Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

syms · 2009-10-26 14:58:58

Hi,
Im wondering to switch to 64 bit system but im not sure. I have amd athlon 64 3000+ 1.5 gb and ati radeon r300 chip. I would switch to 64 bit system if i see at least small performance improvement. I mean, i want to make kde or gnome a bit more snappier so will 64 bit system do at least small improvement in performance? Im asking here because some people say that 64 bit version is a bit snappier, while some people say that its not faster at all, it only uses more ram. Since my desktop usually uses 300-400 mb of my 1.5 gb, i dont care much about ram consuption, because 64 bit system cant use 50% more ram than 32 bit version right?
Cheers

Tyriel · 2009-10-26 15:27:12

Yes it is a little faster... around 8-10% faster in general but can be much faster in certain circumstances. For instance code optimised to use 64bit cpu registers you will see big improvements. However this is usually specialised software that is not that common.

So in short it is slightly faster but don't expect huge improvements unless you do tasks that use massive CPU/memory and take considerable amounts of time. For instance for me it became much more obvious compiling large amounts of code or encoding DVD's.

Hope that helps you out but in any case I would encourage you to make the change if you can because the more people you use 64bit systems the more support they will receive which means a better experience for all.

syms · 2009-10-26 15:39:48

Tyriel wrote:

Yes it is a little faster... around 8-10% faster in general but can be much faster in certain circumstances. For instance code optimised to use 64bit cpu registers you will see big improvements. However this is usually specialised software that is not that common.
So in short it is slightly faster but don't expect huge improvements unless you do tasks that use massive CPU/memory and take considerable amounts of time. For instance for me it became much more obvious compiling large amounts of code or encoding DVD's.
Hope that helps you out but in any case I would encourage you to make the change if you can because the more people you use 64bit systems the more support they will receive which means a better experience for all.

Well, i will be happy if there will be small performance improvement. If my desktop environment will work 8-10% faster then ill be very happy. And yes, i know that devels recommend us to use 64 bit version.
Anyway thanks for help!

keiichi · 2009-10-26 18:00:20

If you watch anime you will get a noticeable improvement in the playback of 720p HD videos. Without any desktop effects turned on you should be able to play 1080p HD videos with ease.

syms · 2009-10-26 18:12:21

Thanks for help. Anyway i have some questions, i heard that skype doesnt work on 64 bit linux system, and how about flash player? i heard that linux 64 bit version of flash is very bad, buggy, unstable etc.

Themaister · 2009-10-26 18:20:49

It isn't. I find it more stable than 32-bit version.

neodreams · 2009-10-26 18:20:55

Here the 64bit flash work great, i use it alot on Youtube, Dailymotion, Justin.tv, Vimeo and some Facebook games and i have nothing bad to say, it's all ok. Skype work but since there's no 64bit version of it you need to install all those lib32 stuff... wasting some space on the hard drive but worth it. You can find it on AUR... which is down right now.

Last edited by neodreams (2009-10-26 18:22:55)

flamelab · 2009-10-26 18:20:55

You can use 32bit apps within 64bit OS, you just install lib32-* packages.
Flash is a mess in 32bit as well, there is no difference.

64bit Arch Linux is way too stable

Last edited by flamelab (2009-10-26 18:21:32)

syms · 2009-10-26 18:26:07

Im very thankful for all of your comments. Some people said to me that i should never install 64 bit version, because its very unstable, slow, uses more ram, and you can see speed up only having compilations, but you changed my mind. Soon im going to reinstall my arch linux, since i encouncered this problem:
http://www.chakra-project.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?id=1648
So this is going to be great chance to switch to 64 bit version.

jdhore · 2009-10-26 18:40:12

If you like multitasking, I wouldn't use 64-bit on a system with only 1.5GB of RAM. I used to use it on a system with 2GB of RAM and it got very close to using 1.8GB of that quite often. The reason is because certain C function calls and such are larger on 64-bit and therefore use more RAM...About 20% more to be accurate.

Personally, my opinion is that you shouldn't go 64-bit unless you have more than 4GB of RAM, and even if you do have more than 4GB of RAM, you should somewhat consider using a PAE kernel because if you do, a single application/process can't use more than 4GB, so a single application can't eat all your RAM and cause your computer to crash/hardlock.

flamelab · 2009-10-26 18:46:05

jdhore wrote:

If you like multitasking, I wouldn't use 64-bit on a system with only 1.5GB of RAM. I used to use it on a system with 2GB of RAM and it got very close to using 1.8GB of that quite often. The reason is because certain C function calls and such are larger on 64-bit and therefore use more RAM...About 20% more to be accurate.
Personally, my opinion is that you shouldn't go 64-bit unless you have more than 4GB of RAM, and even if you do have more than 4GB of RAM, you should somewhat consider using a PAE kernel because if you do, a single application/process can't use more than 4GB, so a single application can't eat all your RAM and cause your computer to crash/hardlock.

Oh, no, 1.8/2 GB ? No no, only if you open a million apps or a VM, this happens.

And the PAE causes performance problems, and shouldn't be used unless the installation of a 64bit OS is impossible (i.e. on a Pentium 4).

syms · 2009-10-26 19:01:07

Well, im confused now again. Some people say that it uses much more ram, and some say that it doesnt. But oh well, i will still give a try to 64 bit system. I will test if it uses much more ram, because 8% of performance boost is impressive to me, so its more important than ram use.

flamelab · 2009-10-26 19:30:17

It uses a bit more RAM, not SO much like some people say.

lilsirecho · 2009-10-26 20:02:26

Dont't blame 64 bit for kde4 slowdown! That's kde4's problem.

flamelab · 2009-10-26 21:43:48

KDE4 is not slow.

fukawi2 · 2009-10-26 21:54:23

A couple of unscientific comparisons:
1) Compiling kernel 2.6.31 on my 32-bit desktop = 103 minutes. Compiling the same on my new 64-bit desktop = 6 minutes 6 seconds. Unscientific in that totally different hardware, but at least some of the speed improvement comes from 64-bit.
2) At my old job, we had a PostgreSQL server that did a bulk import each night from our ERP system. It used to take 6 - 8 hours each night when it was 32-bit. After rebuilding it as 64-bit on the same hardware, the same imports took < 30 minutes.

_dunmer · 2009-10-26 23:48:14

I'm on 1.5Ghz dual core and 2 GB RAM and 64bit arch. From my point of view (normal user, borwsing, movies, coding, etc..), it's the same like 32bit.
Everything works well, with same speed and ram consumption. (Maybe there are some differencies but not so big to notice)

So, question is, why shouldn't use 64bit system, when you have 64bit hw? .)

Trent · 2009-10-27 00:45:41

On my 64-bit system only 600 MB of 2 GB are currently in use. This is with Openbox+KDE4+Firefox with one open tab. I'd be interested to know what jdhore was running to cause 1.8 gigs to be used up.

My considered and highly unscientific opinion is that 64-bit is noticeably faster, but not dramatically so.

tomd123 · 2009-10-27 04:42:08

_dunmer wrote:

I'm on 1.5Ghz dual core and 2 GB RAM and 64bit arch. From my point of view (normal user, borwsing, movies, coding, etc..), it's the same like 32bit.
Everything works well, with same speed and ram consumption. (Maybe there are some differencies but not so big to notice)
So, question is, why shouldn't use 64bit system, when you have 64bit hw? .)

I have almost the same hardware on a laptop. I also have the same views and experiences

zodmaner · 2009-10-27 04:49:39

Trent wrote:

My considered and highly unscientific opinion is that 64-bit is noticeably faster, but not dramatically so.

Same impression here.

Another area that 64-bit is noticeably faster than 32-bit is in video/audio encoding (almost twice as fast when compared to 32-bit). So if you do a lot of video/audio encoding, then 64-bit is the way to go.

Last edited by zodmaner (2009-10-27 05:01:40)

magnusk · 2009-10-27 04:56:44

Started using 64 bit on both PC and laptop about a year ago. I'm running Gnome on both machines but have tried both KDE and XFCE. I have not experienced any problems at all with any of the 64-bit systems. Flash has been working just as good as on any 32-bit system since the 64-bit Flashplugin came.
So without beeing able to give you any records on how much slower or faster it is I can say - Go ahead and try it!

bharani · 2009-10-27 05:10:00

Currently my 64 bit system uses ~150 Mb of Ram with firefox (5 tabs)and MPD.
I use openbox.

Even my 64 bit linux mint never used more than 700 Mb.

rowdog · 2009-10-27 07:30:19

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64_bit#Pros_and_cons

The main downside of 64 bits is that pointers are twice as long, so it uses a bit more RAM for most things. The upside is that you get 64 bit registers and more of them, so anything compute intensive (compiling, video editing and such) will be a big win. You'll also get the benefit of the extra registers with every application, but it may not be very noticeable.

syms · 2009-10-27 08:14:00

Thanks again for your opinions. Currently im not sure when ill back home, so more opinions would be appreciated

AngryKoala · 2009-10-27 09:13:28

I recently upgraded to 64 bit, and everything is great so far, no compatibility issues.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-26 14:58:58

Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#2 2009-10-26 15:27:12

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#3 2009-10-26 15:39:48

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#4 2009-10-26 18:00:20

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#5 2009-10-26 18:12:21

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#6 2009-10-26 18:20:49

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#7 2009-10-26 18:20:55

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#8 2009-10-26 18:20:55

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#9 2009-10-26 18:26:07

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#10 2009-10-26 18:40:12

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#11 2009-10-26 18:46:05

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#12 2009-10-26 19:01:07

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#13 2009-10-26 19:30:17

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#14 2009-10-26 20:02:26

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#15 2009-10-26 21:43:48

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#16 2009-10-26 21:54:23

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#17 2009-10-26 23:48:14

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#18 2009-10-27 00:45:41

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#19 2009-10-27 04:42:08

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#20 2009-10-27 04:49:39

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#21 2009-10-27 04:56:44

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#22 2009-10-27 05:10:00

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#23 2009-10-27 07:30:19

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#24 2009-10-27 08:14:00

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

#25 2009-10-27 09:13:28

Re: Will 64 bit version of arch linux have some speed up?

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