What is the big deal with 64 bit processing?

[Jim March]

64bit OS and CPU together can help you deal with major CPU-intense
stuff like video editing, compiling big programs and any sort of
massive calculation.

It doesn't help you write to the video much faster if at all, so movie
playback, games and other "consumer uses" are usually no big deal.

One downside is that memory will get eaten faster on a 64bit complete
setup.  Every app you run will eat more RAM.  On a 2gig system 64bit
is usually a bad idea except in very limited, special-purpose
situations such as compiling stuff or doing heavy-duty password
cracking.

Normally, a 32bit OS (Windows, Linux, whatever) is limited to 3gigs
RAM.  On Linux though, we have an alternative: load a "PAE kernel"
which is 32bit but knows how to deal with the 3gig limit.  Even
better: you can set everything up with a standard 32bit kernel now and
add a PAE flavor kernel later.  In Ubuntu and Mint, PAE kernels are
easily accessible with your standard package manager such as Synaptic
- load it, select it, reboot.  If you ever bump your rig to 4gig or
more, this is what you'll want to do.  There's no downside to the PAE
kernel and you can load it even with 3gig or less and it'll run just
fine.

If you're running a 64bit kernel and something is running ghastly
slow, odds are some specific app is running in 32bit mode and has been
poorly adapted.  9 times out of 10 it's Adobe's Flash Player at fault.
 There's a conversion layer that allows 32bit flash to run on a 64bit
OS but...it sometimes comes seriously unglued.

That damned thing is one reason a lot of us stick with 32bit in the
first place, running a 32bit PAE kernel if necessary.

Personally, I'm running 32bit standard kernel on a 2gig machine with a
low-grade Pentium Dual-Core CPU and Intel 965/X3100 video chip, kind
of a "bleh" system.  I could run 64bit but memory usage would go up
and there's some things I still need real Windows XP for running under
Virtualbox.  Doing so in 64bit on a 2gig box would be a memory usage
mess.

Jim

On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 1:04 AM, Dazed_75 <lthielster at gmail.com> wrote:
> It is very unlikely you would notice the difference resulting from the
> difference between 32 and 64 bit.  At the same time, one could reasonably
> expect the 64 bit OS to be slightly slower except for tasks that need large
> amounts of data.  There is also no real advantage in using a 64 bit OS on a
> machine that does not have 4 GB or more of memory.
>
> On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 12:49 AM, Michael Havens <bmike1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Things seem to be slower and google does not like it.... it has been
>> loading my mail for over a minute now; whereas on the 32 bit machine it only
>> takes less than 5 sconds. Am i missing something?
>>
>> --
>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>
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>
>
> --
> Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry
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