Don't know.. If Nick ever switched from the MFC libraries to something like Cygwin's, then not only might it be possible to compile a 64-bit version, but also, with a few changes, make a Linux version to. Though, it would probably work a tad slower. The priority for GCC and the Cygwin libraries haven't necessarilly been optimization. Besides, doesn't XP64 use two different versions, depending on the processor involved? That would make compiling it even more complicated, since the two processors are not compatible on a machine code level. However, ironically a native Intel64 compile using Cygwin may actually be faster than a 32-bit version running in Intel's emulation of 32-bit. lol On an AMD, that wouldn't be the case, since its native 64-bit also runs native 32-bit.
Definitely one case where Linux has the advantage, since as long as the coder didn't do something really stupid, such as assuming things like 'sizeof(integer)' will always be the same on every machine, damn near everything for it can be installed by compiling it for the processor(s) you are using. Windows stuff... They probably just charge you even more for privalage of you to picking which version you actually need. lol Assuming a 64-bit even exists for the product in the first place. Takes years to track down all those 'sizeof' errors their lazy coders introduced from one end of the source code to the other. ;) |