64 bit engine :-(

[Punisher5555]

It looks like we will have still have to use our RAMDISKs to get any decent performance out of this engine. Too bad. They could have been the industry innovators by going 64bit. I applaud them for at least trying the LAA in ArmA2, but this game screams for loading/streaming the .pbo's from RAM.

Performance in ArmA2 is like night/day when using a RAMDISK.

[WackyIraqi]

What exactly would 64bit improve when it comes to streaming textures? Or are you just referring to the ability to keep more things in memory?

[Hamm]

Did they actually say the game wouldn't feature 64-bit support?

[-=seany=-]

If it was an expansion I wouldn't expect it, but considering its a sequel I would be surprised if they did not make a 64bit version of it. It's no secret that Arma needs every bit of advantage it can get for performance. The more RAM it can use the better.

[Panthro]

If the game REQUIRES a 4core minimum CPU and directX 10 then I think it's safe to assume that everyone who can run this system has 64bit hardware.

I wanted directX11 too tho.

the real question is does going X64 a good idea? the dev's team seems to think no & well they know what they are talking about even so next ver of windows is X64 only folks!

[Steakslim]

If they where to do DX11, it would probably be tacked on like other dev's have done lately. But then you have to wonder if it would serve any extra purpose to what the dev's what to do with the game that they are already doing with dx10.

[Flyweight]

It looks like we will have still have to use our RAMDISKs to get any decent performance out of this engine. Too bad. They could have been the industry innovators by going 64bit. I applaud them for at least trying the LAA in ArmA2, but this game screams for loading/streaming the .pbo's from RAM.

Performance in ArmA2 is like night/day when using a RAMDISK.

Meh, the problem with 64bit is that all your pointers are now 2x as big, so you actually will use more memory. Additionally, the instructions are slightly larger.

Just leaping to a 64bit app won't give you an amazing performance increase.. and if you're thinking about loading all game data (textures, etc) into ram (and you're hitting your head against the the 3GB memory limitation with 32bit apps on windows) that data has to be read from the disk INTO ram at some point.

Best just head on over to newegg and get yourself a SSD -- and while you're at it, go ahead and send me a OCZ Z-Drive R2 as well. I'll send you a christmas card if you do.

[Flash Thunder]

It is surprising seeing how the next installment of Windows OS is only going to be 64bit.

BIS has not confirmed anything though so lets wait and see folks. :)

[skadog]

I would like to see x64 dedicated server support at least.

[SWAT_BigBear]

BIS has not confirmed anything though so lets wait and see folks. :)
True, but Suma did not sound to promising with his last statement towards 64bit/ArmA2 a few years back.
I would like to hear his answer...2 yrs later.

[Wallace71]

if they follow the ARMA trend, then I wouldn't want DX11 because nobody would be able to run it. DX 11 + massive maps + already upgraded graphics = dead computer
BUT. DX9 + massive maps + already upgraded graphics = happy computer :D

[[FRL]Myke]

I doubt it that 64bit would help anything. Just look at it right now, how much Ram does ArmA 2 actively use? At my side it goes rarely above 1.2GB and remember, it could use up to 2GB if required.

Don't fotget that the biggest chunk of data are the textures and those are held in the VRAM, not in the system Ram.

That said, ArmA 2 takes the amount of Ram it needs and still doesn't hit the already allowed 2GB, so why should a 64bit exe change this?

[Sickboy]

Duplicate of http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=119223


This is what the lead programmer had to say about 64-bit for ArmA 2:
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1680591&highlight=64-bit#post1680591 (http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1680591&highlight=64-bit#post1680591)
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=738057&highlight=64-bit#post738057 (http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=738057&highlight=64-bit#post738057)

[ubermachtig]

Lol, if Windows decides to release only a 64-BIT version of Windows 8 (which is sceduled for 2012 as well, I believe), and ArmA 2 would still be functioning on old 32-BIT instructions, would that mean they're going to be incompatible?

[Sickboy]

Lol, if Windows decides to release only a 64-BIT version of Windows 8 (which is sceduled for 2012 as well, I believe), and ArmA 2 would still be functioning on old 32-BIT instructions, would that mean they're going to be incompatible?Shouldn't unless they decide to dump wow64 layer to run 32-bit apps on 64-bit OS.

[Deadfast]

Shouldn't unless they decide to dump wow64 layer to run 32-bit apps on 64-bit OS.

Which is really, really unlikely.

[Punisher5555]

My 2.5GB RAMDISK takes roughly less than 3 minutues to load all the .pbo's I can fit into it, and I have to click some buttons! Just think if they switch to x64, all the data would be loaded into RAM and silently in the background it would pull more into it as needed. Smooth game play all around. If you have never played ArmA2 with a RAMDISK you are missing how the game/engine should work.

[EricM]

If i'm not mistaken, 64 bit also makes for better precision in the calculations, especially if dealing with very small objects (bullets ?) flying at high speed in a very big worlds = less rounding errors... But I could be wrong

[Leon86]

On the steam hardware survey 50% of systems are 64 bit and 60% are dx10 or dx11. I guess it wouldn't matter much for sales if they went 64bit only. I dont think they'll do it though, they'd have to rewrite a lot of code.

[Flyweight]

Which is really, really unlikely.

And given that you can still run 16bit apps on Windows 7 x64 gives an indication how long they keep the compat. layers around.

---------- Post added at 02:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:08 PM ----------


If i'm not mistaken, 64 bit also makes for better precision in the calculations, especially if dealing with very small objects (bullets ?) flying at high speed in a very big worlds = less rounding errors... But I could be wrong

you don't need a 64bit application to use 64bit datatypes (long/double)

---------- Post added at 02:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 PM ----------


My 2.5GB RAMDISK takes roughly less than 3 minutues to load all the .pbo's I can fit into it, and I have to click some buttons! Just think if they switch to x64, all the data would be loaded into RAM and silently in the background it would pull more into it as needed. Smooth game play all around. If you have never played ArmA2 with a RAMDISK you are missing how the game/engine should work.

A similar thing could be accomplished without needing to switch to x64 - arma could have it's own built-in implementation of a ram disk with it's configuration set through the UI.

[wamingo]

I guess it wouldn't matter much for sales if they went 64bit only. I dont think they'll do it though, they'd have to rewrite a lot of code.

Steam stats are steam users only. Believe it or not, there are many who don't use steam...
...

yet. ;)

And steam users are among the heavy end of of the enthusiast spectrum, so you can easily imagine the real number of 64bit potential customers is spectacularly lower.

aaand I'm not so sure that the switch to 64 bit code is all that big.
I think BIS's main worry is that (far) less than 50% users isn't good enough.

[Madus_Maximus]

Steam stats are steam users only. Believe it or not, there are many who don't use steam...
...

yet. ;)

And steam users are among the heavy end of of the enthusiast spectrum, so you can easily imagine the real number of 64bit potential customers is spectacularly lower.

aaand I'm not so sure that the switch to 64 bit code is all that big.
I think BIS's main worry is that (far) less than 50% users isn't good enough.

That may be the case, but I'd be surprised if the majority of ArmA players don't use Steam, even if they don't play ArmA through it. It's about the only way to get PC releases these days thanks to the ever dwindling PC sections in retail stores, and more and more games require it as part of their DRM schemes too, even if they get nothing from the service itself.

[drivebyhobo]

Myke;1930479']I doubt it that 64bit would help anything. Just look at it right now, how much Ram does ArmA 2 actively use? At my side it goes rarely above 1.2GB and remember, it could use up to 2GB if required.

Don't fotget that the biggest chunk of data are the textures and those are held in the VRAM, not in the system Ram.

That said, ArmA 2 takes the amount of Ram it needs and still doesn't hit the already allowed 2GB, so why should a 64bit exe change this?

Why would you want to keep it in vram at this point? Aren't increasingly common 8-16 GB ram arrays enough? Wasn't this a cause of ARMA 2's poor performance?

[Fox '09]

It looks like we will have still have to use our RAMDISKs to get any decent performance out of this engine. Too bad. They could have been the industry innovators by going 64bit. I applaud them for at least trying the LAA in ArmA2, but this game screams for loading/streaming the .pbo's from RAM.

Performance in ArmA2 is like night/day when using a RAMDISK.
stop using XP and 10+ year old CPUs that don't support 64 bit.

[dunedain]

aaand I'm not so sure that the switch to 64 bit code is all that big.
I think BIS's main worry is that (far) less than 50% users isn't good enough.

If you're right, and that a big "if" those people wouldn't be able to run Arma3 anyway, or even Arma2 ... X64 CPUs have been around for quite a while now.

[[FRL]Myke]

Why would you want to keep it in vram at this point? Aren't increasingly common 8-16 GB ram arrays enough? Wasn't this a cause of ARMA 2's poor performance?

Hmm...maybe because textures are handled by the GPU so having them as close as possible to it would make some sort of sense? Todays GPU's can handle this load easily, the weak point is still the CPU, which doesn't has any interest of the textures.

[wamingo]

but I'd be surprised if ...
Having steam, and using steam, are different things. And the survey is opt-in.
But I won't dispute that probability. You could imagine the figure for existing arma players to be higher than the mean, even. Perhaps.

I stand by my original contention, however, that steam survey doesn't accurately represent potential customers.


If you're right, and that a big "if" those people wouldn't be able to run Arma3 anyway, or even Arma2 ... X64 CPUs have been around for quite a while now.
Sorry if I misunderstand you, but what is being referred to is the operative system, not the CPUs.
~50% of steam users have a 32bit OS. So they can't run 64bit apps.

[dunedain]

Ok, my bad then. :rolleyes:

[Punisher5555]

A similar thing could be accomplished without needing to switch to x64 - arma could have it's own built-in implementation of a ram disk with it's configuration set through the UI.


That would be nice but just make the change and be done with it.

[Madus_Maximus]

A similar thing could be accomplished without needing to switch to x64 - arma could have it's own built-in implementation of a ram disk with it's configuration set through the UI.


That would be nice but just make the change and be done with it.

Wouldn't that involve an OS level work around and rely entirely on how much RAM you have beyond what the game generally needs?

The easier option is to just get an SSD. Problem solved. The main issue in performance is down to how fast the stuff can be sent to the GPU and so on, and that bottleneck is 99% of the time the storage device. An SSD will reduce this bottleneck substantially, just like a RAMDISC does, because it's the same concept.

[Leon86]

Steam stats are steam users only. Believe it or not, there are many who don't use steam...
...

yet. ;)

And steam users are among the heavy end of of the enthusiast spectrum, so you can easily imagine the real number of 64bit potential customers is spectacularly lower.

aaand I'm not so sure that the switch to 64 bit code is all that big.
I think BIS's main worry is that (far) less than 50% users isn't good enough.

well, they're forcing you to run windows vista or 7, there's no reason to get a 32 bit version of those os'es, besides the licence isnt fixed on 32 or 64 bit, so you can upgrade for "free". I dont run arma through steam either but I have to have it for gtr evo and the total war series.