Digit-life have thrown up part 12.2 in their series, looking at the AMD Opteron and Athlon64 processors. It's called AMD Opteron Architecture - AMD64 Technology & Compilers.!
The key element of the AMD64 software support is an operating system. Certainly, you can install 32bit OSs on the Opteron such as Microsoft Windows XP and RadHat Linux (as well as MS-DOS, Windows 98 and other linuxes :), but in this case 64bit extensions of the CPU won't be made use of. 64bit applications need a 64bit OS. And if Microsoft is still developing its product, the Linux version is already finished. One of them is SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) for the AMD64. Applications can be ported to the AMD64 in different ways. The simplest one is to try to recompile it with a 64bit compiler (if such application comes with source codes). However, it's difficult to reach high efficiency this way because it may need fine tweaking to the new architecture in spite of the standards of the higher-level programming languages. In particular, porting can include the check for links stored in 32-bit variables, bit masks and binary offsets.
Many modern algorithms which would be handier in using 64bit variables are specially written for the 32bit medium since it's more popular. In such cases the code should be rewritten for higher efficiency. That is why the next important factor for the AMD64, after OS, is compilers. They determine how it's better to port ready applications to the new architecture, how effectively they can use its potential.
AMD 64 Technology & Compilers
The key element of the AMD64 software support is an operating system. Certainly, you can install 32bit OSs on the Opteron such as Microsoft Windows XP and RadHat Linux (as well as MS-DOS, Windows 98 and other linuxes :), but in this case 64bit extensions of the CPU won't be made use of. 64bit applications need a 64bit OS. And if Microsoft is still developing its product, the Linux version is already finished. One of them is SLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) for the AMD64. Applications can be ported to the AMD64 in different ways. The simplest one is to try to recompile it with a 64bit compiler (if such application comes with source codes). However, it's difficult to reach high efficiency this way because it may need fine tweaking to the new architecture in spite of the standards of the higher-level programming languages. In particular, porting can include the check for links stored in 32-bit variables, bit masks and binary offsets.
Many modern algorithms which would be handier in using 64bit variables are specially written for the 32bit medium since it's more popular. In such cases the code should be rewritten for higher efficiency. That is why the next important factor for the AMD64, after OS, is compilers. They determine how it's better to port ready applications to the new architecture, how effectively they can use its potential.
AMD 64 Technology & Compilers
