Microsoft Working on 128-bit Windows

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[citation][nom]industrial_zman[/nom]first off, most of you guys are misunderstanding the basics of computer architecture. IA64 is not AMD64 aka x64. IA64 is the platform for Intel's Itanium RISC processors used in huge super computers and high end servers. IA128 I would assume would follow suite, which means Microsoft let the cat out of the bag before Intel's official announcement of the next generation Itanium. However, rumor had it that Sun's next generation OpenSparc/UltraSparc processors will be 128bit. So to answer your questions, "NO, it will not run Crysis. It will not be a consumer level Windows." The purpose of having a bus that wide will significantly help database and other cloud applications.[/citation]

Itanium isn't RISC, it's VLIW. They are completely different.
 
Making a fully 128 bit wide cpu at this point in time would be a dumb move. The complexity really goes up, the clock speed will go down and there will be no practice point of it.

Making specific parts 128 bit wide can help certain things tho. Like floating point units.

This article really doesnt specify what parts they want to make 128 bit.

We dont need 128 bit for memory addressing right now. 64 bit is way overkill for todays technology. 99% of people have less ram then can be addressed with 33 bits(thats 8GB) let alone 64(16EB or 16,777,216TB). There is no computer on the planet that is even close to the limit of a 64 bit memory space. I dont know what the largest memory any computer has, but my estimate would be sub 128TB of ram(47 bit address space). If max memory doubles every 18 months, that would put the limit out at the year 2035, for personal computers about 2055.

Hard drives are currently addressed with 48 bits, thats good for 256TB drives. Large hard drive arrays hit this limit now. But we wont hit it for a single drive until about 2020 if they keep growing at historic rates. Extending hard drive addressing to 64 bits needs to be done relatively soon tho.
 
[citation][nom]ta152h[/nom]Itanium isn't RISC, it's VLIW. They are completely different.[/citation]

RISC and VLIW asside, Itanium is not a consumer level product. And no there will not be a need for 128-bit in our homes for a number of years (maybe decades) to come.

Everybody and their brother is talking about 'cloud computing' these days which I would assume would be the target of 128-bit... I am sure some of the largest supercomputers are already nearing the limits of 64-bit addressable RAM, or will soon also.
 
Besides the fact that the article is BS, I'm rather interested in how some people are saying 64-bit is useless.

Funnily enough, "Will it run Crysis?" is actually valid here. For those who may have done research, they'll find out that the Crysis team uses a 64-bit version of their editor because they were dissatisfied with the memory limitations of 32-bit.

By the same token, I assume 64-bit will also assist many other 3D applications, for example, though it is dead now, trueSpace 7.6 and some previous versions incorporate a full real-time rendering solution, so you can see what you're doing in your viewport. If you're making complex scenes, especially with 3D modeling, I can see more memory coming in handy here.

Due to the admittedly ridiculous amounts of background programs I run, I idle at 2.8 to 3.4 GB. If I didn't have 64-bit, my 6 GB would be useless and I'd run out pretty fast if I tried to run an application with those going. So personally, I'm thankful for 64-bit. I don't see how *I* could use 128-bit if it were true, but I'm sure some mad scientist out there has an idea or two that they could manage to find a way.
 
[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]They said IA-128, which means Itanium.Windows has had a IA-64 version since the Itanium was released, back in 2003 well before the x64 "consumer" version was released in 2005 (Win 2003/Xp Pro x64). Therefore, unless you own an Itanium processor to begin with, this is no news. Since only a select few research departments own Itaniums, none of us should care. When AMD creates the AMD128 architecture, which will then be re-marketed as x128 to ease Intel's eventual adoption, be sure Microsoft will create a consumer version based on that, until then, don't hold your breath.[/citation]
[citation][nom]jerreece[/nom]Yeah but nobody really supports XP directly anymore anyhow, considering Vista is around, and is now being replaced with Windows 7. Sure lots of people are stilling using XP, but it's not the current or future OS, therefore companies don't have as much reason to offer direct support for XP in new products (or even old products which they themselves don't support anymore).[/citation]

Exactly what I was thinking IA-64 != x64.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium
 
[citation][nom]JN77[/nom]It would be nice to edit HD Video at double or quad speed (2x or 4x) edit 1 hour of HD video in 15 minutes..... I remember the days of doing that with video tapes... digital is so behind......[/citation]

but will it play Crysis?

someone had to say it
 
[citation][nom]JN77[/nom]It would be nice to edit HD Video at double or quad speed (2x or 4x) edit 1 hour of HD video in 15 minutes..... I remember the days of doing that with video tapes... digital is so behind......[/citation]

dammit, quoted the wrong one

Will this one play Crysis?
 
[citation][nom]nforce4max[/nom]Finally some one who knows what this cpu really is, not even my instructor at school knows.[/citation]

Strictly, Itanium is EPIC, which you could say is a kind of VLIW, but which is also a sort of RISC.
And all three, EPIC, VLIW, RISC, happens to be compiler centric architectures. Which is why they're all dead ducks. RISC is still viable for small CPU-cores though, and I suppose it will stay so for awhile yet. But VLIW and EPIC are Dodo.

Point: There is no reason to expect IA-128 is a new Itanium ISA. ...Even if it existed. Which I doubt.
 
[citation][nom]HVdynamo[/nom]I am wondering why my post last is being voted down, there is nothing in there but facts, with the exception of my blunder that I fixed.[/citation]
There's an idiot lurking here. Look at all the sensible and correct posts that have been thumbed down.
 
citation][nom]dirtykid[/nom]I am sure some of the largest supercomputers are already nearing the limits of 64-bit addressable RAM, or will soon also.[/citation]

Not really. 64-bit space is some million times larger than the RAM of the largest and fastest supercomputer in the world.
 
What's the point beyond 64-bit?

Imagine if people said that about other advancements. What's the point of a graphical interface? What's the point of a video card? What's the point of more than 1 core? What's the point (insert something else now essential to our computing here).

Embrace technological advancements. It's what makes living in this age different from the others. Who really cares if the hardware doesn't support it yet? At least we're moving forward in some respect. You never know when someone will make a breakthrough and take full advantage of those 128 bits...
 
[citation][nom]Vermil[/nom]citation][nom]dirtykid[/nom]I am sure some of the largest supercomputers are already nearing the limits of 64-bit addressable RAM, or will soon also.[/citation]Not really. 64-bit space is some million times larger than the RAM of the largest and fastest supercomputer in the world.[/citation]

Can you support this with a real number?
 
VMWare, and Hyper VMware.
Basically people will log into to use computers.
No need for everyone to have very powerful machines.
when you can just log in and access how ever much power
you need.

Its going to take virtualization to the next level.
Servers, and business.

Not really for consumers.
 
This may be new in the pc world but 132 bit computers have been up and running since the mid 80's. The concept of single level storage where all RAM and all Disk were addressed sequentially required addressing at these "larger levels". Most of the systems that run like this simply sit in the back of an office and run quietly and peacefully sometimes not even getting "booted" for a year or more. I can still remember OS/2 boxes from the 80's that ran large multi-user applications on a 386 platform supporting over 200 simultaneous users with ease. (Sorry the OS/2 comment just slipped out, has nothing to do with the addressing article.)
 
For all of the epic failure in this article and comments section, it should be made clear that:

Itanium is for mainframe servers, and TBH, have both outlived their usefulness.
If you don't know what mainframe is, then you don't need it, or Itanium.

Windows does not run on Itanium, only Mainframe OSes like AS400, Z-OS, (and Linux, although I doubt many do)etc... run on Itanium, so something isn't right about this article.

With Numa, you can run any amount of ram on a 32 bit OS, so it's still a moot point, you only hit the 2 or 3gb process limit, enter 64 bit...

128 bit operations and beyond can already be processed by splitting it into multiple operations, although this kind of precision is rarely needed.
 
[citation][nom]ta152h[/nom]Itanium isn't RISC, it's VLIW. They are completely different.[/citation]
ummm VLIW is a direct descendant of RISC. stemming off of the EPIC (explicitly parallel instruction computing). You can run RISC on Itanium (1 or 2) directly with out a HLE. Unlike the i386 instructions which have to manipulated through the hardware emulation on the Itanium processors.
 
Far too many who comment in these posts as if everything is for the home PC market. A 128-bit OS is definitely for the server super computer cluster environment, high end scientific computing, major search giants, some day it will be great for the workstation market. It's entirely possible that MS sees the opportunity to try and reverse the trend away from the video card GPGPU and back to the CPU by enabling a more powerful OS to support vast core counts and memory addressable space for the host OS.
 
[citation][nom]izliecies[/nom]What is the point of going higher than 64 bit?[/citation]

I was going to explain why but JasonAkkerman did a fine job at it.
 
An OS with even MORE resources, and higher footprint!
Get MS Win 128bit, and you will enjoy your cup of coffee again before turning on your PC!
With 'quick' boot times of slightly under 3 minutes, and shutdown times only 3/4th that time, you'll get the best of both worlds!
Ow, and an expandability for 999.999.999.999.999.999 Bytes of RAM (which you will need, since the Windows OS takes up 25-50% of that), and harddrive support upto 32 centillion centillion bytes (for your MS word documents that now surprisingly take up 128MB in size due to security patches, and encryption algorythms)!

We all want Windows! The future is Windows; Calculating and processing just because we think you can!
 
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