List of 64-bit games.

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JediFonger

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Question: just installed x64. are NATIVE Windows Vista 64-bit games even out? are there enthusiast sites that track 64-bit gaming or software in general?

The following is only valid for Windows XP/Vista 64-bit games.
Games with 64-bit executable included in the install.
-Crysis DVD (64-bit version has more textures)
-Hellgate
-Chronicles of Riddick

Games without 64-bit executable patch, must find it online.
32-bit optimized with 64-bit as an after thought. 64-bit requires a patch from support site.
-Far Cry DVD/CD
-Unreal Tournament 2004
 
those 2 are patched to take advantage of 64-bit... but they aren't true native 64-bit versions, correct?

i have to install the 32-bit first and then patch it to make it 64-bit? i've got far cry on DVD.
 
Riddick has a 64 bit executable. I don't know if there is any noticeable difference though. I've used it, but didn't see anything obvious. FarCry has the most noticeable differences.
 
the half life 2 series, steam will dl and execute in 64-bit mode ( at least it did for me ) and it will inform you in the upper portion of the screen that it's in 64-bit mode.
 
how about portal and many other STEAM games? valve isn't the only publisher on that platform anymore. there's a ton.

bigted said:
the half life 2 series, steam will dl and execute in 64-bit mode ( at least it did for me ) and it will inform you in the upper portion of the screen that it's in 64-bit mode.
Click to expand...
 
JediFonger said:
...patched to take advantage of 64-bit... but they aren't true native 64-bit versions...
Click to expand...
I'm not really sure what you mean by that...

I think instruction set architectures are a different story to something like DirectX versions. A DX10 game has to be coded differently because the software changes with the hardware - to write for the new architecture you have to write for the new API. But when you're coding for a CPU in a high-level language, you don't need to do anything hardware-specific. You can take the same C++ program and run it through an x86-64 compiler instead of an x86 compiler, and that's all it takes to make a 64-bit version.

In short, if the program is compiled to 64-bit machine code, I think that's about as "64-bit native" as you're going to get. I'm not really clear on how such a game would differ from anything on that list.
 
i'm being extremely practical to the end user gamers.

i broke it down by when you buy a game and install it, what will you have "out of the box" so to speak. for crysis, you will have 64-bit binaries pre-compiled for you. for far cry, you do NOT, so you have to download it and replace the 32-bit binaries with 64-bit to make it work.

that's the reason for the 3 division to simplify things.

to be more technical/specific. yesh, you can compile source codes to ANY binaries i suppose for any platform, but is it designed and optimized for it? no. that's what i mean by native. native 32-bit programs will have been designed from scratch with 32-bit end users in mind with memory size limitations, etc. and native 64-bit programs will be designed from scratch with 64-bit end users in mind.

lemme link u to an article about Photoshop 64-bit. it isn't games, but the design concepts vs. market realities are the same as games:
http://blogs.adobe.com/scottbyer/2006/12/64_bitswhen.html
 
hellgate has a 64bit version, its automatically installed you don't even have the 32bit version in stalled if you install under an X64 OS, and it does a fair bit too, the mem usage is fairly high but loading times are pretty damn fast to
 
I'm pretty sure that Half Life 2 is the only Valve game w/ a 64 bit executable. I noticed when I installed Orange Box that I wasn't seeing the "64-bit enabled" message in the starting splash screen, and after a bit of poking around read that Valve had dropped the 64 bit after HL2.
 
JediFonger said:
...but is it designed and optimized for it? no.
Click to expand...
My point is that 32-bit applications aren't either, in any significant way, beyond what the compiler does for you. I don't think there's much manual assembly-level optimisation done these days, and anything else you do by hand is going to be largely platform-independent (i.e. the 64-bit version will benefit as well). I also doubt that the ISA has much influence on the way the software is designed - as far as I know, x64's larger address space is the only difference in capability between the two, and most games don't come anywhere near x86's limit, so it clearly isn't any kind of constraint yet.
 
there a link that talks about only HL2 being 64capable?

luminary, in that case, 64-bit is kinda' useless, is it not?
 
bigted said:
the half life 2 series, steam will dl and execute in 64-bit mode ( at least it did for me ) and it will inform you in the upper portion of the screen that it's in 64-bit mode.
Click to expand...


Can you post a link maybe to the download for 64-bit steam? I can only find one download, and it installs to my Program Files(x86) directory. When I start up HL2 it says 64-bit in the upper right, but not Steam.
 
steam itself it NOT 64-bit. steam is only a sales/distribution platform.

HL2 is the only 64-bit game that he is referring to.
 
Um

Native 64-bit code
designed from the ground up. Will require patch (both on install media or via online patch) if running in 32-bit OS:
NONE
Click to expand...

What do you mean by native 64bit code?

Most compilers you write 1 set of code in and it can compile the code into either a 32bit or 64bit executable.

Games like Crysis come with a fully compiled 64bit version, the only reason it comes with both 32bit and 64bit executables is for compatability across multiple platforms.

Why would anyone compile their game into only a 64bit executable only, when most people are still running 32bit operating systems.

It's going to mean your first catagory is not going to be filled until 32bit platforms are completely obsolete, thats not going to be for years and years (at a guess at least 5-6 years)
 
:D yeah, but crysis wasn't designed to be fully optimized @64-bit out of box. it was optimized to run fast on 32-bit but with an option for 64-bit users.

the first category is really reserved for games that were designed and aimed strictly @Vista 64-bit platforms that 'happen' to have an option for 32-bit users.
 
JediFonger said:
:D yeah, but crysis wasn't designed to be fully optimized @64-bit out of box. it was optimized to run fast on 32-bit but with an option for 64-bit users.
Click to expand...

How did you come to that conclusion?

The 64bit exe runs significantly faster than the 32bit, it was a good 10-15% on my rig which is close to what they claimed during development...
 
guesswork :eek:. any links to sources that talk about crysis development? from what i read, it was designed to be a mixed-platform, both 32 and 64-bit oriented.
 
JediFonger said:
guesswork :eek:. any links to sources that talk about crysis development? from what i read, it was designed to be a mixed-platform, both 32 and 64-bit oriented.
Click to expand...

Meh, well i think your understanding of 32/64bit is a bit skewed.
 
The people who have mentioned the same code-base, and X86/X64 versions upon compiling are correct. The compiler is what determines this. If someone optimizes code for 64 bit, I would think that they are just adding more into the code to take advantage of the extra resources (like being able to address more memory, etc.)

What I would do, is arrange the games by whether or not the X64 edition contains any extra features over the X86 version.

For example, when you use the 64 bit version of FarCry, you get more detailed textures. (not because the game was built that way from the ground up, but because they assumed they could add more content because people running an X64 setup would have more resources available, and possibly slightly more speed/efficiency.) This equates to some value for running the X64 version.

Crysis gives slightly more detail in distant textures on the X64 version. (someone posted some comparison shots a while back in this forum)

I noticed no difference in content in Riddick, but it did seem to gain a little performance for me under X64. (which is probably the most common benefit)

Whether or not you have to run a patch to get X64 support is irrelevant. If the patch replaces key files (like the EXE, and any other system-related critical file,) it's the same as if they were there from the start in the end.

If I'm not mistaken almost all of the benefits of X64 come from the OS itself. (more memory addressable, and other such things that really don't have much to do with the game itself) When you run a 32 bit game on X64 it's actually using the WOW layer (kind of like 32 bit emulation almost.) The difference when you run the X64 version is that it IS running natively without that extra layer.
 
JediFonger said:
in that case, 64-bit is kinda' useless, is it not?
Click to expand...
Not at all. For one, once memory requirements surpass 32-bit limitations it'll be indispensable. But we're not there yet. And even if we were, only the tiny minority with >4GB of RAM would see any real benefit from the increased address space. That aside, people do see performance benefits in 64-bit games, and that alone is enough to qualify them as useful.

All I'm saying is that x86- or x64-specific optimisation isn't the job of game developers. These days, I'm pretty sure games are too complex and processors too fast to make it worthwhile to mess around with assembly code. If you want to point the finger for 64-bit software falling short of its potential, point it at the people who actually deal with things at this level - that is, the ones writing the operating systems, the drivers and the compilers.
 
Games are not quite there yet. They are at the threshold. 64nit is still for science dorks like me. :D
 
i don't program fulltime, but my understanding couldn't you float all variables and reserve humongous gluttonous amounts of memory to begin with just for your app to do anything without touching the hard drive? that's what i mean by optimized for 64-bit vs. 32-bit (where there are limitations u have to take into account).
 
JediFonger said:
i don't program fulltime, but my understanding couldn't you float all variables and reserve humongous gluttonous amounts of memory to begin with just for your app to do anything without touching the hard drive? that's what i mean by optimized for 64-bit vs. 32-bit (where there are limitations u have to take into account).
Click to expand...

textures, models, objects(take supreme commander for ex, it can easily hit 2gb of mem usage when you have so many units), (games is what I'm talking about) I believe windows has a 2gb limit on 32bit apps for mem though, Hellgate passes 2gb (I can't confirm yet, I'll load it up later )
 
so, doesn't what i say make sense when i say optimized for 64-bit? i mean when you are designing the game with 64-bit in mind, you are not thinking limitations, u are thinking what kinda cool fx u can hit up. and right now there aren't any, including crysis, that does this.
 
JediFonger said:
steam itself it NOT 64-bit. steam is only a sales/distribution platform.

HL2 is the only 64-bit game that he is referring to.
Click to expand...

Half-Life 2 is currently NOT 64-bit. There _was_ a 64-bit version prior to the release of Episode 2. But, Valve removed it due to bugs with some of the new features. They've promised that 64-bit will return once the bugs get ironed out but currently HL2 (or the episodes) is not a 64-bit enabled app.
 
JediFonger said:
so, doesn't what i say make sense when i say optimized for 64-bit? i mean when you are designing the game with 64-bit in mind, you are not thinking limitations, u are thinking what kinda cool fx u can hit up. and right now there aren't any, including crysis, that does this.
Click to expand...

The game is always limited by the hardware its running on, it doesn't matter if the user has 64bit or not, they might only be running 512mb of memory on a 64bit OS. The game needs to be built to notice how much RAM is available and use an appropriate amount.

The primary difference between 32bit and 64bit is the hard limit of 2gb of virtual memory that an application can reference, quite a lot of games use close to this already. building with 32bit in mind thats your max limit, with 64bit you need to consider the user could have more memory and you need to write your game to detect how much they have and make appropriate use of it.

Most of the work to "optimise" code for 64bit is done by the compiler when it compiles the code in to a 64bit executable rather than 32bit one. Some other additional optimisations might be possible by the devs, for example due to the large amount of addressable memory in Crysis the 64bit executable had a feature turned on which allows it to precache all the distant textures imediately rather than waiting. But even in this case it was a variable built into the engine and exists in both the 32bit and 64bit editions that I'm aware, it's just disabled in the 32bit one, and can be disabled by the user in the 64bit version.

This is why your first group doesn't really make any sense, there's not really a lot of work the developers do to optimise the game for 64bit, they just need to pick a compiler that can compile in both formats natively before they start building the game.
 
hotdamn that was the ONLY reason i upgraded to x64 for :eek:. ah well. i guess i'll wait then.

svet-am said:
Half-Life 2 is currently NOT 64-bit. There _was_ a 64-bit version prior to the release of Episode 2. But, Valve removed it due to bugs with some of the new features. They've promised that 64-bit will return once the bugs get ironed out but currently HL2 (or the episodes) is not a 64-bit enabled app.
Click to expand...


frosteh,
the compiler doesn't know what humans know. it'll just compile to what it was told to do. that's why i say optimized because humans are doing optimization, not compilers. everyone here makes compilers seem like god, but it isn't.

in 32-bit human optimization, they have to make sure they don't go over whatever limitations exist on end user platforms. on 64-bit human optimization, they can pretty much build their 'dream game' to the nth degree and 'scale it back' for those avg. joe who have avg. hardware. but for gamers who do have the hw, they shouldn't be penalized.
 
JediFonger said:
hotdamn that was the ONLY reason i upgraded to x64 for :eek:. ah well. i guess i'll wait then.
Click to expand...

Don't worry. It'll be back. You can tell if you're running in 64-bit mode by looking at the menu screen. In the upper right there will be a little box that says "64-bit Mode Enabled" when you're running in 64-bit mode.

Valve team members are active on the halflife2.net forums and they've said that they're making good progress on returning the 64-bit mode and that it should be returned "real soon now." It'll be delivered via a Steam update so no worries on having to do anything special.
 
JediFonger said:
hotdamn that was the ONLY reason i upgraded to x64 for :eek:. ah well. i guess i'll wait then.




frosteh,
the compiler doesn't know what humans know. it'll just compile to what it was told to do. that's why i say optimized because humans are doing optimization, not compilers. everyone here makes compilers seem like god, but it isn't.

in 32-bit human optimization, they have to make sure they don't go over whatever limitations exist on end user platforms. on 64-bit human optimization, they can pretty much build their 'dream game' to the nth degree and 'scale it back' for those avg. joe who have avg. hardware. but for gamers who do have the hw, they shouldn't be penalized.
Click to expand...

Code that decides what load based on the available virtual memory exists in both 32bit and 64bit executables, you always need it because having 32bit or 64bit OS's isn't a gurantee of what hardware people have.

I don't know of any "human optimisation" that can be coded in to specifically take advantage of the 64bit platform, it's not like dual core CPU's for example where you need a large amount of human tweaking to get the maximum performance, thats just not the way the technology works.
 
Frosteh said:
I don't know of any "human optimisation" that can be coded in to specifically take advantage of the 64bit platform, it's not like dual core CPU's for example where you need a large amount of human tweaking to get the maximum performance, thats just not the way the technology works.
Click to expand...

There are many human optimizations that can be made. One small example is that you can change which version of the "float" datatype you use for operations. There are other datatype changes that can occur when you're developing 64-bit based operations (pointers spring to mind).

Also, as a human, you know how much RAM you're expecting to be able to see and address. If you know you're coding a 32-bit app then you know you're going to be limited to 4GB of accessible memory and can design your code to not violate that limitation. However, if you are developing a 64-bit application you can design your code so that it uses all of the memory if it's available.

These are all human optimizations.
 
mine says 64-bit mode on the left top towards the corner.

PS that's what i mean by 'human optimized svet" u put it into words better than i can.

svet-am said:
Don't worry. It'll be back. You can tell if you're running in 64-bit mode by looking at the menu screen. In the upper right there will be a little box that says "64-bit Mode Enabled" when you're running in 64-bit mode.

Valve team members are active on the halflife2.net forums and they've said that they're making good progress on returning the 64-bit mode and that it should be returned "real soon now." It'll be delivered via a Steam update so no worries on having to do anything special.
Click to expand...
 
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