What's the difference between MinGW32 and TDM-GCC?

[xumc27]

Hello dudes, so I'm starting to learn C++ so I am certified newbie and I want to use "Orwell Dev-C++" as my IDE. But in the download portion there's several versions like " MinGW32 and TDM-GCC" so my question is, what's the difference between these two? which one should I download? I hope you can help me understand. Thanks!

[MikeDNC]

If you want to get up and running with minimal fuss, just go into "Setup Releases" and get a "Dev-Cpp MinGW" :) That'll work on 32 or 64 bit Windows. If you want to create 64-bit programs that will run (and compile) on 64-bit Windows only, then get the "Dev-Cpp TDM-GCC x64".

A little background information:

MinGW is simply a port of GCC to work on Windows.

Then MinGW-w64 is another project that makes MinGW do 64-bit.

TDM-GCC is a project that makes it quick and easy to install either one.
   You can install this separately from Dev-C++, and then install the Dev-C++ IDE-only.  Or Dev-C++ has packages with TDM-GCC included (those two above).  (Actually for 32-bit notice that they use MinGW directly).

One final note on 64-bit:
You can easily get the "Dev-C++ TDM-GCC x64" to create 32-bit executables, that run great on 32-bit Windows. So TDM-GCC x64 can create both 32-bit and 64-bit programs.
But it requires a "profile change" in Dev-C++ to do this (or adding a compiler switch), and.. especially for compiling libraries that I pass to others, I just prefer to keep two separate installations, one on my 32-bit Windows, and one on my 64-bit Windows.

~~~
Why even bother with 64-bit then, you may ask? Well you get twice the performance (or more) on some applications. On some others it doesn't matter.