Many programs i use on my computer ( steam for example ) are still using 32 bits according to task manager. Why is that ? Why haven’t evertything moved to x86-64 ? According to a quick google search, the last 32-bits cpu was sold in 2002… so it can’t be for compatibility reasons, can it ?
In: Technology
32 bit applications run fine on 64 bit systems. The only major difference is that 64 bit systems have a larger address space for memory and are more efficient moving large amounts of memory around.
32bit machines are limited to addressing 4gb of RAM, where as 64bit limits you to 17billion gigs of addressable RAM.
There are other factors, improvements, and speed increases in general due to the evolving technologies, but the “bitness” just describes how many possible combinations of memory addresses can be pointed at.
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