Is BC3 Windows 7 x64 native?

[tbessie]

Hi all...

I couldn't find the answer in the knowledge base, so I was wondering of BC3 is a native 64-bit app when installed on Windows 7 x64, or if it runs in x32 compatibility mode. I'm hoping it's native, so it can take advantage of all 8gb of memory I have on my computer. :-)

- Tim

[Zoë]

It's 32-bit, but does have a flag set so it can use 4GB, rather than the normal 2. Our development environment doesn't support producing 64-bit executables yet, and the release that adds that support is scheduled for mid-late 2011.

[tbessie]

It's 32-bit, but does have a flag set so it can use 4GB, rather than the normal 2. Our development environment doesn't support producing 64-bit executables yet, and the release that adds that support is scheduled for mid-late 2011.

Thanks Craig! Oh well - it will be well worth it when it does.

It's funny - two of my favorite programs, Beyond Compare and MediaMonkey, are written in Delphi. I wonder how they'd behave if rewritten in C++ or C#, with or without .NET.

- Tim

[Michael Bulgrien]

FYI - C# is not as efficient as C++

[tbessie]

FYI - C# is not as efficient as C++

How do you mean "efficient"? I don't write code in the Microsoft world, so I am not aware if C# is always compiled for use with .NET or not.

Are you just talking about compilation to native machine code vs. virtual machine code, or something else?

You can be technical - I've been programming for 23 years (mostly Java in the last 10). :-)

- Tim

[Michael Bulgrien]

Yes, C++ was designed for performance. C++ compiles directly to native machine code for its target platform. A C++ application must be recompiled for each platform it needs to run on.

C# was designed for portability/interoperability. C# compiles to an intermediate language (pseudocode) which is then executed by the CLR (Common Language Runtime). Since the C# runtime system stands between the program and the CPU, C# programs incur an overhead that is not present in the execution of a C++ program.

[tbessie]

Yes, C++ was designed for performance. C++ compiles directly to native machine code for its target platform. A C++ application must be recompiled for each platform it needs to run on.

C# was designed for portability/interoperability. C# compiles to an intermediate language (pseudocode) which is then executed by the CLR (Common Language Runtime). Since the C# runtime system stands between the program and the CPU, C# programs incur an overhead that is not present in the execution of a C++ program.

The folks at Sun would like to suggest that their just-in-time native compilation of pseudocode is just-as/almost-as efficient as natively compiled code, but I wonder about that. :-)

Someday I suppose I'll have to learn C++ or C# and enter the Microsoft fray.

- Tim

[mscheuner]

C# compiles to an intermediate language (pseudocode) which is then executed by the CLR (Common Language Runtime). Since the C# runtime system stands between the program and the CPU, C# programs incur an overhead that is not present in the execution of a C++ program.

Actually, this is not entirely accurate. The C# compiler does indeed compile to an intermediate format - but before that is actually executed, it is compiled to native machine code on the target machine. The first execution therefore might be a tad slower, but once the code has been turned into native machine code, it's every bit as efficient as C++ code.

Also, runtime efficiency is just one part of the story - how about programmer productivity?? Using C# is way easier than C++ - in C++, you have sooooo many ways of shooting yourself in your foot - quality and productivity of programmers is much lower. I'll pick C# over C++ any day - I get a job done quickly, and the runtime performance is more than good enough (unless you're e.g. talking about real-time systems)