9 ms·
Being able to rely on at least SSE2 is a big win for 64-bit on x86. Technically you could use 32-bit addresses on a 64-bit processor and not have your data be
by johncolanduoni 10y ago
Being able to rely on at least SSE2 is a big win for 64-bit on x86.
Technically you could use 32-bit addresses on a 64-bit processor and not have your data be any bigger, but most languages don't offer a good way to do this (IIRC the HotSpot JVM's UseCompressedOops option does something along these lines).
- andreyv 10y agoThis is actually implemented on Linux/glibc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X32_ABI You can compile C/C++ programs using this ABI, and get all 64-bit benefits without 64-bit pointers.