Skyrim 64 bit : V - Skyrim

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:14 am

I doubt it Bethesda ports their games instead of making a separate PC version.

Nearly everyone does this, because otherwise it would be far too expensive. However, I recall reading somewhere that Bethesda actually does use two dev teams - one for consoles, and another for PC's - who both share a single "art" team. This would imply that while some tech sharing may happen, they aren't doing a straight port like most publishers. Unlike EA, gamesas seems to have realized there is more to porting than just remapping the console buttons to keys.

However, that said I still wouldn't expect the PC version to be light years ahead of the console version. It will still have to look the same, use the same art resources, etc. I would also bet that the actual "game engine" is identical as well.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:04 am

I think it's still too early for 64-bit games, as so many PCs are still running on 32-bit Windows. It would make a large segment of the PC population unable to play the game well, if at all, and that would hurt sales.

Oops, I said sales. Can't hurt those.

I expect a 32-bit experience.

Maybe the next Fo or TES game...

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:02 am

is that better than what is used now? if so. i guess. but my main concerns aren't with graphics, but with content. I would be happy with graphics par with FO3 if there was a larger map and more weapons and armor.

not really graphics, it has alot more to do with how mcu stuff can be going on at once

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:17 am

I think it's still too early for 64-bit games, as so many PCs are still running on 32-bit Windows. It would make a large segment of the PC population unable to play the game well, if at all, and that would hurt sales.

Oops, I said sales. Can't hurt those.

I expect a 32-bit experience.

Maybe the next Fo or TES game...

So have two seperate sets of executables and .dlls, one 32-bit and one 64-bit. Everyone wins.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:18 am

XP are nearing the end, true. The release of Wndows 7 is pretty much the big sign. Vista was horrible, but 7 seems a worthy upgrade. Ofcourse XP will still be better for older PC's and still have their place, but it's not them that are holding games back graphically. If you have to look somewhere, look to the consoles for that. And that's not as bad as people think. I see games that are better optimized (eg Mass effect 2 was much faster and smoother than Mass effect 1, with better graphics, even on older PC's), and I see good gameplay. Many people into PC's IMO didn't realize when to upgrade. A bit after the consoles were introduced (in order to get a PC that's a bit stronger) seems like the best timing. I did that and my PC still plays everything nicely with no need for upgrades (only upgraded my old GPU at some point because I wanted to be even more comfortable). I have a feeling this will be a circle we'll be seeing a couple more times in the future.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:32 pm

I have a Windows 7 home edition. Why do I have Program Files and then Program Files (x86)? Is mine a 64 bit machine?

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:09 pm

I have a Windows 7 home edition. Why do I have Program Files and then Program Files (x86)? Is mine a 64 bit machine?

Mine is a x64 bit system, and that's the way my Program Files are arranged (W7 HE too). Yeah I think you've got a 64 bit machine.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 11:59 am

Probably the x86 are for the 32 bits, the other is for the 64. I think you can find what edition you have if you right click "my computer" and select properties. I'm on XP right now so I can't test it for 7 but it sounds right. If it says 64, you have 64

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:09 pm

I have a Windows 7 home edition. Why do I have Program Files and then Program Files (x86)? Is mine a 64 bit machine?

Probably the x86 are for the 32 bits, the other is for the 64. I think you can find what edition you have if you right click "my computer" and select properties. I'm on XP right now so I can't test it for 7 but it sounds right. If it says 64, you have 64

Exactly, the 32 Bit progams are in 'Program Files (x86)' and the 64 bit programs in 'Program Files'

To Topic:
64 bit in games isn't really that necessary right now. For streaming purposes and for calculations (physics) it would be nice, but that will come when more pc users have 64 bit and when 32 bit is dead.
With Win7 this time will come soon, so lets wait two or three years.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 4:49 pm

Exactly, the 32 Bit progams are in 'Program Files (x86)' and the 64 bit programs in 'Program Files'

To Topic:
64 bit in games isn't really that necessary right now. For streaming purposes and for calculations (physics) it would be nice, but that will come when more pc users have 64 bit and when 32 bit is dead.
With Win7 this time will come soon, so lets wait two or three years.

2-3 years is ridiculous given how trivially easy it is to write a new program that supports both architectures.

64-bit processors have been out since 2003. It's time to get with the program.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:26 pm

I'd rather have an N64 version than a 64 bit version.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:10 pm

I'd rather have an N64 version than a 64 bit version.

Kind of hard to do considering the N64 is 64-bits.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:09 pm

that will come when more pc users have 64 bit and when 32 bit is dead.
With Win7 this time will come soon, so lets wait two or three years.

As of June 2010, 46% of PCs with Win7 were running the 64-bit version.

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2010/07/08/64-bit-momentum-surges-with-windows-7.aspx

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:34 pm

Also, this describes http://www.viva64.com/en/a/0004/ when porting to 64-bits.

Almost all of it is related to bad coding practices that should never have been done in the first place. By making your program have both a 64-bit and 32-bit version, it helps to reduce bugs due to sloppy code since a lot of things you can get away with (but really shouldn't do) on a 32-bit system break on a 64-bit system.

It's better to start out 64-bit since it's a brand new engine from scratch. It's much more painful to have to go back and fix bad code since 64-bit porting issues are notoriously difficult to track down (A truncated pointer for example, won't necessarily crash the program; just cause bizarre behaviour such as retrieving incorrect data or doing incorrect calculations. For example, as an abstract example, a truncated pointer could cause destruction spells to do no damage at all no matter how powerful because it's pulling the damage variable from the wrong section of memory. Or in a real world example, on DOSBOX, I helped fix a number of 64-bit bugs. In particular, there was one bug with a sloppy variable cast that caused Daggerfall to refuse to run. But every other program worked fine. It took over a week of back and forth with the primary developer to track down the bug which turned out to be fixed by changing one line of code).

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:51 am

As of June 2010, 46% of PCs with Win7 were running the 64-bit version.

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2010/07/08/64-bit-momentum-surges-with-windows-7.aspx

Wow, thats little, I thought most Win7 users have 64bit.
By far most WinXP user have 32bit (my guess), the majority of Win7 user have 32 bit. So I correct my statement of 64 bit programs in 2 or 3 years to 5 years

.
However, practically, 64bit technology has its main advantages in accuracy in calculations (at the moment) and the big disadvantage of using far more memory. I guess thats why nearly no "mainstream" program supports 64 right now. But the time will come

.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:49 pm

Using far more memory? I'm not sure where you got that idea from. While it's true that pointers will use double the space, it would be a very special application indeed to be keeping track of enough pointers for that to be a serious issue. Most "mainstream" applications don't support 64bit because most "mainstream" applications don't need any of its advantages.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:19 am

I bet if Skyrim was 64 bit for the mac it could potentially run better than the windows 64 bit version on similar hardware...

Windows still has a lot of bloat and isnt as clean as Mac code. I would say Windows has in the millions of more lines of code than Mac. All unnecessary if you ask me, since you can unlegitly run Mac OS X on any PC (if you can get drivers).

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:48 am

This thread is over 3 months old?

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:04 am

This thread is over 3 months old?

It's funny. People tell others to use the Search function and when they do, they get comments like this.

Anyways, I'm hoping for a 64bit version. It'd run smoother if it did.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:58 pm

+1 for Super Skyrim 64

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 8:58 pm

It's funny. People tell others to use the Search function and when they do, they get comments like this.

Anyways, I'm hoping for a 64bit version. It'd run smoother if it did.

The game would not necessarily run smoother if it was 64 bit. It would only allow it to address more memory, and while that might allow loading world geometry earlier and such it should run fine with 32 bit too.

Kind of hard to do considering the N64 is 64-bits.

The N64 actually mostly used 32 bit instructions. It supported 64 bit instructions but they weren't used often. Cartridges aside, it was still the most powerful console of its generation though.

» Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:31 am

From the GI Podcast Q&A which was transcribed by member Vamphaery :
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2011/02/03/toddhowardse.aspx

41:02 Will there be an X64 version for PC players? High resolution textures (will they have to be modded in?) Do you have a dedicated group for the PC version? "We work on it together. The main thing for people to know is our background is PC games. The game is authored here on PCs. That's what we work on. A lot of the team is playing the game on PC all day. We do want the platforms to each have a really, really high level of fidelity. I personally play a lot on the Xbox. It tends to be my preferred platform. We do a lot of graphics development still FIRST on the Xbox, just because it's smoother. And then a lot of that stuff does go over to the PC.
We tend to do as much as we can as the project goes on, because we want to support as wide a range as possible. We also tend to do that stuff late, because right now we want to work on the main game and how it plays and getting the graphics fast everywhere, and then as the project gets closer to release we start supporting all those other things. You'll definitely be able to run the PC on a much higher resolution. All of our games that we've done so far - Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout - the PC versions have higher res textures they ship with by default. A lot of times you don't notice that, because when you play a console game you're sitting six to ten feet away from the screen. Whereas on the PC, you're sitting a foot, two feet away from the screen. Those kinds of differences in texture resolution, you don't notice unless you're looking at two screenshots on a computer and flipping between them. We are gonna support that stuff. I can't say how far. But the same thing with the interface. We do a lot of PC interface stuff. There are uniquenesses [sic] to how we handle it on the PC."