Dan Sugalski <dan(at)sidhe(dot)org> writes:
> I assume I'll have to do a 64 bit build to use more than a few gig of
> shared buffers. If I do that, though, am I going to have to do a
> database dump and reload,
Yes, most likely, because you'll have changed MAXALIGN and therefore the
data alignment rules.
You should first ask yourself whether you will get any performance
benefit from having "more than a few gig of shared buffers". If anyone
has proven such a benefit I haven't seen it.
regards, tom lane