64-bit executable

[Leopardi 0]

http://www.bistudio.com/english/company/developers-blog/85-breaking-the-32-bit-barrier

What happened to this plan? Obviously ArmA III could potentially gain hugely if it was able to use the CPU better and utilize more RAM than 2GB. Even GPU's have more memory in them today than the whole 32-bit application can handle.

Even Battlefield creators are moving to 64-bit code, and they don't have the problem of having huge amounts of streaming from HDD:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2012/05/23/frostbite-engine-64-bit/1

Edited February 27, 2013 by Leopardi

[MavericK96 0]

Would love to see 64-bit in ArmA 3, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Zyromkiru 10]

It really would be nice seeing that now days since 64-bit is more than necessary.

[PuFu 4591]

it has been said before (i am not going to digg the thread for you): it is NOT going to happen. A3 will surelly be LAA(large adress aware), but not 64 bit.

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

The ArmA 2 section brought the Dev's out for discussion!

An update from them 3 yrs later... would be nice.

[Leopardi 0]

it has been said before (i am not going to digg the thread for you): it is NOT going to happen. A3 will surelly be LAA(large adress aware), but not 64 bit.

But why? BIS themselves were planning to do it in 2008, and it can't be denied that there would be huge improvements because of it. Already using a RAMDISK gives huge improvements in ArmA II, and 64-bit application would bring even more awesomeness to the table. LAA is just a drop in the ocean, lacks CPU utilization and the game has 8GB+ to be loaded in memory.

[PuFu 4591]

I am not disagreeing wth you on the benefits. I use 2 machines at home (24 and 16gb each), and at the office all the machines have at least 16gb of ram. All the work software is 64 bit nowadays. I have been using 64 bit OS since windows 64 was released.

I am saying that for BIS would have been smarted (maybe not now though( to do what DICE did and drop 32 bit altogether and focus on 64 bit systems. But that is not gonna happen anytime soon

[jake_krieger 10]

They should have the money for hiring additional devs to do the heavy lifting to write most of the 64-Bit code . I couldnt see why they wouldn´t create a 64-Bit version of ArmA3. Even if it will be realeased after initial release of the full game.

[[frl]myke 14]

Simply wont happen and making a 64bit exe wouldn't help either. The RV engine isn't designed to load and keep huge amounts into ram but stream required data from harddisk/SSD. Now one might ask why they don't redesign the engine to preload data into Ram. Simply put, business decision. It would raise the required/recommended amount of Ram much higher than it actually is. Which, in return, reduces the possible customers as they wont have those required/recommended amount of Ram. Also not everyone uses a 64bit OS these days.

At last, they could have decided to design some kind of hybrid: load data into Ram if enough ram is located, else stream from disk. Could have been done. Would have required a major redesign of the engine. Finally not everyone could have profited from this, so, what should BI do? Assign resources for a redesign of the engine which can't be used by everone anyway? Or assign those resources for engine improvements everyone can profit of? Development cost time and money, both resources that are limited.

So unless not absolutely everyone has a 64bit OS and at least 16GB ram, a redesign wont happen.

:EDITH:

They should have the money for hiring additional devs...

Oh, you have access to BI's bank account i see....

:facepalm:

[PuFu 4591]

they should have the money? You privvy of their financial situation or you base that on your deduction skills based on dayz sales?

[grillob3 11]

arma 4 64-bits! ;) lol

[r3m 10]

But why? BIS themselves were planning to do it in 2008, and it can't be denied that there would be huge improvements because of it. Already using a RAMDISK gives huge improvements in ArmA II, and 64-bit application would bring even more awesomeness to the table. LAA is just a drop in the ocean, lacks CPU utilization and the game has 8GB+ to be loaded in memory.

There is very little (if any) benefit in going 64b for ArmA 2.

If the games does not use more than 2 GB with LAA, it means it would not use more even with 64b and the whole effort would be basically wasted. Switching to 64b is not some magic which would in itself change application behaviour in any way, it is just removing the 4 GB barrier. As the game is not hitting the barrier even remotely yet, removing the barrier has currently no sense, especially when you consider it would requite quite a lot of efforts.

If the game is not using more than 1.5 GB for you, it probably means it does not need to use any more (there are no more useful data to store in the memory).

I certainly wish that A3 would be a native 64 bit application, if for nothing else than being a game released in 2013 and what is sure to be a highly memory intensive application with huge assets. But like Maverick, I'm not holding my breath.

A good and deep analysis was conducted in 2009 by Toms Hardware comparing 64 bit and 32 bit performance specifically pertaining to gaming. It can be found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/64-bit-vista-gaming,2250.html

[Metal69 1]

I think that actually almost all people have more than 4gb of ram besides the memory ram is not very expensive, even is more cheap than a good hard disk or ssd. I dont understand much but i think that the game would have more performance.

regards and sorry for my english

[Beagle 684]

I think that actually almost all people have more than 4gb of ram besides the memory ram is not very expensive, even is more cheap than a good hard disk or ssd. I dont understand much but i think that the game would have more performance.

regards and sorry for my english

you're very wrong...the minority of PC users are gamers with gaming PCs. The standard Home Computeer you get in shops is still somethingn within the 2-4gb Ram and 2.5-3ghz CPU range with a mediocre 512MB -1gb gfx card in the ATI HD 5xxx or nvidia 2xx class or something onboard...and more and more users dont tend to use a desktop PC at all...and Laptops are very limited in performance or very, very, very expensive especialyl in time when spendings for entertainment pusposes have to be cut down for thing like keeping the family car running etc. Keep in mind that right now still a third of all PCs worldwide still use XP. Edited February 28, 2013 by Beagle

[Metal69 1]

It is right,but i dont think that if you want to play a game like arma 3 or similar (demanding with the pc) you have to know that with a standard home pc you cant play more or less well to the more demanding games. However you're right in the rest.

Sorry for my english

[Avneet 10]

I'm confused. Does that mean that my brother and my systems (1 with 8 gig and other with 16 gig) are not actually utilizing that RAM any better than people with 2 gig free for ARMA? So my RAM is only good for having multiple processes open, but not to help one process run better alone?

[Leon86 13]

I'm confused. Does that mean that my brother and my systems (1 with 8 gig and other with 16 gig) are not actually utilizing that RAM any better than people with 2 gig free for ARMA? So my RAM is only good for having multiple processes open, but not to help one process run better alone?

Well, arma2 is LAA, so it's allowed to use up to 4GB I guess, you need some for windows as well, most of the "empty" memory isn't really empty either, windows uses it to cache the most accessed files on the harddisk. If you play a certain game often you'll notice it starts very fast if you've had the pc on for a while.

[crazyjake56 10]

you're very wrong...the minority of PC users are gamers with gaming PCs. The standard Home Computeer you get in shops is still somethingn within the 2-4gb Ram and 2.5-3ghz CPU range with a mediocre 512MB -1gb gfx card in the ATI HD 5xxx or nvidia 2xx class or something onboard...and more and more users dont tend to use a desktop PC at all...and Laptops are very limited in performance or very, very, very expensive especialyl in time when spendings for entertainment pusposes have to be cut down for thing like keeping the family car running etc. Keep in mind that right now still a third of all PCs worldwide still use XP.

But that statement is under the assumption that Arma players aren't the minority not to mention this game has kind of a reputation. But besides the fact that people know this game needs pretty high end hardware to run, most people that are buying arma are more or less going to be guaranteed to have a gaming pc anyway.

[Dwarden 1124]

ARMA 2: OA is already LAA aware , you don't need to patch anything ...

LAA (Large Address Aware) 32bit executable can directly address up to 4GB (so not 2 nor 3) memory while running on 64bit OS

it's 2GB only if binary is running on 32bit OS

also as one very old dev-blog explains we have means about going around 2/4GB limit too ... indirectly\

p.s. this is not deny post against possibility of 64bit binary one day in future...

[Leopardi 0]

you're very wrong...the minority of PC users are gamers with gaming PCs. The standard Home Computeer you get in shops is still somethingn within the 2-4gb Ram and 2.5-3ghz CPU range with a mediocre 512MB -1gb gfx card in the ATI HD 5xxx or nvidia 2xx class or something onboard...and more and more users dont tend to use a desktop PC at all...and Laptops are very limited in performance or very, very, very expensive especialyl in time when spendings for entertainment pusposes have to be cut down for thing like keeping the family car running etc. Keep in mind that right now still a third of all PCs worldwide still use XP.

If EA DICE, an AAA developer making games for the masses, is ready to make the 64-bit switch without even a possibility for 32-bit executable, what do you think that means? For them, money is everything and they wouldn't make the move unless 64-bit wasn't popular enough now by 2013.

[vegeta897 13]

If EA DICE, an AAA developer making games for the masses, is ready to make the 64-bit switch without even a possibility for 32-bit executable, what do you think that means?

It means they had the money and resources to develop 64 bit. Not to mention they were also developing for consoles, which are 64 bit. Consoles were their primary market. Not so for Arma 3.

The game not being 64 bit is not going to lose BIS more money than it would have cost them to develop for that architecture (not to mention extra delays, which nobody wants).

[major_shepard 82]

Any 32 bit application can be recompilated into a 64 bit one but you won't see any difference at all int terms of performance. Optimized 64 bit application taking advantage of the more memory allowed means a complete rewrite of the code. This ends for dev too have 2 branches of development and 2 branches for maintening both code. As a result one may expect at least 2x cost for producing the game and time needed.

[Leopardi 0]

Any 32 bit application can be recompilated into a 64 bit one but you won't see any difference at all int terms of performance. Optimized 64 bit application taking advantage of the more memory allowed means a complete rewrite of the code. This ends for dev too have 2 branches of development and 2 branches for maintening both code. As a result one may expect at least 2x cost for producing the game and time needed.

2 branches? There's no need for the 32-bit version at all, it could be ditched.

[maddogx 13]

2 branches? There's no need for the 32-bit version at all, it could be ditched.

Then they would have to make the change pretty quickly (before next Tuesday, when people start buying the game) and amend the minimum system requirements accordingly.

How likely do you think that is? ;)

[vegeta897 13]

2 branches? There's no need for the 32-bit version at all, it could be ditched.

I think there would be a large outcry from people being forced to buy new systems or a new OS. Maybe even larger than the outcry about Steam. I think BIS was smart to develop 32 if they had to pick one. 64 is a possibility at a later point, so everyone may win in the end. The main goal is to get everyone to run the game at a decent level, so if they can accomplish that with 32, I don't see anything worth complaining about.

And as far as I know, BF3 on pc is a 32 bit application.