Delphi 64 bits? [closed]

Question

Delphi 64 bits is on its way as everybody knows (every delphi programmer at least) . Apart from what codegear says about the benefits of a 64 bits Delphi app (and codegear does not say much about), what will I benefit from having a 64 bits Delphi application? It is really a good idea to port my app to 64 bits as soon as codegear releases it?

EDIT:

I am just asking it because I want all opinions I can have. For now, I can say that I really need more memory available to my application because it consumes a lot of resources. I really could use more speed, if it is possible. I do not need shell extensions neither plugins.

My customers are also asking me about a x64 version of my app, but I really do not understand why they are asking for it, because they are actually lawyers who have no idea what is a 64 bits application.

EDIT

I actually do not participate directly into the app development. I am part of a technology team and I create stuff that other developers in the company I work for use to really develop the final app. So, my job is to do technical stuff, and port a app to x64 is the kind of thing I do, but I need to explain why I am doing that to my superiors.

Answer 1

A 64-bit program has the following advantages over the same one compiled for 32-bit (x86):

• More registers. 64-bit x86 chips have several more registers and this can, in theory (if the compiler takes advantage) result in faster code in some cases.

• More memory. With a 32-bit program you were generally limited to either a 2GB address space or a 4GB address space in total, if you compiled with /LARGEADDRESSAWARE, which was about 3.5GB in practice due to Windows' kernel/userspace split. A 64-bit process can address much more. This is only important if your app needs a lot of memory.

• Ability to build plugins for 64-bit programs, like Explorer. Unless you're using COM for a plugin, where data is marshalled, you can't mix 32-bit and 64-bit code in the one process in Windows, such as a 64-bit EXE loading a 32-bit DLL. If you wanted to write an Explorer plugin, for example, you couldn't have it work with the 64-bit version of Explorer with old versions of Delphi. You will be able to with the 64-bit version.

• Delphi-specific: the compiler will use SSE/SSE2 instructions for floating point calculations, where the current 32-bit compiler only uses x87 FPU instructions (I think.) This should give a speed increase for floating-point math. You probably won't even notice unless your app is highly FP-dependent (a game, perhaps, or a data processing application, that kind of thing.)

The answer to your question "will I benefit from having a 64 bits Delphi application?" is highly dependent on your specific application. In general, there is unlikely to be much benefit beyond, possibly, a small speed increase. Don't rely on 64-bit to speed up a slow application though: you will still need to make algorithmic changes for large speed boosts. 64-bit isn't a magic bullet. Other than that, you only need to change if you've already encountered one of the limits imposed by 32-bit - I suspect you haven't, or you wouldn't be asking the question.

If you decide to convert, you may find this thread very useful.

But one other thing: even if you don't need to change, you might want to, especially if your app is a personal project. You might learn stuff, your code will be higher quality when you fix 32/64-bit issues, and a project like that can be fun. You're a programmer, after all :)

Edit: I see you have updated your question with "I can say that I really need more memory available to my application because it consumes a lot of resources. I really could use more speed, if it is possible."

• What resources? Memory? 64-bit will give you a greater addressable address space, that's it. It won't give you more GDI handles, etc, if those count as resources. However, if you truly do need more memory, then 64-bit will be worth converting to.

• "More speed", if you want a big difference, is more likely to be achieved through algorithmic or threading changes than through a 64-bit compiler.

• "My customers are also asking me about a x64 version of my app, but I really do not understand why they are asking for it, because they are actually lawyers who have no idea what is a 64 bits application." Chances are they've heard that 64-bit is better or faster. In an ideal world, customers would have reality-based requirements, but this isn't always the case. Pragmatically speaking if the customer wants something like this, it may be worth converting simply because it makes them happy: happy customers are good, and they may pay you for the new version, and it may help your company's word-of-mouth reputation.

Answer 2

Do you have an actual need to access large (> 4GB) of memory in your application, like video or image processing, or processing of huge amounts of data very quickly? Is your application a shell extension that needs to run on 64-bit versions of Windows? Do you have customers or clients that are complaining because a 64-bit version of your app isn't available?

If you had a need for an immediate update of your app to 64-bit, you'd know it already. Since you don't, you probably have lots of time to do so - remember that 32-bit versions of most applications work fine on 64-bit Windows versions.

Answer 3

If you write shell extensions, you already know why you need 64. In my case, I have a DLL that gets loaded by Windows Explorer, and it cannot, absolutely will not, load a 32-bit DLL. There ARE apps that will benefit from 64-bit, but most, IMO will not. And for things like mine, 64-bit is more of an annoyance than anything else.

Good idea? Only if you think it'll make you more $$$. Otherwise, the time is better spent improving quality or adding features. Unless you're using pure native VCL controls and libraries, you'll likely have to wait for 3rd-party support to catch up. I am still fixing and replacing libraries, related to converting to Unicode....