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[Putnam]

This June, when (supposedly) Microsoft does one more big push to get folks on Vista and 7 to upgrade to 10 for free, the ~7% of 32-bit Windows 7 users will probably drop off further.  (Around 97% of Windows 10 installs are 64-bit.) 

Upgrading a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS won't make your computer 64-bit...

[Max™]

I don't think you are going to find people playing DF on a Pentium 4 or Athlon, and I think most of the stuff like mifki wizarding up iDorfing is using cloud computing rather than asking the ARM chip in your smartphone to handle the heavy lifting.

[NW_Kohaku]

Yes, and that's all nice. But what are the advantages? I, and probably most other non-technically minded folk here, really don't care what's not possible. Basically you're saying Toady has been fooled into wasting time making a 64 bit Dwarf Fortress which does nothing and for some reason wants us all to get excited about the nothingness. Great.

Ever since DF2012, (which introduced the expanded worldgen populations,) it has been impossible to run worldgen for the full 1050 years on the large or even medium world sizes because it would overflow 2gb in memory.  Making it so his game can run as he intended for it to run is the only reason he needs to make the investment in time to create a 64-bit version of the game. 

Things like being able to better take advantage of a 64-bit CPU architecture are nice, but far less valuable than just going back and optimizing the base code, which would likely take far less effort on Toady's part, since he openly admits he has serious room for optimizations, yet.  There wouldn't be reason to switch to 64-bit for that, alone. 

Regardless, I didn't mention building your computer around the upcoming change to 64-bit because there isn't any reason it should change your purchasing strategy.  You still want any reasonably modern middle- or top-of-the-line CPU with the biggest L4 cache you can buy, and DDR3 RAM (DDR4 isn't quite there yet with speed, as far as I've read, and costs far more, check back in a few years) with the highest memory clock and lowest CAS latency you can buy. 

Hypothetically, yes, 64-bit means you'd have a reason to buy more than 4 GB of RAM, but seriously, who's buying an i5 processor, and only slotting 4 GB of RAM in next to it in 2016?  It ultimately means nothing to the type of computer you'd want to buy, since, unless you're literally buying a computer ONLY to run 32-bit DF. In most cases, you don't even have the option to buy something that doesn't run just as well in 64-bit architecture without looking through garbage dumps or cobweb-strewn backs of warehouses.

[Max™]

Yeah, I've got a little frankensteined system I put together in an old HP media center case with an i3-3220 and 8 GB of ram just because it was cheap as hell. Though I do feel that using the integrated graphics for a while when my old vidja card died was harder on it, but it's ran great since I grabbed a GT 730 to swap out the old one, runs df well unless I'm next to a packed library full of murder, or worse.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Still wasn't that bad considering all the nonsense taking place.

[Miuramir]

This June, when (supposedly) Microsoft does one more big push to get folks on Vista and 7 to upgrade to 10 for free, the ~7% of 32-bit Windows 7 users will probably drop off further.  (Around 97% of Windows 10 installs are 64-bit.) 

Upgrading a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS won't make your computer 64-bit...

I haven't been able to find any solid, easy-to read stats on this, but my professional experience as a sysadmin is that the majority of people running 32-bit Vista and 7 as their OS, are doing so on computer hardware that is 64-bit compliant.  64-bit XP was genuinely flaky and poorly supported in some respects, so for Vista in particular a lot of folks who didn't have the luxury of testing took the "safe" route and went with 32-bit Vista.  Unfortunately, Microsoft never figured out an upgrade process that could go from 32-bit Vista to 64-bit 7; so my estimate is that a substantial fraction of the 32-bit 7 installs were upgrades from Vista. 

Another factor is that there was a time when RAM was proportionally much more expensive than it is today; there was an unfortunate perception in the late naughties that if you were getting a cheap desktop with only 1 or 2 GB RAM to keep the cost down, there was no point in putting a 64-bit OS on it. 

As noted in my previous post, any x86 computer less than about 10 years old has a decent chance of having 64-bit hardware; Intel Core 2 was released July 2006 with a true 64-bit architecture for mass production.  (Some Pentium 4 / early Xeon era CPUs were 64-bit hardware around two years before that, but they were more for the workstation and enthusiast market.)  AFAIK all Core 2 and Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs are 64-bit hardware. 

[TheBiggerFish]

PTW for technical discussion and stuff.

[Thief^]

I haven't been able to find any solid, easy-to read stats on this, but my professional experience as a sysadmin is that the majority of people running 32-bit Vista and 7 as their OS, are doing so on computer hardware that is 64-bit compliant.  64-bit XP was genuinely flaky and poorly supported in some respects, so for Vista in particular a lot of folks who didn't have the luxury of testing took the "safe" route and went with 32-bit Vista.  Unfortunately, Microsoft never figured out an upgrade process that could go from 32-bit Vista to 64-bit 7; so my estimate is that a substantial fraction of the 32-bit 7 installs were upgrades from Vista. 

Another factor is that there was a time when RAM was proportionally much more expensive than it is today; there was an unfortunate perception in the late naughties that if you were getting a cheap desktop with only 1 or 2 GB RAM to keep the cost down, there was no point in putting a 64-bit OS on it. 

As noted in my previous post, any x86 computer less than about 10 years old has a decent chance of having 64-bit hardware; Intel Core 2 was released July 2006 with a true 64-bit architecture for mass production.  (Some Pentium 4 / early Xeon era CPUs were 64-bit hardware around two years before that, but they were more for the workstation and enthusiast market.)  AFAIK all Core 2 and Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs are 64-bit hardware. 

I'd agree with 10 years. The first 64-bit CPUs were the AMD Athlon 64, which launched in 2003. Intel took a few years to catch up to that, and then every chip sold was 64-bit, except some really low end stuff that you wouldn't be running DF on anyway.

I remember getting 64-bit XP at the time, MS had a free trade-in offer for 32-bit XP serials for the 64-bit version, due to PC makers that were selling their PCs as "64-bit" without a 64-bit OS installed. I didn't find it flaky at all, it was actually a really good OS. The biggest problems I had were related to games, due to either having DRM that installed as a driver (32-bit drivers not being compatible with 64-bit Windows) - I just cracked those - or games that were still using ancient 16-bit installers. Microsoft resolved the latter in later Windows by having the OS detect old installers and transparently substituting them with MS re-written ones that are 64-bit compatible. MS really do go to great lengths for backwards compatibility.

[Starver]

If the only reason for a 64 bit version is to prevent a crash when worldgen gets too large, then what's the point? Just stop worldgen from getting too large. Problem solved.

Which means forcing smaller/shorter worlds.

"... forcing not-larger/not-longer worlds."

(They way you say it makes it sound like a downgrape from a currently viable . It's just a throttle on a perhaps theoretical greater capability.)

[Putnam]

It totally is a downgrade from what's currently viable, you can easily make a world that a 32-bit DF cannot handle without going into advanced settings.

[Shonai_Dweller]

It totally is a downgrade from what's currently viable, you can easily make a world that a 32-bit DF cannot handle without going into advanced settings.

A 32 bit Windows DF anyway. One without the large address aware flag set. It's harder at the slightly higher levels of Ram everyone else gets to play with to crash the game in basic worldgen.

[Starver]

It totally is a downgrade from what's currently viable, you can easily make a world that a 32-bit DF cannot handle without going into advanced settings.

I tend to generate max-sized worlds (for diverse location-choice, in Fortress, or plenty of territory in Adventure) for the longest length of history (typically sending it to year 1050, I think it is).  And that on (as you know from the other thread) somewhat archaic hardware. I can't remember the last time I got a crash (would have been pre-2010), even when I did go into Advanced settings and did all sorts of messing about including demanding 30+ layers betwixt all caverns. I don't think there's any other non-Advanced setting I haven't simultaneously maxed-out (or minned-out, for less history and more odd primeval creatures, perhaps?), and never turned off temperatures/etc.

I can't prove a negative, especially if it has apparently happened elsewhere, but I know I've personally avoided this, by good luck or good management.  Just a datum, not an argument. (Hesitated to reply, in case it looked that way, but it looks like I have done.)

[Putnam]

Right, should've mentioned how 16x16 embarks are completely impossible, too.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Anyone who's claiming that 64-bit is useless because it won't help us much now:

You're looking at it completely wrong. Sure, it doesn't have the largest effect on the next few years of development. But DF will get more complex. That's a given. Computers will get better at handling these complexities, with larger CPUs and RAMs. That's also a given. 64-bit is the only way for DF to increase in complexity and keep up with recent computing developments. Otherwise, we're stuck in the past.

"Why not do it later?" Why not? Why wait half a year now if we could wait two years next decade?

It will have to be done before v.1.00.0, as will multithreading, if Toady wants DF to be more than a lagfest of suck. The things on his to-do list - oh! such wonder! I can hardly wait for them to come. But they will require rewrites to handle multithreading and 64-bit. So why not now? A stitch in time saves nine.

[Isaacc7]

I thought Zack said that 64 bit could really help out adventure mode. You have access to the entire world in adventure mode so maybe that is what makes extra RAM more useful.

Another aspect of the move to 64 bit is he will be using a different compiler. Not sure if the old one was just old or if there are big advantages to a different one but it is part of the change.

[Jimmius]

It will have to be done before v.1.00.0, as will multithreading, if Toady wants DF to be more than a lagfest of suck. The things on his to-do list - oh! such wonder! I can hardly wait for them to come. But they will require rewrites to handle multithreading and 64-bit. So why not now? A stitch in time saves nine.

Speaking of that particular Thralled Elephant in the room, has there been any more word on the possibility of multi-threading? A while ago the official word was 'never', then a little later it was 'eventually, but I don't really want to'. What are we at now?