What is the best rational approximation to pi using a 64-bit numerator and denominator?

You can use continued fractions to get excellent approximations of an irrational number. If you haven't encountered continued fractions before, it's a way of writing a number as nested series of fractions of the form

Adding in more and more terms into a continued fraction gives a better and better approximation as a rational number.

The continued fraction of π is

[3; 7, 15, 1, 292, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 14, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 84, 2, 1, 1, 15, 3, 13, 1, 4, 2, 6, 6, 99, 1, 2, 2, 6, 3, 5, 1, 1, 6, 8, 1, 7, 1, 2, 3, 7, 1, 2, 1, 1, 12, 1, 1, 1, 3, 1, 1, 8, 1, 1, 2, 1, 6, 1, 1, 5, 2, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 4, 16, 1, 161, ...]

and so we can write a little Python script to compute approximations based on this continued fraction representation, which is shown here:

from fractions import *

digits = [3, 7, 15, 1, 292, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 14, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 84, 2, 1, 1, 15, 3, 13, 1, 4, 2, 6, 6, 99, 1, 2, 2, 6, 3, 5, 1, 1, 6, 8, 1, 7, 1, 2, 3, 7, 1, 2, 1, 1, 12, 1, 1, 1, 3, 1, 1, 8, 1, 1, 2, 1, 6, 1, 1, 5, 2, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 4, 16, 1, 161]

for i in range(len(digits)):
    # Start with the last digit
    f = Fraction(digits[i]);

    # Keep rewriting it as term + 1 / prev
    for j in range(i-1, -1, -1):
        f = digits[j] + 1 / f
    
    # Stop if we overshoot
    if f.numerator >= 2**64 or f.denominator >= 2**64: break
    
    # Print the approximation we found
    print(f)

This prints continued fractions with better and better approximations until we overshoot what fits in a 64-bit integer. Here's the output:

3
22/7
333/106
355/113
103993/33102
104348/33215
208341/66317
312689/99532
833719/265381
1146408/364913
4272943/1360120
5419351/1725033
80143857/25510582
165707065/52746197
245850922/78256779
411557987/131002976
1068966896/340262731
2549491779/811528438
6167950454/1963319607
14885392687/4738167652
21053343141/6701487259
1783366216531/567663097408
3587785776203/1142027682075
5371151992734/1709690779483
8958937768937/2851718461558
139755218526789/44485467702853
428224593349304/136308121570117
5706674932067741/1816491048114374
6134899525417045/1952799169684491
30246273033735921/9627687726852338
66627445592888887/21208174623389167
430010946591069243/136876735467187340
2646693125139304345/842468587426513207

This last approximation is the best approximation of π, I believe, that fits into 64-bit integers. (It's possible that there's a better one that appears between this denominator and the next denominator that you'd get that overflows a 64-bit integer, but this is still pretty close!) Therefore, you'd want

const uint64_t pi_num   = 2646693125139304345u;
const uint64_t pi_denom = 842468587426513207u;

This source reports that this approximation is accurate to 37 decimal places (!):

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288418 (approximation)
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419 (actual)

This should be more than enough for what you're aiming to do. (Unless, of course, you're trying to set a record for finding digits of π or something like that. ^_^)