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  • Flerbizky - Friday, June 18, 2004 - link

    And where's the 64bit Far Cry part of the article ?... That could've been quite interesting as well..

    http://www.amd.com/farcry

    Cheers.
  • TrogdorJW - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    19: That's the whole point: WoW is an interface that allows for 32-bit applications to run on the 64-bit OS. AMD64 supports a mode where 32-bit applications are run concurrently with 64-bit applications under a 64-bit OS, but you still need to have the 32-bit interface that the old applications understand, and that interface then ties into the 64-bit OS.

    I'm not sure what Pjotr is thinking when he says that you can run 32-bit drivers under 64-bit Linux, though. In my experience with Linux, you need to compile practically every driver/application/utility to get it to work, which of course gives you 64-bit drivers under 64-bit Linux and 32-bit drivers under 32-bit Linux. It's just like Windows: the drives and the OS need to be 64-bit, while you can have a compatibility interface to run 32-bit applications.
  • glennpratt - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    Pjotr: I didn't think you could run 32bit software while running within a 64bit OS (which would be using the processors long mode). If plain 32bit software could be run without WOW, why would M$ be making it?
  • araczynski - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    My only point is that (in my opinion) until EVERYthing is out of beta, any performance data that comes out is completely worthless/meaningless especially in a field as finacky as graphics performance.

    As such, deducing ANYthing from worthless data is in turn, itself worthless and futile.
  • Pjotr - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    #11,
    The Linux distros have not all come as far. Some are better at AMD64 than others.
    AMD64 also allows direct hardware 32 bit execution, unlike the WoW, so you can run 32 bit drivers in an AMD64 64 bit OS.
  • Shinei - Thursday, June 17, 2004 - link

    Anemone, these are beta drivers, you have to expect the performance to not be as spectacular as the stuff the companies already know (x86-32). And we also have to consider that these results are using yesterday's cards; 64-bit NV40 and R420 should be a great deal more satisfying, especially if paired up with improved drivers. I imagine that nVidia's driver team experience will produce something approaching x86-32 performance by the time XP64 is ready to roll, with ATI pushing out its final beta around the same time; but, what do I know about programming, I just play the games and moan when they don't work right. ;)
  • Anemone - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    Looks like there is a lot of improvement before they are going to impress gamers...
  • TrogdorJW - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    At the risk of engaging the wrath of all the Linux fanboys out there, let's just point out that running the latest 64-bit Linux distros right now is perhaps even worse than XP-64 beta in many areas. Sound support is severely lacking, as is 3D accelerated graphics support. Text mode and unaccelerated X work fine, although they don't show massive performance boosts. Still, with sound and graphics support being a difficult proposition for all but the best Linux hackers, 32-bit is still the way to go.

    This, by the way, is based off of personal experience with trying to run Linux on an Athlon 64 3000+ system. 32-bit Linux is running happily now, although with the 2.6 kernel I still can't get Nvidia's drivers to work. I'll try 64-bit Linux again in about three or four months, I think.
  • glennpratt - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    And WOW is nothing new just so you know. If you run a 16bit app in 32 bit Windows XP you will see WOW in your process lists with programs running in it tabbed out a space.
  • Cygni - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    The differences between Nvidia and ATI arch when computing 64bit wont really be known until we have 64bit games to look into.

    WoW = Windows on Windows. Think of it as a 32bit emulator. Since Win64 its a native 64bit OS, WoW allows you to run 32bit programs by wrapping or emulating the 32bit calls made by the program into 64bit calls for the OS to understand.
  • kcbaltz - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    Pardon my ignorance, but what's "WoW"?
  • Pumpkinierre - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    I wonder if the nVidia architecture with its 16bit/32bit FPU lends itself better to 64bit computation than ATI's 24bit FP. The nVidias certainly show the sort of performance improvements we were expecting.
  • ZobarStyl - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    Beta or not the point is seeing if actual current hardware will benefit from the increased efficiency of a 64 bit OS...I think it's a perfectly reasonable article and I liked it, if WoW emulation can post any benefits and not hinder any programs then it will be a godsend to A64 owners.
  • araczynski - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    #6: I think only the fanboi community is interested in data that is mostly based on Beta sources. The geek community would be interested in actual release data, not this stuff. You might as well start comparing the 5.0ghz offerings from AMD and Intel at this point.
  • Pjotr - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    BTW, UT2004 64 bit:

    http://www.fileshack.com/browse.x?cat=2226
  • RyanVM - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    RE: NV40. "If there's demand" - HAH! Like you even have to say that :-)

    I think the entire geek community is interested in seeing how well the latest and greatest hardware performs in a 64bit environment. Do it up!
  • Stuke - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    On your test platform, under dxdiag, did it show that it had AGP support? Whenever I install the via 4in1 on my system and the video drivers, I get no AGP texture acceleration. Maybe thats a cause for lower performance too.
  • DerekWilson - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    I appologize for messing up the graphs. It really should be the 5950 in the graphs.

    The latest versions of the drivers when the tests were performed didn't support X800 and 6800 yet.

    I'll correct the error ASAP. Sorry for any confusion.
  • Illissius - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    You put 6800 Ultra instead of 5959 Ultra on all the graphs :/
    OTOH it's odd that the 5950U is faster at Halo, which is DX9. Is it using a special codepath (one sans any actual DX9 stuff :) ) or something?
    And yeah, NV40 vs. R420 would be nice, but other things are prob. more important. (Such as the Far Cry SM 3.0 patch and whether or not NV40 gets a performance boost on nForce3 as nVidia says it does.)
  • Pjotr - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    UT2004 is available in 64 bit server and client versions now, although beta. Any chance of adding these to the test?
  • zShowtimez - Wednesday, June 16, 2004 - link

    You sure you didnt mean to put 5950 ulta, NOT 6800 ultra in those charts??

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