Thursday, May 24th 2012
EA-DICE Frostbite Titles in 2013 Will Require 64-bit Windows
While content-creation and media transcoding applications have transitioned to native x86-64 applications that can take advantage of large amounts of system and video memory, a similar transition by game developers has been rather slow. Very few PC games ship with 64-bit executables, as most games are ported from game consoles anyway, which have slim system requirements.
EA-DICE has been behind developing games that take advantage of the latest PC technologies (such as DirectX 11), and according to a lead developer and rendering architect with the studio, Johan Andersson, games that are driven by Frostbite engine, which are slated for 2013, will require 64-bit operating systems, these games will not run on 32-bit Windows, or in 32-bit mode, on 64-bit Windows, but with full-fledged 64-bit executables. The 64-bit address-space would allow games to take advantage of system memory over 4 GB, and more importantly, high amounts of video memory, as 2 GB and 3 GB become standard with performance-segment graphics cards.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center"><p>We'll have Frostbite-powered games in 2013 that will _require_ a 64-bit OS. If you are on 32-bit, great opportunity to upgrade to Windows 8</p>— Johan Andersson (@repi) <a href="https://twitter.com/repi/status/204501258273427456" data-datetime="2012-05-21T09:17:54+00:00">May 21, 2012</a></blockquote>
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EA-DICE has been behind developing games that take advantage of the latest PC technologies (such as DirectX 11), and according to a lead developer and rendering architect with the studio, Johan Andersson, games that are driven by Frostbite engine, which are slated for 2013, will require 64-bit operating systems, these games will not run on 32-bit Windows, or in 32-bit mode, on 64-bit Windows, but with full-fledged 64-bit executables. The 64-bit address-space would allow games to take advantage of system memory over 4 GB, and more importantly, high amounts of video memory, as 2 GB and 3 GB become standard with performance-segment graphics cards.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center"><p>We'll have Frostbite-powered games in 2013 that will _require_ a 64-bit OS. If you are on 32-bit, great opportunity to upgrade to Windows 8</p>— Johan Andersson (@repi) <a href="https://twitter.com/repi/status/204501258273427456" data-datetime="2012-05-21T09:17:54+00:00">May 21, 2012</a></blockquote>
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113 Comments on EA-DICE Frostbite Titles in 2013 Will Require 64-bit Windows
Really wish M$ would just kill 32 bit already. They have a severe dead horse beating issue they need to take out back and shoot in the head.
what they want is a PC exclusive that makes them stand out as having the most advanced game tech - the best visuals and performance, and a game they can market as using all of the ram your hardware has (seriously, anyone else find it daft to have a 3GB video card, 12/16GB of system ram, and be capped at 2 or at best 4GB of address space?)
this will work out well for them, because the community itself will just tell everyone to upgrade to 64 bit, just like they did with their high end GPU's and CPU's.
Despite what you may think, there are still a lot of legacy hardware floating about that dont have x64 compatibilty. killing 32bit would mean that small businesses will suffer because they need to fork out money for upgrades.
the transition from x32 to x64 has been real slow. but things are slowly changing for the better.
But besides that, the game industry should move away from 32-bit. I haven't seen a system sold with gaming as a main purpose that was still using a 32-bit OS. Yes, there are pre-builts that still come with 32-bit Windows installed, but they are also using onboard graphics. People are willing to upgrade components or even their entire computer just for a game, and we want to argue that upgrading their OS isn't worth while?!
And, as you pointed out, 1/3 of the market uses 32-bit at this point. They are the minority. Progress shouldn't be held back because of the minority.
:p so the saying goes....If it aint broke. dont fix it. but of course their whole network could be a lot more efficient, reliable, more secure and possibly more productive if they upgraded both their hardware and software.
I want 128bit.
Not to mention 15% are still running XP, which EA-DICE has already given the boot when they stopped supporting DX9. So the actual percentage that are getting to boot by the 64-bit decision is more like 20%.
:ohwell:
I struggle to find a use for 32 GiB RAM, nevermind that-to-the-38th-power RAM. :roll:
People just whining to whine. :slap:
If EA/DICE support a simultaneous 32 bit executable, that means they have to split their dev team up even more than they already cut all the corners they can. (while the 32 bit exe becomes used by noone except hackers that are looking for a secondary exploit.)
seems to me, like a rock solid idea, RIGHT BF3? Completely bug free!
Windows x64 has been the same product package since vista x64, there really is NO reason not to be running windows 7 x64 if you have windows 7. :rolleyes: