d compiler, Windows 7, and the new iX intel chips.

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Sunday 11 July 2010 01:49:34 dcoder wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> Probably a stupid question, but does the dmd v2 compiler work with Windows
> 7, and the new intel chips like the i7?
> 
> Since the download page on digitalmars references i386 and Win32, I'm
> assuming it doesn't?
> 
> I'm thinking about getting a new computer, but would like D to work on it.
> 
> thanks.

All x86-64 chips (the Core i7 included) work with i386 and Win32 because they're 
backwards compatible. It just means that it's restricted to the i386 instruction 
set and cannot address memory beyond what i386 chips can do. So, you don't get 
as much out of the chip as you would were the programs compiled with the full 
instruction set that they support. But most programs these days aren't compiled 
that way because they would have too many instruction sets to target - what with 
athlon64, Phenom, Core i7, etc. They pick something that will work on pretty 
much any 32-bit system if they're compiling for 32-bit (so generally probably 
i386, i586, or i686), and if they're compiling for 64-bit, they'll pick a nice 
generic x86-64 instruction set that any 64-bit chip you buy will understand. gcc 
and Visual Studio do exactly the same thing. With gcc (and I assume Visual 
Studio, but I don't know), you can tell it to build for a more specific 
architecture and take advantage of it all that that architecture has to offer, 
but you don't generally do that with software that you release because then 
you'd have to worry about exactly which chip someone is using, and that 
complicates things considerably.

In any case, i386 programs will run just fine on a 64-bit processor such as the 
Core i7. Maybe someone else is actually aware of some good documentation or 
article(s) on the whole 32-bit vs 64-bit thing, what that means for accessing 
memory, what that means for compiling and running programs, etc. can point you 
to them, but I'm not aware of any off the top of my head. You should be able to 
google for that sort of thing if you're interested though.

- Jonathan M Davis