Valve Unveils 64-bit Source™ Gaming Technology Options

[Singh400]

Valve, a leading entertainment and technology studio, unveiled a 64-bit version of its Source game engine technology today. The first 64-bit Valve games released will be native 64-bit versions of Half-Life 2 and Lost Coast, and have been developed to take advantage of AMD Athlon™ 64 FX processor-based systems - the ultimate 64-bit gaming platform for PC enthusiasts.

The 64-bit versions of these games are being offered to all Half-Life 2 owners via Steam™, Valve’s online platform for delivering games and digital content directly to users around the world.

"Bringing the Source technology to the AMD64 processor platform is an important step in the evolution of our game content and tools," said Gabe Newell, Valve’s co-founder and president. "This investment in future processing will allow us, and third party developers working with Source, to push the boundaries of the gaming experience."

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(IMG:http://www.iexbeta.com/images/news/icons/globe.gif) News source: Steam News

[Jizzylax]

cool 64-bit games .... i can't wait for the future

[Neil]

hehe, nice wonder what new features it will have (IMG:http://board.iexbeta.com/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) ?

[Chugworth]

Great! Another game takes advantage of x64 processors. I just tried this out on my computer. I didn't need to change any settings either. It just detects that I am using a 64-bit OS and starts the 64-bit version of HL2. You can see at the top of the main menu screen that it is the 64-bit version. Also the device manager shows that HL2.exe is running in 64-bit mode.

[DarkJedi]

anything new with the 64bit version?

[aL Doom]

Wonder if it works well with P4 6xx

[ahanix1989]

Chugworth: Are you seeing a noticeable difference between the 32-bit version and the 64-bit?

[Illrigger]

You'll definately see a performance gain on an x64 platform because of the lack of needing the emulation layer. That alone can use up 250MB of RAM on some games. Native apps are always better (IMG:http://board.iexbeta.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Chugworth]

You'll definately see a performance gain on an x64 platform because of the lack of needing the emulation layer. That alone can use up 250MB of RAM on some games. Native apps are always better (IMG:http://board.iexbeta.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

32-bit game performance runs basically the same in x64 Windows as it does in 32-bit Windows. They have run benchmarks to show that. Keep in mind that the 32-bit software is not being emulated on the x64 platform.

As for the x64 HL2 performance, it may load slightly faster, but I haven't played the game in a while so it's hard to say. If I knew a command to force it to run in 32-bit mode, I would run a benchmark.

[Illrigger]

You'll definately see a performance gain on an x64 platform because of the lack of needing the emulation layer. That alone can use up 250MB of RAM on some games. Native apps are always better (IMG:http://board.iexbeta.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

32-bit game performance runs basically the same in x64 Windows as it does in 32-bit Windows. They have run benchmarks to show that. Keep in mind that the 32-bit software is not being emulated on the x64 platform.

The apps run in native mode, but the OS loads a kernel mode emulator (WOW32) that can be a real system RAM hog. Monitor the system under x64 compared to under true x86 and you'll see up to a 25% difference in the amount of total system RAM usage when running x86 apps. It doesn't affect most things if you have enough RAM, but in MMOs (which can bring system RAM usage to above 90% on a box with a gig of RAM on an x86 native system) it causes all kinds of swap file hashing that brings the machine to its knees. X64 apparently isn't very good at handling things once RAM usage hits 100%. It got me killed in the new action-oriented SWG engine many times, and caused a few nasty instances in WoW and EQ2 as well. Until I can get another gig for my box, I've rolled back to x86 Windows.

[Chugworth]

You'll definately see a performance gain on an x64 platform because of the lack of needing the emulation layer. That alone can use up 250MB of RAM on some games. Native apps are always better (IMG:http://board.iexbeta.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

32-bit game performance runs basically the same in x64 Windows as it does in 32-bit Windows. They have run benchmarks to show that. Keep in mind that the 32-bit software is not being emulated on the x64 platform.

The apps run in native mode, but the OS loads a kernel mode emulator (WOW32) that can be a real system RAM hog. Monitor the system under x64 compared to under true x86 and you'll see up to a 25% difference in the amount of total system RAM usage when running x86 apps. It doesn't affect most things if you have enough RAM, but in MMOs (which can bring system RAM usage to above 90% on a box with a gig of RAM on an x86 native system) it causes all kinds of swap file hashing that brings the machine to its knees. X64 apparently isn't very good at handling things once RAM usage hits 100%. It got me killed in the new action-oriented SWG engine many times, and caused a few nasty instances in WoW and EQ2 as well. Until I can get another gig for my box, I've rolled back to x86 Windows.

Well I agree that an x64 system needs more memory, but for a game like Half Life 2, 1gb should be enough. Only on the absolute latest games like FEAR or Serious Sam 2 have I thought that more memory could improve it. I have been playing WoW lately and haven't noticed any problems like that with it.

[Chugworth]

If I knew a command to force it to run in 32-bit mode, I would run a benchmark.

Well I found that the switch to force the game to run in 32-bit mode is -32bit. I would benchmark it, but the timedemos seem to only run in the bit mode that they were created in. How interesting... (IMG:http://board.iexbeta.com/style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)