x64 bit games?

[Beotsh]

I wasn't sure where to put this, but why are there no 64 bit downloads for games? I'd like to have the option of the 64 bit exe. Is this a steam issue or more of the studios?

[Spawn of Totoro]

If you have a 64bit OS, then it will download the 64bit version (if there is one). IF not, it will download the 32bit.

The vast majority of games are still writen in 32bit, so it is rare to see a 64 bit one. This is most likely due to the consoles still using 32bit.

[LoTekRabbit]

Games don't have seperate 64 bit exes anymore and the last game to have one was Crysis Warhead I believe. With the large address aware flag a 32 bit exe will use more RAM if needed.

If you take a look at games like Crysis 2, 3, BF3 they recommend using a 64 bit OS despite not having a seperate exe for it and it's because of that. If it's needed it will use it as long as it's available and addressable by your OS.

[Satoru]

Games are not "My first SQL server"

A 64 bit executable only lets the exe address moer than 4GB of RAM. This is utterly and totally pointless except for a handful of game where modders want to throw in so much stuff to see what breaks (Skyrim).

If a game is using more than 4GB of RAM it's doing something wrong.

[aiusepsi]

Why shouldn't a game use more than 4GB of RAM? 42% of Steam users have more than 4 GB of RAM, 9% have more than 12 GB; not using that RAM is insane.

[LoTekRabbit]

Автор сообщения: aiusepsi

Why shouldn't a game use more than 4GB of RAM? 42% of Steam users have more than 4 GB of RAM, 9% have more than 12 GB; not using that RAM is insane.

How is it insane if the game doesn't need it?

If I run Battlefield 3 my system is using about 4.5 Gigs and that's including Windows and all the processes my comp is running. So 4GB isn't enough when playing on Ultra when you take into account everything else your comp is doing but the game itself doesn't need 4 Gigs. It's just when you take everything into account a PC would need more than 4 Gigs to play the latest games on max settings.

[aiusepsi]

I mean that there's no point putting an arbitrary upper limit on the amount of memory a game can use. If you have a lot of RAM installed, the sensible thing to do is to endeavour to find ways to use it, preferably in ways that mean hitting HD less (like preloading more levels in advance, perhaps).

Saying that a game is "doing something wrong" if it's using more than 4 GB is just odd.

[Satoru]

Автор сообщения: aiusepsi

Why shouldn't a game use more than 4GB of RAM? 42% of Steam users have more than 4 GB of RAM, 9% have more than 12 GB; not using that RAM is insane.

The NEED for a game to use that much simply isn't necessary. Again very very few games require more than 4GB of in-game memory to do stuff. Your typical FPS cover concrete simulator game doesn't need that. The game isn't 'doing' enough to warrant it. The work is done on the GPU. These games aren't CPU limited or memory limited.

Gernally speaking if you're running out of memory your game is doing something wrong.

[aiusepsi]

I never said anything about a game needing that much memory, but using it if it's there.

I suppose I should use a concrete example. Ok, consider Half-Life 2. Say, for the sake of argument, that all the assets in one level sum up to 1 GB. If I've got only, say, 3 GB of memory total in my computer, I'll probably want to be conservative and only load one level. When I get to the loading point, I overwrite that with the next level by reading in what I need from disk. That's slow, and you see a loading screen.

If I've got 6 GB in my computer, I can go ahead and load 3 or 4 levels while I'm playing, and then I'll almost never see a loading screen because the content is loaded up far in advance of getting there.

Or, Skyrim. It has no loading times except when you enter a building; however if the game used more memory when it was available, they could start loading up the building interiors when you started to approach them, rather than when you physically interact with the door.

That's a great use for RAM; preemptively caching content from disk, because disk is slow. As a rule, when you're doing high-performance programming you do all you can to minimise the number of times you miss your high-speed cache and have to hit the level below. What applies for L1/L2 cache applies for RAM too, which is why I say that having an arbitrary upper limit on the amount of RAM a game can use is silly.