SolidWorks & 64 bit

So now with AMD selling 64 bit processors and Microsoft coming out with XP
64 bit operating systems, how long till SolidWorks will be programmed to run
64 bit? With all the bloat that happening in the software, surely we could
all benefit from this if it happens sooner rather than later.

Just pondering what system to upgraded to and how long the wait will be
before I can benefit from it.

Jay

 

The pace at which swx is becoming less productive is likely to continue
offsetting any
hardware speed increases. On a modern PC Sw2004 is much slower to use
than was sw2001 on a P3-750. If swx doesn't establish some priority on
performance,
I think hardware improvements will be treading water, at best.
I'm hoping the NBT (speed/productivity) in modeling software will emerge
soon, meanwhile
just finishing my first (and last) fixture drawing set in sw2004.
my $.02
bill

 

I don't suspect they will do it anytime soon. Your question got me to
thinking:

SolidWorks has a solid record of not supporting performance oriented
hardware. For example:

AGP bus -- not supported
64bit -- dropped. Used to support it circa 1995,1996, 1997
Hyperthreading -- not supported, causes performance decrease if turned on
Multiprocessing -- not supported but can result in imperceptible speed
increase. (see clustering below for other SW apps that aren't supported)
Clustering -- not supported even by apps that can utilize it like
CosmosWorks and FloWorks.

While FloWorks has made tremendous strides in performance over the last few
years, let us not forget that they are really NIKA and are licensed by SW.

That being said, apparently the AMD 64 bit processors will run 32 bit OS and
apps quite well and do offer two key advantages, the ability to run a great
deal more memory than is possible with current Intel processors and a great
deal more memory bandwidth than is currently available. So they are on top
for running 32 bit apps and when software vendors start coming out with 64
bit apps that are cost effective they will have little choice but to go
with AMD.

 

offer two key advantages, the ability to run a great

Just a question - will we still have the Windows limitation of only 2GB per
application (3GB if the switch is hacked), or does Windows XP work with 64
bit processors? Accessing more memory would be a HUGE advantage, especially
with the way SWx is going. But it might as well not be there if the OS
doesn't allow it.

 

According to http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/64bit/default.asp , 16 gig
is what you will be able to add.

Jay

 

Ed,

If you look into what AnandTech, TomsHardware and others are doing I think
you will find they are running 32 bit OS and 32 bit apps on their AMD 64
bit systems.

For example AnandTech tests with this configuration using plain old XP Pro:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1937&p=3

Here LostCircuits does the same:
http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherboard/asus_k8v/8.shtml

Right now when we talk about 64 bit systems we have to limit ourselves to 64
bit running in 32 bit compatibility mode. Still fast and on top, but not
yet truely running 64 bit apps. What you apparently do get for running 32
bit apps is a really fast memory bus and top notch processing speed.