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"Descent" Goes For a Crowdfunding Reboot (and a Linux Version)
New submitter boll writes A bunch of Star Citizen alumns have taken it upon themselves to resurrect the hit game franchise Descent, backed by a Kickstarter campaign. If you are a semi-oldtimer on the PC gaming scene, you may fondly remember how the original Descent was among the first to provide 6 genuine degrees of freedom during intense late night LAN gaming sessions."
Reader elfindreams adds: It will be released as a PC/Mac/Linux game and will include a single player campaign and multiplayer with up to 64 combatants on a map! They are working with a number of members of the current D1/D2 community to make sure the flight/gameplay feels "old school" and they are updating the technology and game to a new generation.
The kick starter page clearly says it has a single player campaign as does the video.
the summary didn't but who reads the article anyway
If you're running 32-bit software on a 64-bit processor, you're actually running an emulator -- WOW64.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Just HOW MANY & which games ARE pure 64-bit nowadays?
There is a reason why most games are still 32-bit apps.
The big advantage of 64-bit instructions is that they can handle large amounts of RAM. If you aren't using a ton of RAM, there's little benefit to switching instruction sets. Until recently, most high-budget games were targeted at consoles with tiny amounts of RAM.
Even today, brand new computers are shipping with 4GB ram. I'm not just talking about Surface Pros and Macbook airs... Alienware is selling a dedicated gaming PC with only 4GB.
PC game developers know that requiring more than 4GB would sacrifice a chunk of their audience. So why bother porting to 64-bit? They can't really take advantage until all those 4GB machines go away.
Things are starting to turn around, though. Sony and MS have finally released consoles with 8GB ram, so we should expect to see 64-bit games appearing in the form of console ports.
You also get access to *far* more registers in 64-bit mode.
This has a large potential to greatly improve performance.