64 Bit Versus 32 Bit

[GazOC]

You had discs......

[GordonCopestake]

40 meg winchester drives the size of suitcases hehe

[themos]

The MHz trap just makes programmers lazy (sorry thermos).

Hey, laziness is good. All good software is motivated by some sort of laziness: "I'm sick and tired of doing THIS every time, I'll write some code to do it for me".

The advent of multi-core will mean that people will start paying (more attention to)/(for) software. If computers were eyepieces, we are just entering the phase where sourcing and shaping glass is now cheap. Nagler doesn't get paid for making the glass but for putting components together in just the right way. Chip designers can't make their chips much faster but they can still put more STUFF on them. One day soon you'll get a 20-core chip with 10 of the cores optimised for image-processing codes (if you are a large enough market). Right now, if you made Registax4 run on your Nvidia graphics chip instead of your main CPU (x86 or amd64 or em64t) it would finish your job in a blink of an eye.

[GordonCopestake]

Very true. Within 10 years I fully expect to see 100 core CPU's (or whatever they will be called then) and software written to use as many cores as needed. Although I quite like the sound of the FPGA stuff where CPU's can be changed to different DSP chips on the fly as the application demands.

[Whippy]

Some of us had to put up with 32K of RAM Gordon, and 100K disc size. Good old days or what?

Captain Chaos

Bah, old school punch paper streams and tapes is where it's it .

[themos]

32K of RAM

And most of THAT was video memory, right? Ah, memories of the BBC Micro... I used it as 8 separate 1-bit computers, running in "embarallel" mode (embarrassingly parallel, basically no communication). Yes, there ARE interesting 1-bit problems.

[russ]

I had to go back to the start of the thread to see what we are actually recommending here. I had a feeling it had de-railed slightly. But yes programmers are lazy. But on the other hand the hardware guys aren't going to complain because it means upgrades. The two just keep on fueling each other. But if you didn't have progress we'd still be sitting in a cave. Also realising I'm not as keen on IT as you guys. I hated computer life before Windows 3.11 and x86 PC's. That's when life began. The only thing I ever wanted to do with a BBC was beat it around the monitor. And boy did I hate programming at college. Another hobby bites the dust......I'm not a IT man after all.

But I'll answer the questions anyway:

What rig would I build?

and

Is Vista worth it?

What sort of budget have you got Ron? If it's real, real tight then:

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ = £58

1Gb DDR2 533 (512Mb x 2) = £35

160Gb Sata = £34

uATX board with on-board sound, video, LAN etc = £30

DVD-RW = £17

400w PSU = £25

Case = £12

Bit more money

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 = £75

1Gb DDR2 533 (512Mb x 2) = £35

320Gb Sata = £50

uATX board with on-board sound, video, LAN etc = £40

DVD-RW = £17

400w PSU = £25

Case = £12

My own system is:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - bought on Ebay for £110

Asrock Conroe DVI motherboard - £45

2Gb DDR2 667 (2 x 1Gb) - £80

320Gb SATA II - £50

DVD-RW - £17

ATI Radeon X1950 Pro - £90 on Ebay

Silverstone TJ08 case - £50

Enermax Liberty 400w PSU - £45

Soundblaster Audigy 2 - £20 on Ebay

As for Vista, I'm running Vista Home Premium 64bit simply because I was in the same boat as you back in March. I looked at the cost of XP Home OEM and Vista Home Premium OEM and difference was £4. Decided too plump for Vista because I'll upgrade in the future anyway and I didn't want to pay twice. As it is, I have no issues with Vista. All drivers are spot on. The only software that I had previously that no longer works is Zonealarm.

As Daz said, there's nothing to be gained but there's also nothing to be lost. Not sure I would have bother with the 64bit version. But Vista seems to be okay. It does require a lot more RAM though. 2Gb minimum really.

Russ

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Right now, if you made Registax4 run on your Nvidia graphics chip instead of your main CPU (x86 or amd64 or em64t) it would finish your job in a blink of an eye.

Go for it matey! I'd pay double the Registax price for that.

Captain Chaos

[Macavity]

What sort of budget have you got Ron? If it's real, real tight then:

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ = £58

1Gb DDR2 533 (512Mb x 2) = £35

160Gb Sata = £34

uATX board with on-board sound, video, LAN etc = £30

DVD-RW = £17

400w PSU = £25

Case = £12

Sounds very like my last upgrade. With that sort of idea, one can even use much of your "old bits" - I was determined to use my old Enermax PSU! In hinesight, I made two "mistakes" - I Went for Skt.939 and a Single CPU 3500+. I still run WinXP tho' - I even had to "unlock it", coz I'd exceed the maximum hardware changes M$ allows! But I suspect dual/multiple CPUs would avoid a few (still) go-slows, when it's "virus checking" (whatever) when I'm trying to work...

[russ]

Amazing you can build such a good complete system for only £200 ish. That's one thing that has changed now. I remember the shockingly bad options I had in 1996. Awful IBM Cyrix proccessor or crappy AMD K5. An S3 graphics card not worth spit. Hopeless motherboards. Cheap modems that never worked. And CD drives that packed up a week later. And the whole thing just crashed and blue screened at the mere mention of actually having to run anything. Drivers were hopeless. Unless you had the mega bucks for a proper system, you were pretty much done for.

[themos]

What horrifies me is that people consider Vista an "upgrade" when it limits what you can do with YOUR computer.

The only reason I would choose to run a 64-bit desktop (instead of 32-bit one) is if I was beta-testing something or was getting paid to do it. Every pointer takes 64 bits instead of 32, watch your memory shrink. There could be the odd application that would benefit but it's a hell of a price to pay. Run the special application in a virtual 64-bit machine instead or better still a separate physical machine.

[barkis]

I had to go back to the start of the thread to see what we are actually recommending here. I had a feeling it had de-railed slightly. But yes programmers are lazy. But on the other hand the hardware guys aren't going to complain because it means upgrades. The two just keep on fueling each other. But if you didn't have progress we'd still be sitting in a cave. Also realising I'm not as keen on IT as you guys. I hated computer life before Windows 3.11 and x86 PC's. That's when life began. The only thing I ever wanted to do with a BBC was beat it around the monitor. And boy did I hate programming at college. Another hobby bites the dust......I'm not a IT man after all.

But I'll answer the questions anyway:

What rig would I build?

and

Is Vista worth it?

What sort of budget have you got Ron? If it's real, real tight then:

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ = £58

1Gb DDR2 533 (512Mb x 2) = £35

160Gb Sata = £34

uATX board with on-board sound, video, LAN etc = £30

DVD-RW = £17

400w PSU = £25

Case = £12

Bit more money

Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 = £75

1Gb DDR2 533 (512Mb x 2) = £35

320Gb Sata = £50

uATX board with on-board sound, video, LAN etc = £40

DVD-RW = £17

400w PSU = £25

Case = £12

My own system is:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 - bought on Ebay for £110

Asrock Conroe DVI motherboard - £45

2Gb DDR2 667 (2 x 1Gb) - £80

320Gb SATA II - £50

DVD-RW - £17

ATI Radeon X1950 Pro - £90 on Ebay

Silverstone TJ08 case - £50

Enermax Liberty 400w PSU - £45

Soundblaster Audigy 2 - £20 on Ebay

As for Vista, I'm running Vista Home Premium 64bit simply because I was in the same boat as you back in March. I looked at the cost of XP Home OEM and Vista Home Premium OEM and difference was £4. Decided too plump for Vista because I'll upgrade in the future anyway and I didn't want to pay twice. As it is, I have no issues with Vista. All drivers are spot on. The only software that I had previously that no longer works is Zonealarm.

As Daz said, there's nothing to be gained but there's also nothing to be lost. Not sure I would have bother with the 64bit version. But Vista seems to be okay. It does require a lot more RAM though. 2Gb minimum really.

Russ

I think you might have created my shopping list for me Rus. I'll study it a bit more. The last suggestion I feel could have been in my minds eye. The 2Gig ram was a definite yes.

We seem to be getting into a Monty Python like sketch a bit. "Ah, we used to live in a cardboard box with no heating." Remember the one.

Ron.

[geppetto]

Been running Vista Home Premium for a while now and it's excellent... 8)

Some stuff will have to wait for updates but that's always been the case.

Starry Night for instance

[themos]

A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

This paper has been making a stir.

[barkis]

A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

This paper has been making a stir.

Well Themos, having read that report, and I do not pretend to understand a lot of it, it would seem to indicate that it would be insane for someone to go Vista. It would appear that MS are guilty of a little deception here. Surely, due to the magnitude of some of the issues, the average guy in the street, who has been seduced by the WOW factor publicity hype, should have been made aware of these potential hazards in a language he could understand. I have read of the odd glitch, not unexpected really, but this report paints a rather frightening picture, and yet I have not heard of anything tangible that would give it credence. Maybe you have, as you are obviously enmeshed in the deep technological aspects of this issue.

It has stopped me dead in my tracks, and I am going to dwell on the question of Vista or XP for a while longer.

Thanks for the info.

Ron.

[hairymunky]

Are you running Linux then PF?. I do share your opinion on MS, they are a bit Invasive, and I turfed Sky out months ago. Unfortunately I do not have the courage to go Linux, I have never heard enough Whoopies!, to sway me.

Ron.

Im dual booting XP and 64bit SuSE 10.2, the only reason XP is staying, is because

my wee girls would kill me if they couldn't play the Sims 2!!!!

Everything I do now, is nearly always Linux based (including my feeble attemps

at game programming)

[russ]

and yet I have not heard of anything tangible that would give it credence.

I think that report is already out of date, and as the drivers/patches roll in it will become irrelevent. It makes loads of references to the ATI Radeon X1950 Pro (I use this card) and that the drivers are fudged and not performing. Seriously old news and not the case at all. Nvidia, ATI, Creative, Realtek are all working overtime and the drivers are rolling out fast.

As for software, nothing other than Zonealarm, has failed to work. And Zonealarm will be releasing their Vista very shortly. I've read the reviews and analysis on the tech sites. They speak of 5-10% performance hits here and there. I've benchmarked the one game I play on Windows, Company of Heroes, and it was within 2 frames per second of my Win XP setup.

There's a lot scare mongering going on as there always is when MS do anything.

Like you I don't understand half the stufff in that repor. But you're right, take your time and weigh things up. Myself & Daz run Vista no problems. Appears to be nothing gained, nothing lost on the face of it. I've not had a single crash since installing.

btw here's a link to the Vista forums. Normal people telling there hands on experience of Vista. It may help in your dilemma:

http://thevistaforums.com/index.php?showforum=52

http://www.thevistaforum.co.uk/index.php

Russ

[barkis]

and yet I have not heard of anything tangible that would give it credence.

I think that report is already out of date, and as the drivers/patches roll in it will become irrelevent. It makes loads of references to the ATI Radeon X1950 Pro (I use this card) and the drivers are fudged and not performing. Seriously old news and not the case at all. Nvidia, ATI, Creative, Realtek are all working overtime and the drivers are rolling out fast.

As for software, nothing other than Zonealarm, has failed to work. And Zonealarm will be releasing their Vista very shortly. I've read the reviews and analysis on the tech sites. They speak of 5-10% performance hits here and there. I've benchmarked the one game I play on Windows, Company of Heroes, and it was within 2 frames per second of my Win XP setup.

There's a lot scare mongering going on as there always is when MS do anything.

Like you I don't understand half the stufff in that repor. But you're right, take your time and weigh things up. Myself & Daz run Vista no problems. Appears to be nothing gained, nothing lost on the face of it. I've not had a single crash since installing.

btw here's a link to the Vista forums. Normal people telling there hands on experience of Vista. It may help in your dilemma:

http://thevistaforums.com/index.php?showforum=52

http://www.thevistaforum.co.uk/index.php

Russ

Thanks for that Rus. You have lifted my spirits again . I have bookmarked those links and I will probe them in depth tomorrow evening. I am on the golf course tomorrow, so I will leave them till I have recovered from that.

Thanks again buddy.

Ron.

[themos]

[halfserious]NT4 was the only decent operating system MS ever produced. Everything before it was broken and everything after it bloated[/halfserious]. Put NT4 on your system and see it fly. If you want to play games, get a games console, you can pick up a Nintendo64 for peanuts.

[barkis]

[halfserious]NT4 was the only decent operating system MS ever produced. Everything before it was broken and everything after it bloated[/halfserious]. Put NT4 on your system and see it fly. If you want to play games, get a games console, you can pick up a Nintendo64 for peanuts.

Not into games I'm afraid Themos.,although I did dabble MS Flight Sim for a while.

Thanks for your contribution, much appreciated.

Ron.

[GordonCopestake]

I agree NT4 was a great OS, but I moved to Win2k for some time. XP wasn't that much of an upgrade over 2k in my mind. In fact I still have machines running win2k

[GazOC]

If you want to play games, get a games console, you can pick up a Nintendo64 for peanuts.

I'm strategy gamer, its PCs or nothing for those type of games....

I've got my 360 for the shooters though...

[GordonCopestake]

strategy games dont tend to need as much grunt as shooters. And web surfing and word processing even less. I have no idea why people buy 3Ghz CPU's to surf the net with

[Whippy]

If you want to play games, get a games console, you can pick up a Nintendo64 for peanuts.

I'm not going into the relative merits (or lack of) of particular consoles, but you really could have chosen something better...

[GazOC]

strategy games dont tend to need as much grunt as shooters. And web surfing and word processing even less. I have no idea why people buy 3Ghz CPU's to surf the net with

End games in Civ3 and Civ4 use massive amounts of CPU power, on a slow computer a turn can literally take minutes for this reason Civ3 used to be used as a CPU ratings benchmark by some sites. One area you can skimp is graphics cards but even then there are games like Rome Total War which need decent cards.