While Microsoft execs at last have admitted publicly that Longhorn will ship in 2006, Microsoft works on Windows XP 64-Bit. The emulation technology in Windows XP 64-bit Edition will be crucial to the OS’s success. Microsoft’s Windows on Windows 64 emulation technology is a subsystem that will allow users to run 32-bit applications on a 64-bit OS without a reduction in performance, NewsFactor reports.
Windows XP 64-Bit: Desktop Overkill?
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Eugenia Loli
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Windows 64bit sounds incredibly fast and nice. But there is also the side that do we really need this power? Of course we asked the same thing of the 32 bit days.
Sheesh. You know you’re grasping at straws when you tout something built-in to the processor as a feature of the OS. This is absolutely nothing impressive — SGI and Sun did this during their 32-bit -> 64-bit transition years ago.
Will it use the Longhorn API in 64 bit mode or will it extend the win32 API to 64 bits? If it uses the current API and it will be deprecated in three years, who will develop for it?
Most systems you buy today are “desktop overkill”. Wether they have 32 or 64 bit processors.
The 64 bit memory addresses, relieves the kernel address space meaning that you basically won’t have any desktop heap limits.
I can only open around 50 to 70 windows w/o the tuning the Windows desktop heap size. I tune this and I can get to 80, 90, 100+ (never been much over that). This would mean I wouldn’t have to do that. I’m looking forward to this.
Why is Windows 64 so much different than 10.3 which is 32bit? What are the speed differences, and does 10.3 even do actual 64bit?
As far as I can tell it should be a problem API-wise for a developer for he can use the same API. The problems only lie in the custom code of the software (not Win32-API).
“Longhorn will ship in 2006”. Hmpf… seems they are have more trouble than one might have thought.
64bit as of current seems like a waste. But I know within time we’ll need it and want it. Although I do agree with Rayiner Hashem SGI and SUN did this years ago. PC market barely catching up.
From the article:
“Indeed, Intel spokespersons have said that a 64-bit for the desktop will not be needed until the end of the decade.”
Hilarious, well, I don’t know about intel or the rest of you that see no point in moving to 64bit but I can definitely see myself playing playing games that have twice that current polygon count for 32bit processors.
Are we being convinced we don’t NEED it until MS actually has it! I want 8+ Gigs of ram for video editing and photoshop! If another platform has it already then …
RE:This all sounds like a “Windows 64-bit” brand os, that is really just 32-bit, running on the AMD64/opterons in 32-bit mode, and transition will naturally occur moving to 64 bit on the hardware anyway.
Incorrect, it is 64 bit natively, the kernel, UI, etc are 64 bit. If you run a 64 bit app it will _probably_ run in a regular 64 bit mode (just like the Itanium) top to bottom. If you have a 32-bit app, then you do have some thunking to do to get to the OS. Also note, there ARE some windows components that I think run in the 32-bit mode, but none of the crucial ones (this is the reason for the _probably_ 64 bit top to bottom).
If 64-bit were so important we’d all be using Sun Ultra 5’s, 10’s & Blade 100’s.
It would be more accurate to say it is 99% 32 bit and 1% 64 bit with a whole lot of thunking goin’ on.
RE:It would be more accurate to say it is 99% 32 bit and 1% 64 bit with a whole lot of thunking goin’ on.
It’s not so extreme, its more close to 5% 32bit to 95% 64bit by binary size, though that’s a horrible measure, a better would be running your app mix, and trying to measure how many times when you randomly break in, the IP/PC is in 32 bit code over 64 bit code.
I assume you’re just trying to discredit windows, thanks for bring down the quality of the thread.
If Half Life 2 and Doom 3 come out in Win64 flavors that contain solid performance improvements(which is likely), you will see very strong sales for Microsoft not to mention AMD(the ultimate benefactor). If Discreet, Alias-Wavefront, and/or Newtek bring their apps out in 64-bit for AMD, you will see a shift in the professional 3D community. It proves the old addage, bigger is better.
When Win95 came out in 1994 the early adaptors were gamers(like me) and professionals. I see no change to that now with Win64 for AMD64 comes out. Though its already started and will heat up next year, we will be going through the same arguments that came out in 1994 and 1995; DOS/Win3.11 vs Win95/WinNT.
If HL2 and D3 come out with perfomance gains on Win64, I will be an early adopter just as before.
1994 = 32-bit P1 at 75mhz
2004 – 64-bit AMD 64 FX51 at 2.2 ghz
My what a difference a decade makes.
Rayiner Hashem: Sheesh. You know you’re grasping at straws when you tout something built-in to the processor as a feature of the OS. This is absolutely nothing impressive — SGI and Sun did this during their 32-bit -> 64-bit transition years ago.
They’re not saying it’s anything impressive… WoW just allows a 64-bit kernel to support a 32-bit ABI as well. This article is just describing how that works, and seems quote poignant considering the confusion that has already arisen in these posts from those who failed to RTFA…
Linux Torvalds: This all sounds like a “Windows 64-bit” brand os, that is really just 32-bit, running on the AMD64/opterons in 32-bit mode, and transition will naturally occur moving to 64 bit on the hardware anyway.
Just like Windows 95 wasn’t really a 32-bit os.
When I say RTFA I’m talking about you. The kernel is 64-bit and natively supports both 32-bit and 64-bit ABIs. The activation record format of 32-bit binaries will be different from 64-bit ones, as the 64-bit ABI will support 64-bit integers and pointers natively whereas the 32-bit ABI must map 64-bit integers onto two 32-bit integers (and of course all pointers will be 32-bit)
All the extra compiler logic necessary to support 64-bit types on a 32-bit platform is eliminated when the kernel is recompiled for a native 64-bit architecture, which should lead to speedups in NTFS and greatly eases the amount of work the VMM must do.
It’s identical to what happens in a native 64-bit build of Linux…
Steve W: If 64-bit were so important we’d all be using Sun Ultra 5’s, 10’s & Blade 100’s.
For desktop use, perhaps. The need for a 64-bit processor is somewhat minimal.
However, for server use it is quite important. Keep in mind that most of the high performance database servers out there are Sun hardware, running a 64-bit build of Oracle.
We’ll be certain to see 64-bit builds of Windows Server 2003 soon as well, and consequently 64-bit builds of MS SQL…
Microsoft’s Windows on Windows 64 emulation technology is a subsystem that will allow users to run 32-bit applications on a 64-bit OS without a reduction in performance
Great so it is just as slow as it was…
I get the impression that windows xp slows down in time just the same as win 98 did… a clean install feels
reasonably fast but it seems like it’s getting worse…
try opening a directory with a lot of files…
It just doesn’t feel snappy..
“I can only open around 50 to 70 windows w/o the tuning the Windows desktop heap size. I tune this and I can get to 80, 90, 100+ (never been much over that). This would mean I wouldn’t have to do that. I’m looking forward to this.”
Perhaps you could expound upon this statement… I have no clue what you are talking about. I have windows 2000 and have definitely had over 200 windows open at different times. One – this is completely impractical in general use so who cares. And two, what is wrong where you feel you have to tune the heap size beyond 70 open windows? Thirdly, how the heck do you tune the desktop heap size? I’ve never heard of this – not that I would necessarily know…
pete
Apple’s G5s are 64-bit and the OS supports 64-bit app calls (and 32-bit apps natively for fallback) .. so why would MS bow out?
According to this article, Longhorn hasn’t slipped. MS didn’t even give specific dates. An unset date can’t slip.
http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=40499
“As usual, Microsoft officials didn’t discuss specific dates, although casual mentions of the Longhorn wave coming “3 years out” caused rumors sites to explode with news items about yet another delay. A more likely scenario is that Microsoft will release the Longhorn products over time, culminating with the release of a new Windows Server version 18 months after the release of Windows Longhorn, a desktop product that will ship in home, professional, Media Center, and Tablet PC editions. Microsoft is trying to subtly communicate that Longhorn isn’t just one product but rather a completely new architecture on which the company will build a suite of products. As the Longhorn wave crests in 2006 to 2007, Microsoft says, we can expect to see new versions of Microsoft Exchange (code-named Kodiak), SQL Server (code-named Acadia), and the first release of Microsoft System Center, which integrates Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM).”
<quote>
Steve W: If 64-bit were so important we’d all be using Sun Ultra 5’s, 10’s & Blade 100’s.
For desktop use, perhaps. The need for a 64-bit processor is somewhat minimal.
However, for server use it is quite important. Keep in mind that most of the high performance database servers out there are Sun hardware, running a 64-bit build of Oracle.
We’ll be certain to see 64-bit builds of Windows Server 2003 soon as well, and consequently 64-bit builds of MS SQL…
</quote>
Sure, I agree there but the article is about 64-bit desktop OS.
“The emulation technology in Windows XP 64-bit Edition will be crucial to the OS’s success. Microsoft’s Windows on Windows 64 emulation technology is a subsystem that will allow users to run 32-bit applications on a 64-bit OS without a reduction in performance, according to Marr.”
Sounds like an awful lot of grandstanding for simply using a processor mode built into the hardware… Choice words “emulation technology…subsystem” and “crucial to…success.”
“When Win95 came out in 1994 the early adaptors were gamers(like me) and professionals.”
<sarcasm>
Yeah, I remember the early days on Windows 95, when it was released in August 1995. I remember being amazed at how easy it was to play games on it. It was amazing. I didn’t have to manually edit my config.sys or autoexec.bat — I simply made a .pif file that had customized config.sys and autoexec.bat, and any time I wanted to play a game, I could simply click on the pif file and reboot back into DOS with just the right drivers loaded!
That is, unless I wanted to play “solitaire” or “minesweeper”. But then, that’s what all the heavy-duty Windows Gamers played, anyways.
</sarcasm>
“Sounds like an awful lot of grandstanding for simply using a processor mode built into the hardware… Choice words “emulation technology…subsystem” and “crucial to…success.” ”
This is only true for AMD’s CPUs. WoW 64 is not AMD-specific. It can also be used on processors that don’t have a similar compatability mode.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wi…
Windows may be 2 bit but it’s a lot better than 64 bit with only 2 good games
64 bit overkill? are you high? it’s not like we’re talking 100Ghz and a 256bit bus. every single hertz is a welcome improvement.
the cpu clock is not doubling every 1-1/2 years any more, and that sucks. all you wankers who only surf and write word docs are holding the rest of us down.
Any Linux user knows, Windows is just a ‘2 bit” piece of crap
Looks like its official, OSnews on its way to slashdot troll hell. A total and completely pointless comment/post. Worse yet, comments like that one gives the Linux community a bad reputation.
I wonder how much longer it will be before people start having their IPs blocked by admins who are just tired of this pointless crap.
Sheesh. You know you’re grasping at straws when you tout something built-in to the processor as a feature of the OS. This is absolutely nothing impressive — SGI and Sun did this during their 32-bit -> 64-bit transition years ago.
Aye? from my experience/understanding, there is no translation used in SPARC and MIPS. You can run 32bit R4400 MIPS applications on a R5000 without an speed loss. When recompiling, you simply specify R5000 32bit enhancements which enables the 32bit programme to be optimised for 32bit on this 64bit chip.
There isn’t any translation used in x86-64 or Itanium either. Well, there is translation in the Itanium, but its done in hardware. There is just a special processor mode for running legacy binaries. I don’t really see how the situation is any different.
doesn’t this delay on Longhorn mean that the DOJ agreement that meant the m$ had to provide some of its api available to others expire? i’m not sure, i hope someone here will know better; but to me it sounds like they don’t want to share anything new to further corner the market. i could be wrong
MS is talking too much.
http://www.lmahd.com/cinelerra.html
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/SellAMDProducts/0,,30_177_4458_…
“Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides support for …”
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/as/
There isn’t any translation used in x86-64 or Itanium either. Well, there is translation in the Itanium, but its done in hardware. There is just a special processor mode for running legacy binaries. I don’t really see how the situation is any different.
Itanium is a totally new ISA and has no x86 backwards compatibility natively. The 32bit CISC code is converted on the fly to EPIC and then run.
MIPS 64bit is mearly an extension of the MIPS 32bit architecture with added features, no different to how the x86-64 is an extension of the x86-32.
That is why there is no performance penalty running 32bit software on 64bit platforms that are based off the original ISA.
RE: I have no clue what you are talking about. I have windows 2000 and have definitely had over 200 windows open at different times.
I don’t know why I’m limited and you’re not. WS2003 is tuned slightly differently than win2k? Even more likely you have pro/home which is tuned differently than server? Not really sure, curious about that though.
RE: One – this is completely impractical in general use so who cares. And two, what is wrong where you feel you have to tune the heap size beyond 70 open windows?
I like to leave web pages open that I intend to read later, whether or not later is now or a couple months from now. I leave projects open in notepads. I have cmd windows with scrollback that I need to turn into documentation. I don’t really want to debate the practicality of my work style. Isn’t it enough to know this is how I run, so my post wasn’t really relevant to you? Yes, I dread power outages, but they don’t happen often.
RE: Thirdly, how the heck do you tune the desktop heap size?
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;126962