Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

i understand Dolphin nightlies dropped support for x86 32bits builds, but will the next stable release get a build for Win 32bits?

No, it was removed because it was holding back development since some things couldn't be added without removing it. Adding it back in would cause a lot of regressions and issues.
Here's something to read about why: https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2014/05/19/obituary-32bit/

If your computer is better than a pentium 4, it has 64-bit support. What you can do is reinstall your OS and copy your files over. You'll also get better performance in everything else if you do (as long as you have more than 4 GB of RAM). If you need help, we can show you how to go about it all.

ok, thank you.
guess i have to stop being lazy and reinstall Windows in 64bits

Yup. You'll notice Dolphin no everything else is faster. It's worth it.

(11-01-2014, 06:10 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]no everything else is faster.

That's not really true. Most programs won't benefit, and it does use more ram, which can be bad if you don't have much.

I meant to say "and" instead of "no"

Yes, I would tend to agree when it comes to most programs, but as long as the minimum of 4GB of RAM is met, then 64-bit Windows will run faster than 23-bit Windows, and programs that are built on 32-bit and 64-bit will run faster in 64-bit most of the time.

KHg8m3r, It's not 4GB, It's 2GB.

Windows on 32bit only adress 2GB. The other 2GB is reserved for device drivers for adressing. This can be changed to 3GB/1GB with a bootloader switch but some drivers can act unstable on this mode.

64bit Windows also have the same limitation, but 64bit space is very big (16 exbibytes), you don't exceed 8 exbibytes on near future.

RachelB,

On 32bit systems, an application can only use 2GB because of the reasons I said on the top. On 64bit Windows an 32bit program can use 4gb adress space, which makes 32bit applications faster on 64bit systems. They "can" use more ram if needed, they don't waste your ram.

The only thing uses more space is 32bit windows API's on 64 bit systems, contained on SysWOW64 folder is using your harddrive space. It's 1,32 GB on my Windows.

Sure, the technical requirements for windows x64 requires only 2 GB of RAM to run, but it's a pretty shitty experience since the RAM usage of windows x64 by itself sits at around 1.2-1.5 GB of the RAM. Then any background services you install eat up some more, and then you're left with little to no RAM left to use for programs, so you have to wait.

I guess a better wording would be strongly advised to have 4 GB of RAM

(11-02-2014, 12:21 AM)Mustafa Can Wrote: [ -> ]On 64bit Windows an 32bit program can use 4gb adress space, which makes 32bit applications faster on 64bit systems.

Not unless it needs more ram, which most programs don't.

Quote:They "can" use more ram if needed, they don't waste your ram.

64 bit programs use more ram, because pointers are twice the size. This is potentially significant for programs that use large amounts of pointers.

(11-02-2014, 12:21 AM)Mustafa Can Wrote: [ -> ]On 64bit Windows an 32bit program can use 4gb adress space, which makes 32bit applications faster on 64bit systems.

You'll probably find 99% of all programs can still only use 2GB of RAM, as only a program compiled with the large address aware flag can address more than that, regardless of whether you're on a 32- or 64-bit system. As for performance, there is zero difference unless the lack of RAM under your 32-bit system was causing you to use the pagefile all the time or the program itself can benefit from being designed as a 64-bit application (e.g. Dolphin). Standard 32-bit programs run at the same speed under native 32-bit Windows and on the WOW 32-bit legacy support in 64-bit Windows.