AMD 64 Performance

[Vanuatoo]

Hello

I've got AMD64 (939) 3500+, 1GB RAM

I'm going to install gentoo on it 64 bit. The machine will be used
as a devlopment workstation. So I will need

Sun JDK
Firefox
and some other tools

also some multimedia stuff
Mplayer, games and so on

I know that I should install 32 bit version of jdk because 64 bit is a memory eater and slower, 32 bit version of firefox to get flash working,
mplayer also is better to be 32 bit and games also run in 32 bit mode.

My questions are:

What performarnce gain is from installing gentoo 64 bit?
Can anybody say from his/her experience that 32 bit system on amd 64 is faster
than 64 bit system?

[nxsty]

I haven't noticed any difference except that lame (probably mplayer too) is way faster in 64 bit and 64 bit usually gives higher benchmark numbers in various apps. But I'm thinking about going back to 32 bit and use a 64 bit kernel only because of the compatibility issues. In 32 bit you can also enable symbol visibility for stuff like OpenOffice 2 and FireFox 1.5 which is broken on amd64.

[get sirius]

I only know that the amd64 processors have extra registers that are used ONLY in the presence of a 64-bit operating system. I've been using dual opterons since April 2004 and socket 754 athlon64s since around June/July 2004, but only in 64-bit systems. To say that I'm satisfied would be an understatement!

[Headrush]

But I'm thinking about going back to 32 bit and use a 64 bit kernel only because of the compatibility issues. In 32 bit you can also enable symbol visibility for stuff like OpenOffice 2 and FireFox 1.5 which is broken on amd64.

So you would switch back so 2 apps will start faster?
The KDE stuff uses symbol visibility without problems in 64 bit environment.

Is there a updated list of packages that don't compile native 64 bit yet? Seems to me it can't be that many or at least not the most common ones. At least all the KDE stuff does, but that doesn't help Gnome, XFCE, etc users.

[sirdilznik]

Is there a updated list of packages that don't compile native 64 bit yet? Seems to me it can't be that many or at least not the most common ones. At least all the KDE stuff does, but that doesn't help Gnome, XFCE, etc users.

All the base stuff for XFCE4 compiles just fine in 64-bit. There may be a few obscure extras that either are not 64-bit yet or need unmasking. I would imagine when XFCE4.4 comes out everything will be 64-bit

[Headrush]

All the base stuff for XFCE4 compiles just fine in 64-bit. There may be a few obscure extras that either are not 64-bit yet or need unmasking. I would imagine when XFCE4.4 comes out everything will be 64-bit

I was curious. I continually keep seeing people in these forums making it sound like there are all these problem packages with amd64 and telling noobies to avoid the hassle and stick with a 32 bit installation. Frankly I have yet to have any issues directly related to the 64 bit environment.

[nxsty]

So you would switch back so 2 apps will start faster?
The KDE stuff uses symbol visibility without problems in 64 bit environment.

The KDE visibility support is broken by design and visibility support in gcc is a bit buggy on x86_64 and other arches than x86. I don´t really see any gain of using 64 bit over 32 bit on a desktop at the moment except the hype of running 64 bit. Perhaps you can tell me any?

[sirdilznik]

I have been running 64-bit for almost a year now. I feel that while 64-bit support in Windows may suck (Windows XP x64 is a joke), on the Linux sie of thins, and especially Gentoo, 64-bit is doing quite well. My system is almost entirely 64-bit (except for the occasional 32-bit binary) and is quite stable and performs quite well. The few 64-bit issues I've had to deal with (flLash,etc...) are now easy to deal with thanks to pioneeers that tackled the issue when mozilla-firefox-bin and openoffice-bin were not available. While 64-bit may not hold that many advantages right now, there are still some programs that benefit from the extra-power right now. Also remember that it will only get better from now on. And a year from now when Windows Vista comes out (unfortunately Microsuck still contols the market) and the wave of 64-bit applications/games hits the market and everybody else says: damn it's time to recompile /upgrade to 64-bit, you can just run the program in 64-bit right away and enjoy. In closing: Down side: little bit more time right now Up side: it's only going to get better

[deepspace9]

Specially for java I would recomment a 64 bit OS. You can get upto twice the speed of the same 32 bit version!

[Nattydraddy]

The KDE visibility support is broken by design and visibility support in gcc is a bit buggy on x86_64 and other arches than x86. I don´t really see any gain of using 64 bit over 32 bit on a desktop at the moment except the hype of running 64 bit. Perhaps you can tell me any?

i also use 32bit again on my desktop-computer. But on my desktop-computer i also create things like SVG and 3D. AV stuff can run significant faster under 64bit. I hope i can change to 64bit next year.

[Headrush]

The KDE visibility support is broken by design and visibility support in gcc is a bit buggy on x86_64 and other arches than x86. I don´t really see any gain of using 64 bit over 32 bit on a desktop at the moment except the hype of running 64 bit. Perhaps you can tell me any?

I have no concrete facts or statistics, and maybe it is more CPU related, but compiling on my amd64@2000Mhz is significantly faster than it was on my Pentium 4@2400Mhz.

[nxsty]

The KDE visibility support is broken by design and visibility support in gcc is a bit buggy on x86_64 and other arches than x86. I don´t really see any gain of using 64 bit over 32 bit on a desktop at the moment except the hype of running 64 bit. Perhaps you can tell me any?

i also use 32bit again on my desktop-computer. But on my desktop-computer i also create things like SVG and 3D. AV stuff can run significant faster under 64bit. I hope i can change to 64bit next year.

Yes and if you do a lot of video/audio encoding and stuff it's also a good idea to run in 64 bit. But for a lot of users there is no point currently. There is no point running in 64 bit just for the fact that it's 64 bit.

[nxsty]

I have no concrete facts or statistics, and maybe it is more CPU related, but compiling on my amd64@2000Mhz is significantly faster than it was on my Pentium 4@2400Mhz.

Yes but the AMD64 is way faster anyway so it has probably nothing to do with 32 or 64 bit.

[valczir]

All the base stuff for XFCE4 compiles just fine in 64-bit. There may be a few obscure extras that either are not 64-bit yet or need unmasking. I would imagine when XFCE4.4 comes out everything will be 64-bit

I was curious. I continually keep seeing people in these forums making it sound like there are all these problem packages with amd64 and telling noobies to avoid the hassle and stick with a 32 bit installation. Frankly I have yet to have any issues directly related to the 64 bit environment.

I haven't had any problems, either. I had a lot of problems when I tried to install 32-bit gentoo on my computer, but 64-bit works fine. Except for cedega. I'm still trying to find some kind of thread that mirrors my problems with that program, but it looks like I may need to start a new one.

I did add ~amd64 to my make.conf, which is not recommended, but I haven't had one problem yet. Too many apps are masked by the ~amd64 keyword to umask each one seperately (ok, so I'm lazy). It's a risk, but if everything crashes now, it will have run for many more months than Windows ever did. And nothing slows down when I leave it on for a few days. I've had good experiences with linux, to say the least. And bad ones with Windows.

-Valc

[whig]

I get a 15% increase in FPS playing amd64 ut2004 compared to 32 bits. Compiling my 32 bit kernel takes 3:33, in 64 bit land this reduces to 2:47 (including the kernel's 32 bit emulation too). oggenc goes almost twice as fast too. Great stuff.

[p3ctu5]

Hi all,

Let me just say that this is my fist post, and i'm i'm the same situation than Vanuatoo.

my system is quite similar. I've installed gentoo on a laptop and it works quite well, i'm really suprised and i'm becoming quite a fan of this linux distribution.

At home i have this amd desktop. I've tried to install ubuntu for amd64 and i didn't quite like the result most of things. Now i'm going to install gentoo in it, but i'm not sure if the 32 or 64 could be a good choice ?

I've read the previuos posts, and from what i understand in terms of compilation and some apps the 64 performance is well noticed. But if you want to use it for wine, multimédia and browsing it has some problems.

That's a problem because was the major use in my case. I've also read that is possible to use both libs 32 and 64 in a chroot env. Does any one uses this kind of schema that could explain it a little better ?

Another think.

...and the wave of 64-bit applications/games hits the market and everybody else says: damn it's time to recompile /upgrade to 64-bit, you can just run the program in 64-bit right away.

If this is the case shouldn't i install a 32 bit version, and wait until there's more 64 bits applications in the market ?


This is just some questions. Please enlight me

[Headrush]

p3ctu5, go 64 bit.

Portage has 32 bit versions of the needed software. (mplayer-bin, firefox-bin, and openoffice-bin)
Unless you use some of the more "less" used or "standard" software, you probably won't need a 32 bit chroot.

As for Wine, Wine runs fine in the 64 bit environment. All the apps run under Wine are 32 bit already, so no issues.

[p3ctu5]

p3ctu5, go 64 bit.

Portage has 32 bit versions of the needed software. (mplayer-bin, firefox-bin, and openoffice-bin)
Unless you use some of the more "less" used or "standard" software, you probably won't need a 32 bit chroot.

As for Wine, Wine runs fine in the 64 bit environment. All the apps run under Wine are 32 bit already, so no issues.

Just finished downloading the universal CD going to test it tomorrow.

cheers

[bakaohki]

Go 64bit, it is much faster! You have to live with slower package updates in the stable tree, but that's the price for the speed.

[hvengel]

There are other examples of apps that run faster when built as 64 bit apps. For example the Hugin stitching engine nona runs way faster as a 64 bit app and lcms will take advantage of 64 bit integer registers so any app using lcms (like lprof, scribus or cinepaint) will run faster. Just two that I know about from my own experience. There are probably other apps that will show significant performance advantages when built as 64 bit apps that other know about.

Of course as other have said the downside is that there are a few apps that still run better as 32 bit apps. Most of these because they have hand optimized 32 assembler code but are still using compiled c code when built as 64 bit. There are also a few apps that simply can not be built as 64 bit apps yet. OpenOffice is one example. But in all of those cases you can run the 32 bit code on your 64 bit machine and it will run at least as fast as on the same hardware with everything built 32 bit. Also the list of these apps is getting smaller everyday and I expect that in the next 6 months or so most will have had the work needed to actually build a 64 bit only machine.

By the way I have wine on my 64 bit machine (not installed from a binary) and it is working as well as any version of wine that I have ever had.

[pacho2]

Change to 64 bits there are "-bin" ebuild for apps that are needed to be run in 32 bits mode.

[mottmar]

<disclaimer>No geek was harmed during the writing of this post</disclaimer>
the future has 64bit!
I think you should install a 64bit Gentoo on a 64bit system, I did so 1 year ago and I can tell you the issues are getting fewer day after day (ok, ok, maybe month after month is more realistic) and a couple -bin packages do the trick very well. The Openoffice team is working on a 64bit version, and someday Macromedia will realize that refusing to port Flash is, well, a very silly thing to do... because, as I playfully stated above, the future has 64bit. Micro$oft too, after the XP-x64 joke, is going to release a 64bit Vista. If they got it, any monkey can get it