XP X64 support?

G'day Kevin.

Apparently a real 64bit Songbird build is being considered for the future, and you can keep track of process, by adding yourself as a CC on: http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com/show...

Whilst I do agree that real 64bit apps do work slightly better on a 64bit OS, there are a few reasons why I don't believe it has been done yet:
1) Songbird uses the mozilla platform, which isn't officially 64bit on Windows either unfortunately. So until Mozilla supports 64bit officially, its a bit difficult.
2) Many 32bit extensions wont easily work on 64bit. In fact, this is one reason why 64bit for browsers has had trouble taking off in the past. Operation of plugins was inconsistent.
3) The main benefit of 64bit is limited to applications that can utilise 2GB of RAM (or more). Whilst it is possible to tune Songbird to use more RAM (http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Docs/Pow...), if Songbird does hit the 2GB limit of RAM available per application in 32bit, Songbird needs some serious optimisation work probably ;-)
4) This is where the effect on performance gets a bit iffy. 64bit pointers are twice as big, so memory storage becomes less efficient and memory transfers become less efficient. However, you also get some new instructions, and additional CPU registers.

So overall, its questionable as to whether it will find heavy usage.

I'm not a coder though, so this is just a whole bunch of assumptions. For all I know, it may just be around the corner ;)