by Jan
14. February 2011 21:44
Q4.1 now supports 64-bit processors, which are becoming the norm when you purchase a new PC or laptop. The advantages of 64-bit support for Q includes:
- No out of memory problems with big tables or big data sets, compared to a 32-bit limit of around a million cases.
- Q can use as much RAM as your computer has, compared to a 32-bit limit of around 2GB.
To take advantage of Q's 64-bit support, you must be running a 64-bit edition of Windows Vista or Windows 7. Here is a guide from Microsoft to check whether you are already using a 64-bit edition of Windows.
The only disadvantage of 64-bit support is that the statistics for Experiment tables and the results of Segmentation analysis differ from what you see on a 32-bit edition of Q by around 1%. These differences occur because 64-bit Q can perform calculations with more precision than 32-bit, meaning that Q effectively has access to more decimal places, and this can cause some differences with Experiments or Segmentation because of the many complex calculations involved in computing their results.
Another trend in computing is the uptake of dual-core and quad-core processors. Recognising this trend, we have initially made Q's most expensive calculations support multiple cores: Experiment and Ranking statistics. This means when you view an Experiment question in a table, or compute its Segments, Q can be up to twice as fast if you have a dual-core processor, or up to four times as fast if you have a quad-core processor.
Q5 will have even more areas targeted for multi-core support - please tell us if there is a particular area of Q that is slow for you and we will make it part of the plan for Q5.
