it does and HP won't write drivers for my LaserJet
1012 which is funny given the hpijs driver I thought was
supported(sorta) by HP (a couple of HP techs work on the prject I
thought). This means I have to use a Generic LaserJet driver that
doesn't give me the feature set I expect from my printer..

On the flip side, with the fresh install, VMware is actually quite
snappy. I can now compile X in VMware, listen to a mp3 stream in
winamp, and play The Sims 2 all at once without lag. Of course 2GB of
RAM will do that to ya. :)


-Drew
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Re: [gentoo-user] 64-bit system?

[Gian Domeni Calgeer]

Am Montag, 18. September 2006 16:18 schrieb Grant:
> I'm putting together a new system and I'm considering going 64-bit.
> Is the benefit of such a system pretty much speed?  What are the
> drawbacks of using a 64-bit system with Gentoo?
>
> - Grant

Hi

I have a 32 bit version and a 64 bit version of (mostly stable) Gentoo on the 
same PC and when playing gl-117 I get (assuming everything is set on the 
highest quality in gl-117) around 15 - 20 FPS on the 32 bit Gentoo and around 
30 - 40 FPS on 64 bit Gentoo. This is not too representative, especially 
since not all libs and progs are exactly the same version on both 
installations, but I still think this shows 64 bit CAN make a big difference, 
depending on what you plan to do with your new system. 

Gian
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