64-bit Support

[S-cipio]

Do you like to have 64-bit support for Rome 2?

[mega nix]

Do you like to have 64-bit support for Rome 2?

What kind of question is that? No I want 32-bit, I love laggy games

[klesh]

We're not going 64 bit.
32 and 64bit also handle floating points differently which causes major problems for us. There are a large number of people with 32 bit Vista and Windows 7 not counting the people still on Windows XP.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...7#post12049127

What kind of question is that? No I want 32-bit, I love laggy games

You'll love RomeII then!

[S-cipio]

I know the answer from Jack Lusted. Maybe we can persuade him to implement 64-bit support.

[Adreno]

Forget it, its probably way too much work to get right

[Shaio]

erm..... warscape engine already uses two cores, which makes it 64 bit. O.o

[Teodosio]

erm..... warscape engine already uses two cores, which makes it 64 bit. O.o

The number of cores and the bits have nothing to do with each other

To be clearer, to take advantage of multiple cores you need specific programming techniques, to take advantage of 64 bit cpus you need an adequate compiler (plus other, but not alternative, programming techniques). You can decide to use only one of them, both or none.

[daelin4]

If what I read and heard correctly, Shogun2 was natively 32-bit, and presumably this means that CA will design Rome2 as natively 32-bit as well. Obviously this doesn't mean my 64-bit desktop couldn't play Shogun2. Apparently quite a fair share of tech issues had to do with the game using 64 bit versions...or was it 32?

The way those people see it, at best this will limit the options for Rome2 in regards to the technicalities, since for one thing, 4GB is the limit for 32-bit. Something of that sort.

So for those that don't know, this will just mean that problems related to architecture, you'll likely find again in Rome2. So get ready for being swamped with tech support tickets once 2013 comes.

Personally I would have preferred CA researched a bit on who actually uses 64-bit/32-bit. How many Total War users have which version? It seems they only looked at the total number of Steam users, which of course says little about how many of them either know about or are interested in Total War. It just gives the impression that CA are more interested in who might buy into the franchise, over those that already did.
I mean the last thing I look at when it comes to minimum requirements is whether it lists the same Windows Version.

Real question then is: Should CA choose to go native with 64-bit if it turns out that the majority of TW players are 64-bit as well? It is obviously understandable if the truth was that most are 32-bit....but only if that's the truth.

[alQamar]

Do you like to have 64-bit support for Rome 2?

what says LIKE, we would need it for better performance and to fix vram capping.

[AlJabberwock]

THE 64BIT QUESTION SHOW


Teodosio is quite correct, however from a lay-person standpoint, what is at question is not whether the 32 bit application will work under 32 bit conditions (which usually includes CPUs capable of 64 bit computing) or even under 32 bit conditions when you have 64 bit operating systems (where you are operating in a sysWOW64 sort of...'conversion to 32 bit' environment on your computer). It _is_ rather, whether the code used to write the engine for the game is written in a version called 'native' 64 bit OR is written in TWO versions, 'native' 64 AND 32 bit versions.

If 64 bit code is better why not just write it in 64 bit?

In the case of a 64 bit 'native' code, only 64 bit operating systems will be capable of operating the game: A 64 bit OS can 'convert' to an environment internally where it operates at 32 bit for applications, however, a 32 bit OS cannot do this for a 64 bit native application. Why write the code in Native 64 bit then?

While it is risky to use Wikipedia for some types of technical reference, its 'Pros and Con's' of "64-bit computing" is a brief bulleted section (about halfway down the page) that captures some of the important aspects in general and simple terms, so I link it here for those interested. http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...0#post12049480 .

Sepcifically in the series TW itself and the history of problems since ETW associated with its capacity and use, significant issues with application Memory Address limitations, file size, and some less-apparent items (not all of which are included in the Wikipedia article) that stem from having to limp along under SYSWOW64, create uneccessary problems for some and limitations on the game's performance for others whose systems can in fact perform far better in a native 64 bit environment.

Why not write it in two code versions then, like you said? Well, that is the other question.

This argument involves the fact that there are significant differences with how those two different 'languages' of coding the game interact. In fact, it creates a lot of problems when trying to get the two versions to 'talk' to each other in cases such as online multiplayer gaming. Avoiding the technical aspects of this - the question is one of how much the two can be MADE to do this, and how much that would cost. In point of fact, several games have been made in more than one code version (Crytek for example has already done this), and the question is how well or ill did they handle these interactions of code, could it be done better, or more cost-effectively, or should there simply be a division amongst the two sets of players "since most real gamers and/or upper tier MP players use 64 bit for some time now" as posited by more than one poster. The truth of this last statement is of course up for examination and doubt. "Real Gamers" or MP players as a 'class' are not universally gifted with large wallets (or pocketbooks), or planning for 64 bit if they weren't the responsible party choosing the family operating system...

Here ends the more rational and objective (I hope) presentation of "The 64Bit Question".

From a personal standpoint based on experience and quasi-religious beliefs in PCs and the PC industry, here are my personal gut reactions to this news of no 64 bit native code version for R2, politically incorrect, no makeup, no press secretary editing

1)
From a support side this news is depressing. There will be trouble. Thinking that no 32vs64 bit interface reduces potential trouble is a myth, it only changes the arena.
2)
From a PC vs alternative gaming platform promotional standpoint, I think from PC gaming-Iconand champion of the platform it drops the game series to being in competition with console ports for failling to press the envelope.
3)
From a tech standpoint, it absolutely removes some of the interest, promotion and financial reward for cutting edge hardware by manufacturers and PC makers on the one side, and output results-reward for knowledgeable technogeeks with wherewithal on the other.
4)
There are ineluctable forces in hardware trends that do not make this revelation anything but scary and more information is going to be needed by ME and a lot of other people who are either purchasing or making systems for the specific use of this game. It is, literally, a nightmare without better insight as to how video caching and memory (address, virtual system, and physical) will be handled both by mfg'rs and TW coders, and the obvious challenges to multi-core and multi-threading (not covered in this post - you are probably thanking god!) doesn't make it any better, but at least we already knew about that!

~Al

Well: postscript... That links was inadvertently the wrong one and I cannot edit my posts here, so here is the Wikipedia article for those interested... Sorry for the trouble! (Any mod is welcome to put this link above and remove this message, thanks!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit#Pros_and_cons

[torongill]

The problem is that a significant part of the gamers use 32 bit OS, something around 30%.
Second, it's already been stated that 64 bit version won't be developed, at least for the time being. A 32 bit and a 64 bit versions apparently cannot communicate correctly.
As much as I'd like Rome 2 to be 64 bit(even though that would mean a new OS for me), I understand the PoV of Sega and CA. Demanding that the gamer spends another hundred USD just to be able to play the next game is out of the question, especially when for a lot of people just upgrading to recommended specs for Rome 2 would be a problem.
When the support for XP and hopefully Vista stops, a lot of people will be looking for 64 bit OS. You can't demand the market to adapt to you. It will adapt when it's ready.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

CA needs to step up to the plate sooner they start doing proper 64bit the better Windows 8 will be the last 32bit OS, almost every PC released to date is now 64bit, those running 32bit tend to be running garbage systems, as for Vista and Win 7 the key works for both 32 and 64 so no reason not to be 64.

Support for XP is dead EA dropped it for BF3, it certainly didnt hurt their sales any lol, ancient OS is ancient if you continually try to keep the ppl at the bottom happy you end up hamstringing development and pissing money down the drain.


CA honestly needs to jump on the 64bit bandwagon and move forward at this point.

[Totalheadache]

CA needs to step up to the plate sooner they start doing proper 64bit the better Windows 8 will be the last 32bit OS, almost every PC released to date is now 64bit, those running 32bit tend to be running garbage systems, as for Vista and Win 7 the key works for both 32 and 64 so no reason not to be 64.

Support for XP is dead EA dropped it for BF3, it certainly didnt hurt their sales any lol, ancient OS is ancient if you continually try to keep the ppl at the bottom happy you end up hamstringing development and pissing money down the drain.


CA honestly needs to jump on the 64bit bandwagon and move forward at this point.

that said in terms of how well the game runs if it's 32 or 64 bit does this make much difference?

i.e arent most console ports 32 bit e.g borderlands 2/sleeping dogs etc...they all run ok for me. so what am saying is it the engine running off more cpu cores/better optmised rather than it being 64 bit.

perhaps i need to read up a bit here...

[alQamar]

hi all this is one of the most discussed things about Rome 2. will Rome 2 have a native 64 bit support? as far as i know - dont nail me - no.

however it is a good time to prepare a validation and step-up to a 64bit Windows if you own a 64 bit processor, that are sold since late 2003 as i recall.

why validation? there are some drivers or very special apps that do not work with 64 bit Windows, especially MS DOS games, or older apps, this malus can be recovered with DOSBox and other things.


why step-up if Rome does not benefit? why we would need a native support
Total War has a very complex engine and to assure we dont run into vram cappings we need native 64 support. there are not much games that supports that but over the years the amount of native 64 bit games grew.
currently it is possible to break the 4 GB limit with artificial extensions (like used in MS DOS times and later) but they are not performance effective.


having a better support for 4 cores and multithreading is a vital need too, but is written on a completely different page. if both comes together i would assume that on particular hardware we can expect a boost in FPS aswell as loading times.

the difference is hard to state as 1st we arent the devs and 2nd it is very based upon how good the transition of the engine will be. Jack Lusted correctly stated that it is very difficult to do and some things in this direction are also contraproductive at the moment.

my opinion is it would be a need of rework of the most engine to fix that, not "just" improvements we had over times since Empire.

CA should consider to Steam HW survey and drop XP support. MS XP support ends 2014 anyway.

some Steam stats (percent):

47.7 of all steam users have DX 11 capable card
56.6 have Windows 7 64 bit
14.3 have Windows 7 32 bit
5,8 have Vista 64 bit
4,4 have Vista 32 bit
12,6 have XP 32 bit


so infact we have
62,4 % of users with 64 bit systems!
18,7 % of users with 32 Vista or Windows 7 systems,

to that i can tell: it is allowed by Microsoft EULA to change your 32 bit to a 64 bit system with no cost, you just need a suitable 64 bit Windows Vista / 7 DVD, not a new windows key. your original key is valid and legal for 32 AND 64 bit version (not having installed both same time) of course

where to get a Windows DVD*?
well lend it if you not sure to download, make sure it is the same edition than printed on your MS certificate of authenticy, the key wont work with other editions, just same editions but 32 or 64 bit.
- dl /copy media is not allowed in some countries


we can drop XP for several technical and (future) security reasons. sorry to tell.
Win 7 64bit runs fine with at least 2 GB RAM, and due to automatically maintenance much more faster as XP does esp. long term.
it is time to upgrade "boneheads" no propaganda. it is based on facts and benchmarks.

maybe this posting will cause some trouble in minds disagreeing but now after Win7 is out for about 4 years i can tell a lot of stories about both worlds.
me using Win 7 64 bit since the first preview (beta) release of Microsoft gave me with MSDN, and it was far better as released Vista was the same time. ridiculous but true.

a small how-to (get finally rid of slow Vista / XP):

run Windows 7 compatibility wizard to be sure all drivers are working, mostly affected very old printers and scanners, webcams. very rare: soundcards. after run choose 64 bit report.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...ils.aspx?id=20

for ease of use also install Easy Transfer for Windows 7
http://windows.microsoft.com/is-IS/w...-easy-transfer
need to download the wizard according to your OS not the target os. so: if you wanna move from XP 32 bit to Win 7 64 bit you need to download the 32 bit client
same for vista. installation / download of the client in Windows 7 not needed is included

if you fear reinstall because steam: copy whole Steam folder to an external hdd and after reinstall windows move back on drive c or other... then launch steam.exe with admin rights (right click) he will install steam client and / dl steam updates and everything runs fine again without dl all games. make sure to have access to your email registered with steam as he will ask you for a security code to validate your account with the new Windows

if you use both things easy transfer and steam manual transfer you wont even notice most of the hazzle reinstallation brings, as upgrading from a 32bit to 64bit dont work. reinstall is needed technically.

if you use Vista 64 bit consider to get an upgrade or new license of Windows 7 64 bit, new license irrationally is cheaper than upgrade...

why upgrading Vista 64 bit to 7 64?
Vista, and every experts tells you was a first shot, like Windows ME, and it failed. it is still a lot slower than Windows 7 even they use the same drivers but the kernel is not that effective so things like memory management works much more better on Windows 7 in general compared to Windows Vista. if you have a clean installed system Vista wont run properly on a sys with 1 GB RAM (32 bit) Win 7 does, even particularly faster than XP.

when not to upgrade?
if your CPU is not 64bit capable,
you have very very old mainboard, from 2005 or so, may cause problems to install
if the upgrade wizard tells you certain hardware driver will not work

*disclaimer: use bought software, also Windows. think about the devs, their familys and years of work they spent into Windows since 1980s. imho i think 70 bucks are worth to have good system for about next 5 years. XP even hold out more than 10 years. 70 bucks are worth that, arent they? some games went into shelf useless after very much shorter times at comparable prices

[torongill]

Another thing to consider is the 3 GB barrier. And they way I see it(from a layman's PoV) even if Rome is 32-bit, the upper limit of its memory usage would be 4Gb. But due to possible 3 Gb barrier and the inherent memory usage of the OS and other programs like anti-virus, graphic controller interface, web browsers, etc, the ammount of RAM available for the game would be much less. In other words, just by using a 32-bit Windows you're hampering the potential performance of your Total War and that can be rectified by going 64-bit and buying a bit more RAM, which apparently is dirt-cheap. Hell, I remember the days when I bought 2x256 MB DDR 400 for 60 euros, because on idle XP would eat up to 150 MB and the rest would fill up quickly if you played something more complex than Quake 3 Arena. And now you can buy 2x4Gb RAM for much less than that price and I'm not sure how exactly can you use up that RAM

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

I really don't care one way or another. I can run any game completely fine on the highest settings, and I only have three GB of RAM at the moment.

Shogun 2 runs fine on my computer, and Im sure with some minor modifications (Maybe just more RAM) I can run Rome 2 on highest settings as well.

From a business standpoint, I can understand them sticking with 32bit.

[alQamar]

thats the point zebra, Rome 2 > just more RAM. XP and Windows Vista / 7 32 bit systems support up to 3,6 GB RAM natively. thats all.

3,6 GB RAM means system RAM + VRAM so if you have actually a 3GB system ram and a 1 GB RAM on your graphics you get already capped in use by 400 MB of RAM. if you tell you will built in more RAM for Rome 2 this is not productive for 2 reasons:

a: Windows 32 bit cannot handle it anyway as the calc above shows you, and he wont show you the ammount of RAM then but visible capping it at 4 GB
b: Rome 2 wont make use of it as 32 bit application for the same reasons, except they explicit would use memory address transition methods.

ergo: everyone can now check if he is already affected by capping or not

[bobbin]

They were quite clear at the summit that the amount of usable RAM is a big constraint, that said looking at steam stats nearly a third (32.86%) of people are using a 32bit OS. That is a big number, they would be mad to cut out that much of their potential customer base for any reason, not to mention the issues such an upgrade would involve, so they have to stick to the RAM limit for the time being. One could imagine a few years down the line when 32bit systems are much lower we could see a 64bit TW game.

To clarify, I have 64bit Windows. I just don't think them upgrading to 64bit support will help me run the game, or anything. Shogun 2 runs fine on my system as it is.

I mean, of course, I wouldn't mind them improving, but not if it causes as many problems as Lusted said it would.

That because your playing a game designed for 32bit systems. If you were playing one that had been designed with 64bit in mind from the outset it would perform better, as it would have been made without needing address the RAM limit.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

To clarify, I have 64bit Windows. I just don't think them upgrading to 64bit support will help me run the game, or anything. Shogun 2 runs fine on my system as it is.

I mean, of course, I wouldn't mind them improving, but not if it causes as many problems as Lusted said it would.

[Enyalios]

I sure hope CA likes doing support tickets, because the support forums are going to be flooded with CTDs and other issues when people fly past the memory caps. The majority of S2 technical problems are related to this issue. CA should just phase out 32-bit already and move on.

AlQamar makes a good point in his last post. Some computer companies [and Windows] allow you to upgrade to 64-bit for free because you are entitled to it with the same license key. Weirdly enough, when you buy a computer from a store they will give you hardware that is 64-bit capable, but usually with 32-bit OS. Heck my [non-gaming] computer came with 4GB of DDR3 RAM which I couldn't even use because I was on a 32-bit OS! I got a free 64-bit upgrade DVD from Lenovo though. 32-bit systems aren't going to be your expensive computer builds, so it's not about those types of people. In terms of less expensive hardware, well unless they got them for under $400 from BestBuy they're probably going to have 64-bit capable hardware, so it's easily upgradeable.

That "12.6% have XP 32-bit" statistic is off of Steam. There's no way that there's a substantial amount of those people playing a recent TW game. They'd be playing something like Counter Strike Source or TF2, unless CA has stats for TW that they can directly analyze.