Laptops....
32 or 64 bit if you had to choose?
Is that any disadvantages with 64 bit?
Cheers
It depends on the hardware, really. How fast the processor is, how much ram, etc.
Generally I'd go with 64 bit since it can handle more ram.
But there's more to consider than just 32 bit vs 64 bit. Like what operating system you'll be using.
Of course the last time I bought a laptop I didn't have to consider such things and just bought the cheapest I could get that met most of my needs...
I believe its Win7..
Won't know If I'll buy it until I check over the specs before I part with cash...
They told me its much better that the one I had in terms of specs..
cheers
There hasn't been a reason to use 32 bit OS for years now. If not decade(s).
On 64 bit Windows you can't run 16 bit applications, which is a legit reason to stay on the 32 bit version.
Quote from: morganw on Tue 07/08/2018 19:50:53
On 64 bit Windows you can't run 16 bit applications, which is a legit reason to stay on the 32 bit version.
Does that include running 16bit ags games?
16 bit executables, rather than applications that use 16 bit colour. If you don't need to run anything from before the mid 90s, you should be fine.
I'm a bit unsettled by the answers provided there.
Back to the basics :
- 32 bits technology is dying. Slowly, but dying anyway. It's now the end of the 32-bit era. Every new driver and most new programs are now targetting 64-bit systems. Maybe not in our favorite open-source communities, but that's definitely where manufacturers spend their energy and money now. I'm wondering where you're being offered to pruchase 32-bit tech. Is it a second-hand equipment?
- About 16-bits programs : morganw is concerned that you might not be able to run programs from 10 to 15 years ago. I'm not sure why he's worried about that. If it's to run Dos games or Windows 95 or windows XP games, then the reasonable solution nowadays would be to install dosbox, or, at worst, a Windows XP virtual machine (VMWare player is free if I recall, and an ISO of windows XP is not too hard to find)
Hi Monsieur OUXX,
As of yet I have not been able to establish if laptop is 32 or 64 bit... it will be second hand.
The only info I got was that it was more powerful than the one I had.
I was told today (wed) that they will bring it over tonight for me to decide whether to buy or not...
It seems 64 bit is the way to go..as the ram can be far greater than 32 bit, that I do know...
But I won't know until I look at it.. and that the monitor is not tiny (laugh)
cheers
Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Wed 08/08/2018 15:41:11
I'm a bit unsettled by the answers provided there.
Same here. :-\
The short answer is:
Using more than 3GB (Gigabyte) of RAM, which is recommended very much, requires a 64bit OS and hence a 64bit CPU.
Running 16bit software, if required at all, can easily by done inside a Virtual Machine, which runs much better on a machine with lots of RAM.
I can't think of a single reason to invest in 32bit in 2018.
Quote from: Khris on Sun 12/08/2018 09:20:53
Using more than 3GB (Gigabyte) of RAM, which is recommended very much, requires a 64bit OS and hence a 64bit CPU.
Not true. There is PAE, which allows for 36-bit addressing on a 32-bit processor. You can see this in Windows 2000, which had variants supporting 8 GB of RAM.
MS crippled Windows XP SP2 intentionally for driver compatibility, limiting the available RAM to 3 GB.
If you ran a Linux distro on a 32-bit machine, you'd most likely have access to up to 64 GB of RAM + page file combined.
Aaaand yes, it's stupid to invest in a 32-bit machine in 2018.
Quote from: Slasher on Tue 07/08/2018 18:22:40
Laptops....
32 or 64 bit if you had to choose?
Is that any disadvantages with 64 bit?
Cheers
I would choose 64 bit. About ten to fifteen years ago, I would have chosen 32 bit if given the choice, but now, definitely 64 bit.
As stated by everyone else, the only disadvantage with 64 bit is that it's not compatible with 16 bit programs, but if there's any 16 bit programs you really want to run, you'll probably be running them in an emulator of some kind anyway.
I've been using 64 bit machines for well over a decade now, and encountered less than ten programs during that time, that I simply couldn't get running because of it.
Since the question has been comprehensively answered, I'm locking this thread.