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List:       kde-solaris
Subject:    Re: [kde-solaris] Solaris + GCC -> -m32 or -m64 ??
From:       Jan Van Belle <Jan.Van_Belle () alcatel ! be>
Date:       2004-02-06 8:13:45
Message-ID: 40234CB9.3080801 () alcatel ! be
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Nick THOMPSON wrote:

>Jan,
>
>(Game console myth number 56: more bits = more speed)
>
>I don't have any direct experience of KDE with 64 bits, but more bits
>doesn't equal more speed. In fact you are likely to find a slowing down
>due to the larger instructions that will have to get through your
>processor. The only reason to consider more bits is when you have huge
>data and/or RAM (>4GB) to manipulate and you need the bigger pointer or
>offsets that are then possible. As you only have 256MB of RAM, there is
>no obvious need for 64 bits.
>
>Taking the ARM uC as an example, 16bit (thumb) mode was invented to
>_increase_ the speed of this 32bit processor. This works because there
>are less instruction bits to read from memory. In general you need more
>instruction to make up for the inherent lack of flexibility of
>instructions in 16bit mode, but not so many more as to lose everything
>you have gained in instruction bandwidth.
>
Yes, OK, I know! I have such a development board at home ;-

>Signal processing and maths functions can occasionally benefit from a
>few more bits if you have some good instructions (and software) to make
>use of them.
>
>Nick.
>
I only asked because I saw a few weeks ago a 64-bit KDE upload for 
solaris2.8. So I thought: my machine is not that fast, maybe KDE will 
run slightly faster if using 64-bit instead of 32.

Kind regards,

Jan



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