Why upgrade to Windows x64? Do I really need this upgrade?
What am I going to gain from this release?
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Overview
According to Microsoft, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
supports the latest class of Intel Itanium processors designed for users
who need to create and manipulate large amounts of complex data.
Windows XP 64-bit Edition is designed for users that require
large amounts of memory and floating point performance in areas such as mechanical
design and analysis, 3-D animation, video editing and composition, and scientific
and high-performance computing applications.
Based on the Explicitly Parallel Instruction Set Computing
(EPIC) design technology, the Intel Itanium processor can perform up to 20
operations simultaneously by using advanced compiling techniques and large
processor resources. This means that the applications can preload substantial
amounts of data into virtual memory to enable rapid access by the processor.
This reduces the time for loading data into virtual memory and the time for
seeking, reading, and writing data to storage devices and as a result, applications
to run faster and more efficiently.
· Performance Benefits
With the 64-bit version, engineers can create large, more
complex models in fields such as automobile or airplane design. This means
that engineers can use a lot of new techniques to improve product design.
Except that, 3-D animators, digital artists, and game developers, can render
more complex 3-D models faster that before. According to Microsoft, in the
areas of scientific and high performance computing, Windows XP Professional
x64 Edition will aid in oil and gas exploration, seismic analysis, computational
fluid dynamics and scientific visualization among other applications. The
hardcore gamers will experience more complex textures that require biggest
amount of memory with more image effects on the upcoming games for the 64-bit
Windows,without having to worry about the performance.
· Increased amount of memory used
In our days, there are a lot of users that are reaching the memory limits
on the 32-bit systems. Here comes the new x64 Edition to solve this problem.
With Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, the memory limit has increased
to 128 gigabytes (GB) of RAM and 16 terabytes of virtual memory. The amount
of virtual memory is going to be increased even higher in the future, as
new hardware capabilities will be available.
Virtual memory error message on Windows XP when the size you set was bigger than 4096
· Single Desktop for Technical and Business
Applications
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition will provide a single desktop for technical
and business applications, eliminating the need for technical workstation
users to maintain a PC for business applications and a separate workstation
for high-end technical applications. Most of the existing 32-bit programs
will run on the Windows XP Professional x64 Edition in comparable performance
to 32-bit Windows, hopefully it will be boosted.
Server Administrators will not have to worry about compatibility problems
when they want to setup a server with both Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
systems and 32-bit systems. Furthermore, they can manage them with the same
administrative tools.
On Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Task Manager displays the 32-bit programs that run through WOW64 emulator with an "*32" extension.
· Same programming model
Developers with 32-bit skills will be comfortable and quickly productive
in the 64-bit Windows environment, finding it virtually identical to the
development environment for 32-bit Windows. The Microsoft Win64 application-programming
interface (API) is the same with the Microsoft Win32 API except some necessary
modifications to acquire best performance on every platform.
Finally, the feature set is the same as the previous 32-bit Windows with
the necessary modifications which includes: UI and programming models, networking,
security, graphics, multimedia, directory service, Plug and Play, and tools
features.
