Evochron Mercenary - Windows 7 (64bit)

[Rusty]

Does the game actually derive any benefit from a 64bit operating system or is the game a 32bit program which is just compatible with 64bit. Thanx.

[starchild]

Assuming you have a good PC you wouldn't see a difference.
A good question that you must ask is what is really the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.
A short anwer:

The terms 32-bit and 64-bit refer to the way a computer's processor (also called a CPU), handles information. The 64-bit version of Windows handles large amounts of random access memory (RAM) more effectively than a 32-bit system. For more details

The differences are much more in depth of the system rather than greatly beneficial when it comes to gaming , if you wish to view what are the actual differences visit the following page.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946765


cheers :-)

[Vice]

There can be memory accessibility benefits by running the game on a 64-bit OS vs a 32-bit OS (lower risk of low memory conditions on systems running other programs in the background since a 64-bit OS can access more memory over 4 GB). But in terms of performance, you won't likely notice any difference. If it were compiled for native 64-bit, you'd likely even see a performance decrease. Compiling a game to run in native 64-bit doesn't always equate to a performance improvement. The opposite can actually be true, resulting in worse performance on 64-bit vs 32-bit. But running a game/program compiled for 32-bit on a 64-bit OS generally won't see the same kind of performance reduction. Here are some details on this from Microsoft (taken from: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... 85%29.aspx ):

Performance Implications of Running a 64-bit Operating System
Because processors with AMD64 and Intel 64 architecture can execute 32-bit instructions natively, they can run 32-bit applications at full speed, even on a 64-bit OS. There is a modest cost for converting parameters between 32-bit and 64-bit when calling operating system functions, but this cost is generally negligible. This means that you should see no slowdown when running 32-bit applications on a 64-bit OS.

When you compile applications as 64-bit, the calculations get more complicated. A 64-bit program uses 64-bit pointers, and its instructions are slightly larger, so the memory requirement is slightly increased. This can cause a slight drop in performance.


So running this game on either a 32-bit or a 64-bit OS will allow it to run at full speed since it is not compiled to run in a 64-bit only mode, which would force it to have to manage larger address space/pointers. But again, there can be some memory benefits by running it on a 64-bit OS.

As a result, there really isn't a benefit for this game to be compiled for native 64-bit (development platform/dependency requirements also necessitate it for the time being anyway). The game doesn't need the additional address/memory/value space nor would it help performance to be forced to manage twice the unnecessary address size (performance would likely decrease). Ironically, 64-bit compiled games may also only consume about 1.5-2.5 GB of memory when running, so they don't necessarily need the added memory space either. Using one or the other bit format may often come down to simply keeping things in a single codebase with a single compiler, rather than trying to manage two different ones. Ultimately, the game is still able to access native 64-bit operations through WOW64 to run properly on 64-bit versions of Windows and can do so without the performance penalty. It can also access double precision values when it needs to without forcing twice the address space for everything else when it doesn't. So not only is it required for how the game is developed, it can still access what it needs and perform optimally the way it is set up.