JRE 32bit vs 64bit
I've been using Java for a while now, and my typical ritual of setting up a new dev machine requires the norm of downloading and installing the latest JDK from Oracle's site.
This prompted an unusual question today, does it matter if I use the 32bit or 64bit JRE bundle?
From thinking back on it, I've installed both versions before and my normal toolchain plugs happily in (Eclipse). In my day-to-day programming, I do not recall ever having to change something or think about something in a different way just because I was using the 64bit JRE (or targetting the 64bit JRE for that respect).
From my understanding of 64bit vs. 32bit - it really boils down to how the numbers are stored underneath the covers... and I do know that int is a 32 bits and long is 64 bits... same with float being 32 bits and double is 64 bits -- so is it just that Java has abstracted even this subtlety away, and perhaps has been "64 bit compatible" all along?
I'm sure I'm missing something here besides not being able to install a 64 bit JRE onto a 32 bit system.
Answer
64-bit vs. 32-bit really boils down to the size of object references, not the size of numbers.
In 32-bit mode, references are four bytes, allowing the JVM to uniquely address 2^32 bytes of memory. This is the reason 32-bit JVMs are limited to a maximum heap size of 4GB (in reality, the limit is smaller due to other JVM and OS overhead, and differs depending on the OS).
In 64-bit mode, references are (surprise) eight bytes, allowing the JVM to uniquely address 2^64 bytes of memory, which should be enough for anybody. JVM heap sizes (specified with -Xmx) in 64-bit mode can be huge.
But 64-bit mode comes with a cost: references are double the size, increasing memory consumption. This is why Oracle introduced "Compressed oops". With compressed oops enabled (which I believe is now the default), object references are shrunk to four bytes, with the caveat that the heap is limited to four billion objects (and 32GB Xmx). Compressed oops are not free: there is a small computational cost to achieve this big reduction in memory consumption.
As a personal preference, I always run the 64-bit JVM at home. The CPU is x64 capable, the OS is too, so I like the JVM to run in 64-bit mode as well.