Hi everybody,

Is it still relevant to support x86?

Thanks

In theory I do, but it's just a flag in my builds. It's been a while since I've actually used it.

@Alundra For me, even if I wasn't worried about the performance issues, I'm well over the memory limit. I guess it depends on what you are doing. For a modern ostensibly commercial project, I wouldn't worry about it and just use x64. However, some people are into older hardware.

Is it still relevant to support x86?

No need.

If you mean 32-bit Windows, it has been slowly getting End of Life treatment since early 2020. It will take a few years to be fully phased out, but nothing new includes it.

If you are supporting an old system or need compatability, you might have a need to support it, but it would be out of necessity.

If you are talking about the general architecture, it is here to stay. The 64-bit extensions are attached to the 32-bit extensions, and the 16-bit extensions. You can find the old 8-bit Intel 8088 and 8008 CPU instructions are even mostly present and understandable even in the modern programs. They are the simple math, comparisons, jumps, and similar, and the instruction set isn't vanishing any time soon.

Yes, it's about 32-bit build of your libraries and executable.

Funny to see ‘x86’ used as a synonym for ‘32-bit x86’, since x86 is a 16-bit processor architecture with 32-bit and 64-bit extensions. Anyway, supporting 32-bit processors is about as relevant as supporting 16-bit processors at this point.

a light breeze said:
Funny to see ‘x86’ used as a synonym for ‘32-bit x86’

I'm sure that's a common use nowadays and I find it remarkable that you find it funny.

I'm continuing to build 32 bit binaries to my older projects (where i already had 32 bit support) and in some of my ongoing projects. But not in the projects i start in the future. -m64 -march=k8 and end of the story.