64bit IE( and Flash Player????

OK, Just installed IE9. Seems that both 32bit and 64 bit versions installed (had both for IE8 before)

Tried to watch a youtube vid and got a link to download a new version of flash from Adobe. A beta called Square.

Read a bit about that and got the impression it isnt stable and also read that I would have to do updates manually.

Any one else come across this, I miagine so. I havent installed square yet but was wondering if i should or not.

Ideas?

 

Just use the 32 bit if you want flash. It is actually a good thing in that flash is nowadays more dangerous than browsers as far as virus penentration is concerned.

I use 64 bit IE 8 as the default and only open 32 bit when I want flash on known sites like youtube.

 

Cheers. Will do that at least until a stable 64bit flash is released. Thanks.

On a side note, I quite like the new IE9 layout etc. Seems pretty good.

 

the 64bit beta players working fine here when i use it
so worth a try

 

There's no reason to use the 64-bit version of IE, or any other browser for that matter. None at all.

 

What if you want to view a page that's FOUR GIGABYTES OF HTML?

 

Ahrgghh...

 

and the 64bit version is actually slower as it doesn't have the JIT for java.

 

Well, seemed like a good idea to use a 64bit browser along with my 64bit OS .... obvioulsy if it means beta testing adobe square to do it, stuff that....

 

As mentioned you have Flash project name Square which is a 64-bit.
You have to try it, and not follow what people are saying as it's always updated, as they release newer beta's.

64-bit web browser is very useful. As website are getting fancier, more CPU power is needed to interact with them. HTML5 really doesn't help that, and is very CPU intense, especially when heavy animations takes place. Yes it uses the GPU, but it's not exclusive GPU usage, the CPU is very well used. 64-bit web browser provide better performance and reduce CPU load in consequence as it's easier for the processor to process all this. In addition, you can have plug-ins such as java 64-bit of Flash 64-bit which can take advantage of this, and reduce CPU usage, and provide greater performance.

Performance of the 64-bit web browser vary based on the website you visit. Still work needs to be done on 64-bit... it's mainly just a question of optimization now. As more users are using 64-bit, the better a company can get feedback and improve that version.

 

May I ask where you get this information(that 64 bit browser provide better performance and reduce CPU load) ? Microsoft said their javascript engine is optimized in 32 bit but not 64 bit so javascript based fancier website performance is better under 32 bit as a result.

 

computer class.
Longer instructions permits fewer operation to process complex operations, and new operation codes allows the processor to perform less steps to get the same results.

As I said: the rest is optimizations. If they choose to click on "x64" option in Visual Studio without touching anything to get a 64-bit version of the web browser... hence get a poor performing web browser (or any software for that mater (unless it's a dead simple program), as it's not optimized for 64-bit), than this is not my problem. Competition will fix that.

I never said that IE9 64-bit is faster. I was speaking generally.

 

I think it is a bit more than just clicking the 'x64' option in order to have the system optimized. Though your answer of 'computer class' is good enough for me. I just want to know what you are basing your claim on.

 

Nonsense.

It depends. There are a few cases were this is true.

In general, it isn't true.

 

That is exactly what i said. You need to review your algorithms, and know how the 64-bit compiler works and see how to code in a way to produce faster operating software.

Please read what I said. You are assuming IE and only IE. Which I don't care.

64-bit is still new, and sill take time before we produce optimized software.
If we follow your logic, than 16-bit CPU are the fastest. As back in the days, it was the same exact issue with 32-bit software. Yet now, no mater what you do, a 32-bit version of a software (assuming your not programing like an idiot, and actually use good and optimized methods) the 16-bit version.

It will take a few years. Already now, after the third attempt for a 64-bit OS by Microsoft, we have one that perform faster in most tasks than it's 32-bit version. Perhaps, Windows 8 will perfect things to get at worst the same performance as the 32-bit version. (I am talking about the OS itself, not the software running on it).

 

Most tasks as in ?

 

Check benchmarks.

 

Which means very few.

 

I have to agree, Windows 7 x64 is MUCH BETTER at running synthetic benchmarks.

 

Yes, it is preferable to use 64-bit software in 64-bit Windows, but this case may not quite applicable to Internet Explorer 9. Just like other have mentioned, 32-bit IE 9 has Just-In-Time script complier, which speeds up IE performance. This feature is not available for 64-bit IE 9.

Thus, theoretically, 32-bit IE 9 is much faster than 64-bit IE 9, as seen in benchmarks. However, in real life, some of us may not notice the performance difference. As for me, I will still stick with 32-bit IE 9. We may have to wait till the second half of this year, for final stable 64-bit Adobe Flash Player to be released.

Still, I am very much hopeful that 64-bit Internet Explorer 10, rumored to be included in Windows 8, will be developed to be faster and more feature-laden, than 32-bit Internet Explorer 10. That way, more IE users will start to migrate to 64-bit IE.

 

I don't know about benchmarks as I don't care about them. I run 32 and 64 bit on a daily basis and I failed to notice any difference in my usage(well only annoying compatability issue in the 64 bit case which also has slightly more RAM and with SSD and faster CPU).

 

what ever you say, how even right it might be, has nothing to do with 64bit. this is only about when one tab (ONE tab only) needs > 4gb ram. which will take some while with our current bandwidth.

 

Thanks again Alvin for some good clear advice regarding this. I will wait to use 64bit until, as you say, it has been rolled out "properly" and is fully functional performance wise, with my system.

 

No problem, Steve.

I would like to seek clarification from you on this matter. Do you mean that we should use 64-bit IE 9 to prevent Flash-related security flaw on our system? Then again, couldn't we use ActiveX Filtering in both 32-bit and 64-bit IE 9 to block Flash?

Assume that I do not install 64-bit Flash Player. If I use 64-bit IE 9 to surf Flash-laden website (example: F1 News | Live Formula 1 Coverage | Grand Prix 2011 | ESPN F1), IE 9 will be stop responding, even though I only want to read the text and image without Flash. For me, there is no way to solve this problem, than to use 32-bit IE 9. What is your opinion on this?

 

it should not freeze because of the lack of flash. have to test that at home.

and yes, you can block flash in the 32bit browser just as well. what he means is the default situation: default browsing on 32bit means flash enabled == danger. 64bit is no flash => no danger.

 

You said "64-bit browser", without any qualification of any kind. I repeat: nonsense.

Uhmm, "my logic"? Where do you get that abstruse idea? Pray tell, where did I say anything that could even be remotely construed in this manner?

Again, complete nonsense. The step from 16-bit to 32-bit was vastly different, and carried vastly different consequences as the one from 32 to 64-bit now. But you would have to know something about the history of computing to understand that, which you clearly don't.

There is no practical difference in speed between the 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows.

 

Why do websites need higher than 32bit accuracy or a 32bit address space?

Thats all 64bit is, the ability to cope with a binary number greater than 32bits long in a single operation.

 

It is possible that the 64 bit instruction set being a new thing thus not carrying the baggage of old x86 could be faster.

Which is why I said saying the information is getting from 'computer class' is good enough for me, i.e. theoretically rather than real information.

However, that would require a very good optimizer for the underlying language used (C/C++). This so far is not happening and very unlikely to be the case for the forseeable future. No one is going to hand code for 64 bit to get the benefit except for very specific libraries.

In fact, the years of experienced in compiler technology for the 32 bit instruction set makes it the most optimized target.

Just think about the situation we are having now. If 64 bit is really that much better, how come Chrome and Mozilla doesn't have 64 bit binaries(at least not the Windows build) and that Microsoft admitted that its 64 bit IE 9 javascript engine is inferior to the 32 bit counter part ?

@GoodBytes
If you don't care about IE, you can forget 64 bit all together as there is NO competition for it.

 

no, that was doable in 32bit world. it's for accessing more than 4gb of ram in a continuous memory space (process). so, in case of ie which has one process per tab (as chrome and others), it means more than 4gb per tab.

for an ordinary webpage, this is highly unlikely. for web apps in the future, it's entierly possible (scary thought).

two things: one, yes, there are possible optimisations. they are even in-compiler. up to 20% speed increase in the best cases (which are unlikely for ordinary applications). mostly, it's in the few-percent range at most. but it's automated in compilers. even jit compilers.

on the no-competition thing, other browsers have 64bit builds, too. but as, again, there's about no gain there, and the plugin support is near-zero compared to 100% support on 32bit browsers, there's no use for it for normal usage.

 

I am not saying there are no 64 bit builds, rather no official one. IOW, when you go to Google for Chrome, it is 32 bit only. You may try to jumping a few hops to get to the 64 bit build but that is not official and there usually is a reason. Just like why 64 bit flash is not official yet.

Same case for firefox 4.

As for 64 bit target generated by say VC++ is faster than 32 bit, I failed to find any reference of that. I did find this

performance regression in 64 bit compiler versions - both 2005 and 2008 C++

Though the point is still there is no evidence that shows 64 bit is noticeably better than 32 bit even though theoretically they may be, mainly for the new instruction set thing(lets leave the extra memory space aside as it is not relevant in a browser).

 

actually the memory space is still the main feature of it. >4gb webapps are possible (just as >4gb ordinary apps are).

the performance differences are there, but mostly the increases are more or less equaling the performance losses due to larger cache needs due to bigger memory pointers. so all in all, normally it equals itself out. but for mathematic-oriented number-crunching, 64bit can help. up to 20%, but, well, mostly not for general purpose applications.

i know that visual studio does optimisations for both platforms, so does the .net framework, and the intel compiler.

but in the end, all of that doesn't matter. ie64bit doesn't have jit => has much slower javascript performance, so no matter how the 64bit platform could be much faster, it can't equal out the lack of jit.

 

I use Firefox 4 and works fine with flash on my 64 bit Win7, but IE is not compatible yet, it doesn't work for me neither.

 

So you are confusing things.

You admit that 64-bit process can run up to 20% faster. Where as before you hit on me saying that their is 0 benefit of any kind in term of performance. You are saying a lot "general application". I know what you mean, but are not seeing the big picture. You are looking at NOW. I am looking 5 years from now. Every version software becomes more and more complex as they feature more and more... well... features and functionality, making them more complex. Take any web browser, look how much RAM they consume. Take that version, and go back with a standard Pentium 3 or even early 4.. they won't even run. Not only they would take ages to load, but the system is mostly likely won't have enough memory to run it. And that wasn't long ago. In technology, you can't look at today only.

When you buy a computer, you don't buy what you exactly need in term of performance. You get a system much faster, so that it can last several years, hopefully 5-6 years.

And you are assuming that JIT is a 32-bit exclusive feature, while it's not at all. Microsoft could implement it on the 64-bit but didn't, for now, or it's in the works as we speak (we don't know, no one here worked on IE at Microsoft).

 

If you give a Pentium 3 or 4 enough memory which is 4G, they have no problem running today's browser(except 64 bit ones). Of course, the CPU is much slower but that has nothing to do with bitness.

In technology(especially computer), you should only look at 'TODAY'(well may be 1-2 years) as Moore's law beat Bill's law. When was the first 32 bit Intel CPU came to the market ? When was the time that the top 5% of most used application exceed the 4GB limit ?

 

If it take too long to do something... might as well not work.. especially for something "basic" as a web browser. And let's not about HTML5 performance with such old computers.

 

basic ? I think web browser is one of the most demanding application the majority of people run. Beside, all these things you have mentioned have nothing to do with bitness. They are about CPU power. If you give me a 32 bit CPU at 3GHz and a 64 bit CPU at 1GHz, I am pretty sure the 32 bit one would win. IOW, find an early day P4 machine that is equipped with enough RAM(say workstation or server) and compare it with the latest say SU model(i.e. those super low voltage laptops) running at say 1.5Ghz but 64 bit. Then run the test and tell me which is faster.

Please look at the title again, it was about bitness, initially. Anyway, We are way off topic.

 

and these are working together VERY WELL.

you can get up to 20% in special benchmarks that don't compute what you want from a browser (but special number crunching for f.e. the nasa, simulating their next mercury mission). for generic code (that is, stuff with branches, parsing of html, css, javascript, compiling it, executing it is all about branches, and ZERO about number crunching), there is NO gain to make.

that's my point: ordinary applications don't COMPUTE much (no number crunching). they are mostly condition-checkers and branchers. for that, 64bit does NOT provide a performance benefit.

and it NEVER WILL. not even in the far future. so for a browser, esp one with gpu accelerated drawing, it's only big task is parsing the different file types (html, javascript, css) and then commanding the gpu to draw it. 100% branching, 0% computing. result: you won't ever see a performance difference, EVER, in a browser.

and don't tell me we'll do number crunching in the future in a browser. as long as all that is STILL javascript it's 50% crunching, 50% branching at most. still no chance for a real performance gain. that only starts at around 90% number crunching, as branching essencially kills it completely.

 

uhm, no. my ulv 1.2ghz beat a friends 3ghz p4. but, both where 32bit

and no, browsers are not really cpu hogs anymore, now that they stop drawing with cpu (which is stupid as it's never made for it), but with the gpu.

 

you mean the javascript engine is running in the GPU ? I have my doubt.