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More on 64-bit Gaming
waytoomuchcoffee writes "Valve has announced "immediate availability" of a linux 64-bit dedicated Counterstrike server, designed to run on AMD's upcoming Opteron. This follows on the heels of Unreal Tournament 2003, previously reported on Slashdot. Gamespy has a related story up on a presentation of the future of 64-bit gaming (sponsored by AMD) at last week's Game Developers Conference. As Intel is in no hurry to make the jump to 64-bit desktops, this leaves AMD to court the gaming market."
Ok, nice. But where is the actual advantage ? Are the 64Bit features used anywhere or is it just an updated version to cope with 64 bit addressing or semething similar? The timing of the release seems to hint at this :)
this leaves AMD to court the gaming market
making 64 bit chips is not the only way to "court" the gaming market. I'm sure intel has other plans for bigger (read: smaller) and better chips. Eventually I think they will start to make the 64's, but for now they're making chips with Hyper Threading (great for game servers).
A lot of people will buy 64 bit versions of games whether they really get any benefit from the 64 bitness or not. I don't know of many games that need to address more than 4 gigabytes of memory. Sure, there are a couple of other advantages (native 64 bit words, etc.), but this is really just marketing hype.
future of 64-bit gaming
Didnt we learn from past descussions that word length has nothing to do with how good games are... remeber the jaguar?
I think the n64 was a good step forward, but then the xbox is 32bit yet far superior....
moo
Sorry, but when you say '64-bit gaming', I imagine actually playing the game on the 64-bit machine. In this case, they're talking about a dedicated server. Sorry, but that's not very exciting, nor is it an indication that AMD's getting the jump on Intel through the gaming market.
I agree that AMD'd have one up on Intel if they did get 64-bit gaming going, but dedicated servers are not going to create a new market. Give me a game that runs noticably better on a 64-bit processor. For example, what extra can they do with Doom III?
Ok, so most of the FPS companies are great about releasing servers for linux, but only ID ever releases the game itself.
There STILL isn't a linux version of half-life OR counterstrike that can be played natively under linux... unless you count WINE (not an emulator, still not native).
So for those of you that still have windows boxes and a linux box to dabble with, this is great news I'm sure. Those of us who have gone Linux native however, still can't game... 64 bit or 32 bit. (We gots 16 and 8 bit console emulated ROMs tho!)
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Cool! A Counterstrike server! Now, where's the Linux client that we've been asking for for years, Valve?
making 64 bit chips is not the only way to "court" the gaming market. I'm sure intel has other plans for bigger (read: smaller) and better chips. Eventually I think they will start to make the 64's, but for now they're making chips with Hyper Threading (great for game servers).
Correct. However, I have to think--
THe reason why Intel is not interested in the 64-bit desktop is because there isn't really a market for it.
The reason why AMD is interested in the 64-bit desktop is that since their chip is backwards compatible, they can use an existing market to subsidize their push into the high end.
So the problems that Intel has with this market have been deftly dodged by AMD, in what may be an incredible business move. However, that does come at the price of legacy support. Of course at this time, I think that is not an issue, but it may hinder AMD's push into the high end.
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The reason there is a big performance gain going to 64 bit has to do with the registers. In 64 bit mode they got more of them and don't need to swap as often as they do with 32 bit. This was the main reason for performance gains in UT (as sited by Sweeney) and prolly is the reason why CS is getting a boost.
I guess this begs the question, who cares? Counter-strike doesn't exactly take a $2000 server to run. I think something along the lines of a single AMD 1.4GHz with 256MB SDR SDRAM can run a 20-24 player server without much issue. Dual CPU DDR systems with 512MB shouldn't have any trouble running two 20 player servers. And I think I'm even being generously on the safe side.
Who in their right mind is going to run Counter-strike servers on expensive 64bit chips when a $40 CPU and pre-DDR architecture has no trouble at all?
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Good question. AMD has already demonstrated questionable business ethics, do you really think they would be better than Intel if they had the same position in the market?
I doubt anybody is going to build a 64-bit machine for hosting a Counterstrike server. That would be stupid. What they are going to do, however, is build a 64-bit machine for hosting a LOT of services (and possibly multiple Counterstrike servers).
:)
But that's not really where these CPUs are going to have the most impact. They'll be great for databases and the like, but for gamers the 64-bit CPUs are going to really kick into gear as backends for all the upcoming MMORPGs. That extra address space can go along way when you're hosting servers that contain 1000's of people. And for games like Neverwinter Nights? Well, you just never know what might happen...
Bryan
I'm still rather confused where this gigantic push towards 64bit desktop processors is coming from, as I would think the software compatibility with 32bit apps should be the first thing on the manufacturers mind. I could care less if I could run an uber CS, SOF2 or UT2K3 server on a 64bit machine, especially when I have to use an older 32bit machine to play on that server... Why spend all the money for the server alone? Why not focus on making a performance gain come from running the game clients on the 64bit desktop machines (rather than the current HORRIBLE emulation performance of 32bit apps on 64bit hardware).
Perhaps I missed this gigantic discovery over the past year or so, and in which case I retract my statement. But if it's still an issue, this really seems like putting the cart before the horse.
it is sad.
:)
I think the counterstrike thing with having the client only in the windows env. (except through wine, works great) and having servers for both windows and linux has been clearly done for the users. My friends still play CS (I stopped two years ago, had to do some work) and they run linux servers for ftp, ssh, httpd and ofcourse CS. But when they want to use a client, they choose windows, because they either are used to it, because they don't know about GUI in linux or because they only see linux's potentials in serving files (which it is also great for
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Well the n64 certainly didn't have 64bit graphics. Basically the n64 had a lot of 64 bit wide registers, because there wasn't even enough RAM to max out 32bit addressing. 64 bit graphics... wtf were you thinking, "moron"?
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64-bit software development is a great idea. however, there is too much of a rush on things right now from most commercial vendors. the technology simply isn't developed enough yet. don't expect games or most other software to take advantage of the 64-bit revolution until the platform is more established. of course by the time some vendors *cough* M$ *cough* get the hang of it, we'll probably be developing 128-bit chips;)
the rest is silence...
Yeah, this might seem cool and all, but how many servers are going to immmediately adopt the 64 bit platform? A lot of servers I have played on in my day were just old boxes that no one wanted to use as a gaming machine anymore. While some might have the cash to spring for this, I doubt the 64 bit presence will be noticed anytime in the near future for cs. However, with a good server and a fast pipe, fun could be had seeing how many people could be crammed onto the AWP map or something.
Atleast you know SOMEONE out there will be able to afford it as long as they are dropping $300-400 on a video card.