64bit version
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32-bit software will run on all Windows systems, be they 32 or 64-bit. 64-bit software will only run on 64-bit Windows systems. So if you're initially developing and releasing software for which you want the widest startup exposure and have finite resources, doesn't it make sense to work on the 32-bit design and get that off the ground first? And if a 64-bit version does get released at some point to take advantage of 64-bit computer architecture, how does that create problems for 32-bit users? I run a 64-bit system with both 32-bit and 64-bit software, and I'm happy with both. I'm trying to figure out why this thread has grown to 4 pages of debate and argument… :ohmy:
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I have been using the 64 bit build of Opera since it has been available. (Does Chropera even have one?). But I also still have a 32 bit only machines around, so I'm glad that they will run Vivaldi.
The switch from 16 to 32 bit did go very fast due to the severe limitations of 16 bit (64 KB boundary). The last 16 bit Opera version was 3.62, if somebody still remembers it. But the transition from 32 to 64 bit is not a pressing issue yet.
Just my two cents.
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The last 32-bit only AMD CPUs were socket 462. But, Intel was tricky, all of them should have been 64-bit enabled by 2005, but Intel, with post-Northwood Pentium 4s, is alleged to have disabled 64-bit on some with a laser cut, LOL.
As I said I use 64bits since the day 1, the day -1 given I started using xp64 when still was in beta, and even the theme engine was till not working.
That said, for most of the machines from 2004/2008, there is little pont not just using 64bit applications, but also the whole operating system, given they are usually equipped with 2/3GB of ram (often costly DDR), and slow HDDs according to the today standars.
Sa 64bit system, its bigger size, and memory consumption makes the machine definitely less agile, and the (often supposed) advantages of 64bit OS and apps are more than shadowed.
The same is applicabile to nowadays low end machines, even a 64bit capable netbook bought "yesterday" is way more pleasurable to use when the Windows is a 32 bit version.
So NO ONE is against x64 itself and a x64 Vivaldi build, but stop asking for the novelties just because are novelties or trendy, and try to understand the REAL advantages and disadvantages of both worlds.
Let the Vivaldi team focus to the features missing and the bugfix process, then we will appreciate to have an x64 build.
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The last 32-bit only AMD CPUs were socket 462. But, Intel was tricky, all of them should have been 64-bit enabled by 2005, but Intel, with post-Northwood Pentium 4s, is alleged to have disabled 64-bit on some with a laser cut, LOL.
As I said I use 64bits since the day 1, the day -1 given I started using xp64 when still was in beta, and even the theme engine was till not working.
That said, for most of the machines from 2004/2008, there is little pont not just using 64bit applications, but also the whole operating system, given they are usually equipped with 2/3GB of ram (often costly DDR), and slow HDDs according to the today standars.
Sa 64bit system, its bigger size, and memory consumption makes the machine definitely less agile, and the (often supposed) advantages of 64bit OS and apps are more than shadowed.
The same is applicabile to nowadays low end machines, even a 64bit capable netbook bought "yesterday" is way more pleasurable to use when the Windows is a 32 bit version.
So NO ONE is against x64 itself and a x64 Vivaldi build, but stop asking for the novelties just because are novelties or trendy, and try to understand the REAL advantages and disadvantages of both worlds.
Let the Vivaldi team focus to the features missing and the bugfix process, then we will appreciate to have an x64 build.
Yes, you hit the spot.
There's only 1 big con that jumps out:
64-bit requires more RAM than 32-bit, for the same features.
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IIRC, sadly, 32-bit Vista, 7 and possibly 8x, uses more RAM than 64-bit XP!
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There's only 1 big con that jumps out:
64-bit requires more RAM than 32-bit, for the same features.
TWO
More ram, bigger files, slower transfers between storage to memory, memory to storage, and possibly memory to memory.
In short a slower system in almost everything but number crunching (compression, multimedia encoding, possibly image manipulation and 3d rendering).
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There's only 1 big con that jumps out:
64-bit requires more RAM than 32-bit, for the same features.
TWO
More ram, bigger files, slower transfers between storage to memory, memory to storage, and possibly memory to memory.
In short a slower system in almost everything but number crunching (compression, multimedia encoding, possibly image manipulation and 3d rendering).
Perhaps this helps explain why, when my wife and I were running systems that were essentially clones of each other, but hers was loaded with 64-bit Windows 7 and mine with 32-bit, mine always seemed faster and more trouble-free.
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Original, better thread here that details some reasons why and other features that benefit from 64-bit… Why start, and why bump this new spam thread?
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My real-life experience is that it is superior about 30% of the time. For instance, my image-processing program is better installed as 64-bit (I have the choice) but my word processor is not. My browsers are not (at least not visibly so). My bookkeeping program is. My internet phone programs are not. My search apps are not. My email programs are not. Etc., etc.
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My real-life experience is that it is superior about 30% of the time. For instance, my image-processing program is better installed as 64-bit (I have the choice) but my word processor is not. My browsers are not (at least not visibly so). My bookkeeping program is. My internet phone programs are not. My search apps are not. My email programs are not. Etc., etc.
Your computers would have to be the same in every way. For example, you can't just say oh the hardware was the same in both machines. The software and the different drivers matter too. What background processes are running on both machines.
I have been running 64bit systems since the first Day XP64 came out. I have never run into issues. In the beginning (when XP 64 first came out) it was hard finding 64bit programs and drivers, but apart from that the OS ran well. I was running 32bit versions of XP and I has less issues with the 64bit mostly because viruses and such were all written for 32bit Operating systems. 64bit was more secure at the time. That is changing now of course. Then Vista came out and I got that. People bitched and moaned about that. The problem was never the OS it was hardware developers had not made drivers for the OS what was vastly different in code to XP. Then windows 7, yes I keep getting the latest from day 1. I laughed my ASS off at all the Vista haters who thought 7 was the bees knees. MY Got it was Vista 2.0. It has a face lift and some tuning up but it was Vista still re-bagged and called windows 7.
My point is I have been running 64bit systems for over 10 years now and had no issues with them. They have been rock solid and most of the time the only issues where the lack of 64bit drivers or software.
My other point in this thread is that like 16bit software, 32bit has just about run its course. I know a lot of people are still running Ancient software, and like the end of support for XP and Vista 32bit should also stop being written to make way for the future.
64bit has been around for so long now it really makes no sense to keep on with 32bit software. If we are going to do that maybe we should still be developing 16bit or 8 bit software? you would all be like hell no to that.You all go on about resources, but it's the 32bitters who are holding these companies back and costing resources when they should be focused on 64bit the software that is now the standard not the outdated.
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32Bitters are still more than half the user population. Possibly for this reason, much of the software I install these days is still not even available in 64-bit.
And, oh yeah, it was not mere placebo effect that both ME and Vista were disasters. Win98, Win2k, and XP were all better than ME, and Win7 ran a TON better on all hardware than Vista (I know, I replaced Vista on all three machines I had that ran it, as soon as I was able. What a relief). This was no illusion. Likewise, I'm testing Win10 TP and it runs visibly better on my old crappy 32-bit laptop than Win7 - better resource management. As a result, my crappy old 32-bit laptop just added a few years to its life…
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… My other point in this thread is that like 16bit software, 32bit has just about run its course. I know a lot of people are still running Ancient software, and like the end of support for XP and Vista 32bit should also stop being written to make way for the future. 64bit has been around for so long now it really makes no sense to keep on with 32bit software. If we are going to do that maybe we should still be developing 16bit or 8 bit software? you would all be like hell no to that. ... it's the 32bitters who are holding these companies back and costing resources when they should be focused on 64bit the software that is now the standard not the outdated.
Software makers generally write code directed at the greatest potential market they can see in the timeframe that matters most to them. If that continues resulting in 32-bit software, it's for a reason… namely, that it's compatible with the greatest universe of possible using systems in the present and the immediate future: 32 and 64-bit systems. While you, I, or others might wish they'd move more aggressively into the future, they will do exactly as their marketing surveys and strategy dictate - with the result being just what you now see. The passage of time and the gradual obsolescence of 32-bit OS's will eventually change things, but that point is not here yet - as demonstrated by the current marketplace.
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The problem with Vista is that Microsoft was building Windows 7 but they had to launch something and so they launched as-is, a XP with Win7 stuff tossed on it. The same happened with ME, It's Win9x with NT mix. Both are a mess of code between their best OSes.
Win8 is different because it's more of a UI facelift than core changes, it has pissed many because of the new Start Screen but the behaviour is almost identical to Win7. On my PC Win8 even runs better than Win7 and Win10 is also running nice.If we are going to do that maybe we should still be developing 16bit or 8 bit software? you would all be like hell no to that.
That's more than obvious because there's a huge, enormous, utterly gigantic difference between "32 vs 64" and "32 vs 16/8".
With 8 bits you can store mere 2^8 (256) different values, with 16 bits this goes up to 2^16 (65536). Any simple software nowadays must handle data much bigger than this. They were replaced because they are extremely restrictive.
32 bit architecture sends this value up 2^32 (4.294.967.295), that's why x86 OSes can only understand up to 4GB of RAM. OSes must go to 64bit because then they can handle more RAM and thus making you able to run more software. But software do not need to, there is not much advantage for a software to use 2^64 (18 quintillion or 1.8x10^19) of different values over 2^32 (4 billion), both are more than enough for the browser to work with nowadays data.
Here's a good example: The colour space now is 32bit and will hardly get bigger. The 24bit colour space already has even more colours than our eyes can possibly distinguish. The extra 8 bit are merely for alpha to enhance image processing.
I'm not saying Vivaldi must not be 64bit, but we are not, even near, in a rush like when going from 8 to 16 and 16 to 32.
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Here's a good example: The colour space now is 32bit and will hardly get bigger. The 24bit colour space already has even more colours than our eyes can possibly distinguish. The extra 8 bit are merely for alpha to enhance image processing.
I'm sorry, but you should've chosen a better example, since in this case, it's pretty obvious you don't really know what you're talking about.
Yes, 24 bit color in theory means there's 16.8 million color combinations available. Which, taken out of context, is indeed a bigger number than the usually cited 10 million colors the human eye can see (which is just an estimate, though).
However, it's not as simple as that. 24 bit color means there's 8 bits for red, 8 bits for green and 8 bits for blue. Which means that there's only 255 shades of each color available (including shades of grey - yes, you only have 256 colors available if you want to display a black and white picture). And that's really not that great. As any graphic designer or photographer will tell you, especially when it comes to fine gradients, it's actually pretty easy to "run out of colors" with 24 bit color and be forced to try and hide it with tricks like dithering, despite the fact that the theoretical number of colors with 24bit colors should be higher than what the human eye can see. Your eye can definitely distinguish more than 256 shades of a color when it comes to gradients - you'll see banding, the gradient won't be smooth, there will be visible steps between the individual colors. What's commonly referred to as "true color" actually isn't.
It's actually a bit more complex than that (the human eye does not perceive color changes in a linear way, it is more sensitive to some colors than the others etc.), but the point is, we actually do need better color depths than 24 bits. We've needed it for years. We even commonly use hardware that can do better than 24 bit color depth - even pretty old DSLR cameras could do 12 bits per color channel (so 36 bit color), giving you 4096 RGB values instead of only 256. And most of the newer DSLR cameras even have 14 bits per color channel (48 bit color), which gives you 16384 RGB values. Scanners also have higher bit color available pretty much as a norm. Our graphics cards and especially monitors have been the weakest link here for a long time - quite a lot of the cheaper ones do not even have full 8 bits per color channel.
So, to sum it up - no, 24 bit color does not offer you more colors than our eyes can possibly distinguish. Far from it sadly. And adopting a higher bit color as standard is now long overdue.
As for what you mean by "the extra 8 bit are merely for alpha to enhance image processing", I have no idea. Alpha channel has nothing to do with image processing whatsoever. The value in alpha channel defines transparency of the given color. And again, it only has 256 steps available when it comes to 24/32 bit color.
Also, none of this has anything to do with 64bit systems, really. You can work with higher than 24/32 bit color depths just fine under 32 bit systems.
(And there goes me wanting to stay out of this thread…)
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MY Got it was Vista 2.0. It has a face lift and some tuning up but it was Vista still re-bagged and called windows 7.
Vista (sp0) was the alpha of seven. PERIOD.
Was crap, unstable, plenty of incompatibilities, plenty of baroque and unhandy UI elements and do on.
seven is just the OS they should release. But having millions of alpha and beta testers is better than having few thousands in a proper beta test program.
And vista 64 was Waaaaay more unpleasant to use, because the mandatory driver signature (acceptable today, incredibly annoying at the time), that was an MS choice rather than a difference in the architecture, but all in all was a further point in favor of the 32 bit
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@Al-Khwarizmi:
Read my previous post. 64-bit improves performance even if you never use any integer greater than 2^32.
Not improves.
Can improve
Which is way different
(it depends on how much are optimized the compilation process, and how the program was written and another zillion of factors)
Here there is people that replies about theory against people who talk about the real world scenario, the real world WINDOWS scenario.Who talks about theory is (obviously) right, but here the argument is how much is worth to have a 64bit browser FOR THE WINDOWS platform. And the advantages are almost nonexistent, especially talking of a Chromium based browser which is multiprocess.
The following link is about Chrome.
Just two benchmarks. One is on par, in the other one 32 wins by 7% (and real world beats theory by a large margin )
http://www.7tutorials.com/google-chrome-64-bit-it-better-32-bit-version
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MY Got it was Vista 2.0. It has a face lift and some tuning up but it was Vista still re-bagged and called windows 7.
Vista (sp0) was the alpha of seven. PERIOD.
Was crap, unstable, plenty of incompatibilities, plenty of baroque and unhandy UI elements and do on.
seven is just the OS they should release. But having millions of alpha and beta testers is better than having few thousands in a proper beta test program.
And vista 64 was Waaaaay more unpleasant to use, because the mandatory driver signature (acceptable today, incredibly annoying at the time), that was an MS choice rather than a difference in the architecture, but all in all was a further point in favor of the 32 bit
funny I've been running Vista Ultimate 64bit on one machine since it was released and never have had an issue with the operating system. I think you having issues says more about you than the OS.
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@Case
Ok, my example was bad, thanks for the insight. But the no hurry for everything 64bit is still not here.@Al-Khwarizmi:
Read my previous post. 64-bit improves performance even if you never use any integer greater than 2^32.
And? Windows being 64-bit already does this, it will fill the 64bit bus with integers from two different 32bit software.
The_Solutor brought exactly the point of the discussion:
@The_Solutor:(…) here the argument is how much is worth to have a 64bit browser FOR THE WINDOWS platform. And the advantages are almost nonexistent, especially talking of a Chromium based browser which is multiprocess.
What we really need in 64bit are 3D software (Blender/Maya), Image/Video Processing (Photoshop/After Effects), Simulators and some games (any gamer has a computer with way over 4GB of RAM, still games can only allocate that much of RAM, which often leads to crashes with few mods installed)
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I think you having issues says more about you than the OS.
Listen.
I bought my first computer in the '82, reading what you wrote I'm sure it was before your arrival on this planet, and for the record was a 16 bit computer when the rest of the world was still running on 8bit.
IT is my work, as tecnician, as juyrnalist, as system administrator since the AD 1998 or so.
So I can't care less about your fanboysm, and I care even less about any form of fanboysm (maybe opera is partly excluded )
What I'm saying is backed by years of experience as technician, as user, and as forum user/moderator.
Saying that Vista was great sounds, more or less, the same as saying that Adolf Hitler was a good man. :lol:
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Mate I work in the same field. Computer Tech too. I started in 1990 been working with computers earlier than that. I never said Vista was the Awesome, But If you really knew anything at all… You would know it was a bit resource hungry and when it came out there was a huge lack of driver for it, but apart from that it's solid.
You must think I'm really lucky to be running it on a machine for all these years and never having even one issue with it. I don't think I'm lucky, I know it's a solid Operating system. It don't run as sweet as 7 or 8, but it's still solid.If your a technician then I would not trust you with any machine. You remind me of this woman around here running a computer business from home. I was away and a friend got a display notebook. he needed some things done to it and had to take it to her.
when I got back he brought it straight to me and told me he took it to her and she stuffed it. I looked at it and worked out what she had done and ended up having to fix the mess she had made.You can carry on about your work or whatever, but there is a probability that there are a number of us Techs in this forum. So don't make me laugh thinking you are the only one. To be completely honest I prefer the hardware side of computers, but anyone with a brain knows working with computers I also have to work with the OS and other software.
Oh comparing on OS to Hitler? what the hell is that about. Watch out Vista is coming to cleanse world of you.. hahaha
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My $.02 worth: I build and service systems for friends and family - not as a business. An OS is "solid" if it is at least somewhat idiot-proof. Vista was not. It was easily broken, and it easily broke things. My daughter accidentally installed the wrong bit-depth driver for her new Sony camera on a Sony Vista laptop, and that was all she wrote. The damn thing crashed and wouldn't even boot. I had to build an XP boot disc with OS and repair utilities on it, to get to the repair partition and roll it back to factory state. That same laptop, in her husband's care, just got worse and worse under Vista (he's a video and projection tech and used it as his work machine) until I got it from them and put Win7 on it - which pretty well squared it away. Eventually I wound up having to brain-wipe it and put a clean 7 on, and now it runs Win 10 TP (quite smartly, I might add) but WinVista was an unmitigated disaster on it. Likewise, both my old home tower and my wife's (mine X86 and hers X64) were never any good under Vista and required Win7 to put them right.
So no one should try to pretend that WinVista, in any but the most exceptional circumstances, was anything like a "solid" OS. It was awful. It was resource-hungry, touchy, fragile, and temperamental - something even its authors could not love.