32 bit or 64 bits

[pmicho]

My computer runs a AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition.
Would I benefit much in installing Ubuntu 64bits. Or should I stick to the more commonly used 32 bits. The main purpose of the machine would be for openshot use.
Thank you.

[hvdwolf]

For Openshot and many other programs the benefit is none. 64bit allows you to work with datastructures larger than 4 GB in memory. That has nothing to do with filesizes of 4 GB or so. 64bits is only an advantage for application/terminal servers OR if you work with large datastructures like for example photo images each bigger than 4GB (and these are really massive I can tell you).
The general speed improvement of 64bit over 32bit is in the range of 0-15% completely depending on what the application does and how it is written.

For OpenShot this is again a little more complicated as OpenShot is written in Python. Python is an interpreted language and neither 32bits or 64bits. The Python infrastructure itself is of course built for the native architecture of the pc being either 32bits or 64 bits. The "dependencies" like ffmpeg, MLT, GTK2 etcera are also compiled in the native architecture.

In your case it doesn't matter: If you want 64bits then install 64bits. As Ubuntu itself is still promoting the 32bits version, for whatever reason, you might also stick to the 32bits version.

[pmicho]

Thank you very much.

[tommyla]

64-bit supports 4GB memory or more
64-bit is faster to render video/3d
there is also less legacy code when running 64-bit

so basicy it comes down to do you have 4GB or more memory?
then go 64-bit, if you have a newer PC then you have to use 64-bit due to EFI BIOS

[hvdwolf]

64-bit supports 4GB memory or more
64-bit is faster to render video/3d
there is also less legacy code when running 64-bit

it's more complicated then that.
32bit Linux PAE kernels (which are autmatically installed when having more than 4GB) can also address more then 4GB.
The difference is that a 32bit kernel can only address memoryblocks of max. 4GB, whereas a 64bit kernel can address more then 4GB directly thereby allowing datastructures larger then 4GB, as I described in my post.
With regard to fast rendering: it doesn't make a difference if you have a standard low memory builtin graphics card. It does if you have a fast VGA card and/or if your linux supports a secondary video card on your laptop, next to the builtin using bumblebee or some propietary driver.

so basicy it comes down to do you have 4GB or more memory?
then go 64-bit, if you have a newer PC then you have to use 64-bit due to EFI BIOS

Every modern pc can use EFI for both booting and/or disk addressing, but can also do that in "old fashioned" MBR boot mode. You can also slect whether the boot process should be EFI but disk, and specifically DVD and CD access, should be MBR based.
You don't need a 64bit OS to do that, unless it is Windows8, because that is only available as 64bit.
What's more: on an EFI system you do need a dedicated bootmanger, and guess what: most are 32bits.

But by now, considering that this thread is over a year old and it does need some update if people still read this, I now would also suggest to go for a 64bit version if you have the option, unless you have less than 4GB memeory. In that case I would take a 32bit version as it uses less (overhead) memory.