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I see dual processor systems are coming out, with 64 bit architecture ........ 6 giga hertz and improving. Does this mean that all the software will have to crossover to be dual processor 64 bit capable or will it still run in original form but not be optimised for the new systems?

both, first one then the other.
that's one way of ensuring sales go on, eh?

Sonar 5 is 64-bit enabled, but defaults to 'normal' if you have not got a 64-bit system.

no software is optimized anymore - that's a relic from last century
well, occasionally for benchmarks only...

kidding(?), Tom

I'm not gonna bite on this one. It would be too easy to make a sweeping generalisation.

I do think tho, that optimzed software for 64bit computing will *mostly* come in the form of games, which is only good for gamers.

emzee,
AMD's (not sure about Intel's future processors) new 64 bit processors are capable of running 32bit software with no extra overhead so software needs no optimization. Of course, when it's optimized it PROBABLY can run faster.

About 64bits, it's not necessarily any better. The same thing was when we moved from 16bits to 32. First, programs will be larger, they will eat memory. Then why more bits? Memory pointers are now 32bits in size. This will make the maximum amount of RAM that we can use 4Gigabytes (that is 2^32bits). It is becoming a problem with today's massive software (and especially in database servers). (Guess what, 2^64 will be enough memory forever!)

About dual cores and the like, implementations vary, but some do it totally internally, so OS sees the processors as one and are happy with it. In some cases, OS sees two (or more) processors instead of one (like Intel's early HyperThreading models).
And when OS sees multiple processors, then it must be capable of handling many processors (Win XP Pro is, Home is not).

Finally about software's multi-processor support. When the software supports multi-processors, it can balance it's load between different processors and maybe accomplish some advantage doing things in parallel). When the software is not, but OS is, the OS decides which prosessor is doing any given task. For example, your sequencer could run on one processor and the OS on another, so there is some benefit.

This was somewhat simplified explanation, but I think it will do it's purpose.


Astroman,
About software optimization, it's true that it isn't nearly as common these days than it was 2 decades ago. Today, computers are cheap, developers expensive. Especially those with enough intellect.
Today (with huge software and large development teams), it's more important to make maintenable code than to write fast code. Also, it's more important to write secure code. All of this is away from performance.

And this is what Windows Vista is about. It may be nothing to us, who yearn for every single bit of performance possible. But it's very much to consumer users (under the hood) and developers.

Oh, btw, it's networking part completely rewritten and it's about 8times faster than the old one...

Shroomz,
I think games have nothing to take from 64bits. 64bits is good for video editing, heavy audio and database/application servers.

Which means everything speeds up & high-level synth code can finally rival older speed DSP code ?

But then with new clusters of faster DSps ?
Say, 6+ 200mhz sharcs ? Where will we stand ?
Will new DSPs still be worth investing in ?

Or will people buy into a cheap embedded linux system running on a fanless x86 based mini ITX or similar ?

What is really the way forward for Audio developement ?

That's a lot of questions