36 or 64 bit?

[Jean Francois Martinez]

On Sat, 2010-01-16 at 11:59 +0000, Andy Blanchard wrote:
> 2010/1/16 Jean Francois Martinez <jfm512 at free.fr>:
> > No it isn't.  In 32 bits mode the processor only has a paltry eight
> > registers and in addition it is limited to a brain damaged stack model
> > for floating point.  In 64 bits  it has sixteen registers and possibly,
> > not sure about it, a healthier floating point model.
> 
> Which is why I wrote: "There are some advantages..."
> 
> > So out of curiosity I converted flac to ogg in both modes and it is 30%
> > faster in 64 bits
> 
> Well, it would be.  That would come under the part about "manipulating
> large chunks of data that can be processed 64 bits at a time instead
> of 32."
> 

I fail to understand how manipulating 16 bit values can benefit of 
64 bits instead of 32.  I still think it is the 16 registers and thus
far less restrictive than "large chunks of data processed 64 bits at a
time"

> But all that is beside the point.  The original query was about
> drivers that were clearly broken in the 64bit version but potentially
> OK in the 32bit version and not whether 64bit was better than 32bit.
> That's why I suggested using the 32bit version as a workaround,
> ideally using a Live CD before re-installating in case it was broken
> as well, and wait for the bugs to be squished.

Ok, but later you told that 64 bits brought nothing for people who had
less than 4Gs of RAM

JF Martinez