On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 10:26 PM, Nick Sabalausky <a...@a.a> wrote: > "Fawzi Mohamed" <fmoha...@mac.com> wrote in message > news:hbhi5q$1gq...@digitalmars.com... >> On 2009-10-18 20:01:26 +0200, language_fan <f...@bar.com.invalid> said: >> >>> Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:35:53 +0200, Fawzi Mohamed thusly wrote: >>>> >>>> on x86 the 64 bit extension added registers, that makes it faster, even >>>> if as you correctly point out a priori just using 64 bit pointers is >>>> just a drawback unless you have lot of memory. >>> >>> That is very silly claim. First, you need to have use for all those extra >>> registers to obtain any performance benefits. This is nearly not always >>> the case. >> Probably you don't know x86 architecture well, it is register starved for >> modern standards, also with the 64 bit new instruction were added, on x86 >> the 64 bit change was not "add 64-bit pointers" but it was let's try to >> fix some major shortcomings of x86. >> These enhancements are available only in 64 bit mode (to keep backward >> compatibility). >> >> I know for a fact that my code runs faster in 64 bit mode (or you can say >> my compiler optimizes it better), and I am not the only one: for sure >> apple converted basically all its applications to 64 bit on snow leopard >> (that is focusing on speed), so that they are slower :P. >> > > I'll certainly agree with you on 64-bit x86 likely being faster than 32-bit, > but Apple is bad example. Apple, at it's cor...erm..."heart", is a hardware > company. That's where they make their money. If software runs efficiently, > then their newer hardware becomes a tougher sell (And Jobs himself has never > been anything more than a salesman, only with far more control over his > company than salesmen usually have). It's not surprising that for years, > every version of iTunes has kept growing noticably more bloated than the > last, despite having very little extra. > > >
It's interesting how Apple is doing a lot to better performance then. With things like OpenCL and LLVM.