Obviously, it probably has some (or many) advantages over 32-bit that I’m clearly not aware of. So, what are they?
I just don’t get it, so many things still aren’t supported on X64 PC’s. For example, on Internet Explorer 8 and 9 64-bit versions don’t support Flash, and when I manage to get it working, it then UN-works, then brings up a message telling me that 64-bit IE’s don’t currently support flash or Flash isn’t available on 64-bit browsers.
I have a 64-bit pc now with Windows 7, and am still writing 32-bit apps, and they all work perfectly (minus a few bugs here n there, which would appear whether you’re using 32/64-bit). Why should/would one want to develop for 64-bit systems? I don’t see how they are any different and, if I were to learn more about developing for 64bit, where would you recommend I start?
The most commonly cited reason for 64-bit applications is access to more memory. Database servers, for one obvious example, can benefit tremendously when most (or all) the data they’re working with is available in memory instead of being stored on disk.
You can also gain extra speed, especially for floating point-intensive applications (I’ve seen a 3x speed-up fairly routinely, though it also depends somewhat on the CPU).
Some other applications, however, gain little or even lose some by moving to 64-bits. The CPU still has the same bandwidth to memory, but all your pointers double in size so if you’re using pointers a lot, it can end up a net loss.