Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[sgolds]

yourbankruptcy, your 64-bit application switch idea is enticing although it does have practical issues. This level of programming is not allowed for an application, but the application could employ a special kernel-level driver and take over the processor. A custome API based on IOCTL routines is then employed between the app and the driver. In order to get the performance boost you want the machine running in 64-bit mode by default and then running other 32-bit code as the exception. Frequently used OS routines need to be recoded in 64-bit or you will get killed by all the context changes. These are limited to certain graphics, audio and input routines, so it is a containable set. If the app is intensively running 90% of the CPU cycles then you will see significant performance improvement.

The sticky problem is that the OS is still running in 32-bit mode. The application would need to essentially put a wrapper around the OS and run it in its own 32-bit space. All the 32-bit calls from the OS will need to be intercepted and run by the wrapper, which would then be a super-OS.

I think that is more than Doom would want to do!