64 bit OS & map size

Markgil, readyboost has nothing to do with what they're talking about.  I'm going to be as simple as I can in explaining this, but what it boils down (AKA: here is the over-simplified version for the computer illiterate) to is that 32 bit OS's are limited to 4GBs of memory total (specifically, 2 to the thirty-two bytes), and 64 bit OS's get a LOT MORE (2 to the sixty-four bytes).  Because of the way OS's work, you're actually limited to about 2GBs on the average 32 bit machine (note: you can still reap benifits from increasing memory to 3 or 4 GBs, this is an overly simplified explanation that doesn't really work right).

OK, time to mangle some computer science!

In the OS, you have to 'map' memory to memory spaces.  This is called allocation.  In a 32 bit system, you have 4GB 'address books' to address memory with -- so your system can have a total of 4GBs of memory installed.  If you install more, it gets ignored by the OS because it doesn't have the ability to 'map' all of it.  Note that peripheral devices with onboard memory (usually a video card, but some sound cards) count towards this limit -- if your video card has a half-gig of memory onboard, you can only have 3.5 GB or RAM for the OS.

*Program* side (here is what's important), you're also limited to 4GBs memory use per program.  You might off-load a lot of the 'memory' into virtual memory, but you can't have more than 4GBs of it in use.  Which sounds like a lot, except you (normally) only get half of this.  The other half* is held by the OS to use for drivers and stuff, leaving you with 2GBs to try and run the program with.  If you exceed those 2GBs, program goes 'boom' for excessive memory use.

*It is possible to move that divsion over using special commands in the boot-up sequences, but not recommended unless you're an expert.  It can cause system instability if a program or driver was programmed to assume that 2GB limit.  So they created a 'flag' for an executable file:  even if you've manually moved the partition over to 3GBs program space, it won't take effect on a given program unless it's flagged as being 'large address aware'.  Please note that this doesn't protect against bad drivers, that is your job if you try to do this.

Even more basic: 32-bit Windows is limited to 2 gigabytes per process. 64-bit Windows has no such limit.

Thus, we could have massively larger maps if we want.

Now, on 32-bit Windows, the maps will still be very very large.  But we want Elemental to stand the test of time and be able to support larger and larger maps.

This will go hand in hand with the work we're doing on scaling the pacing of technologies, spells, etc. so that players can have truly epic, long-term games if they want.

This should mostly be done by the Spring beta (a lot of this is done now).

Frogboy, are you aware that, because of your damn game, you'll just kill the 32bit OS? Hum. Who would have a 32bit OS when they can play A game of Elemental for 4 years because of the huge huge huge map?

June is so far away ...

And its about time if you ask me, we should just switch over to completely 64 bit OS with windows 7 so that more programs (and not just games) can reap the benefits of the expanded memory that a 64bit OS brings.

And so companies make stable drivers for 64 bit too (I'm looking at you nvidia!)

I agree that a game supporting a 64-bit OS is a huge step in the right direction and I am also a fan of nvidia b/c of their superb 64-bit support.

I want a map that I can scroll across two 30" monitors at max resoultion. Please tell me multimon will be an inherent support element.

They won't. Vista already pissed off enough corporate customers with its lack of backwards support. A lot of companies didn't upgrade because key programs didn't work, so if anything ms will be gunning for more backwards support, not less, but I'm getting win 7 x64 for my desktop most likely because of elemental and my bizzarre desire to have 8 gb of ram.

...

I spend something like 20 minutes trying to remember how to put it down simply, and you just come along and... and...

I don't know whether to hate you (for beingn so much better) or love you (for releasing games like elemental).

2^64=around 18000 petabytes... Hehe, now THATS a map!

But please, try and make patches which do not invalidate save files... that could ruin the purpose of such large maps. In SoaSE I would play some really big maps occasionally but would never get around to finishing them before a patch came and ate the file

Just as computers 5 years ago couldn't approach the 4GB limit, computers these days won't come closer to touching the 64 bit memory limit -- sorry!

I just want to know the time needed to generate a new Uber big map.

What can be scary are the save game loading time and the size of each saved game.

I just hope the Elemental won't end up as a new CPU 64-bits benchmark.

but hypothetically, when we have magical space computers that use something other than transistors because transistors have hit the limits of physical possibility, you could have a map about the same size as the contiguous US... in on-screen size, not display size, and have an accurate representation of a fantasy world the size of jupiter to scale that would take a few hundred years to play. And wouldn't that be worth it?

It'd be good publicity if you could make it a testing standard, just include a benchmarks section with the option to create a map the size of Rhode Island. The thing is, most 64-bit benchmarks are server ones much more representative of actual performance.

18000 Petabytes...

I know, I know, the wisdom of "no one will ever need more than 640k" is probably infecting me... but honestly, can the human brain deal with a game complex and big enough to use even 1000 petabytes?  I mean, that is a *LOT*

In all likelyhood, that data will get sucked away to things we don't actually make use off -- remembering where every single peasant was born, is, and will die is a lot of memory when you have an empire of 20 million souls.

(AKA:  Once it's available, we'll find ways to make (good) use of it.)

The correlary of this of course is that in the future, video games will require more complexity than windows, and I shudder to think at the bugginess that will result, and go unfixed, just because the bugs affect too few people.

By the way, does anyone know if Windows 7 going to come standard as 64-bit?  Will it even come in 32-bit?

It will come in 32 bit. As long as there are 32 bit programs that won't run right in 64 bit mode, microsoft will make a 32 bit os for the companies that use them (keep in mind most of these programs are proprietary) until the profits outweigh the costs of losing those companies. Also, win 8 will have a much better chance of doing so, because it's possible it'll be based on new code, as opposed to 7 which is built off vista, which already has a 32 bit version. Microsoft transitioning to 64 bit is a lot more complicated than mac or linux because of its dominance in the business market. It may be that 64 bit is the default, but it will likely be like vista for now, where you can install either.

re: 18000 Petabytes; by the time that anyone can actually afford to make a computer with 1000+ Petabytes of RAM or a cpu-cluster can efficiently deal with such a large volume of data in a high-performance game... well, maybe we'll be storing the genome structures of all those peasants

Yep, by then there will be no difference between player vs player and player vs AI
Both will be sentient beings lol

with a 64 bit OS how big will tacticle battles be? around 5,000 units like total war? or 10,000 (in this case i will preorder immediatly)?

The only limits will be your computer. I think they want more of LoTR style battles... so probably even higher than 10,000 depending on how big your army is. After all, this is stardock were talking about here, if SoaSE was any indication, even if there is an arbitrary maximum size, you will be able to mod it in under 10 minutes so that any limit on maximum size is raised up so high it is irrelevant.

The thing about large troop numbers in tacticle battles is that it would depend more on your graphics card than just memory, but I suppose if you have 8+ gigs of RAM, then you probly will have a pretty sweet graphics card as well!

The good thing is that you don't need the cutting edge graphicscard/computer to run games made by SD....

for the record, my PC is completely 64-bit ready but I have had no reason to upgrade my OS yet.  This would give me the reason to do it (if 64-bit is a go) and I would actually be greatful I think.