DCS is moving to 64bit OS only.
Doesn't affect me - but I would think it may affect quite a few customers.
A snippet from their newsletter
Quote
Moving to 64-bit Operating Systems Only
As we move forward improving the DCS World environment, we are more and more often running into roadblocks that prevent us from doing so due to supporting 32 bit operating systems. This includes larger and more populated worlds with greater terrain mesh details and textures. By moving to 64 bit support only, we will be able solve this and allow larger missions with more units, and it will allow us to improve visual effects.
This change will be coming in the next few months.
Along with the negative (for some) - a positive for others....
Quote
Currently the team is focused on completing Flaming Cliffs 3 and continued updates and improvements to DCS World. Once Flaming Cliffs 3 is complete, more of our focus will shift to upcoming DCS titles like the F-15C, F/A-18C and Fw-190D9. Looking further out, Eagle Dynamics and our partners plan a large number of new modules that include the Su-27SM, F-86F, MiG-15Bis, MiG-21Bis, Hawk, Mi-8, Mi-24, OH-58 and AH-1G, to just name a few.
I don't know if the DCS titles are high fidelity sims similar to A-10 or whether they are "lighter" like Flaming Cliffs
F-15C and F/A-18C would be welcome HF sims if that's how they are going
Just an FYI, DCS = Digital Combat Simulator (http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/)
Actually why would people still stick with 64 bit with the memory hungry software nowadays?
Quote from: jomni on March 21, 2013, 05:26:23 AM
Actually why would people still stick with 64 bit with the memory hungry software nowadays?
Sorry, I didn't understand that. What's wrong with 64 bit systems?
Quote from: Greybriar on March 21, 2013, 05:22:12 AM
Just an FYI, DCS = Digital Combat Simulator (http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/)
Thanks, I was wondering WTH the OP was referring to!
Quote from: LongBlade on March 21, 2013, 06:23:45 AM
Quote from: jomni on March 21, 2013, 05:26:23 AM
Actually why would people still stick with 64 bit with the memory hungry software nowadays?
Sorry, I didn't understand that. What's wrong with 64 bit systems?
edit... why would they stick with 32 bit?
sorry about the DCS - bad habit of assuming
Quote from: jomni on March 21, 2013, 06:57:30 AM
Quote from: LongBlade on March 21, 2013, 06:23:45 AM
Quote from: jomni on March 21, 2013, 05:26:23 AM
Actually why would people still stick with 64 bit with the memory hungry software nowadays?
Sorry, I didn't understand that. What's wrong with 64 bit systems?
edit... why would they stick with 32 bit?
Thank you :)
Jomni probably meant to say why would people stick with 32 bit...
Still, with the large amount of 32-bit still out in the market, doesn't this limit their sales?
Quote from: Tuna on March 21, 2013, 09:48:12 AM
Jomni probably meant to say why would people stick with 32 bit...
Because moving to 64bit is another £100 I guess. Unless you go OEM which means you are also buying new hardware - which one could argue you may well need for DCS Simulations anyway.
What I was meaning by "OUCH!" is what are they doing about current Combined Arms/Flaming Cliffs 3/DCS Black Shark/DCS Warthog etc...are they going to make them 64 bit - and if they do, what does it mean for owners of the 32bit code? And specifically about DCS World. They are on about going to 64bit for more machines and bigger environment - but what about people who have "bought into" DCS World who have 32 bit machines? Are they going to be stuck with no DCS World?
Hopefully 32 bit code will be replaced with 64 bit code free of charge for people with the modules...but that still won't be any good for people with 32bit systems. So anyone who has a 32bit system and can't/won't upgrade has dipped out - even though they bought into DCS World.
I'm sure it won't be a big deal. Most people running DCS A-10C and DCS World will likely have a newish system and therefore possibly (probably?) have a 64 bit system. But there are possibly some who won't - and my thoughts (even though I have a 64 bit system and will likely be unaffected by the change - assuming free upgrades to the 32 bit codebase) immediately sprang to people with 32bit systems.
Just questions I was wondering about when I saw the news.
Quote from: JudgeDredd on March 21, 2013, 11:06:15 AM
Quote from: Tuna on March 21, 2013, 09:48:12 AM
Jomni probably meant to say why would people stick with 32 bit...
Because moving to 64bit is another £100 I guess. Unless you go OEM which means you are also buying new hardware - which one could argue you may well need for DCS Simulations anyway.
What I was meaning by "OUCH!" is what are they doing about current Combined Arms/Flaming Cliffs 3/DCS Black Shark/DCS Warthog etc...are they going to make them 64 bit - and if they do, what does it mean for owners of the 32bit code? And specifically about DCS World. They are on about going to 64bit for more machines and bigger environment - but what about people who have "bought into" DCS World who have 32 bit machines? Are they going to be stuck with no DCS World?
Hopefully 32 bit code will be replaced with 64 bit code free of charge for people with the modules...but that still won't be any good for people with 32bit systems. So anyone who has a 32bit system and can't/won't upgrade has dipped out - even though they bought into DCS World.
I'm sure it won't be a big deal. Most people running DCS A-10C and DCS World will likely have a newish system and therefore possibly (probably?) have a 64 bit system. But there are possibly some who won't - and my thoughts (even though I have a 64 bit system and will likely be unaffected by the change - assuming free upgrades to the 32 bit codebase) immediately sprang to people with 32bit systems.
Just questions I was wondering about when I saw the news.
When I bought my Win7 it came with two disks, one for 32 and one for 64.. I just upgraded my 14 year old when I bought him more memory... I will probably upgrade my 17 year old when I talk him into it.. he is crashing in games that the 14 year old is not (now that he's 64)..
both my laptop and desktop are 64 and I love it!
I would think that most flight simmers have the cash to upgrade to a 64-bit OS, if they already haven't. All that fancy HOTAS hardware is not exactly cheap. Not to mention that flight sims require some of the beefiest rigs out there to get acceptable frame rates.
Back in the day, I used to build myself a new monster gaming rig about every 18 months in order to keep my flight sims happy. Gotta love the current hardware, though. Thanks to some upgrading(RAM, Video card & SSD drive) and over-clocking, I'm still using the same rig I built in 2009.
We just bought my daughter a new lappy for Christmas.
It was bottom of the line, probably $350 (I'm actually using it now). I was shocked to discover it was 64 bit and quad core. We *might* have paid $30 more to get a slightly more robust system than another laptop (I don't remember whether we compared laptops of if my wife just bought one herself - it wasn't a difficult purchase that I had to agonize over balancing hardware versus cost).
Bottom line is that if this came with 64 bit, it's likely that it's becoming common. Or maybe we got lucky.
Quote from: LongBlade on March 21, 2013, 01:36:47 PM
Bottom line is that if this came with 64 bit, it's likely that it's becoming common. Or maybe we got lucky.
It's the norm, for awhile now. All the latest machines use 64-bit although you can still likely get 32-bit if absolutely necessary. I had seen 32-bit WinVista still being regularly sold up until about three or four years ago but I don't think they're very common anymore.
Yeah almost all hardware is 64 bit.
You still get a couple of low cost 32 bit stuff in the product lines of computer companies but that's a minority already.
Self-builders should take note of this trend so that they won't get left behind.
I was talking about OS still being sold from mass retail distribs up until a couple-three years ago.
The hardware being sold has supported 64-bit for a lot longer than that. When I built a system for myself in 2006-7, nearly all of the new processors were 64-bit compatible with only a handful of the old 32-bit-only ones sitting at clearance prices. So it's been over five years since the processor companies switched in full force.
The 2004 Dell that I've been testing Linux on has a mobo that supports 64bit. With a processor upgrade (used, $12) from 3.0 to 3.4 I have CPU support for it as well. That CPU was actually an option for my rig back then. Only issue I have is that the BIOS sees my 4gigs of ram but the 64bit Linux still only sees 3.
That's odd; Linux has supported 64-bit even longer than Windows has. You must have some kind of configuration error. Which distro is it, and are you positive it's the 64-bit version?
I'm still playing around with Ubuntu (12.04). It seems to play nicely with Steam and actually runs Red Orchestra better than Windows did (after reinstalling w/out dual boot). The distro is definitely the 64bit version. I installed it off a disk that wouldn't originally boot due to lack of 64bit hardware support until I swapped out the cpu from a 3.00gig pentium to a 64bit-friendly 3.40gig.
Quote from: Staggerwing on March 22, 2013, 07:34:18 PM
It seems to play nicely with Steam and actually runs Red Orchestra better than Windows did (after reinstalling w/out dual boot).
I'm not surprised; Linux doesn't hog as many system resources as Windows, and it's always been my experience that games running natively in Linux run at least as well as, but usually better than, their Windows versions. 8)
QuoteThe distro is definitely the 64bit version. I installed it off a disk that wouldn't originally boot due to lack of 64bit hardware support until I swapped out the cpu from a 3.00gig pentium to a 64bit-friendly 3.40gig.
This is a mystery to me, and beyond my ability to solve I'm afraid. However, I dug out these (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/fedora-core-8-x86_64-does-not-recognize-full-4gb-ram-629959/) three (http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/34687/64-bit-linux-doesnt-recognize-my-ram-between-3-and-32-gb) links (http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=186212) which all seem to suggest there may be some hardware compatibility issue. I don't know if it can be fixed or not. Sorry, I wish I could be more help.
No problem Huw. I appreciate the input. This is just an old GX280 that I'm using to play around with. It's pretty long in the tooth by now. If When I get serious about a Linux box I'm going to build it m'self from reasonably up to date components. I just wish that dual boot wasn't as messed up as it is due to the HD formatting needed for Windows. Then I could have the best of both.
Quote from: Staggerwing on March 23, 2013, 09:00:00 AM
I just wish that dual boot wasn't as messed up as it is due to the HD formatting needed for Windows. Then I could have the best of both.
Perhaps I can help here - what exactly do you mean?
If my HD is formatted for Windows (NTFS) as well as Linux then it requires mount.ntfs to access the hd which pegs my cpu to the wall every time there is a disk read/write. I've no idea if that would be an issue with an i5 or i7 cpu but it is a showstopper on an older rig like my present 'hobby' box.
Really? Weird - but a quick spot of searching throws up this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1653598) possible explanation, which is annoying but at least not incurable. I'll have a closer look later but I'm heading into town now.
I haven't run into anything like this because I never have different filesystems on the same disk. One disk is exclusively NTFS, the other EXT2/3/4.
I haven't considered booting from separate drives. How do you set that up? Thanks again for the input.
Quote from: Staggerwing on March 23, 2013, 09:51:50 AM
I haven't considered booting from separate drives. How do you set that up? Thanks again for the input.
I just do everything from whatever Linux install medium I'm using, i.e. either an optical disc or (more likely) a USB disk. Boot it up, launch the installer, and then I always choose to edit the partition layout by hand.
Windows is already installed on one disk (sda), so I tell the installer to leave that alone. Then I tell it to format the other disk (sdb), and set up partitions as follows:
1st partition - ext2 - mount as /
2nd partition - swap
3rd partition - ext4 - mount as /home
Easy. Actually my setup is a little more complex than that, but this example works perfectly. Then I just tell the installer to put Grub into /dev/sdb (
not /dev/sdb1). Most modern distros will check for other operating systems first, as a precaution. For example, it might say "also detected Windows 7". Then it should ask whether everything you were expecting is there, then you can let it do its thing.
Edit: The above is only what I'd do first time. Next time I want to install a different distro, I only tell it to format the 1st partition of sdb. That way my /home is preserved and I don't have to laboriously copy over my data from backup any time I switch distros.
I'll try that when I finally do a build. This old Dell I'm messing around with is a minitower (much like the Small Form Factor, only slightly bigger) so it doesn't have room for a second drive unless I take out the DVD drive and mickey-mouse that slot to hold another hdd.