What advantage to I have if I use 64bit libraries?

Question

I see many people go crazy about 64bit libraries,

and preferring them in general to the 32bit counter parts.

I realise there is a lot of talk that gets lost in translation, and that the 64bit can be often over-valued.

---

The setting is libraries that are called on web application, I'm aware that a new instance of the web app is generated for each hit. Therefore I'm thinking that 64bit is not necessary as the instances in no way surpass 2Gb of RAM usage.

---

Help would be much appreciated! :)

Answer 1

You're right - in general you don't need to worry about 64-bit libraries or executables unless you either (a) need a large address space (say > 2 GB) or (b) you have a performance-critical application (x86-64 has twice as many registers available as x86 and code typically runs around 30% faster).