On 6/5/07, Michel Talon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I can confirm what Rahul is saying, perhaps this is no suprise since we are both theoretical physicists. I see 64 bits machines being *twice* faster than 32 bits machines (same machine, one in 32 bits Linux, the other in 64 bits Linux) on my computations, and particularly in symbolic maths computations, e.g. running maple 32 bits and maple 64 bits, or floating points computations. With this experience, i don't give any credence to the computer people who pretend that there is no difference between the two modes, or that you need >4 Gigs memory to see the difference. Our machines have 2 Gigs and i see an enormous difference.
When you claim something generally, like 64-bit machines faster than 32-bit machines, it is but specific to your application and the area you are working in. Applications that require heavy I/O would see no or negligible performance increase. You don't need > 4G memory to see the difference, 64 bit processing mode solves many of the problems related to x86 architecture to effectively utilize > 4G address space. When you compare 64-bit machines 32-machines you'd definitely see performance increase, due to enahnced register set and SSE instruction set. However, try comparing the same applications performance on same 64-bit machine in two different environments, pure 64-bit environment and pure 32-bit environment (which dragonfly is capable of) and let me know what performance increase do you see? And you can always run dragonfly on a 64-bit machine and it doesn't mean the OS won't utilize the available resources of 64-bit processors. The only difference is that you won't be able to utilize
4G address space and may be negligible performance decrease.
If you try to look at the DragonFly from the computer scientist's perspective you'll realize that though it ain't ready, it is the way an OS is meant to be. I'd ask you guys from making such comments as the DragonFly ain't SMP capable and won't be for a while just because you don't want to try it (because it doesn't have fancy graphical installer of your famous linux distro) . The negative comments like this have significant impact on mindset of casual users who want to try and contribute to the project. Cheers kmb -- Something is wrong up on cloud # 9!
