"The immense popularity of sites like YouTube has unexpectedly turned Flash Video into one of the de facto standards for Internet video. The proliferation of sites using FLV has been a boon for remix culture, as creators made their own versions of posted videos. And thus far there has been no widespread DRM standard for Flash or Flash Video formats; indeed, most sites that use these formats simply serve standalone, unencrypted files via ordinary web servers. Now Adobe, which controls Flash and Flash Video, is trying to change that with the introduction of DRM restrictions in version 9 of its Flash Player and version 3 of its Flash Media Server software."
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-02-15
Since when did anyone needed a browser that could take up more then 4GB's of RAM? I don't understand why people wail about having to use 32bit apps on a 64bit machine. For things like a web browser the 32bit version would probably be faster.
The speed difference should be more or less nonexistant nowadays, and you are right in that a web browser won't benefit from being 64bit. But atleast under Linux there's one more thing to note: if all the other software running is 64bit and then you run a 32bit browser your browser will eat a whole lot more memory than a 64bit one. Why? Because of all the 32bit versions of libraries it needs. Like if you ran 32bit Opera under 64bit KDE you'd be running two instances of Qt libraries.
That's actually one of the reasons why I dumped 64bit Gentoo on my PC and went back to 32bit; what's the point in running 64bit if it doesn't bring any benefits with it and you'll still be running 32bit software and libraries in addition to 64bit ones?
As for Windows..Well, I don't know how it is there. I don't know enough about Windows internals, nor do I even really care to. Does 64bit Windows have the 32bit compatibility libraries loaded at all times, or how does it work? Will a 32bit app consume more memory than a 64bit one? Someone who knows might wanna enlighten us others.
Member since:2008-02-24
It is true that 64-bit pointers allow access beyond 4Gig, however, another benefit of the 64-bit architecture is that it allows usage of 64-bit general purpose registers... and it has twice as many of them. Your compiler has 16 registers available instead of 8 and the numbers it puts in them can be twice as many bits.
Member since:2005-11-21
Commercial Unix that was 64bit 10years ago shipped plenty of apps as 32bit. If it doesn't need more then 4GB of ram for addressing then there is no need for it to be a 64bit app.
See the commment below your post that clarifies the chroot/schroot environments and the need to dynamically load the 32 bit library chain in order to run those 32 bit apps.
I have 4 GB of RAM on my 64bit Debian system and memory definitely spikes to run apps like Adobe's Acrobat Reader and Flash.
Member since:2005-07-06
Arrghhh.... This argument again.
1. In-order to run 32bit applications on your 64bit OS requires a --LONG-- list of 32bit libraries (DLL in your case).
... And having a full set of 32bit libraries translates to: (almost) twice the OS disk usage, higher memory footprint (library image may/will get loaded twice), twice the updates (download everything twice), slower updates (more files to update), etc, etc, etc.
2. 64bit has more general purpose (GP) registers. Given the lack of GP registers in the x86 architecture - doubling the number of GP registers can yield considerable performance improvement.
3. 32bit processes are -not- limited to 4GB. Depending on your OS, each of your applications has between 2G and 3G of address space at its disposal. *
- Gilboa
* 4G/4G ignored.
Member since:
2006-01-12
Since when did anyone needed a browser that could take up more then 4GB's of RAM? I don't understand why people wail about having to use 32bit apps on a 64bit machine. For things like a web browser the 32bit version would probably be faster.
Commercial Unix that was 64bit 10years ago shipped plenty of apps as 32bit. If it doesn't need more then 4GB of ram for addressing then there is no need for it to be a 64bit app.