Multi-core/64-bit support

[Commander Bello]

The headline already states it:
I would love to have multi-core and x64-support (as my current system is based on an i7-920 running under Win7 64 bit).

Firaxis, please be open to future improvements in the areas of hard- and software!

 

[Bluetooth]

I can’t agree more, on the other hand not one of the new games I bought last year had multi-core and x64-support.

 

[Commander Bello]

I can’t agree more, on the other hand not one of the new games I bought last year had multi-core and x64-support.

Which seems not to be a valid reason not to have such a thing in the future.

 

[Mason11987]

having 64-bits not supported is nonsense. Same with multi-core.

Muti-core desktops/laptops are like 6 years old.

 

[Bluetooth]

Which seems not to be a valid reason not to have such a thing in the future.

True. Let's hope for the best.

 

[bitkari]

I'd assume that multi-core support would be pretty likley - especially if they're using Gamebryo again.

I'm not sure about a 64-bit binary though... I agree it would be nice, but not sure how much performance benefit it would really give - and having to support 32-bit and 64-bit at the same time might dissuade Firaxis from going down this route...

 

[Arakhor]

Well, if 64-bit becomes compulsory, XP simply won't be able to run and older games have a snowball's chance in Hell of running on Vista/W7.

 

[croxis]

IIRC the only reason to have a native 64bit client is if you need to use more than 4 gigs of memory or if there are very mathematically heavy tasks (like video or image processing). It would require the publisher to support two different clients, which isn't exactly the most profitable route.

Also full multicore games are very very difficult to code and debug. That being said I hope it is supported because it can work well even with some basic seperation of graphics, network, and simulation.

 

[J-man]

It would be a huge surprise for me when there is no multi-core support. Multi cores have been in the market for years and who buys single core systems these days other than a low end system?

64-bit support would be a big plus. Civ 4 already uses a relatively large amount of memory. Plus, 64 bit windows is pretty common nowadays. I would welcome it because 64 bit win7

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

simply put, one should never ever buy a game that comes out in 2010 without multicore support. you shouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg on a system to play games.

 

[Ihmemies]

Because Vista and Win7 have 32-bit releases games will probably have 32bit executables till 2020, at least. It will take ages, forever and then a couple of infinities to move exclusively to 64bit executables. They might be an alternative to 32bit ones some day, but definitely not this year, not in Civ5.

 

[kattana]

i would expect it to support multiple cores. but in no way do i expect a 64bit version of it. simply doesnt make any sense for them at this time.

 

[Sian]

the (im)famous article states that Civ V indeed would support Multi-Core

 

[civ_king]

I wouldn't mind spending $100 if it were multi core, when it comes out I shall finally buy the Ungodly Mac Pro with its octocore and 32GB RAM

 

[Seven05]

I'm not sure about a 64-bit binary though... I agree it would be nice, but not sure how much performance benefit it would really give - and having to support 32-bit and 64-bit at the same time might dissuade Firaxis from going down this route...

It's less intensive than most people think. I write database applications for a living and having a 64-bit client and a 32-bit client is almost trivial. There's a reason you can specify build time variables when you're writing your application. It's far easier than multi-platform support. Once more people understand that 64-bit aplications give you much more than just access to more memory you'll see more of them out there.

Here's some interesting facts for you

A 32-bit integer memory address can address 4GB of memory, not 2GB as a lot of people like to quote. The 2GB limit is imposed by the operating system a sa virtual memory limit per application. A 32-bit operating system can not handle over 4GB however. From my standpoint, a 32-bit integer allows me to work with a DB table of some 4 billion records, while that sounds like a lot you'd be amazed how quickly you can hit that limit when doing things like merging data for long term archiving.

64-bit processors have been in use for almost 50 years. 64-bit processors have been in widespread use in games as far back as the old Nitendo 64 and Playstation 2.

64-bit processors hit mainstream personal computers back in 02 or 03 when Apple launched their G5 (I think) based computers. Business servers and workstations had them available in the early 90's.

So really, isn't 7 years long enough to wait? Compare that to shader models in video cards and you'll find that technology from even 3 years ago isn't enough to run the latest and greatest. As long as people fear 64-bit because it sounds complicated, as long as people refuse to move to 64-bit because they insist on sticking with software that is 10+ years old and as long as software production is driven by the budgets of revenue focused publishers we're stuck with 32-bit software. It's the old 'it works good enough' mentality so we're more likely to see commercial space flight than a mass exodus away from 32-bit computing.

 

[Lord Tirian]

It's the old 'it works good enough' mentality so we're more likely to see commercial space flight than a mass exodus away from 32-bit computing.

Yeah, hardware-wise, we're totally ready for 64-bit, in fact, most people could make the jump without any hitch (but they'd need to buy a new OS, that's an issue).

It's all like Win95 and the 16-bit to 32-bit jump again, just 10x as worse, because the inertia has grown massively due to the success of PCs.

Cheers, LT.

PS: Will we ever see a new BtS version of your World Piece mod? Or do we have to wait for CivV?

 

[Smuggo]

Crysis has a 32-bit and 64-bit version, and I notice a major performance improvement on the 64-bit version so I'd really like to see the same for this game.

Worth paying the extra to invest in doing it IMO and I'm sure they can afford to. The Civ games have the kind of pedigree that I don't think they need to worry about it not selling enough.

 

[Seven05]

PS: Will we ever see a new BtS version of your World Piece mod? Or do we have to wait for CivV?

You'll have to wait for Civ5 unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed working on that I ended up rebuilding my development PC and setting everything up so I could compile the Civ DLL again was low on the list and never happend. Now that I know Civ5 is coming this year I have even less incentive to do it (and I'm secretly hoping Firaxis finally upgraded to a newer version of Visual Studio).

Crysis has a 32-bit and 64-bit version, and I notice a major performance improvement on the 64-bit version so I'd really like to see the same for this game.

Worth paying the extra to invest in doing it IMO and I'm sure they can afford to. The Civ games have the kind of pedigree that I don't think they need to worry about it not selling enough.

Crysis and Far Cry before it. Most likely because they learned that if you program properly and without assuming the size of various data types the process of compiling for 64-Bit can be as simple as loading up your code into a 64-Bit compiler and clicking on 'build'

 

[zulu9812]

Right now, it's the software that's holding the hardware back. Intel are about to launch a six-core processor, and hopefully games will finally catch up. Ditto for 64-bit as well. It's time that the games industry moved into the 21st century.

 

[CarnivalBizarre]

Making a multi-thread game is not hard at all. It might be for games where it is hard to single out things to move to other threads. But in a turn based strategy game that is a given, the AI goes into several other threads.