11 Jul
2006
11 Jul
'06
11:10 a.m.
On Tue, 2006-07-11 at 14:54 +0200, Arnold Krille wrote:
2006/7/11, Dave Phillips
<dlphillips(a)woh.rr.com>om>:
not really, they don't. floating point is done on a different processor.
greater memory bandwidth on some processors/motherboards etc. can make
working with 80-bit floats faster, but a 64 bit CPU itself has no real
effect.
also, i don't know many apps that use 80 bit FP, for audio or anything
else that matter. there are some, but not many.
I'm considering trying a new distro.
Gentoo and Ubuntu are
recommended, so I might look at them. However, my main question is: Do I
necessarily want to install a kernel for a 64-bit CPU ? IIUC I'm better
off running most Linux audio applications in 32-bit mode, which I
understand occurs seamlessly. But do I need to use a 32-bit kernel for
those apps, or do I need to install the 64-bit ? (Is that a dumb question?)
First I recommend gentoo, its nice, its cool, you don't install things
you don't need.
Second: If you have a 64bit processor you definitly want to make use
of it. Most apps nowadays calculate with double-numbers. these run a
lot faster on 64bit.