[mythtv-users] 32 vs. 64 bit, any significant difference?

[Daniel Kristjansson]

On Wed, 2009-12-16 at 09:26 -0700, Brian Wood wrote:
> Building a new backend, and trying to decide whether to go 32 or 64 bit. 
> Obviously it's a 64-bit CPU (AMD FX-60).
> 
> Only using 2GB of RAM, so that's not a factor.
> 
> I know it's been asked before, but reviewing past posts I don't seem to see 
> any final conclusion.
> 
> Normally I'd go with 64 bit, but I wonder of there are any reasons to go 32 
> (Flash players, XBMC Boxee)?
> 
> Thoughts?

No significant difference. 64-bit binaries will use a little more
space and so in theory run a bit slower, but with the AMD64 vs ia32
you also get a larger register file with 64-bit which makes up for
that. All the really expensive operations in MythTV are handled by
handwritten assembler largely via the work of the developers of the
libraries we use.

Adobe has a 64-bit Flash that has been in beta forever, but works just
as well as the 32-bit version. I've never gotten XBMC to compile so
I can't answer with respect to that, but I'd be shocked if it behaved
any differently wrt to 64-bit vs 32-bit than MythTV.

My production backend is running 32-bits, but this is just because it
has been running a long time. Today I'd install 64-bit, but only because
all my other systems are running 64-bit and I would like to use distcc
when compiling for the production machine. Yes, distcc cross compiles
can be done, I've done it in the past, but maintaining the setup on a
half dozen machines was a PITA.

-- Daniel