Toms takes a look at 32bit vs 64 bit gaming.

bigdogchris

bigdogchris

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Seems that there's still no need for a gamer to need more than 3GB of ram. Ram is cheap so if your buying, why not, but if you have 3GB and just a gamer, don't feel like your missing anything because your not.
 
thanks for the link..we really have to get off the 32 bit crap by now...some progressive developer creates an incredible 64 bit only game that shows what can be done, and bingo, they'll start the move away from 32 bit.

I have 64bit 8g of ram..i want my games to use it damn it!!! give me some killer ai in my games once and for all !!! I want a strategy/rpg game that beats me up, spits on me, throws me to the floor gasping for air..i wake up with a smile and say..YES!!! give me more ..lol

could someone just develop a game thats USES my powerful computer once and for all???!! is that asking too much??!!!

stepping off the soapbox now
 
Theres a few points that should be made, first of all the amount of phsical memory the OS can address contains ALL the unique mappable memory in the computer. As the amount of memory needed for the hardware increases the smaller pool we can assign to the RAM.

The amount of RAM we can address in a 32bit OS is going down because the amount of memory in other devices is going up, and RAM gets last pick when it comes to assigning memory. With 1Gb video cards floating around it's not unusual to see rigs which can only address 2.5Gb of RAM or maybe even less, depending on exactly what you have installed.

So if the conclusion bigdogchris takes from that article is that gamers dont need more than 3gb of RAM then i'd automatically say that something is fishy because some people cannot even address that much RAM without a 64 bit OS.

Theres also fairly well documented problems with some larger scale RTS games having problems with upper memory limits during drawn out game, I know SupCom can run into this issue, STALKER saw benefits from enabling large memory aware flag .

Booting a 32bit MS OS with large memory address away flags set in EXE's to use more than 2gb of virtual memory is not stable, I've read quite a few articles which try this and it ends up with BSODs in many circumstances, either way it's beyond the design of the OS to run reliably. So LAA flag in the exe is another reason to go 64bit, SupCom hits this limit STALKER benefits from it and I've seen the memory usage of Company of Heroes 8 player maps struggle on the host machine at the 2gb mark. Furthermore editing exes to allow LLA can cause many other problems with anticheat or anything that might checksum the exe to check for modifications such as anti piracy checks etc.

I think their suite of games for testing RAM is a bad one, I think games like Supcom, Company of heroes and STALKER should have been in there

Nor does this tell us how well large scale multiplayer scenarios such as large scale fights in Eve, Planetside, Warhammer Online all cope with more RAM, maybe even 64-100 player servers in other large scale online games.
 
M$ should have made vista 64-bit only.. and I sure hope they don't release a 32-bit windows 7
 
Blind Man said:
M$ should have made vista 64-bit only.. and I sure hope they don't release a 32-bit windows 7
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They are going to. It will probably be the last 32 bit Microsoft OS though.

But yeah, once gpu's start shipping regularly with 2GB of ram you'll basically be forced to move to 64 bit OS. People that buy those huge cards now likely already have 64 bit OS.
 
Blind Man said:
M$ should have made vista 64-bit only.. and I sure hope they don't release a 32-bit windows 7
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They have to make 32-bit OSes still. There are thousands of business grade programs out in the wild that are still 16-bit. Those simply won't work in a 64-bit OS. Not to mention the large number of 32-bit programs that would have to be recoded to work. There is no reason for MS to go 64-bit only right now.
 
Derangel said:
They have to make 32-bit OSes still. There are thousands of business grade programs out in the wild that are still 16-bit. Those simply won't work in a 64-bit OS. Not to mention the large number of 32-bit programs that would have to be recoded to work. There is no reason for MS to go 64-bit only right now.
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Yep. 32-bit won't go away just yet. 25% of Vista was 64-bit. They're predicting close to 75% of Windows 7 will probably be 64-bit due to OEMs offering it over 32-bit by default. Windows Server 2008 R2 (the Windows 7 variant of Server 2008) is solely 64-bit. So we're getting there slowly.

Personally I think Windows 8 whenever that comes out will still have an x86 variant to support old legacy systems but it will not be something you can buy off the shelf. Windows 9 will spell the death of 32-bit. But I could be wrong. ;)
 
Vermillion said:
Yep. 32-bit won't go away just yet. 25% of Vista was 64-bit. They're predicting close to 75% of Windows 7 will probably be 64-bit due to OEMs offering it over 32-bit by default. Windows Server 2008 R2 (the Windows 7 variant of Server 2008) is solely 64-bit. So we're getting there slowly.

Personally I think Windows 8 whenever that comes out will still have an x86 variant to support old legacy systems but it will not be something you can buy off the shelf. Windows 9 will spell the death of 32-bit. But I could be wrong. ;)
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That sounds about right. I know I'll use 64-bit Win 7. I'm really tempted to install the 64-bit beta on my other hard drive. Getting tired of XP already. Had it on one of my hard drives to play some older games, but started using it exclusively when my Vista install started having weird issues and I didn't feel like troubleshooting it.
 
Old software needing backwards support is silly, if you're got a 16bit app that cannot run on a x64 environment then it needs to run on an appropriate environment. Theres no need to upgrade a machine which is just running crap that old, if you must force and upgrade it should be across the board, including the software.
 
Frostex said:
Old software needing backwards support is silly, if you're got a 16bit app that cannot run on a x64 environment then it needs to run on an appropriate environment. Theres no need to upgrade a machine which is just running crap that old, if you must force and upgrade it should be across the board, including the software.
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Oh yeah because its so cheap to totally rewrite software that works perfectly well. Get your head out of the clouds.
 
big business can use networks and have machines setup for just OLD crap 16 bit shit and NEW machines for 64 bit code.

problem solved.

move forward or get run over..getting real tired of this.
 
Bangorang said:
big business can use networks and have machines setup for just OLD crap 16 bit shit and NEW machines for 64 bit code.

problem solved.

move forward or get run over..getting real tired of this.
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Sorry, but it can't work that way all the time.
 
So...what does business software usage have to do with 64-bit gaming?

Not very much.
 
Mark_Warner said:
So...what does business software usage have to do with 64-bit gaming?

Not very much.
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True, but the argument was that MS should only offer a 64-bit OS and not bother with 32-bit. Despite what some gamers would like to believe, gaming isn't the biggest market for Windows.
 
Bangorang said:
thanks for the link..we really have to get off the 32 bit crap by now...some progressive developer creates an incredible 64 bit only game that shows what can be done, and bingo, they'll start the move away from 32 bit.

I have 64bit 8g of ram..i want my games to use it damn it!!! give me some killer ai in my games once and for all !!! I want a strategy/rpg game that beats me up, spits on me, throws me to the floor gasping for air..i wake up with a smile and say..YES!!! give me more ..lol

could someone just develop a game thats USES my powerful computer once and for all???!! is that asking too much??!!!

stepping off the soapbox now
Click to expand...

Actually, yeah, thats asking too much because such games wouldn't sell :p

The majority consumer out there hardly have any PC with more than half that amount of RAM and your PC's computing power. Most of them will not be wiling to spend on a game that will require them to upgrade their PC as well.

That and the fact that most games are cross platform these days

Of course we'll eventually move forward when 4GB becomes a norm for mainstream or even low cost users and the majority users will start getting 64 bits OS.

For the time being, Microsoft cannot force 64 bit onto everyone, making 64 bit Windows only would be a mistake, especially if they wish for widespread adoption of Windows 7 in business segment.
 
Mark_Warner said:
So...what does business software usage have to do with 64-bit gaming?

Not very much.
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Microsoft wants business customers just as much, if not more, than casual users and gamers. The largest business customers will have gobs of propriatary, 32 bit software. If MS forces the 64 bit issue on their next OS, many of those businesses simnply will not upgrade and that equals lost revenue. As much as I'd like to see a force to 64 bit, MS simply will not cut themselves out of a very substantial portion of the market. This is especially true in an economy where it's already hard to justify upgrading equipment that already works.
 
You're preaching to the choir here. Microsoft will not (and should not) alienate their corporate customers, who spend a lot more money, to appease some self-important gamers.
 
I'm not sure about the ram, but going from Vista 32 to Windows 7 64 (Beta) was an absolute night and day experience with respect to gaming performance. Especially Supreme Commander and Fallout 3. Really incredible improvement on my system.
 
I think going for anything vista to anything windows 7 will be a night and day experience.
 
Derangel said:
Oh yeah because its so cheap to totally rewrite software that works perfectly well. Get your head out of the clouds.
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I would not do business with a company that ran production systems on 16 bit code, it would probably be chock full of vulnerabilities that would generate multiple audit findings and thusly many headaches for me.
 
brons2 said:
I would not do business with a company that ran production systems on 16 bit code, it would probably be chock full of vulnerabilities that would generate multiple audit findings and thusly many headaches for me.
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Some of those old 16 and early 32 bit programs run faster and better than the new shit. They don't crash as often. They're not as bad or vulnerable as you'd think. These types of applications are used all over the world, especially in factories.
 
brons2 said:
I would not do business with a company that ran production systems on 16 bit code, it would probably be chock full of vulnerabilities that would generate multiple audit findings and thusly many headaches for me.
Click to expand...

I would recomend not doing any banking or holding any credit cards in that case. :)
 
We need to differentiate something here - this was an article about gaming 32 vs 64. For businesses that run 16 and 32 bit apps that aren't compatible w/ 64 bit OS's, there would be no need to upgrade the OS. If the app runs fine in an older OS, there would be no need to install a new OS to the system, unless there is a compatibility issue w/ the server that may be upgraded. Even still, you could run a virtual OS of the old OS to make things compatible.
 
Standpoint said:
We need to differentiate something here - this was an article about gaming 32 vs 64. For businesses that run 16 and 32 bit apps that aren't compatible w/ 64 bit OS's, there would be no need to upgrade the OS. If the app runs fine in an older OS, there would be no need to install a new OS to the system, unless there is a compatibility issue w/ the server that may be upgraded. Even still, you could run a virtual OS of the old OS to make things compatible.
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Yes, we all know this, the argument is about people saying that MS should ONLY make 64-bit OSes and they simply can't do that if they wish to keep making a lot of money.
 
like he said there are only a few games that are 64 bit.
Developers are going for least common denominator. If it cost another 50K to recode to 64 bit...it aint going to happen until 90%+ users are 64 bit os.
 
Not surprised there is little difference in game performance between the 2 versions. I have both version but use 32 bit, just seems a bit zippier in the OS and boot times.
 
I recently had to cut my memory in my system from 4gb to 2gb, due to bad sticks, and noticied significant issues, especially in world of warcraft, with lag, and much lower min and average frame rates.

I would think that 64bit is a no brainer going forward, just so that way you get the fully use all the ram that most modern systems come packaged with, it is easy for an OEM to throw 4gb of ram in a low end system, since more is better, and there price is dirt cheap.
 
2GB may be fine and good if the only thing you're doing is gaming, but some of us actually use our computers for more then one thing at a time. I often have a game up on one screen and a browser, movie, TV show, or VM running on the other. As long as I've got enough memory and spare cores, I'll put them to use.
 
Derangel said:
Some of those old 16 and early 32 bit programs run faster and better than the new shit. They don't crash as often. They're not as bad or vulnerable as you'd think. These types of applications are used all over the world, especially in factories.
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They would not pass audit in our environment. Full stop. Our audit requires N or N-1 versions of software.
 
MS should just put a software emulator for win16 in 64bit windows, like dosbox. It isn't like they are lacking money for something like that!

They probably already have a software emulator too, because NT used to run on MIPS and alpha, so the work is at least partially done. Their refusal to do 16bit emulation on x64 is very strange.
 
Vermillion said:
Yep. 32-bit won't go away just yet. 25% of Vista was 64-bit. They're predicting close to 75% of Windows 7 will probably be 64-bit due to OEMs offering it over 32-bit by default. Windows Server 2008 R2 (the Windows 7 variant of Server 2008) is solely 64-bit. So we're getting there slowly.

Personally I think Windows 8 whenever that comes out will still have an x86 variant to support old legacy systems but it will not be something you can buy off the shelf. Windows 9 will spell the death of 32-bit. But I could be wrong. ;)
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Everyone wants to move to 64-bit. Microsoft doesn't want to spend extra money developing both a 32 and 64 bit version. Developers would love to stick to 64-bit as well. It's really just waiting on consumers to cycle out a majority of the old 32-bit machines out there. Unfortunately, I doubt Windows 7 will be the last 32-bit Microsoft OS.

What I don't get is how some people think their 32-bit OS is somehow "snappier". :confused:
 
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