Elemental Forums
Title says it all, hehe... Was hoping that its still gonna be coming out in the somewhat near future... Big thing thats kept me from going out and buying the game so far... When i heard about it, I didn't wanna buy a version, and then have another one come out that i would much rather have. Anyway, sorry for buggin you guys.
Hi Jybil,
What is the did between 32 bit and 64 bit. I think windows has both vwersions. What does it mean for gaming? Are they processor specific, or software (windows) specific? Thanks
If/when the 64-bit version is done, you won't need to buy a seperate version of the game. It will just install the version appropriate for your computer (so if you have a 64-bit OS, it will install the 64-bit Elemental, if you have a 32-bit OS it will install 32-bit Elemental). So you don't need to wait for the 64-bit version to be done before you buy the game.
As to if it is still being worked on, I assume it is, as I haven't heard anything to say otherwise, but I would also assume that the state of release delayed the 64-bit version.
The main difference is that 64-bit allows you to use significantly more RAM. A 32-bit program can only use 2 GB of RAM (there are ways around this, but they're not super easy). 64-bit allows for you to use some ungodly amount of RAM. I don't know the exact number, but I think it's in the range of a couple terabytes. Windows does come in both 32 and 64-bit versions, and you need 64-bit Windows in order to use a 64-bit program.
For pratical applications in terms of Elemental, this means you can have gigantic maps, with huge numbers of units.
The expanded pointer size, higher default optimization target (SSE2 minimum,) and additional registers for integer and SSE2+ ops are probably also good for AI processes...huge numbers of units certainly, but they can process more unique variables without slowdown I gather.
I'm not a programmer mind you. Yet.
Thanks you very much for the input ^^ Probably gonna go out and buy the game in the near future then, now that I know it won't be a retail all in its own.. I was thinking it would probably just be an upgrade, but with how some developers are now a days, I wouldn't be too surprised to see it sold as a separate product. Very good to know, and makes me have a lot more faith, hehe.
Does this mean, that if i install a 64bit OS i can not play Elemental or is Elemental less stable on a 64bit OS?
No, 64bit Windows will run 32 bit applications no problem. I use Windows 7 64bit and elemental has been very stable for me since 1.06.
If you're talking about Large Adress Aware, it's really not hard 
There are lots of little apps floating around the 'net that people have made for different games. The process is the same for any executable, so if they expect an .exe of a specific game name you can just change it, run it through the app, and change back. Googling for "3gb enabler" should hit the jackpot on those.
And yes, setting Elemental .exe to 3gb awareness helps quite a bit!
Thank you all for helping me understand "what it means to us."
Basically, a 64 bit OS will allow the user to use programs that address more than 2 GIG of ram. When this OS is installed on a PC that actually has 2+ Gig ram, the applications have the POSSIBILITY of using the extra ram. That means your application (GAMES, I'm retired, and have no use, anymore, for outlook, scheduler, etc. LOL) can run bigger, faster, etc. (assuming the hardware, and OS is there.), IF the game itself is also designed to run 64 bit.
So the only issue that might occur is a game made for 32 bit, that doesn't take advantage of a 64 bit OS/hardware set up.I think I understand. Thanks.
So the concern here is whether EWoM is going to be 64 bit, or not?
No it's not terabytes. Try exabytes
2^64 = 18.4 exabytes
That's 18,400,000,000 Gigabytes
Also, 64bit programs can address more general registers on CPU, can make computations a bit more efficient.
It may be exabytes if it were true 64 bit addressing, but x86-64 only does 48 bit. Windows doesn't populate the entire 48 bits either.
So realistically you've got a 16TB virtual addressing limit, and here's the hardware limits
Ability to use up to 128 GB (Windows XP/Vista), 192 GB (Windows 7), 1 TB (Windows Server 2003), or 2 TB (Windows Server 2008) of random access memory (RAM).
Actually, the limit for 32bit OS is 4GB (but Windows let the app use only a part of it).
However, using PAE, 32 bit apps can address more than 4GB RAM
It does not matter for most people how much memory 64-bit apps can use currently, because you are most likely going to run out of harddrive space for the cache before reaching the max allowed amount.
since 1.08, I haven't had any problems running Elemental. Pre 1.08 I had a few minor quibbles.
I'm running
Windows 7 64 bit
Processor: i7-950 3.06 GHz
Memory: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 1GB
I was just mentioning the things a typical player will notice. 64-bit allows all of that stuff too, but most of it isn't obvious. Huge-ass maps and thousands of units are the most obvious effects of having a 64-bit game.
Well sure, if you get someone else to do it for you
Even still, sometimes games don't like being made Large Address Aware. For a while Impulse thought using the LAA user patch meant you were using a pirated game and wouldn't let you update. And depending on the game/company/user agreement, making the game LAA violates copyright laws, because you have to change the .exe to enable it.
I did say I didn't know the exact number, didn't I?
Regardless of what the number actually it is, it's such a huge amount of memory that no personal computer will ever reach it for a very, very long time.
PAE isn't used. And it never will be.
wouldn't 64 bit really help with insane map sizes? want insane ... with no lag... get me 64 i will get new comp then..
.. only problem with insane map size is what you do with it. nothing but city spam no doubt.
wouldn't mind playing with like 60+ Ai on an insane size sure other things will be balanced.. by then.
So since we haven't asked, what's actually planned for this? I won't hold it against you if plans change or anything but it seems like if larger maps were the only addition there'd be little point to making it in the first place.
If 64bit exe was released, those OOM errors would've never be an issue.
In last 20 years, if there was not enough of physical RAM was available, program would use paging file on hard disk to compensate (by using of virtual ram feature of OS), which could make things slow, but it would be stable. Program would "see" as much ram as it needs.
But because 32bit apps are limited to 2GB (or 3GB?), more memory consuming 32bit software needs strict memory diet, otherwise it would crash. And this is big hassle from programmer standpoint.
2GB by default, 4GB in an x64 OS with Large Address Aware set (which should be considerably easier than making a full on 64 bit version, but I assume they have their reasons for not doing it)
seems i will be getting an AMD and ATI powered comp if all goes well 6 core cpu total of 16 gb ram and two 4gb Ati 5970s... i hope there will be a 64 bit Version sometime in the future but i also hope memory leaks are fixed by then not really many games killing the 2gb thing but a few do
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