Is TC compatible with a 64-bit OS?

[RazerBack]

Just curious, maybe I'll get a new computer when it is, like the AMD Athlon 64.

[lzvk25]

If you have Windows XP or similar it will work. However, it will still run at 32 bits. To make full use of the 64 bits, it needs to be recompiled under a 64 bits.

[ghisler(Author)]

TC should work on 64-bit Windows, because 64-bit Windows supports 32-bit programs too. Unfortunately TC cannot be recompiled to 64-bit because there is no 64-bit Delphi compiler.

[RazerBack]

TC should work on 64-bit Windows, because 64-bit Windows supports 32-bit programs too. Unfortunately TC cannot be recompiled to 64-bit because there is no 64-bit Delphi compiler.

I assume not yet, yet being the word.
What kind of benefits if and when it does?

[ghisler(Author)]

What kind of benefits if and when it does?

The only really CPU-intensive function in TC is the ZIP packer and several unpackers. For normal file management, you would not see any difference. Since the ZIP packer DLL is written in MSVC++, I wonder whether it's possible to call 64-bit DLLs from a 32-bit program...

[billym]

I'm googling, "calling 64-bit dll for 32-bit program" and it sounds like it is possible. Here is one on 16-bit to 32-bit (no code example though but I am still googling):

http://lists.debian.org/debian-amd64/2003/debian-amd64-200312/msg00039.html

"This is called thunking btw and as far as I know it was invented by
IBM/Microsoft for OS/2 and made worse in Windows 95. From
http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=952/ddj9614c ...

> One of the most difficult areas of Windows 95 programming is thunking. Many of
> the 32-bit system DLLs in Windows 95 rely heavily on 16-bit code. For example,
> when your 32-bit program calls GetMessage, control ultimately ends up in the
> GetMessage routine in the 16-bit USER.EXE. Likewise, there are many places
> where 16-bit system code makes calls to 32-bit system DLLs. For example, when
> creating a new window, the 16-bit USER.EXE thunks up to KERNEL32.DLL to
> allocate memory for the window's data from a 32-bit heap. Windows 95 handles
> both types of thunks (32- to 16-bit, and 16- to 32-bit) seamlessly."

-Billym

[billym]

Here are a few more misc things:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/Porting_Win_DD_to_AMD64.pdf
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/Value_of_AMD64_White_Paper.pdf
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/1100/hood/default.aspx

Here is a VB example that has a 16-bit program call a 32-bit dll (granted not 32 to 64 but it might be similar):

http://www.programmersheaven.com/d/click.aspx?ID=F17100&URL=ftp%3A%2F%2Fftp.spaldingsoft.com%2Frob%2Fcall32v2.zip

"CALL32.DLL is a DLL that can be used for calling routines in 32-bit
DLLs on Windows XP, ME, 2000, NT, 9x. It may or may not work on other
32-bit operating systems.

Using it, a Visual Basic program, running in the Win16 subsystem,
can declare and call functions in any 32-bit DLL (including, but not
limited to, the system DLLs)."

Here is some DLL calling stuff but it is assembly (look towards bottom of page under "Advanced"): http://www.jorgon.freeserve.co.uk/

After refining my google search with this "calling 64-bit dll from 32-bit program thunking" I am getting better info; however, I must sleep now. I hope the stuff above is not useless. I know some programming but not a lot.

Oh and lastly I am sure there is some good info directly from AMD:

AMD Developer Site:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/DevelopWithAMD/0,,30_2252,00.html

AMD64 Developer Resource Kit
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/DevelopWithAMD/0,,30_2252_9044,00.html

-Billym