Synergy/DE is available on a number of 64-bit platforms, including IBM AIX, Oracle Solaris, Linux, and Windows. Following are some questions customers have asked us as they\'ve moved to 64-bit platforms.

1. Can I use 32-bit Synergy/DE on a 64-bit system (that supports 32-bit programs)?

Yes, since 64-bit systems support the execution of 32-bit programs, you can execute your 32-bit application using 32-bit Synergy. We do not recommend this, however, because the performance will be slower. We recommend 64-bit Synergy on 64-bit systems.

2. Can I compile and link with 32-bit Synergy/DE, but run the executable with 64-bit Synergy/DE?

No. Object files and executables built with 32-bit Synergy cannot be used with 64-bit Synergy and vice versa. You can use 32-bit Synergy on a 64-bit machine to create 32-bit executables (.dbr or .elb) to execute on 32-bit machines that are the same endian as the originating machine.

3. Can ELBs (executable libraries) be built with 32-bit Synergy and run with 64-bit Synergy (or vice versa)?

No. See #2 above.

4. Can I run both 32- and 64-bit Synergy runtimes on the same machine?

Yes. The two runtimes can coexist, just make sure the bit size of the application matches that of the runtime.

5. Can I use 32-bit Synergy/DE on one machine to access 64-bit xfServer on another machine (or vice versa)?

Yes, as long as the xfServer version is equal to or higher than the highest runtime version on the client machines.

6. Regarding #5 above, what if 32-bit Synergy/DE is running on Solaris 10, and 64-bit xfServer is running on Solaris 11?

Same answer as #5 above.

7. Are there any NFS implications when using both 32- and 64-bit Synergy runtimes on multiple machines?

There would be an issue if you attempted to execute cross platform (32-/64-bit) executables (#2 above). We strongly recommend against sharing Synergy DBMS files across NFS mounts.

8. Are Synergy DBMS files compatible between 32- and 64-bit Synergy/DE?

Yes. Synergy DBMS files can be shared between 32- and 64-bit Synergy.

Windows-specific questions

1. Which 64-bit Windows systems does Synergy/DE support?

Synergy/DE supports 64-bit versions of all supported Windows platforms.

2. What are the benefits of using 64-bit over 32-bit Windows?

• Applications that take advantage of 64-bit features may run faster and more efficiently on 64-bit systems.

• The memory footprint is no longer limited to 4 GB (2 GB for the OS and 2 GB for applications and databases), enabling databases, for example, to cache more information.

• Terminal servers can be configured to run more than 50 sessions because the desktop heap is no longer limited to 24 MB. (It can be greater than 4 GB.) Additionally, both 32- and 64-bit programs can be running in the terminal services sessions. The upshot is that you may need fewer terminal server machines.

• Native 64-bit programs have more registers to optimize (on x64 there are 11, versus 3 for 32-bit), so native programs run much faster. In one test, a 64-bit Synergy/DE program ran 80% faster than the identical 32-bit program. For more computational-bound programs, such as graphics drivers, the gains can be even greater.

• 64-bit operating systems are faster. While current 32-bit operating systems may end up running on a 150 MHz Pentium 1, and are designed to work on such systems, 64-bit machines all have Pentium 4 SSE2 instructions as guaranteed base-level instructions, which enables 64-bit operating systems to use more modern CPU instructions and more advanced optimizations.

3. Can 32-bit applications interoperate with 64-bit applications?

Some functions will work between 32- and 64-bit applications (for example, cut-and-paste), but 64-bit applications cannot load 32-bit DLLs (and vice versa), so 32- and 64-bit applications generally cannot interoperate with each other.

For more specific information and instructions on running Synergy/DE 12 and higher on 64-bit Windows, see Synergy/DE on 64-bit Windows.