will 128 bit be a thing?

[Snickerzz]

Will 64bit ever be replaced with 128bit architecture?

[Vacsol]

unlikely soon

from reddit:

"Say you have a bucket and a wheelbarrow. A lot of the things you deal with on a daily basis fit just fine in a bucket. But when you start wanting to carry multiple things, especially multiple big things, sometimes you run out of room. Sure you could carefully balance things on top of the bucket, but that requires extra work. But so instead you switch to sticking things in your wheelbarrow, bigger, more roomy, but you also need more effort to push it around. Since enough people like carrying enough stuff around with them most of us switched to using wheelbarrows cause we kept running out of space in our buckets. If you walk the same speed pushing your wheelbarrow full of stuff as you used to carrying your bucket, you'd be moving more stuff around.

In this analogy, the bucket represents 32bit, the wheelbarrow represents the slight extra cost of the larger address space of 64bit. The things you put in your bucket or wheelbarrow are apps, programs and processes.

Moving to 128bit would be like using a giant giant barge or something huge like that. Sure you could fit tons and tons of stuff in it, but it takes more effort to move around and most people don't need that much room."

[DevanArianne]

Im not sure if it's even possible. How I had 64 bit explained to me is that it has to do witht he frequency wave of how information is sent. 32 bit is only sending information on the crest, and 64 bit is sending information on  crest and trough. So unless we are able to find a way to send information on the crest, trough and consistently in between, no.

 

Im not sure. I dont really trust that the guy who taught me this was right or wrong.

[Phobophobic]

I'm sure it'll happen eventually. Maybe not in our lifetimes, though.

[ForsakenLive]

On processors it's the lenght of the 'word' in which they work, you can increase it as much as you want at cost of needing a much more powerful and complex hardware and software. The wave lenght is nota important here (it's 'digital' and moves binary data), but the bus width is.

[DigitalHermit]

On processors it's the lenght of the 'word' in which they work, you can increase it as much as you want at cost of needing a much more powerful and complex hardware and software. The wave lenght is nota important here (it's 'digital' and moves binary data), but the bus width is.

 

I think you mean 'frequency'...

[juretrn]

Im not sure if it's even possible. How I had 64 bit explained to me is that it has to do witht he frequency wave of how information is sent. 32 bit is only sending information on the crest, and 64 bit is sending information on crest and trough. So unless we are able to find a way to send information on the crest, trough and consistently in between, no.

Im not sure. I dont really trust that the guy who taught me this was right or wrong.

That's not how it works at all.

[GoodBytes]

128-bit CPUs do exists. But those, are so far, specificity CPUs.

There is point in 128-bit CPU. Even right now, most software aren't in 64-bit form. And those that do, aren't even for performance, but rather to use different Windows features. For example, when you call the API to get the list of processes running on the system (say you implementing are steam overlay type of thing for all games, so you need to detect games), if your program is in 32-bit, Windows will only give you 32-bit running programs. Not 64-bit ones. So you need to make your software 64-bit, to get the list of 64-bit one, just in the case the user runs a 64-bit game.

[JR1911]

I'm sure we'll eventually move on to 128bit computers, but that's probably pretty far in the future. Personally I'm hoping we'll get quantum personal computers in the near future.

[GoodBytes]

I'm sure we'll eventually move on to 128bit computers, but that's probably pretty far in the future. Personally I'm hoping we'll get quantum personal computers in the near future.

If the bit war comes back, in smartphones, then expect fake 128-bit CPUs, then real ones, then 256-bit and so on. Like higher displays on smart phones, or megapixels on cameras. Totally useless, but hey, this is what makes they smartphone sell. Much like now we have 64-bit CPUs inside.... and the RAM was forgotten to be upgraded, so in reality for you have less free RAM then the 32-bit CPU version.

[.:MARK:.]

Boy do I want integers this big

340282366920938463463374607431768211455

[DevanArianne]

That's not how it works at all.

Like I said. That how it was explained to me, but I have no confidence int hat persons knowledge. Doesn't surprise me he's wrong.

[Briggsy]

considering 128bit is exponentially larger than 64, I don't see it becoming a thing anytime soon when 64bit is currently overkill for everything atm.

 

EDIT: the bucket to wheel barrel analogy is not totally accurate. its more like a shot glass vs a dump truck, when comparing 32 to 64 bit.

[juretrn]

If the bit war comes back, in smartphones, then expect fake 128-bit CPUs, then real ones, then 256-bit and so on. Like higher displays on smart phones, or megapixels on cameras. Totally useless, but hey, this is what makes they smartphone sell. Much like now we have 64-bit CPUs inside.... and the RAM was forgotten to be upgraded, so in reality for you have less free RAM then the 32-bit CPU version.

Fake in the same way as Atari Jaguar?

 

That would be a blast. 

[Speedbird]

It will happen sometime. Remember when we thought that we would never need 32-bit?

[orangecat]

If we have a reason to go 128 bit then yes it will happen but probably not for a loooooong time.

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

I'm sure we'll eventually move on to 128bit computers, but that's probably pretty far in the future. Personally I'm hoping we'll get quantum personal computers in the near future.

Quantum computers would be worthless for everyday users. They'd only really be good for massive calculations and complex things where their method of "bits" is finally more efficient.

[cluelessgenius]

Quantum computers would be worthless for everyday users. They'd only really be good for massive calculations and complex things where their method of "bits" is finally more efficient.

well people said that about the pc too. "why wouldanyone ever need a computer for their own they are really only usefull for big calculations and rocket science" and now look were we are

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

well people said that about the pc too. "why wouldanyone ever need a computer for their own they are really only usefull for big calculations and rocket science" and now look were we are

Except, in this case, it's because Quantum bits are just really inefficient at representing small values. Normal, every day operations are faster with traditional computing. This might help explain things, mainly why it's so shitty at low end computations:

SPOILER: Its because of quantum mechanics allowing superpositions.

[WinNut]

Not in the near future, I talked with my friend about this, we both surmised that until THAT much memory becomes affordable and mainstream there is simply no need to have an OS capable of addressing all that memory.

[LAwLz]

Im not sure if it's even possible. How I had 64 bit explained to me is that it has to do witht he frequency wave of how information is sent. 32 bit is only sending information on the crest, and 64 bit is sending information on  crest and trough. So unless we are able to find a way to send information on the crest, trough and consistently in between, no.

 

Im not sure. I dont really trust that the guy who taught me this was right or wrong.

However gave you that explanation is very, very wrong.

 

 

If the bit war comes back, in smartphones, then expect fake 128-bit CPUs, then real ones, then 256-bit and so on. Like higher displays on smart phones, or megapixels on cameras. Totally useless, but hey, this is what makes they smartphone sell. Much like now we have 64-bit CPUs inside.... and the RAM was forgotten to be upgraded, so in reality for you have less free RAM then the 32-bit CPU version.

Please do not talk about things you don't understand. The move to 64bit on ARM is far more than just more RAM. There is a huge benefit to moving to 64bit (and more importantly, ARMv8) on phones. The new 64bit version of Android will have a huge performance increase even if the RAM stays the same. We saw a performance increase unrelated to more RAM on x86 as well.

More PPI on phones and higher megapixel count on cameras are not totally useless either. The problem is that they are only 1 piece in a big puzzle and most people ignore the other pieces.

 

 

 

We are already using over 64bit in many places. For example your GPU probably has a memory bus wider than 64bits. The SSE instruction set has registries that are 128bit wide. If you're talking about addressing space then it will probably take quite a long time (but it most likely will happen in the future) before we start seeing it in consumer products (because they already exist).

[Fred Castellum]

However gave you that explanation is very, very wrong.

Please do not talk about things you don't understand. 

“The more inexperienced you are, the more you want to show off.”

-Oreki Houtarou

 

[LAwLz]

“The more inexperienced you are, the more you want to show off.”

-Oreki Houtarou

Oreki has so many good quotes.

 

Maybe I was a bit harsh on GoodBytes. The problem is that he (and pretty much everyone else) assumes that the move to 64bit on ARM will be the same as the move to 64bit on x86, which is completely wrong. On x86 they just went "hey let's just duct tape a bunch of new things to x86" while on ARM they are redoing everything which has a huge performance benefit.

[GoodBytes]

I have never said what you claim.

Bit limitation was NEVER an issue with smartphone performance app. And most smartphone don't have 4GB of RAM, they are still on 512MB, 1GB, 2 or 3GB at best.

The iPhone using a 64-bit CPU has only 1GB of RAM.

One day, 64-bit CPU on smartphone, like on desktop will get a performance boost. Maybe the days where we will have those smartphone, that can be a desktop replacement, or laptop in some fashion, but that actually works well. Or if smartphone gaming evolves the way Nvidia tries to do. But so far, that is not the case, and 64-bit CPU is used for marketing purposes.

I guess if you have a specific custom app that is very demanding and you need any bit of power you have, but for the massive majority of people, its not needed.

Sure current 64-bit CPUs on smartphone are faster... the CPU itself is faster. Obviously!

[GoodBytes]

Fake in the same way as Atari Jaguar?

 

That would be a blast.

Yea, or whatever other creative ways they'll come out with.