32 Bit? Really?

[GD]

I have just seen in Task Manager (Freeze because of ALT-Tab) the game is an 32 Bit executable.

This is a catastrophe! Please NOT.

We will run into numerous problems along the line 100% sure and it's not gonne take long. The game starts to get close to 1-2 GB memory usage already on large maps with dense population and longer playtime. Add multiple mods, more content, better graphics maybe even larger more detailed maps we will crack the 2 GB memory limit for sure. And then the instant Out-Of-Memory crashes starting to appear.

We had this issue with other games already, most prominently Civilization 5 when the modding community and players started to use the game above it's capabilities and than more and more unexpected crashes started and additional game limits were required. 32-Bit is yesterday, 10 years outdated. Nooone does it anymore with games, especilly not for moddable games and not for economic simulators like this one with detailed tiled map.

Example, why this is a real threat already:
I started a large map. Only low industry, only low city count, medium lakes (which covers a part of the map which can otherwise can contain track/building/cities), medium moutains. I played for 20 hours or so and have only played in 1/5 of the map, connected only 5 cities or so of 24 of the map as to this moment. 30 trains or so and 15 stations. I consider it just a "start". And I'm already at 1.2 GB memory usage, what happens when I fill up the map or there is more content or just larger cities. At 2 GB all will be over.

I really really hope this is gonne change to 64 Bit soon. I'm actually a little worried about it, because those kind of changes are normally not as easy to do because it influences the hole programming base and e.g. graphics engine.

[Vimes]

I think that some people are more concerned that if the transition between 32 to 64bit isn't done now at the games early stage of development then it will be too big a task when the game has been developed further.
Whether that has any merit or not I do not know, just because it reads to be reasonable doesn't make it accurate.

This also might not be applicable but when Playing Cities Skylines and using both mods and assets I see how quickly my memory gets used up, but the games copes fine with it. I have 11GB of DDR5 on my GPU and that tends to fill up first. Then my RAM usage (I have 16GB) increases from there, although some RAM from the PC is increasing also as the GPU''s RAM gets used.

If this game does get great support in the workshop with maps, textures etc, assets and mods I can see that has having some concerns for people which might well be reasonable if the game continued to develop on the 32bit platform only.
Not sure what the situation was 7 years ago which made the dev think that 32bit was the most appropriate platform to develop with but fast forward to today and the workshop development in some games I can understand why some are concerned.

[trias10]

Hi Jan,

Just wanted to add my support for moving the game to x64 exclusively. I agree that the game only uses 1.1 GB of memory now, but please think of the longer term and future-proofing. Your game is wonderful, and games like this don't come around very often, look at how many people still play OpenTTD. The future is 64 bit, both for applications and OSes. But more than that, a game like this will serve as a platform for an ecosystem of mods which will push the game to its boundaries. People will want to add in even larger maps, 1024x1024 or 2048x2048, or you yourself may want to allow transitioning between two user maps (for multiplayer). By switching to 64-bit now, early on, you guarantee a more robust, future-proof platform both for yourself as a developer, and for your players and modders. As has been said by others in this thread, very few end users still use 32 bit OSes, so you would not be limiting your player base. 32 bit has deep limitations which you may hit unexpedectly, both Factorio and Kerbal Space Program switched to 64 bit later in the dev cycle and stated that they regretted not doing it from the onset.

I for one, as a player of your game, would consider 64-bit support to be a much higher priority than multiplayer or other eras. I would happily wait much, much longer for multiplayer or new eras if it meant getting 64 bit support first. I'm sure that many other players would agree with me.

[zakblood]

"64-bit support to be a much higher priority than multiplayer" agreed, some vga cards now days have more ram than most 32bit games can even access,

quoted "The 4GB limit refers to total addressable memory space and not just the RAM installed. It's a total made up of system RAM, graphics RAM, PCI memory range, ACPI and a few other bits and pieces. And if you think that your system RAM is the only significant factor, think again.

You can buy graphics cards fitted with 16GB of RAM", then it's use in a 32bit O/S is rather pointless, so yes 100% agree it would be nice if most if not all games were both, 32bit and 64bit made, so each got it's own but again the time taken to do both, maybe wouldn't get the returns either if it was all 64bit with the moans from the 32bit market, so it's swings and roundabouts and sorry to say and understand why a given path is take, for balance on returns,

but as the steam hardware reports shown, the 32bit versions of windows now and for many years have been going down and the 64bit versions up, and atm on the last survey, windows 64 bit 91% of total pc's surveyed

[uzurpatorex]

It is still solving a problem nobody has, in the context of this game. Thusly, total waste of time.

[Dwarden]

those complaining,
are you aware that 32-bit binary limits aren't related to VRAM sizes ?
(since Vista/Windows 7 that's outside direct allocations)

it has effect only at direct RAM allocations
indirectly you can allocated beyond 4GB LAA (large address aware) limit anyway ,,,

so those of you who think the 64-bit shall have priority over other issues shall reconsider

developer said he will put 64-bit on his roadmap
but there is no point to consider it problem for now

from negative side of 64bit was mentioned worst case scenario
it may end with double the actual memory usage
(ofc with the benefit of direct >4GB access)

in case someone think 64-bit binary runs significantly faster than 32-bit
then i must dissapoint you, fraction of percent at maximum
(exception being some specialized instructions)

and don't compare it with Arma, that ran into the limits of 32-bit and workarounds
thus for Arma 3 the 64-bit became must even without modding in equation

[GD]

Originally posted by Dwarden:

... as was mentioned before in worst case scenario
64-bit may end with double the actual memory usage ...

Only if the program memory contains only memory pointers, which I seriously doubt. And even if so right now we would be at 2.2 - 2.8 GB memory ... who cares.

But you got another thing right. Right now everyone would prefer a more complete game over this issue. The developer assures us memory usage above 2 GB is tested and proven and until we got to 3.5 or 4 GB a lot of new content and maybe oversized maps (1024 or even 2048) are necesarry to get there. For me - the thread starter - that settles my concern for the time being ... was settled already 2 days ago.

The developer must decide for himself and the future of this project if the step to change to 64 Bit is
a) necesarry at one time in future depending on his plans to complete and later maybe extend the game and especially accounting for modding to it and
b) if it will be more difficult and time consuming later on or would make it even impossible

... but that's entirely his choice. And being able to make the game to the point it currently is I'm pretty sure he will make a good descision.

[jan.zeleny]

I've finished reading of all these comments and can promise you guys that I will keep in mind future update to x64 (I was always keeping this in my mind) so it should not be a big problem to do so, but please understand that it is not the right time to do so.

I want to release 3rd era before christmas, add chain signals meantime, fix most of real bugs someone encountered and push updates regularly every week or so (in last few months, I am doing 1 new build - usually 2-6 issues fixed - every day). Once there is some spare time to spend few weeks switching to x64, I will happily do it. Hope you agree and thanks for understanding.

[iTraumatik]

Originally posted by jan.zeleny:

I've finished reading of all these comments and can promise you guys that I will keep in mind future update to x64 (I was always keeping this in my mind) so it should not be a big problem to do so, but please understand that it is not the right time to do so.

I want to release 3rd era before christmas, add chain signals meantime, fix most of real bugs someone encountered and push updates regularly every week or so (in last few months, I am doing 1 new build - usually 2-6 issues fixed - every day). Once there is some spare time to spend few weeks switching to x64, I will happily do it. Hope you agree and thanks for understanding.

Thanks for understanding and taking all feedback in to advisement. Really like where the game is heading and with modding will be even better !!! thanks

[jan.zeleny]

I am really looking forward what can community do with all these stuff :D... I have very exact plan what do I deliver over the next couple of months, but it is related to core game. Community can go crazy with ideas, especially combination of custom scripted quests and custom wagons or cargo type, new industry chains.. We will see :)

[graphite]

Seems I’ve got to the party too late, & Jan has put a x64 build on the table, I think this is the right move.

Why?

for balance let’s take a look at OpenTTD x64 bit. Map size 4096x4096 {that’s 64- 512k maps}. Throw in a combo of 5000 trains, trucks, trams, buses, ships & planes. Proper signalling, height maps, and with the FIRS2 mod 80 Industries & 64 different cargo types, play from 1835 to 2050+ with vehicle & building mods from all over the world. How will 32 bit mashinky cope with coming close to this?

Did some modding for SMR, we had to use a 3gb enabler and even with that it was a nightmare trying to build mods that wouldn’t crash the game under x32.

For future-proofing & longevity of the game via mods x64 should imo be a major consideration from a development point of view.

Cheers all

Sidenote: To get an idea of how big a 4096 map is, download OTTD it’s free to play open source, https://www.openttd.org/en/ & for best visuals use the 32bit Z base graphics set

[Severus Snape]

+1 Consider PORTING to 64 bit early, porting to another OS will be an issue in the future. Mac is a 64-bit only platform.

[Trip]

I think what Jan is saying, is that the entire game only uses 1.1GB. If there is a total of 4GB available... or even 3.5.. hell lets just call it 3GB total available, then after the game loads, there is still 1.9GB available.

Thats still more than the entire game uses in it's entirety. There is no way that there are going to be any mods in the immediate future that use more memory than the game, and most of the memory used is on the GPU, no the Mobo.

This is a low priority item, and would be something that is done once the 32bit program is done and solid, and making some revenue. Then you can get some staff together to make a 64bit version.

Jan is on track. Keep working on bugs, gameplay, and content.

[Tossi]

Originally posted by Trip:

There is no way that there are going to be any mods in the immediate future that use more memory than the game, and most of the memory used is on the GPU, no the Mobo.

I think you are underestimating what an active community can do. I predict there will be alot of tiny mods like a "single city building" and people will be playing with hundreds of those installed.

[iTraumatik]

Originally posted by Trip:

There is no way that there are going to be any mods in the immediate future that use more memory than the game, and most of the memory used is on the GPU, no the Mobo.

I agree with Tossi, My cities skylines is lightly modded and ram usage is 4.4gb approx with mods, i never checked gpu mem usage. So if the modding community really gets into the game it probably will max out 32bit ram usage.

[Zothen]

Originally posted by Mackintosh:

This is very worrisome and disappointing. It will prove to be a serious bottleneck down the line. Please consider moving to 64 bit asap. Don’t be yet another shortsighted developer.

You dont even have a clue about what youre worried about... gosh, damn "armchair developers"..