64 bit transition

[216th_Xenos]

So new Dev diary bought along the work on 64bit. For us non tech savvies, what will this bring?

 

Someone mentioned that it implies dx11+

[SqwkHappy]

So new Dev diary bought along the work on 64bit. For us non tech savvies, what will this bring?

 

Someone mentioned that it implies dx11+

 

 It could be improved performance. How much? .......

 

I wouldn't consider the 64bit move to mean a transition to a newer dx without the devs actually saying that's in their plans... BUT...

 

"Although the Oculus Rift compatibility would imply DX11???"

Edited March 17, 2016 by [MYK]Mikeypro83

[ACG_pezman]

It's a very good thing for us.  It means that the game will be able to:

 

1) Use more of your RAM

2) Use multi-threading

3) DX11 or maybe DX12 (this one has many benefits, increased performance mainly).

 

 

Multi-threading is a big one because it will allow the game to operate different aspects of the computing on different cores in your CPU.  This is a huge reason why in single-player, when large amounts of AI flights are involved (even ground forces), the game will get so laggy that it becomes unplayable.  It's because of the bottleneck created by the fact that the game isn't optimized for multi-threading.

 

These are just the ones I can think of I am sure there are more and I am also sure that I screwed something above up and will be corrected by another member. 

[Finkeren]

First and foremost it'll open up for a great deal more RAM usage, which should really help with stuttering on high end systems. Specifically it could open for more liberal use of AI planes and could potentially improve draw distance and a lot of the other optimizations that have been necessary to keep the sim running smooth.

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

Not a tech guy so I can't tell about the pure technical improvementsit brings. Incase of DCS their transition from 32 to 64 bit and consequently Dx11 made a big difference like night and day. FPS tripled (from 45 to 140 average), gameplay became much smoother and it also ran more stable (less crashes) in my case. Still we must keep in mind ED worked for years on it and has seriously overhauled their whole engine code which surely can't be epxected from a smaller team in a way shorter timeframe.

 

Still I'm confident that the improvements coming with 64 bit, even if they were only half as impressive as DCS, would be a great improvement in all aspects of the game, from mission desing and multiplayer (more ai / scenery objects, players) to graphics (draw distance, shader, texture resolution) and game stability (less CTDs / freezes) and create a much more solid base for future expansions.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Stab/JG26_5tuka

[NN_RugbyGoth]

All of the above is right. 

 

32 bits allows only to address 4Gb of RAM (system RAM AND video RAM) So, even if you are running with 4 Gb VRAM and 8 Gb System RAM, you could only use 4 Gb on those 12Gb... Therefore everything that is taking RAM has to be reduced in 32bits version (textures and draw distance particularly). Also the devs said that the skins appearing when you are looking to a plane will greatly improve with 64 bits version a few months ago.

 

I don't know the differences between DX9 and DX11, but surely a lot of improvement between those 2. They just told it could be compatible with Oculus and Vive, so DX11 at least, perhaps DX12.

 

Also when we experienced crashes with "memory could not be read" error, it was because of a bad address in RAM address table. Using all the table allowed by 

32 bits leads to those kind of errors, with 64 bits it will be gone forever!

Edited March 17, 2016 by NN_RugbyGoth

[Guest deleted@50488]

il2 BoS is slowly becoming the BEST Combat Flight SImulation for ww2 EVER!

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

Not a tech guy here but this sounds like it may help even with older 64bit systems.  I have an old i7, 9GB Ram and a 680GTX 2GB, WIN7.

Edited March 17, 2016 by 12.OIAE_Stick-95

[SR-F_Winger]

Aside from improved ram usage i think there are numerous functions/Shaders that can be utilized to make the game look far more realistic (not saying its looking bad) and perform far better than now.

See here https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff476342%28v=vs.85%29.aspx (I am also by no means a tech guy so dont ask me what does what)

Edited March 17, 2016 by StG2_Winger

[Finkeren]

Also: Let's keep in mind, that right now we know absolutely nothing other than the intent to move to 64bit was reconfirmed (was first mentioned by Han a few months ago) and that it's apparently further along than most of us thought.

 

Everything else is just pie in the sky

[Bando]

But it's great news nonetheless.

[Brano]

Not a tech guy here but this sounds like it may help even with older 64bit systems. I have an old i7, 9GB Ram and a 680GTX 2GB, WIN7.

I don't fly much nowdays and upgrade of my PC is last thing on my expense list. It would be indeed interesting to see,what this upgrade could do for older systems.

[BlueHeron]

Even on older machines these updates make a huge difference (as I've seen with DCS on a 7 year old system).  

 

The effect on FPS won't be as dramatic as moving to DirectX 11, but the extra RAM resources that come with 64-bit should certainly relieve stuttering.

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

Don't mean to be a party pooper but this thread and many answers already exists.............

 

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/21033-64bit-what-would-be-benefits-bos/

 

Maybe a MOD can combine them as the topic is rather fresh again.

Edited March 17, 2016 by [LBS]HerrMurf

[-TBC-AeroAce]

Simply 64 bit allows for double the detail/capacity(both kinda wrong semantically) of a single piece of information to be transmitted.

 

In reality it means more ram usage... It can improve CPU performance but not always.

 

Basically it like having a bigger tool box or capacity engine but the end result does not alway use the most amount of tools or the most HP to get a good result. What it does do is give more options

Edited March 19, 2016 by AeroACE

[Mysticpuma]

You would have to expect though that DX11 minimum is on the upgrade list as Oculus requires that to work. Does make you wonder though if moving to 64-bits would include a time-saving DX12 upgrade rather than DX11 and then more work to DX12? So an all in one upgrade instead if investing time upgrading to 'old' DX11 as work being done may as well take it to the latest version available and all the benefits it would bring?

 

Good news either way

[SqwkHappy]

You would have to expect though that DX11 minimum is on the upgrade list as Oculus requires that to work. Does make you wonder though if moving to 64-bits would include a time-saving DX12 upgrade rather than DX11 and then more work to DX12? So an all in one upgrade instead if investing time upgrading to 'old' DX11 as work being done may as well take it to the latest version available and all the benefits it would bring?

 

Good news either way

 

The main thing I don't see dx12 as being an option is because many people still have yet to move from win7 and may not even take up the free upgrade because Win7 still does the job. So in that case, while dx12 seems great because it is the 'latest and greatest', there will be users left behind because of the OS exclusivity.  Another thing to note is Windows 7 is only about 6 years old, while Windows XP who lost support only last year, is 14 years old.

 

 This is why I think a dx11 update would come first, if anything at all.

[coconut]

Many people think in terms of dx12 being better than dx11 because it's newer, but reality is more complex. I would say dx12 is to dx11 what C++ is to Java. Potentially dx12 allows for more draw calls, which allows for more details or more FPS. But there is a catch: That was only made possible by removing safe guards, meaning a dx12 game has more ways to crash than a dx10/dx11 game. More potential, at the cost of more risk. Same thing for Vulkan, by the way. Adopting dx12 is a gamble for a small team. Great if it works, not so great if it fails.

[TheElf]

To me the 64 bit upgrade means:

 

1) Multi-threading which means more cores if you have them contribute to all the resource heavy aspects of the game.

2) Also means the game can use more of your RAM if you have a mid to high end machine.

 

As far as graphical improvements, I hope this community doesn't go off the classic flight sim deep end.  In flight sims you can either go for intense hi res graphic models with ridiculous poly counts or you can have more airplanes rendered.  You usually can't have both. You have to strike a balance.

 

It is important that people realize that a more perfect model means you trade out play-ability and numbers.  Keep this in mind as folks who don't realize this start to crow for higher res textures and more perfect models.

 

I think the graphics as they are, aside from a few glitches are good enough.  We need to focus now on being able to display many more objects so as to fill in the empty world we live in.  More tanks, more ground units, more AAA, more AI units, more of everything.  

 

64 bit is the proverbial "Y" in the road.  Which direction do you want to go????  

[Urra]

To me the 64 bit upgrade means:

 

1) Multi-threading which means more cores if you have them contribute to all the resource heavy aspects of the game.

2) Also means the game can use more of your RAM if you have a mid to high end machine.

 

As far as graphical improvements, I hope this community doesn't go off the classic flight sim deep end. In flight sims you can either go for intense hi res graphic models with ridiculous poly counts or you can have more airplanes rendered. You usually can't have both. You have to strike a balance.

 

It is important that people realize that a more perfect model means you trade out play-ability and numbers. Keep this in mind as folks who don't realize this start to crow for higher res textures and more perfect models.

 

I think the graphics as they are, aside from a few glitches are good enough. We need to focus now on being able to display many more objects so as to fill in the empty world we live in. More tanks, more ground units, more AAA, more AI units, more of everything.

 

64 bit is the proverbial "Y" in the road. Which direction do you want to go????

Hope it can be done within the next year, because I have nice Stalingrad map with 1700 night lights, 1700 AAA guns, all the airfields armed, all towns, all bridges fortified. I'm half sure 64bit would help, only time will tell.

[BeastyBaiter]

The main thing I don't see dx12 as being an option is because many people still have yet to move from win7 and may not even take up the free upgrade because Win7 still does the job. So in that case, while dx12 seems great because it is the 'latest and greatest', there will be users left behind because of the OS exclusivity.  Another thing to note is Windows 7 is only about 6 years old, while Windows XP who lost support only last year, is 14 years old.

 

 This is why I think a dx11 update would come first, if anything at all.

 

That logic is why we have 32bit right now. RoF was released in a 64bit world, but in the interests of keeping the game accessible to older hardware (that couldn't run it anyways, it makes modern PC's chug), they restricted it to the older standard. You also have to keep in mind that although 64 bit support might pop up relatively quickly, moving to DX11 or 12 is something that will likely take years. By that time, anything but Win 10 will be an oddity and can safely be left behind. There will always be those who refuse to move on, I'm sure somewhere on SimHQ there is someone raging about how nothing is compatible with Windows 98 anymore. But those who refuse to adopt the current technology standards cannot reasonably be catered to at the expense of the other 90%+ of customers. They need to be left behind. By the time a major graphical overhaul can be made, we'll be looking at the upcoming release of DX13. So anything but DX12 just doesn't make sense at this point.

[SqwkHappy]

About multi-threading:

 

 If you've never programmed before you have to know one thing:

 

Multi-threading is a mind-boggling headache.

 

 See there is a problem with mutli-threading, and the main problem is that one thread is trying to access data, while another thread is trying to access the same data, who gets to do it first? who has to wait? While one thread is accessing the data, the other thread waits. They must wait because if the data is changed while one thread is trying to change or access the data, it can read it wrong and turn into a crash at the worst.

 

Now, unfortunately for programmers, this all has to be managed MANUALLY. That means they have to program a system to handle all of these mutli-threading tasks. YES, there are libraries, even standard ones now, that combat this task and minimilze  the amount of work to accomplish it, but it is STILL A DIFFICULT TASK.

 

The worst part about multi-threading is DEBUGGING. Because, as far as I remember, you don't have a lot of access to debugging information from thread to thread, other than the MAIN thread. So if a thread you spun in the game goes bad, you don't have a lot of info to track down how it went bad and so fixing the problem is a lot more difficult than checking if x <= 0. This is why, usually, program code has a TON of pre-processor commands or built-in debug functions to halt the program before an execution-breaking operation is run.

 

 This is also why I gave up multi-threading programming for my simple games. Fun to experiment with, hell to career in.

Edited March 20, 2016 by [MYK]Mikeypro83

[SharpeXB]

The main thing I don't see dx12 as being an option is because many people still have yet to move from win7 and may not even take up the free upgrade because Win7 still does the job. So in that case, while dx12 seems great because it is the 'latest and greatest', there will be users left behind because of the OS exclusivity. Another thing to note is Windows 7 is only about 6 years old, while Windows XP who lost support only last year, is 14 years old.

 

This is why I think a dx11 update would come first, if anything at all.

Current stats from the Steam Hardware Survey show 69% have DX12GPUs

80% either have Windows 10 or could have it with a free upgrade. And that's today. Producing a new game engine would take a substantial amount of time so those numbers would get even higher by the time it would be launched.

Edited March 24, 2016 by SharpeXB

[PA-Sniv]

Be aware of the FreeTrack note (from today DD127):
 

Note: Investigation on transfer to x64 is going good. x64 version is allready in beta-testing. But one thing you should to know - FreeTrack tool is incompatible with x64 application.

Edited March 24, 2016 by PA-Sniv

[coconut]

I'm pretty sure I've got OpenTrack working with Elite Dangerous 64-bit with the freetrack protocol, I'll check that again. Hopefuly the problem is only with freetrack, which IMO OpenTrack replaces perfectly.

[BeastyBaiter]

Current stats from the Steam Hardware Survey show 69% have DX12GPUs

80% either have Windows 10 or could have it with a free upgrade. And that's today. Producing a new game engine would take a substantial amount of time so those numbers would get even higher by the time it would be launched.

 

That works out to very near 100% of people who might run BoS and other serious games. It's my understanding that all DX11 cards are also DX12 cards as it is a driver difference rather than a hardware one. And nobody is running BoS on a DX9/10 card. You have to dig all the way back to the GTS 8800 (DX10) to get that.

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

Bring on the DEE EXXX TWELVE!!!!!

 

[FuriousMeow]

64 bit is the first step. There is no further DX information. It will happen, eventually, but this is the first step to making this title work well into the future. 64 bit is being incorporated soon to allow VR support in the future, that does not have any indication to soon for either a new DX or for VR support anytime soon. Additionally, the OR that is coming soon will not have a display that will allow for distant visibility. I understand it still has the screen door effect. Great for CQC, and limited distance games where visibility to the horizon is less a requirement but less so for titles that require high pixel density to view far into the distance.

 

Focusing on 64 bits, it allows for more memory access and also 64 bit instructions processed per cpu cycle vs 32 bit instructions. However, that doesn't mean anything if there isn't a need to process a full 64bit instruction. Right now, everything is processed in 32 bit instructions and that doesn't mean now two instructions get packaged into one as it is still a linear flow in execution. So, will there be improvement with the current setup? Some, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

As far as the memory access, BoS/BoM currently does not run out of memory. So moving to 64bit does not help there. It could in the future, by expanding texture sizes. But as is, everything fits inside the 32bit memory allocation so we will not see changes there.

 

The "skin" delay - that is actually a very complex situation and is more related to the speed of your system plus what you are running. For example - I have 780Ti cards in SLI with BoS at 2560x1440 running BoS/BoM on Ultra with full landscape distance. I was using 4xFSAA, and skins were slower to show up on aircraft. I went to no FSAA and the skins were virtually instant. I went to 2xFSAA and it was a little slower but almost instant. That is only 3GB of VRAM for the cards, but I didn't get above 2.2GB usage with 4xFSAA and only 2.06GB with 2xFSAA but running higher FSAA caused skin display to be further delayed. Since FSAA is driver layer, the 64bit executable for BoS/BoM will not likely have much impact there. Also - Elite Dangerous has texture delays on the cockpit, and that is DX11 + 64bit so, don't expect miracles.

 

There will be some performance improvement I'm sure, but moving to 64 bit was less for the here and now but is instead a step to take it into the future.

Edited March 25, 2016 by FuriousMeow

[FuriousMeow]

2) Use multi-threading

 

32bit can run mutli-threaded. BoS/BoM makes full use of all 4 cores. Unless you mean Hyper-Threading, which can still be used by 32bit but is actually not an advantage in gaming.