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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."
64-bit gaming IS moronic ... no way I can afford it :)
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).
I've been 64-bit gaming for years!! hasn't anyone heard of a Nintendo-64?!?!
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.
Sounds like they are simply re-compiling with a new tool chain; nothing about actually changing the code base to take specific advantage of Opteron features. Still, kudos to their coders if their code base just works on 64 bit platforms; there'll be plenty out there that won't, despite availability of the SDKs and programming guides like this and this
Jon.
Why do i view Intel as Microsoft and AMD like Open Source?
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64 bits BAHHH, back in my day we had 2, and we were happy with the both of them! Youngsters.
but can you imagine... how may players could be on one server tht has over 4 gigs ram, 4 of them athlon 64 cpus, and one massive pipe to the net. Imagine your favorite CS map, but with 500 people on it at once... chicken shoot.
Ohh yeah and can you imagine a soviet beowulf cluster of these?
wow... my first all in one post. Lord help me.
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
Just because I bought a 64 bit Athlon rack server and an OC3 line for my CS server does not mean I have a problem. You have a problem!
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
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.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This is a nice way to run a benchmark on a new chip. In a straight port of code highly optimized for x86-32, Counter-Strike dedicated server tests with both 32- and 64-bit versions revealed a 30% clock-for-clock gain, and is expected to show further performance gains in future upgrades. Its also nice to see Valve putting in the effort to keep it customers happy and running at high speeds. www.valvesoftware.com Operon web page at AMD
Everyone talking about gaming in terms of bits should be shot on sight...
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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Since developers don't use assembly anymore, they don't write xbit code. Instead they use a high-level language like C/C++. When you compile C/C++ with a right compiler, you get a 64bit code.
Linux kernel works in similar way, if you compile some file on x86 you get a 32bit code, if you compile it on 64bit machine you get a 64bit code.
x86-64 also supports SSE2, fyi. That link's a giant x86-64 FAQ.
As Intel is in no hurry to make the jump to 64-bit desktops...
Well yea, have you SEEN Intel's attempt at 64 bits?
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now people can cheat tiwce as fast as before?
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Everybody who has preordered The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, where everything looks like a cartoon, disagrees with you.
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Motherboard in my IBM NetVista computer (1.6GHz, 512MB) just died yesterday after playing new IL-2 Sturmovik FB for couple hours. I am sure, with currently fastest available 32-bit computers you will experience some kind of slowness if you, let say, increase resolution or fly aircraft over complex terrain or with many AI objects in the scene. Therefore, biggest limitation of 32-bit computing has come to desktop due to very sophisticated games and simulations. Intel is downplaying desktop 64-bit computing because the only solution they have requires complete rewrite of all applications, which very few can afford. AMD has great chance with Opteron to take the lead and shake Intel Empire.
Does anyone know what the story is with Valve? They worked for years and then came out with Half-Life, a huge monster hit. They re-wrote major portions of the Quake engine to do it! They had huge frickin levels! This wasn't two guys in a garage somewhere.
And then... lots of nothing. Half-Life: Opposing Force and Half-Life: Blue Shift were done by Gearbox. Counter-strike was mostly done by people outside Valve.
Did Valve lay off most of the people who worked on Half-Life? If not, how are they paying all those salaries? Does Valve have any actual projects in the pipeline (little pun there) or is Team Fortress 2 all they are working on? (And does anyone think TF2 will actually ever ship?)
For that matter, who the heck is Gearbox? Was it spun off in some way from Valve, or is it something else? How big is Gearbox?
I think that something really bad must have happened to Valve. But I don't have any idea what it was.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
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.
I was 64 bit gaming on that in the early 1980s! Oh wait, that was 64 kB. Almost the same thing I guess....
How much of the 30% gain was due to the jump to 64 bits and how much was due to improved compilers, unrelated improvements to the CPU architecture, higher clock speed, etc?
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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Open Source Sysadmin
64 bits ought to be enough for anybody.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
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...
strange, my P2-350 (yes 350 MHz) with 128 MB SD-RAM (100 MHz) did CS dedicated servers very well with 10-20 players, running linux. At the same time, it was router, DHCP, DNS etc.
For testing I play CS with 31 podbots with AI Enhancments on my workstation. I have CS Server running with admin mod/etc in the background, and another CS session for myself to play test.
CPU AMD XP1800, ATI9700/Audigy1, runs 100fps average on both server/client, but if I enable EAX it dips to 40's due to CPU load. Also AA turned on in the client doesnt seem to effect the server running in the background, so I run about 4x AA with 16x AF. (No trueform enabled)
But this is just for localized playing. Game hosting companies might use this 64bit machines. They need to run multiple copies on the same machine to turn a profit. We currently rent a CS server process at http://rentals.nuclearfallout.net/ for a 24 users. I know they run at least 4 cs processes per server. You can tell by the way which your CS server uses ports 27015-27018, unless they bind a CS server to an IP. (Hey can I patent that? j/k)
Valve has announced "immediate availability" of TF2 next week
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.
"The Atari Jaguar was the first 64 bit game machine, predates the N64 by a few years.."
The Jaguar was not 64-bit. They were using the same kind of math that the RIAA used to say that somebody had more CD burners than they really did. "We have more processors, that means we have more bits to play with!"
To put it another way, it was like saying my dual Athlon machine is 64-bit.
I run the servers for a washington D.C ~200+ player lanparty Capitol Punishment, and I know that we could use this kind of hardware. At the moment, we have to split our 10player counter-strike cs servers between at least 2 dual cpu boxes w/ scsi etc to excellent performance on lan. I know what I'm talking about, we are coming up on our 6th. Add to this various addons like adminmod, or in our events case, the wwcl plugin to make sure people arent abusing console variables, and you quickly need more horsepower to keep the pings low, and the choke low, so on and so forth.
To some it doesn't matter, but in a competitive environment, you want the fastest shit you can find. And spreading that across 2-4 boxes makes management a bitch. Not mentioning other servers for other games being run at the same time.
Now, the funny question, is what is the CPL going to do, since it's an Intel sponsored event. Although I won't disagree that some dual 3ghz+ xeon servers w/ scsi and dual channel ddr don't already make great game servers for my needs.
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Is this a binary release for x86 servers only? How about a release for SPARC64?
Actually I always thought the most embarrasing thing was that there was no such frigging thing as a "3D0 Machine"... After years of PCs and their "standards" there was no way i would have spent that much cash on a machine based on some specifications :)
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I always wondered. Would a Dual Athlon machine be called a BiAthlon?
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