Re: 64-bit transition deadline (Re: Etch in the hands of the Stable Release Managers)

[Matthias Julius <lists@julius-net.net>]

Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> writes:

> You mean win64-only games?  Nobody dares to invest in developing that now;
> it would be suicidal.

I don't know about the practices of game developers, but, from what I
see on Linux it should be minimal effort to port a software to 64 bit
if it is written right.  So, I would expect developers to keep
64-safety in mind when writing new code.  Eventually this would lead to
programs that can be built for 64bit systems.  And since 64bit CPUs
are available for consumers since a while now I would have hoped this
process has started 5 years ago.

There seems to be a market for high-end gaming hardware.  I imagine
there are people willing to pay a premium for 64bit games that produce
a 10% higher frame rate, too.

> If a game really needs bigmem, PAE is much more feasible (it is a
> trap, but that's not a problem for the game vendor ;-)).

Isn't PAE a performance hog?  And it still limits the amount of memory
a process can get.

Matthias