News DICE's Frostbite engine goes 64-bit only

i thought it was already 64bits only......

 

Erm... Not sure if trolling, or...

Does BF3 run on a 32-bit OS?

They're not making people upgrade. No one is forcing people to upgrade, or even buy their product(s).

 

If they are wanting to use 64-bit because they do not have access to enough memory with 32-bit, then it just won't be possible to run the program on 32-bit. They must either limit how much memory they can use, or require 64-bit.

DICE have clearly decided that advancing the engine is more important than supporting old OSs. They probably also believe they have enough clout to somewhat overcome this old install base by pushing 64-bit, as they did with DX11.

On a related note, they probably want the extra memory for storing higher resolution terrain textures, which they currently stream onto the graphics card with a system similar to megatextures.

I would be surprised if many of DICEs' customers are still on 32-bit.

 

You try to be cocky, but you fail.

Why would they list Windows 7 as two separate categories (one with 64 bit next to it) if they didn't mean 64 and 32 bit separately?

Gareth is correct obviously.

 

Aggresive ? Let's think about your words first then.

And yes, a exclusively 64-bit game is a good thing, otherwise we will never get rid of 32-bit OS. If they decide that they need 64-bit for performance or memory reasons, it's their choice.

And think a bit about it - Battlefield series is already a DX10/DX11 game only. That excludes Windows XP, OS X and Unknown categories. So we end up with 53.86% (W7-64)+6.28%(WV-64) on one side and 14.65% (W7-32)+5.48%(WV-32) on other side. 60,14% vs 20,13%, converted to 100% base it is 75% for 64-bit DX10+ capable vs 25% for 32-bit DX10+ capable.

Is 25% of the market force big enough for them not to advance the engine ? Seems like not. We can slowly buy 8-16GB RAM for few tens of euros, but we have no use for them because everything is 32-bit. That means only 2GB adressing space. DICE simply decided that 25% of the potential buyers is market not big enough to stop the switch to 64-bit.

 

First of all, my post was not meant to be in agressive tone at all, i just didn't agree with your numbers - which i accept i misunderstood from the steam website; then you called me with the words "You're being an aggressive dick". Who is "aggressive" then ?

And read above why Windows XP number doesn't matter either.

 

not sure if trolling or......

but seriously, i don't think BF3 runs on XP in the first place.

 

It doesn't. However that doesn't mean Vista/7 can't be 32-bit.

 

@Gareth: fine.

There is no DX10/DX11 on XP. That is 14.90%+0.11%=15.01% of market already excluded now, with DX10/DX11 BF3. What are we talking about now is another 20,13% (WV&W7 32-bit) of market to be killed off in next Frostbite engine. When they killed of XP with DX10/DX11 BF3, there was 21.31% XP-32 bit, 1.07% XP-64bit users (April 2011 Steam survey) - that is a higher number of users not being able to play BF3 at the time it got released than number of 32-bit WV and W7 users now.

 

Yes about time.

 

i look forward to developers doing 64bit only software/games in the long run, it will be better than trying to support 32 and 64 bit software.

 

Isnt it the case that BF3 will not run on XP as it only supports DX10+?

So saying x% of people will be excluded is rubbish from a DICE point of view as their latests game does not support XP.

I would imagine the ones with 7 32bit would have been sold by likes of HP etc to people who do not know any better.

Kimbie

 

Most gamers use pre-built systems. Most of those are on 32-bit Windows. While I would love to see a game that actually requires uses my silly amount of RAM, odds are it won't happen for a decade or so, if at all.

 

I have 4 systems running 32-bit.

XP on an archaic P4
Win8 on my netbook
Android on my phone
Vista in a dual boot.

The only one which would be able to play BF3 is the one in dual boot- the only reason that's still on there is because of GTL not liking a 64-bit OS.

Most people that game are running 64-bit so from a developer's point it makes sense to concentrate on the majority.

Sent from Bittech Android app

 

I think EVERYTHING should now be 64bit only. It was like the people that had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from 16bit. It just needs to be done for progress sake.

 

I think it's a good idea; remember that BF3 excluded everyone not on Vista/7, and XP has a market share of around 15.4% (steam survey, other figures have it at around 27%, but this would include a load of non-gamers) atm, which has already fallen from around 20% in December (also steam survey). It's not like people are unprepared to upgrade if they need to.

Also, the benefits would be great; developers would no longer have to rigorously stick to the RAM limit imposed by 32-bit OSes, and they wouldn't have to spend any time converting their game to make it work on 32-bit OSes.

 

sometimes its puzzling where people keep on saying "death to consoles, pc graphics are awesome coz it haz the latest tech out there" and yet they are stuck with windows xp ,if that 35% is accurate, i doubt they will take it that hard, im betting a about 50% or more of that number, are planning on upgrading, if these people are playing games made in the past year or so, I doubt their systems have less than 4gb of RAM, and if you have 4GB, its pretty silly you are using a 32 bit OS for it.

 

Wooooooow, dude...........................

Looks like we might finally have a legit reason to HAVE to have 8GB of RAM, not 4. Now all we need is for this 64bit only game to truly take advantage of 4 cores, and all that stuff that everyone always says about "future-proofing" will actually of finally come true ! Yeay!!!