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64-Bit Gaming Oversold to Consumers
Ryan Shrout writes "Recently AMD and Atari have both been promoting the game "Shadow Ops: Red Mercury" as the first 64-bit game to hit retail shelves. Even without an operating system ready for it, both companies want us to believe that the 64-bit version of the game adds a large amount of detail and visual quality that the 32-bit version just can't handle. PC Perspective decided to go buy the game and test those claims."
64bit game?
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Urm correct me if i am wrong - but N64 and howabout the Atari Jaguar? werent these 64bit consoles? and jees isnt the Emotion Engine (PS2) an 128bit processor? I think we have had 64bit (and higher) games for a while. This seems to be just as far fetched as Apples "Worlds first 64bit desktop computer"
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
64 bit proccessors are still new, and aren't going to crush 32 bit anytime soon. As the article mentions, the only difference between the two versions they noticed was the 64bit had the extra things like rocks and stuff. Although things like that do take up substantial computing power, todays 64bit proccessors aren't going to have an easier time doing it then the 32bit counterparts. So we can conclude (as the article suggests) that they were added in there just for marketing purposes.
Once RAM gets cheaper, then 64bit gaming will start to seperate from 32bit. 64bit processors pass the 4GB RAM barrier that 32bit ones are stuck by. I think the maximum is around 16exabytes or soemthing (it goes GB, TB, PB, EB) Also, in a few years the fabrication proccess will have advanced, allowing them to stick more transistors on a chip (which isn't a benifit of 64bit or anything, but by that time theyre gonna at least be slowing production on 32bit proccessors if not completly stopped)
Admittedly I haven't played it and game reviews are pretty subjective in my mind, but it seems Atari should have spent time makin' a more grounding breaking game gameplay wise than fiddling with making it 64-bit
No sig for you!!
AMD is trying to tell consumers that a 64-bit architecture will make for a more enjoyable gaming experience. This reminds me of the marketing hype Intel was pushing about how MMX would make games that supported it oh so much better. As most PC gamers have learned by now, switching from last year's top-of-the-line processor to this year's top-of-the-line processor will gain you about 5%-10% frames per second. On the other hand, switching from last year's top-of-the-line graphics card to this year's top-of-the-line graphics card will gain you 50%-100% frames per second. The limiting factor in today's games isn't the CPU; it's the graphics card. The 64-bit transition will probably bring better performance gains than boosting the processor speed would, but still: all it gives you are higher framerates and faster loading times. Now this may allow for higher detail and visual quality for the 64-bit version at the same frame rate as a lower quality setting in the 32-bit version, but 64-bit gaming does not magically give you higher detail and visual quality on its own. Trying to get the point across with side-by-side screenshots is pointless. Real graphical processes like anti-aliasing, pixel shading, or ATI's Truform result in visible differences, but a performance increase is a performance increase. Konami didn't go from this to this by taking their Playstation code, sprinkling some 128-bit word size pixie dust and recompiling it for the Gamecube.
What about Unreal Tournament 2004? Not only did UT2k4 ship with Win32/64 binaries (and support), but it also shipped with linux32/64 and mac binaries (no support).
This is only valid for 64bit applications. The parent was talking about 32 bit applications being run on the 64bit architechture. They don't take advantage of the increased register size so what again is your point?
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Nobody upgrades their processor because it has twice as many bits. Everybody is just looking at the (unscientific, but far more reality-based for comparison) clockspeed rating.
Besides what does it mean that the processor has n bits? That's the word size! (or is it? It's such a bloody useless processor comparison metric that even I am confused.) We're not exactly in the stone age anymore. There's tons of more factors these days that make or break the thing.
This is just marketing rubbish. The "n bits" is so wrong as a marketing gimmick on multiple levels.
Remember when people moved away from 8 bits to 16 bits? Why did people move from C64 to Amiga, or from NES to SNES? Better graphics. Better sound. Faster load times, more storage (=less floppies to switch... well, theoretically). Nobody would admit that the only reason was because there was some magical performance boost due to switching to 16-bit architecture. (This, of course, from the consumer point of view. Coders might find it the only real reason.)
The point is, when the 16-bit systems were introduced, they weren't just introducing 16-bit processors. What was in Amiga that wasn't in Commodore 64? Cool graphics processors, a big honkin' sound unit, a 3.5" floppy drive (going from 332k to 880k without obscure floppy cutting rituals, whee!), more than apparently eight times as much memory... get the picture?
So if you double your bittitude, you have to also double everything else, or otherwise this is a pretty damn pointless thing.
Back when the PII was being launched with MMX, Intel gave the company I worked for then some money to help develop a game we were writing. A version would be bundled with new PII machines that would take advantage of MMX instructions and provide some extra features.
As it turned out, MMX wasn't all that well suited for gaming but we had some stuff in there that used MMX to generate some procedural textures on the fly, that kind of thing.
We shipped the code to Intel, and it went out with lots of Intel machines.
Later we shipped the retail version of the game - still 'enhanced for MMX'.
However, I was later working on a patch, or new networking code for the game or something (I don't remember exactly now), when I came across the source of the main bit that did the procedural textures. It had a check in to see if you had MMX and was meant to use it, falling back on a normal ASM bit if you didn't. There was also the reference C version still hanging around in the code that we had originally tested with.
When I looked at the code however, it turned out that some bright spark had obviously #ifdeffed out the ASM and MMX versions while tracking down a bug or something and had forgotten to put them back.
The version we originally shipped contained no MMX code.
Oooops.
I think some of the later builds we did (including I think the American version, as it came out some time later in the States than it did in Europe) actually had the MMX stuff all working, but it just goes to show that much of this stuff is marketing hype...
For the most part, I don't believe that gamers will be taking advantage of the 64-bit chips. I run a 2200+ Athlon, paired with a FX5200 card for the GPU, which is a 256-bit chip. (Correct me if I'm wrong). If I were to go with a 3000+ or 3200+ CPU and a 6800PRO GPU, then I would be able to run games at a comparable speed to those systems using a 64-bit CPU. It's really all about the GPU, and other tweaks that can be applied. That, and the fact that games and other programs have to be written specifically to take advantage of a 64-bit chip. Rumors that MS is going to release a 64-bit tailored version of XP are enough to make me want to stick with what I've got right now. Why pay for another chip, OS, and possibly a new version of the game I've already bought?
"What I cary in this box is your utter subjugation."