Will 64 bit OS be necessary to play future games?

[tigersty1e]

How soon do you think we will need more than 2 gigs of RAM to play pc games?

Only a 64 bit OS will be able to require it, right?

 

[MegaVovaN]

It is going to be years and years before a 64bit only game is released. It is a slow process to get most gamers to 64bit platforms.
Hell, even 64bit drivers struggle behind!

What do you mean, "64bit OS will be able to require 2gb+" ? 64 bit OS can run with 64mb of RAM if needed. Thing is, 64-bit can SUPPORT insane amounts of RAM, way over 8gb. Win XP64 currently supports 128gb RAM but can support more, 64bit system can have up to 16 billion GB!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...ofessional_x64_Edition

 

[tigersty1e]

What I mean is that the limit for 32 bit OS systems is 3 gigs of ram, right.

Just last year or so, 1 gig was fine for games. Now 2 gigs is required to get some decent playback. At this rate, more than 3 gigs will be required.

 

[aCynic2]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
Just last year or so, 1 gig was fine for games. Now 2 gigs is required to get some decent playback. At this rate, more than 3 gigs will be required.

Who do you think is driving this unbelievable increase in resource requirements?

 

[alent1234]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
It is going to be years and years before a 64bit only game is released. It is a slow process to get most gamers to 64bit platforms.
Hell, even 64bit drivers struggle behind!

What do you mean, "64bit OS will be able to require 2gb+" ? 64 bit OS can run with 64mb of RAM if needed. Thing is, 64-bit can SUPPORT insane amounts of RAM, way over 8gb. Win XP64 currently supports 128gb RAM but can support more, 64bit system can have up to 16 billion GB!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...ofessional_x64_Edition

8GB is nothing

Windows Server 2008 will support 2TB and i have a few servers with 20GB to 32GB running Windows 2003 x64

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
What I mean is that the limit for 32 bit OS systems is 3 gigs of ram, right.

Just last year or so, 1 gig was fine for games. Now 2 gigs is required to get some decent playback. At this rate, more than 3 gigs will be required.

4GB on consumer 32-bit versions of Windows, but not all of it will be usable by the OS due to device memory mapping. There is a 2GB limit on user-mode processes by default.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Oh, I see now what you mean. Games will require more RAM than supported by 32bit, so we will switch to 64bit system. But a 64bit system can still run games written in 32bit. So, unless a game is released that totally WILL NOT play at 3gb RAM, we won't see 64-bit only code.

Idea is: write a 32-bit game, those on 32bit can play it with up to 3gb RAM (because it is still playable with 3GB RAM), and those on 64bit can play game with however much RAM they want (we are not anywhere close to limit of 64bit systems on RAM).

 

[Modelworks]

At the rate memory hungry games are progressing. I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of 2008 we don't see some games using 4GB or more.

Lord of the rings online, recently added a patch to the client for 64 bit users so that they could make use of all the extra ram they might have.

 

[Oyeve]

Nevermind 64bit, we dont even need Vista. Halo 2 is Vista only and for the life of me it looks like CRAP. Its all a ploy to make us buy Vista. There is not one solid reason for ANY Vista only game to be on Vista.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Nevermind 64bit, we dont even need Vista. Halo 2 is Vista only and for the life of me it looks like CRAP. Its all a ploy to make us buy Vista. There is not one solid reason for ANY Vista only game to be on Vista.

Assuming they eventually allow DirectX 10 in WinXP, I have to agree.

But if MS wants to be hard-assed about DX10 and never release it for XP, then I think one day we will have to go with Vista. Whether its needed or not, devs are going to (eventually) go with games that are DX10-only, more for marketing purposes than anything else.

"Our game fully utilizes all DirectX 10 features!!!!"
No, you just set it up so the game refuses to run at all unless the computer has it installed, buttheads.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: Oyeve
Nevermind 64bit, we dont even need Vista. Halo 2 is Vista only and for the life of me it looks like CRAP. Its all a ploy to make us buy Vista. There is not one solid reason for ANY Vista only game to be on Vista.

except or those games written for DX10 fo course.