I have Windows 7 x64 (I wanted more than 4GB of RAM), and I'm not talking about drivers here - I'm talking about installable applications.
If a vendor offers both an x86 and x64 version of their application, when should I consider the x64 version? Should I always prefer it, even if it's lightweight and not memory intensive, just because it's compiled in a compatible version, instead of installing the x86 version and asking Windows to emulate for me? What are the upsides to installing the x64 version of something? Since I'd assume the x86 version has a wider user base, could I expect it to be more thoroughly debugged?
Or, conversely, what is the downside to installing the x86 version of an app when an x64 one is available? Aside from the ability to access large chunks of memory, what else am I forgoing?
Answer
Applications compiled specifically for X64 should have better performance since they would not require an emulation layer.
Software vendors that provide both 32 and 64 bit editions of their products, probably do so with good reason. For example, they could be tweaking an algorithm to use different size floating point variables or memory addressing that yields greater performance.
Some vendors might also provide a "change log" that outlines the differences between the two versions, which could be reviewed.
I personally always choose to install the x64 version if available.
No comments:
Post a Comment