64 cores

Very interesting.

Of course that is aimed at servers but with multi-core processors becoming more an more common in personal computers you know it won't be long before that technology starts showing up in personal computers.

5 years maybe?

64 is closer then you think.
drivers for newwer hardware are in both 64 and 32bit mode.
The reason being is the 32 bit core memory cap (3 gigs). This cap is shared with your video card.
So for the most part your limited to 2 gigs of ram and your vid card.

... One might almost think you didn't even bother to read the title, much less the link.

We're talking about a 64 core processor, not the 64 bit OS (which I agree, is goign to be teh standard very soon).

That said, isn't the 32 bit memory cap four gigs? Otherwise, it'd be awfully hard to manage the 3 gigs most people recommend for Vista gaming (though you are right that its shared with your video card).

I'm quite sure its 4 gigs memory, just like an application is size-limited to 4 gigs (if it tries to go over 2 gigs it crashes because half of that is allocated to the kernel for stuff like drivers, unless you've tweaked your bootup settings).

32-bit OS's are limited to 4GB of RAM, but Windows only can allocate 2GB to any particular application (there are ways around this, but tend not to be used).  Your hardware's overhead also sucks down RAM in a big way on a 32-bit OS, which limits you further. 64-bit OS's can support lots more RAM and deal with allocation differently, IIRC.

64 core is going to be a rediculously slow processor, just the distance from two opposite cores would be an issue.

and 64s have compatability issues and run 32 bit processes slower. I prefer screwing around with a 32 to get it to use more than 2 gigs per process, and then getting the patch from microsoft. (here refering to vista)

True, but they're working on this -- with Microsoft throwing its weight around as much as it is, they're forcing developer's hands when it comes to drivers for both 32 and 64 bit editions.



There are advantages to that, though many drivers (and programs) have issues with it. In fact, programs can only use the extra data space if its been flagged as large address aware, or window's won't give it to them because of the issues they can otherwise have. And many drivers go nuts if you don't give them the expected 2 gigs.

you can get a file off of the supcom forums that adds the header to .exe files.

Yup. But the problem is that the basic reason why that flag was needed was that some programs break down if you give them more than 2 GB's of space. Mostly because they were badly / lazily programmed, but its still an issue.

edit: Missed this gem earlier



The point is that they managed to "fix" that problem, partially. Apparently they built a high-speed network inside the processor to solve that issue. I didn't get all the technical details, alas, but I got enough

highspeed or no highspeed, I dont care. theres simply the matter of distance.


and thats even forgetting the fact these things probably have high error rates.

I only use it where I need it. currently thats limited solely to supcom.

lol, true.... though a lot of people wish that certain other programs had that flag (specifically, the Elder Scrolls IV construction set comes to mind, people "bump" into the 2 gig limit all the time there...).