The Pentium or Athlon PC that you’re most likely viewing this article on is based off of a 32-bit architecture, using a 32-bit operating system. (“32 bit†is a measurement of the size of instructions that the processor accepts). But the mavens of silicon are trying to usher in a new 64-bit era, as evidenced by a presentation at the 2003 Game Developers Conference sponsored by AMD. It’s a significant jump! PC processors made the transition to 32-bit way back when the 286 chipset gave way to the 386, and Windows made the transition when Windows 95 became Microsoft’s new flagship consumer OS.
AMD Engineer Mike Wall talks about the upcoming AMD 64-bit processors. But what will this technological leap mean to you, the gamer? What’s it mean for the gaming industry, historically seen as the engine that drives advancement in PC design? The short answer is that it may take a couple of years for end-users like us to really feel the results, but the generational leap in technology has already started to impact game production and it’s going to lead to bigger and better things down the road.
64-Bit PC Processors Mean Better Game Development Tools
There’s a speed benefit that comes from upgrading to a 64-bit system, but more importantly the new architecture allows people to build PC workstations with more RAM. Current 32-bit systems top out at 4GB of RAM, but 32-bit Windows only allows 2GB. As Epic’s Tim Sweeney (lead engineer of the Unreal engine) said on a recent Slashdot thread, “On a daily basis we’re running into Windows’ 2GB memory limitations.â€
It’s in the creation of complex 3D worlds that that extra memory is key. Maps or models or animations will render faster. The turnaround time for creating, compiling, testing, and changing code or levels will be much faster. Although, it’s more likely that developers will just suck up the extra resources to create bigger, more detailed environments. Either way, the gamer will soon start seeing results. Epic is already excited about the 64-bit development systems they’ve been testing, and Sweeny has said that their next-generation engine will require 64-bit systems for all of their development tools.
Eric Johnson and Don Ledford from Valve described the advantages of porting their Counter-Strike servers. 64-Bit PC Processors Mean Better Game Servers
Game servers are another place where the additional memory will have a big impact. New 64-bit processors can support up to 16GB of RAM per CPU, and that number is rising. That means that servers can be more efficient. You’ll be able to get more players on each server, and players can be enjoying bigger and more interactive worlds. Plus, for those of us who run game servers, there are cost benefits: large servers will require fewer CPUs, which keeps costs down.
For a case study, Valve’s Eric Johnson and Don Ledford stepped up on stage to talk about their experience porting over Counter-Strike’s Linux server to 64-bit. Counter-Strike, the most popular online action game, is a great acid-test. It’s responsible for 4.5 billion player-minutes per month worldwide, and has over 35,000 servers. In their experience, simply porting over the server code to take advantage of the new hardware and 64-Bit Linux OS gave them a 30% performance gain. That’s before adding (and taking advantage of) the extra memory. Their next step is to port over their memory-intensive development tools.
64-Bit PC Processors Mean Better Games on Your Desktop
As developers take advantage of the new hardware, they’ll be able to create better games. But we’ll really start to feel the impact of the new processor architecture as it’s rolled out on consumer systems and new 64-bit Operating Systems are released, anywhere from several months to a year or more down the road. The transition won’t be immediate, but it’s going to be big.
The extra power will enable games to render more realistic physics on the fly: Better dynamics and collisions, for example. We’ll also see more realistic simulations of effects like cloth, smoke, or water. As you’d expect, the processor will also have more power to handle things like AI. But there are other areas where it’ll affect the game experience. Real-time multi-channel audio, for instance, requires a lot of system resources.
Also, when they’re upgrading to a 64-bit system, gamers will be able to expand their system’s memory. It won’t be long before 2GB isn’t enough: You’ll want 4GB or more of RAM. And once PC users have that much space to play with, developers are going to start using it! They’ll be able to create GIANT maps and huge, seamless worlds. Tons of audio data can be stored on the system for a more realistic variety of sounds. And texture sizes won’t be so limited. In short: Bigger! Better! Faster! games.
Only time will tell if the jump to 64-bit will have as dramatic an impact as PC Gaming’s leap to 32-bit. But it’s definitely a clear milestone on the horizon.
For a game, it quite likely could end up being a small liability. If it is to be in the XBox2, that puts even further doubt of backwards compatibility to the 32-bit CPU based XBox. At worst, a "64-bit game" will effectively make an already "small" cache twice as small, not to mention negative impacts upon bus bandwidths.
