I don't think its realistic to support hardware this old. I'm here just for the challenge. What grinds me more is the lack of linux support because a lot of developers are dropping 32bit. But then again I can't fault them. The 32bit to 64bit transition is now a bigger deal than it ever was which I mean took quite a long time anyway for support to be dropped.
Yeah, there was a lot involved in the transition of WinXP to 64-bit, only the Pro version supported it and there wasn't much software available for it, Vista was getting more involved in x64. Then there's always the question of whether hardware is driving software production or the improvements in the programming is demanding better faster hardware. And don't forget the Gamers that want everything working even faster. Will we be eagerly jumping on the bandwagon when 128-bit computing is developed/perfected?
There’s no current need to go to 128bit native. 64bit CPUs can already work with 128bit and bigger data. We’re going to be 64bit until we die. Maybe that will change in 100 years?
Going past 64bit will not be the same as the previous jumps. With 32bit it was mainly to get past the 4GB memory addressing limit. Sure there was PAE but I don't recall any consumer hardware using that to actually address memory beyond 4GB for a 32bit CPU/OS. The architectural memory limit for 64bit is 16 exibytes which is ~17million terabytes. Or you can think of that as 3GB each for 6billion people on earth. It's not a practical limit that will be reached in our lifetimes. There are other things that will shake up the architecture for sure but going past 64bit will not be one of them for a very long time.
I only installed Windows XP x64 once for curiosity, to see what all the fuss was about 64-bit. But it was very hard to find any drivers and few applications where native 64-bit to justify the effort. It was far better to install Windows Vista 64-bit (that had drivers for many devices) than install Windows XP x64 that had much fewer drivers. As for Linux 32-bit, you can install the latest 32-bit version of Ubuntu, it is not that old as to pose compatibility issues with current software. Maybe you can get 2-3 years of life time at a 32-bit system. Personally I don't like Linux! I would rather install Windows 98 than Linux, so please do not mention it in a Windows forum. Thanks.
My laptop has an Athlon 64. For AMD then it was more a marketing ploy at the time to come out with a 64-bit CPU. Also since the laptop only supported a maximum 2GB RAM it did not support enough RAM to make a 64-bit operating system make sense.
Back around 2005 when Windows XP was still popular the amount of RAM needed for Windows was 512 MB. The only people that needed more than that were either encoding video or playing a RAM hungry game.
I don't think anyone should buy a Windows 10 computer with a CPU that has less than 4 cores and has less than 8GB of RAM. This makes a 64-bit computer CPU a necessity.
By today standards a new computer should have at least 4GB RAM (office work and internet) or 8GB RAM (video editing and gaming). The CPU should have 4 cores, but it is not absolutely necessary. I have an old Intel Core-i3 (dual core) with 8GB RAM and I can edit HD video just fine. x264vfw at "normal" setting renders at about 7-8 fps at 1080p, I don't care because I can do other stuff in my computer while rendering in the background without noticeable performance drop. If I have a rather low bitrate and want the best quality, I change the setting to "high" and it renders 3-4 fps at 1080p but gives very good results (more like the "insane" setting in DivX). Of course you are going to say this is very slow for professional use. Yes it is, but I do it for my pleasure, I'm not a professional. For a refurbished computer you should have 4GB RAM at least, or add RAM to reach 4GB at least. Anything faster than Intel Core 2 Duo is preferable. In Greece you can find refurbished Intel Core-i5 (quad core) with 4GB RAM and at least 320GB hard disk for a little over 200€, no need to give a fortune, unless you are a gamer or a professional.
HW, OS and SW demands raise exponentially with number of bits, nobody is going to pay for that in consumer market while 64 bit is not saturated yet. With over billion of transistors in modern CPUs, just do the math a billion squared !!!
Much the same here in the UK. For testing purposes I wanted a W7 machine that had never acquired a W10 digital licence. You'd be surprised just how difficult it is to find such a machine these days. You can't really tell until after you have bought it, the only reliable way to determine if a machine has a digital licence is to try a clean install.
My first purchase (Dell Latitude E4310, Intel Core i5, 4GB RAM) turned out to have tried an upgrade to W10 in it's previous life and then had W7 reinstalled. My second purchase was luckier, a Thinkpad T420, 2nd gen i5, 4GB RAM and no digital licence for W10.
Both were bought online from CashConverters UK for £70 (80€, $86). Those models when fully refurbished are available at £150 - £200 here in the UK.
Quote