64 Bit Support
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Programming/64 Bit Support
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| Are there any plans to create a 64-bit version of BlitzMax? |
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| why? it should run fine on 64bit os. |
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| Running a 32 bit app supported by a 64 bit CPU is not as efficient as a 64-bit native app which can do twice as much data movement/computation in the same time. |
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| You wont really gain anything performance wise on a straight port to 64bit, and the memory requirements could potentially double. |
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| Are there any plans to create a 64-bit version of BlitzMax? Nope. |
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| Thanks, Mark. There are only few application types that really benefit from 64-bit technology. I was just curious because it's obvious that Apple and Microsoft are slowly phasing out 32 bit technologies (e.g., Carbon was 32-bit only and is now deprecated, Exchange Server 2007 is 64-bit only). |
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| Server technology is 64bit only, even the OS itself, so it makes no sense to have it on 32bit (64bit Windows have security features that make them highly unliked on the gamer and home user market as well so it will definitely not phase out during the next 3+ years where Vista and XP are the core OS) |
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| If over a few percent(at least 10%?) ppl use 64bit OSes and play/buy the game we make, it's worth to make 64bit support, otherwise we don't need to care too much. When the time comes Mark'll be ready for that. |
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| Microsoft's plans actually don't bother me. I deal with MS stuff only in my daytime job, where a lot of that has to do with their servers. However, being a Mac-only user at home, Apple's clear signals do bother me, at least on the long run. I know that it won't be a problem for quite a while, because they will have to support 32-bit software for years to come. I was just curious about the long term perspective with BlitzMax and if an architectural change already appears somewhere on the roadmap. I would need to buy new hardware for that. ;-) |
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| Theres very little so far that benefits from 64bit. Only thing i can think of is ram hungry apps. |
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| Which take more ram due to the minimum size of 64bit not 32bit anymore (OS don't adress byte or bitwise, its always the bitsize of the OS itself that is adress and the rest is shifted ) but yeah, 64bit gives you quite little if you are not up to calculation heavy stuff ie not BM :) |
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| and the memory requirements could potentially double. Why would they do that? There are only few application types that really benefit from 64-bit technology. Yes. Video games being one of them. Why do you think console games typically have superior performance on consoles, despite their often limited hardware? When the time comes Mark'll be ready for that. You mean like with multiple core processors and programmable pipeline graphics cards? Theres very little so far that benefits from 64bit. Do you think that's mainly due to the fact that you're using an archaic operating system? |
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| You know that the 64bit isn't even nearly the reason that Consoles perform better: 1. Their hardware is totally differently layouted from PC (the only exception crashed badly and never created any income per sold console. Its known as the XBox). A CPU from a console can't be compared to an Intel or AMD even in its best days (not counting the fact that their CPUs are 128bit not 64 and are not multitasking chips as on desktops, they are approaching more and more what GPUs are already - stream processors which are far superior to desktop cpus ... but can not do multitasking really well. The X360 cpu power needed to do video decoding while in the dash board shows that ... 6 parallel threads should be enough with that GPU but it does seem to get all 3 cores to 100% ... ) 2. The GPU in a console is a special construction. They often feature technologies that the console creators have exclusively licensed for 1-2 gpu generations. Best example for that were 1-2 ati technologies in the GameCube (pre 8500 ATI) that needed until 9600 to end up on the mainstream GPUs 3. last but not least the memory and bandwidth structure is that fundamentally different that each attempt to compare a console to anything else than a IBM server cluster is a noobish joke. XDR RAM, T1 RAM, bandwidths that are not possible on desktops due to the variable pipeline (several PCI and PCIe slots, ATAs, SATA and all that crap makes the board slower the more you can potentially add as the bus gets longer and longer) |
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| When I remember the paper of Tim Sweeney right, multiple cores make game development harder, not easier and seemingly it also does not necessarily make games perform better. Games seem to be an application type that is hard to parallelize. There also still is no game on the market whose 64-bit version outperformed its 32-bit version. At least I have not heard of one. Crytek tried to demonstrate that its 64-bit port of FarCry ran so much better, but in the end all performance improvements could be accredited to something other than the 64-bit code of the game. So far, the only app type that really benefits from 64-bit technology is picture processing/editing. In the end, it doesn't matter whether 64-bit brings any real advantages or not. The marketing departments of the big companies will be pushing it as the next sales argument and soon there will only 64-bit machines be sold. So we better find a tool for that in the next couple of years. |
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| there are 2 further app types that drastically improve: media encoding and file compression. Both benefit from double amount of bits per step and go up by 50-80% depending on the implementation. BUT the main reason against it: 64Bit Windows + Games deeped heartly dislike each other and as stated by Skid on the "Why no Unicode thread", BM is only meant for games officially OSX 10.4 as well is pure 32bit So the 2 most important platforms indeed don't support it. |
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| However, being a Mac-only user at home, Apple's clear signals do bother me, at least on the long run. I know that it won't be a problem for quite a while, because they will have to support 32-bit software for years to come. 32-bit windows isn't going anywhere anytime soon either, although Microsoft did that the next version of windows (codename: "Windows 7") will be 64-bit only (unlike vista and XP which have both a 32-bit and 64-bit version) |
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| Why would they do that? Because the default int & pointer size would, so depending on your usage of those the memory use would increase. |
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| Because the default int & pointer size would, so depending on your usage of those the memory use would increase. In both the LP64 and LLP64 models int is 32bit, the difference is long is 64bit in LP64 but 32bit in LLP64; Windows x64 and Visual Studio use the LLP64 model.Provided your struct contains no pointers, the 64bit LLP64 version will be the same size as the 32bit version. |
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| Take 1: A: "Hey! look at my newest game!" B: (after playing...)"Ah, it's CRAP..." A: "Why'd you say that, my game is COOL!!" B: "OK, give me a reason, why you think this crap is cool??" A: "Are you blind? It's a !!64BIT!! Game!!!!!!" B: "I think I'd rather stay with my NES Pacman..." Take 2: A: "I like 64bit applications" B: "WTF? I can't see the difference." A: "Of course you can, look that NotePad64, it's very good!" B: "I can't see the difference??" A: "NO--- You stupid!!" A: "Can't you see? it's 64BIT!! it's at least twice better than 32bit one!" Take 3: B: "What programming language is your favo?" A: "COBOL 64" B: "...." B: "Well it's lunch time" |
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| Does 64-bit make much difference to the average user right now... NO Will it eventually?... YES!!! Anybody ready to go back and run a 16 or 8 bit processor? I just wish BlitzBasic would run under, say Fedora 64 bit. I have 32 bit machines I can develop with (and do, I'm not here to knock BlitzBasic!), but my apps work hand in hand with, and are developed together with, hardware. Get a couple o' things like 3d Cadd, Schematic/simulate package, PC board layout, BlitzBasic, FPGA development environment, Microcontroller development environment and a browser (or two or three) to look up parts, Windows AND Linux VMs to test on, and YES, it makes a difference! |
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| I've seen no difference between 32bit and 64bit, other than the allowance for more ram. |
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| Stop dreaming, buy a Grey Alien Game Framework, and start making... I can't thinking better.... well, if things go, about 64bit, then a 128bit tech will come, you chasing it but did nothing earns into your pocket that's just fun enough. |
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| What if we don't want to make a game? |
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| then Blitz is not the language for you. Its only advertised to work for games, not for apps so in case you run into problems, it might be up to you to solve them. (like non-unicodeness of the core and IO) |
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| then Blitz is not the language for you. Nonsense :-p |
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| A Man-Machine interface is just a game that does real stuff! Blitz makes my MMIs ROCK! Multi thousand dollar MMI-control apps look like, uh, well, not so good next to my Blitz MMIs. Yes, It's true, there will always be 'bigger, better' on the way, whether you need it or not. I have an old textbook that decried the foolishness of hooking a disk drive to a microprocrssor.. Who would ever need it!!! |
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| Actually, the main part of my income is from Google Adsense, I made an little game in BMax as advertising and it brought good traffic. I have a job, but Google(Technically BMax) brings extra hundreds that helped my House loan. I also did some e-cards or internet radio with it, I can prove it also works with APPs. |
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