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32bit or 64bit

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contact at nileshgr

Jul 16, 2012, 7:22 PM

Post #1 of 45 (785 views)
Permalink

32bit or 64bit

So the same old query again I guess.
What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
processor?

I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or
= 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.

So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
for me.

boxcars at gmx

Jul 16, 2012, 7:39 PM

Post #2 of 45 (779 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2012 07:52:08 +0530
Nilesh Govindrajan <contact [at] nileshgr> wrote:

> So the same old query again I guess.
> What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
> processor?
>
> I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is
> gt or = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.
>
> So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go
> 64bit for me.

I'd go with 64-bit mostly because it's my impression more people
(both devs and users) are using it now than 32-bit, so ebuilds/packages
get more testing under 64-bit.

But you don't say why you believe 64-bit shouldn't be seriously
considered for a machine with <4 GiB RAM.

markknecht at gmail

Jul 16, 2012, 7:52 PM

Post #3 of 45 (778 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On 7/16/12, Nilesh Govindrajan <contact [at] nileshgr> wrote:
> So the same old query again I guess.
> What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
> processor?
>
> I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or
> = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.
>
> So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
> for me.
>

Why 32? ... Flash, win32 codecs, probably Wine but not sure as it has
been years...

Why 64? ... Virtualization...

Depends on what you want and/or need.

HTH,
Mark

mikemol at gmail

Jul 16, 2012, 8:04 PM

Post #4 of 45 (775 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 10:52 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht [at] gmail> wrote:
> On 7/16/12, Nilesh Govindrajan <contact [at] nileshgr> wrote:
>> So the same old query again I guess.
>> What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
>> processor?
>>
>> I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or
>> = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.
>>
>> So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
>> for me.
>>
>
> Why 32? ... Flash, win32 codecs, probably Wine but not sure as it has
> been years...

64-bit WINE worked for me. Even for running 32-bit WoW. (Though I was
running a multilib profile. Uncertain if that had an impact.)

>
> Why 64? ... Virtualization...
>
> Depends on what you want and/or need.

IMO, it's worth the 'overhead' to run 64-bit, if only for the greater
number of GPRs and other architectural improvements. There's honestly
a lot of good stuff in x86-64 beyond the larger address space. The
increased address space also helps long-lived programs avoid address
space fragmentation.

--
:wq

markknecht at gmail

Jul 16, 2012, 8:29 PM

Post #5 of 45 (775 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 8:04 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol [at] gmail> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 10:52 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht [at] gmail> wrote:
<SNIP>
>>> So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
>>> for me.
>>>
>>
>> Why 32? ... Flash, win32 codecs, probably Wine but not sure as it has
>> been years...
>
> 64-bit WINE worked for me. Even for running 32-bit WoW. (Though I was
> running a multilib profile. Uncertain if that had an impact.)
>
>>
>> Why 64? ... Virtualization...
>>
>> Depends on what you want and/or need.
>
> IMO, it's worth the 'overhead' to run 64-bit, if only for the greater
> number of GPRs and other architectural improvements. There's honestly
> a lot of good stuff in x86-64 beyond the larger address space. The
> increased address space also helps long-lived programs avoid address
> space fragmentation.
>
> --
> :wq
>

Agreed. I only boot 64-bit here, but different than all you
heavy-lifters my machines are 98% stable, 2% ~amd64. That said I do
have problems not only with Flash on my machine with 2 Nvidia cards
but also with OpenGL. However none of that on any other 64-bit
machines.

As for the win32 codec stuff I use Windows VMs to watch any stuff I
want to watch, and a fairly trim Gentoo 32-bit VM so that I can run
Linux apps to convert certain Windows format files, etc.

Cheers,
Mark

billk at iinet

Jul 16, 2012, 8:36 PM

Post #6 of 45 (775 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Mon, 2012-07-16 at 19:52 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> On 7/16/12, Nilesh Govindrajan <contact [at] nileshgr> wrote:
> > So the same old query again I guess.
> > What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
> > processor?
> >
> > I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or
> > = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.
> >
> > So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
> > for me.
> >
>
> Why 32? ... Flash, win32 codecs, probably Wine but not sure as it has
> been years...
>
> Why 64? ... Virtualization...
>
> Depends on what you want and/or need.
>
> HTH,
> Mark
>

Virtualisation ? I am running qemu (windows, gentoo), vbox (windows,
gentoo, fedora) and gxemul (ultrix) all 32 bit guests on 32 bit systems
on either 32 or 64 bit hardware running gentoo - can you confirm you
need 64bit for 64bit guests as I will be moving that way eventually?

That being said, I think for future proofing 64bit is the way to go, I
can see a time when 32bit is going to get deprecated.

Billk

mikemol at gmail

Jul 16, 2012, 9:23 PM

Post #7 of 45 (784 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 11:29 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht [at] gmail> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 8:04 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol [at] gmail> wrote:
>> On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 10:52 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht [at] gmail> wrote:
> <SNIP>
>>>> So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
>>>> for me.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Why 32? ... Flash, win32 codecs, probably Wine but not sure as it has
>>> been years...
>>
>> 64-bit WINE worked for me. Even for running 32-bit WoW. (Though I was
>> running a multilib profile. Uncertain if that had an impact.)
>>
>>>
>>> Why 64? ... Virtualization...
>>>
>>> Depends on what you want and/or need.
>>
>> IMO, it's worth the 'overhead' to run 64-bit, if only for the greater
>> number of GPRs and other architectural improvements. There's honestly
>> a lot of good stuff in x86-64 beyond the larger address space. The
>> increased address space also helps long-lived programs avoid address
>> space fragmentation.
>>
>> --
>> :wq
>>
>
> Agreed. I only boot 64-bit here, but different than all you
> heavy-lifters my machines are 98% stable, 2% ~amd64. That said I do
> have problems not only with Flash on my machine with 2 Nvidia cards
> but also with OpenGL. However none of that on any other 64-bit
> machines.
>
> As for the win32 codec stuff I use Windows VMs to watch any stuff I
> want to watch, and a fairly trim Gentoo 32-bit VM so that I can run
> Linux apps to convert certain Windows format files, etc.

FWIW, I run 98% (or thereabouts ;) ) stable, too.

No trouble with Flash on either nVidia or AMD. No trouble playing
Diablo III or WoW on WINE with apps-emu/playonlinux and nVidia.
Recently switched to an AMD GPU. No trouble with Flash there, either.
Haven't tried WoW, but I've got lots of weird artifacts in Diablo III
which don't make the game unplayable, but might to a less-tolerant
person.

This is all on an amd64 system. I don't know what it's like in 32-bit
x86 on Gentoo, as I've never run that form of Gentoo; I let multilib
handle things there.

--
:wq

mikemol at gmail

Jul 16, 2012, 9:25 PM

Post #8 of 45 (773 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 11:36 PM, Bill Kenworthy <billk [at] iinet> wrote:
> On Mon, 2012-07-16 at 19:52 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
>> On 7/16/12, Nilesh Govindrajan <contact [at] nileshgr> wrote:
>> > So the same old query again I guess.
>> > What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
>> > processor?
>> >
>> > I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or
>> > = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.
>> >
>> > So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
>> > for me.
>> >
>>
>> Why 32? ... Flash, win32 codecs, probably Wine but not sure as it has
>> been years...
>>
>> Why 64? ... Virtualization...
>>
>> Depends on what you want and/or need.
>>
>> HTH,
>> Mark
>>
>
> Virtualisation ? I am running qemu (windows, gentoo), vbox (windows,
> gentoo, fedora) and gxemul (ultrix) all 32 bit guests on 32 bit systems
> on either 32 or 64 bit hardware running gentoo - can you confirm you
> need 64bit for 64bit guests as I will be moving that way eventually?
>
> That being said, I think for future proofing 64bit is the way to go, I
> can see a time when 32bit is going to get deprecated.

If you want hardware-accelerated virtualization, you will need to run
a 64-bit host if you want to run a 64-bit guest. That much I know.
From my experience on Windows, I can note that you can use
hardware-accelerated virtualization of 32-bit guests on both 32-bit
and 64-bit hosts.

These are just properties of the hardware; there's nothing special
about Linux or Windows in this regard.

--
:wq

joost at antarean

Jul 16, 2012, 11:25 PM

Post #9 of 45 (773 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Tue, July 17, 2012 5:36 am, Bill Kenworthy wrote:

<SNIPPED>

> Virtualisation ? I am running qemu (windows, gentoo), vbox (windows,
> gentoo, fedora) and gxemul (ultrix) all 32 bit guests on 32 bit systems
> on either 32 or 64 bit hardware running gentoo - can you confirm you
> need 64bit for 64bit guests as I will be moving that way eventually?
>
> That being said, I think for future proofing 64bit is the way to go, I
> can see a time when 32bit is going to get deprecated.

In my experience:
32bit host : Only 32 bit guest
64bit host : 32 bit and 64 bit guest

I have not been able to run a 64 bit guest on a 32 bit host.

--
Joost

volkerarmin at googlemail

Jul 17, 2012, 12:05 AM

Post #10 of 45 (770 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

There is no reason to use 32bit.
Am 17.07.2012 04:28 schrieb "Nilesh Govindrajan" <contact [at] nileshgr>:

> So the same old query again I guess.
> What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
> processor?
>
> I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or
> = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.
>
> So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
> for me.
>

realnc at gmail

Jul 17, 2012, 1:57 AM

Post #11 of 45 (766 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On 17/07/12 05:22, Nilesh Govindrajan wrote:
> So the same old query again I guess.
> What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
> processor?
>
> I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt
> or = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.
>
> So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go
> 64bit for me.

Since your CPU is 64-bit, use that. You will find reports out there
about how 64-bit consumes more RAM. The effect however is very small.

Also, if you later get more RAM, you won't have to switch archs. DDR3
is very cheap, about 5 bucks ($ or €) per GB right now.

pandu at poluan

Jul 17, 2012, 6:36 AM

Post #12 of 45 (764 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Jul 17, 2012 10:08 AM, "Michael Mol" <mikemol [at] gmail> wrote:
>
--- >8
>
> IMO, it's worth the 'overhead' to run 64-bit, if only for the greater
> number of GPRs and other architectural improvements. There's honestly
> a lot of good stuff in x86-64 beyond the larger address space. The
> increased address space also helps long-lived programs avoid address
> space fragmentation.
>
> --
> :wq
>

+1 on architectural improvements.

From a purely data-wise view: with 64 bits, Long Integers will be handled
much faster than having to manhandle 2 32-bit chunks of half-integers.

Rgds,

jinleileiking at gmail

Jul 17, 2012, 6:49 AM

Post #13 of 45 (764 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

64bit means bugs.?? But I use 64.

2012/7/17 Pandu Poluan <pandu [at] poluan>:
>
> On Jul 17, 2012 10:08 AM, "Michael Mol" <mikemol [at] gmail> wrote:
>>
> --- >8
>
>
>>
>> IMO, it's worth the 'overhead' to run 64-bit, if only for the greater
>> number of GPRs and other architectural improvements. There's honestly
>> a lot of good stuff in x86-64 beyond the larger address space. The
>> increased address space also helps long-lived programs avoid address
>> space fragmentation.
>>
>> --
>> :wq
>>
>
> +1 on architectural improvements.
>
> From a purely data-wise view: with 64 bits, Long Integers will be handled
> much faster than having to manhandle 2 32-bit chunks of half-integers.
>
> Rgds,

contact at nileshgr

Jul 17, 2012, 7:04 AM

Post #14 of 45 (766 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On 07/17/2012 07:19 PM, Leiking wrote:
> 64bit means bugs.?? But I use 64.
>
> 2012/7/17 Pandu Poluan <pandu [at] poluan>:
>>
>> On Jul 17, 2012 10:08 AM, "Michael Mol" <mikemol [at] gmail> wrote:
>>>
>> --- >8
>>
>>
>>>
>>> IMO, it's worth the 'overhead' to run 64-bit, if only for the greater
>>> number of GPRs and other architectural improvements. There's honestly
>>> a lot of good stuff in x86-64 beyond the larger address space. The
>>> increased address space also helps long-lived programs avoid address
>>> space fragmentation.
>>>
>>> --
>>> :wq
>>>
>>
>> +1 on architectural improvements.
>>
>> From a purely data-wise view: with 64 bits, Long Integers will be handled
>> much faster than having to manhandle 2 32-bit chunks of half-integers.
>>
>> Rgds,
>

Bugs. This is why I wanted to get an answer to this question specifically.

I've been using Gentoo since one year and with amd64 only. But recently
(if you noticed), I'd posted a thread about lot of segfaults.

As much as I was compelled to think that something is really wrong with
my hardware, a similar segfault bug occurred on an _amd64_ Gentoo VM
with Linode I manage, that too with a program that had been working ever
since I installed it, and there were no updates as such.

But from the inputs I received, I think it would be obviously better to
stay with 64bit.

Is it only me or the ~amd64 branch has become really unstable in the few
days? (Yeah I know ~amd64 can be unstable to any extent it wants to, but
just a qualitative question)

--
Nilesh Govindrajan
http://nileshgr.com

markknecht at gmail

Jul 17, 2012, 7:18 AM

Post #15 of 45 (767 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 9:23 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol [at] gmail> wrote:
<SNIP>
> This is all on an amd64 system. I don't know what it's like in 32-bit
> x86 on Gentoo, as I've never run that form of Gentoo; I let multilib
> handle things there.
>
> --
> :wq
>

Correct me if I'm wrong please but as I remember it everyone running
64-bit is running multi-lib unless they specifically choose a
no-multilib profile, correct?

Anyway, I suspect our systems are reasonably similar in terms of
capability, and for clarity, the only 64-bit machine I have any
troubles on, which are Flash & OpenGL/KDE, is my compute server that
runs VMs all day, and those problems only started when I added a
second Nvidia card. With a single card & 2 monitors everything was
fine. With 2 cards, both Nvidia but different models, and 3 monitors,
Flash in Firefox fails all the time, (But not Flash in Chrome where
it's built in) and some of the nice OpenGL features of KDE simply
don't operate any more.

If I had lots of money I'd look into an Nvidia card that supports 4
outputs but for now I'm stuck with what I've got!

- Mark

mikemol at gmail

Jul 17, 2012, 7:32 AM

Post #16 of 45 (765 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 10:18 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht [at] gmail> wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 9:23 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol [at] gmail> wrote:
> <SNIP>
>> This is all on an amd64 system. I don't know what it's like in 32-bit
>> x86 on Gentoo, as I've never run that form of Gentoo; I let multilib
>> handle things there.
>>
>> --
>> :wq
>>
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong please but as I remember it everyone running
> 64-bit is running multi-lib unless they specifically choose a
> no-multilib profile, correct?

Correct. And I'm not using a no-multilib profile, either.

>
> Anyway, I suspect our systems are reasonably similar in terms of
> capability, and for clarity, the only 64-bit machine I have any
> troubles on, which are Flash & OpenGL/KDE, is my compute server that
> runs VMs all day, and those problems only started when I added a
> second Nvidia card.

I haven't run a dual-card setup. I have two systems I can relate to.
One is a dual-E5345 system with 10GB of RAM, and one is a Phenom 9650
with 8GB of RAM.

> With a single card & 2 monitors everything was
> fine. With 2 cards, both Nvidia but different models, and 3 monitors,
> Flash in Firefox fails all the time, (But not Flash in Chrome where
> it's built in) and some of the nice OpenGL features of KDE simply
> don't operate any more.

I haven't run a multimon setup in a while. I sacrificed one of my
displays as a debugging display for another machine.

What driver are you using? About 3 years ago, I had a setup going
where I was using both my onboard ATI RadeonHD3200 and an nVidia
GeForce 210 with five displays split across the two. Flash never
*crashed* on me, but it did get extraordinarily confused whenever it
came time to fullscreen.

(I did eventually switch to using an ATI Radeon 5770, but only because
of the headaches trying to manage things with two different
proprietary tools. You could do some scary stuff at the time. I don't
know if that's still possible. I'm certain I was running an
unsupported configuration...)

>
> If I had lots of money I'd look into an Nvidia card that supports 4
> outputs but for now I'm stuck with what I've got!

I'd bet on it being a driver issue.

--
:wq

volkerarmin at googlemail

Jul 17, 2012, 9:31 AM

Post #17 of 45 (770 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

Am Dienstag, 17. Juli 2012, 07:52:08 schrieb Nilesh Govindrajan:
> So the same old query again I guess.
> What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
> processor?
>
> I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or
> = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.
>
> So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
> for me.

now that I am home: you believe wrong.

There are many good reasons to go 64 bit. Easier memory managment, more
registers. Bigger register. Faster math because of the bigger registers.

There is seriously NUL reasons to use 32bit. Zero. Zilch. Why throw away all
those nice improvements - for nothing in return?

Video-codecs? I haven't seen a video in years that was not playable by 64bit
ffmpeg based players but worked with 32bit. Those who were troublemakers were
also unplayable with 32bit codecs. Flash? Just works. Stable? You bet.

The only use case that might come up is wine - I don't know anything about
that beast. Haven't had any use for it in years.

--
#163933

volkerarmin at googlemail

Jul 17, 2012, 9:34 AM

Post #18 of 45 (769 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

Am Dienstag, 17. Juli 2012, 19:34:32 schrieb Nilesh Govindrajan:

>
> Is it only me or the ~amd64 branch has become really unstable in the few
> days? (Yeah I know ~amd64 can be unstable to any extent it wants to, but
> just a qualitative question)

It is you. Some gnome/freedesktop/whatthehell stuff interacting badly. Not a
64bit problem.

--
#163933

mikemol at gmail

Jul 17, 2012, 9:38 AM

Post #19 of 45 (765 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 12:31 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
<volkerarmin [at] googlemail> wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 17. Juli 2012, 07:52:08 schrieb Nilesh Govindrajan:
>> So the same old query again I guess.
>> What architecture should I use for a machine with 3GB RAM and a 64bit
>> processor?
>>
>> I believe 64bit should be given serious consideration only if RAM is gt or
>> = 4 GB, even there 32bit is allowable with PAE if I'm not wrong.
>>
>> So what is recommended? There are as such no special use cases to go 64bit
>> for me.
>
> now that I am home: you believe wrong.
>
> There are many good reasons to go 64 bit. Easier memory managment, more
> registers. Bigger register. Faster math because of the bigger registers.
>
> There is seriously NUL reasons to use 32bit. Zero. Zilch. Why throw away all
> those nice improvements - for nothing in return?
>
> Video-codecs? I haven't seen a video in years that was not playable by 64bit
> ffmpeg based players but worked with 32bit. Those who were troublemakers were
> also unplayable with 32bit codecs. Flash? Just works. Stable? You bet.
>
> The only use case that might come up is wine - I don't know anything about
> that beast. Haven't had any use for it in years.

IME, 64-bit WINE 64-bit works as well as 32-bit WINE...Which is to
say, your mileage will vary based on what you're doing, same as it
always has.

--
:wq

alecks.g at gmail

Jul 17, 2012, 9:43 AM

Post #20 of 45 (766 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Jul 17, 2012 11:32 AM, "Volker Armin Hemmann" <volkerarmin [at] googlemail>
wrote:
*snip*
> The only use case that might come up is wine - I don't know anything about
> that beast. Haven't had any use for it in years.
>
> --
> #163933
>
I use wine daily on 64 bit with no problems. You can generate a 32 or 64
bit config with the "WINEARCH" setting but I haven't found a reason to use
a win64 config (nor do I know the differences within wine). I am not sure
if a 32 bit OS would make a wine any faster, but probably not noticeably
faster.

OT: Wine on Gentoo seems much faster than other distros. I think this is
one case where the performance makes a difference. I usually do it with
Lord of the Rings Online, which is more intensive than WoW as Michael
mentioned to run.

Alecks Gates, sent from Android on an HTC G2

markknecht at gmail

Jul 17, 2012, 9:44 AM

Post #21 of 45 (764 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 9:31 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann
<volkerarmin [at] googlemail> wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> Video-codecs? I haven't seen a video in years that was not playable by 64bit
> ffmpeg based players but worked with 32bit.
<SNIP>

Lots of wmv files won't play in 64-bit. That's the only one I have
trouble with. They play fine in 32-bit Gentoo.

- Mark

gentoo-user at hadt

Jul 17, 2012, 11:13 AM

Post #22 of 45 (763 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

>> Video-codecs? I haven't seen a video in years that was not playable by 64bit
>> ffmpeg based players but worked with 32bit.
> <SNIP>
>
> Lots of wmv files won't play in 64-bit. That's the only one I have
> trouble with. They play fine in 32-bit Gentoo.
>
Mark, was thinking of you and your videos that don't play on 64bit when
I read Volkers statement :)
ffmpeg know lots of shit, but not all if it.

markknecht at gmail

Jul 17, 2012, 11:23 AM

Post #23 of 45 (765 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Michael Hampicke <gentoo-user [at] hadt> wrote:
>>> Video-codecs? I haven't seen a video in years that was not playable by 64bit
>>> ffmpeg based players but worked with 32bit.
>> <SNIP>
>>
>> Lots of wmv files won't play in 64-bit. That's the only one I have
>> trouble with. They play fine in 32-bit Gentoo.
>>
> Mark, was thinking of you and your videos that don't play on 64bit when
> I read Volkers statement :)
> ffmpeg know lots of shit, but not all if it.
>

Yeah, that's the truth. I suspect this specific case just lacks a
smart developer who wants to figure it all out and do the work to make
an Open Source codec that plays the file type, but maybe there's
patents and other junk that gets in the way.

And really, as I use a lot of VM's all day long, it doesn't seem
overly important any more. It's trivial to just run a Windows VM to
play wmv files whereas finding someone in the Linux world who actually
cares about supporting and promoting the wmv format seems like a waste
of my time and theirs. They can work on better things.

Cheers,
Mark

mikemol at gmail

Jul 17, 2012, 11:32 AM

Post #24 of 45 (763 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Mark Knecht <markknecht [at] gmail> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Michael Hampicke <gentoo-user [at] hadt> wrote:
>>>> Video-codecs? I haven't seen a video in years that was not playable by 64bit
>>>> ffmpeg based players but worked with 32bit.
>>> <SNIP>
>>>
>>> Lots of wmv files won't play in 64-bit. That's the only one I have
>>> trouble with. They play fine in 32-bit Gentoo.
>>>
>> Mark, was thinking of you and your videos that don't play on 64bit when
>> I read Volkers statement :)
>> ffmpeg know lots of shit, but not all if it.
>>
>
> Yeah, that's the truth. I suspect this specific case just lacks a
> smart developer who wants to figure it all out and do the work to make
> an Open Source codec that plays the file type, but maybe there's
> patents and other junk that gets in the way.

It's possible they just don't have a sample to work with. If you can
send it to them, they can at least add it to their samples archives.

>
> And really, as I use a lot of VM's all day long, it doesn't seem
> overly important any more. It's trivial to just run a Windows VM to
> play wmv files whereas finding someone in the Linux world who actually
> cares about supporting and promoting the wmv format seems like a waste
> of my time and theirs. They can work on better things.

There are containers and codecs. Most containers are supported,
leaving the codecs.

Can you post the output of 'mplayer -identify $filename' on that file?

--
:wq

gentoo-user at hadt

Jul 17, 2012, 11:47 AM

Post #25 of 45 (767 views)
Permalink

Re: 32bit or 64bit [In reply to]

>> And really, as I use a lot of VM's all day long, it doesn't seem
>> overly important any more. It's trivial to just run a Windows VM to
>> play wmv files whereas finding someone in the Linux world who actually
>> cares about supporting and promoting the wmv format seems like a waste
>> of my time and theirs. They can work on better things.
>
> There are containers and codecs. Most containers are supported,
> leaving the codecs.
>
> Can you post the output of 'mplayer -identify $filename' on that file?
>

If memory serves me right it was MSS2 which requires a 32bit mplayer
build with the win32codecs use flag enabled.

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