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Why is zero k only 32 bit?

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5 years ago
I have a 64 bit processor which means that Zero-k is only using half of it. Are there any plans to upgrade Zero-k to 64 bit in the near future to help the many performance issues?
+3 / -2

5 years ago
Nice meme.
+8 / -0
5 years ago
Dev team is only 32 bit trained. Needs to hire 64 bit programmers.
+3 / -0
Ye, and some players are even stuck at 16 bits
+2 / -0
5 years ago
quote:
Ye, and some players are even stuck at 16 bits


Not sure what you mean, 16 bit processors havent been used in desk top pcs for years now.
+0 / -0
5 years ago
quote:
Ye, and some players are even stuck at 16 bits


no need to disrespect the player base.
+0 / -0
5 years ago
nice upvote tandem
+0 / -0

5 years ago
your zk is only using 32 bits because the remaining 32 are being used up by your smurf, lemme help you with that
+4 / -0

5 years ago
"the player base"

So you represent the whole player base? Cool, where can I sign up to have that too?
+0 / -0
5 years ago
In all objectivity, I believe the question was legitimate and deserved to be answered as many players are experiencing lags.

Sometimes it is good to let the bitterness aside when a problem is politely raised.

So if any of the developers are still interested in answering that question, I would be looking forward to reading their reply.
+0 / -0
Because 32 players is max.

Or just try to search forums for multithreading (things), because I guess your questions applies to the core question, why only one core is used instead of all.
If you are really interested you could grep Mantis for terms like multithreading or just 64 bit.
I still agree it should be possible. Imagine unjiggled battles on https://zero-k.info/Maps/Detail/7309 or on Super Speed Metal. :_)
Devs would agree so hard that they even would make Speed Metal a featured map. ;-)
+1 / -0

5 years ago
64 bit has been around for some time and is the default if you play zk on Linux. 64 bit simply allows the game to use more memory, it does not magically speed up your processor. Feel free to do benchmarks though.
+0 / -0
5 years ago
I think there might be several confusions:
- why do you say zero-k is 32 bit? (didn't bother to check for windows but the linux one is 64bit - this is mentioned in the download page at https://zerok.itch.io/zero-k )
- the number of bits impacts the size of memory the program can use, not the "processor usage". A 32bit program can access at most 4GB (2 to the power of 32 is 4 GB) while a 64bit program can access much more memory.

Also, "processor usage" is not what you want to "increase" you would like the game to go smoothly. For example on the computer I play game runs perfectly fine. This is because processor is from 2017 (new), and it is a good/fast/modern one and can run well the game.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
Migrating to 64 bit engine would require a lot of testing to ensure nothing is broken, this requires coordinating a lot of people over a long period of time so is fairly hard to do. The last time we tried we discovered 64 was not reliable enough for use and there is some likelihood this is still the case so any issues would require fixing in engine as well.

Anybody who wants to do these tasks is free to.
+0 / -0
GBrank2plus2is5 I am generally wary of laymen suggesting highly technical improvements to performance. The players often assume that the benefits of something are greater than they are in reality and easier to implement. I have seen this in many uninformed discussions about multi-threading and apparently 32 bit is another example. I don't even claim to know that much about these areas, but I have done benchmarks over the years of what the engine implements.

There is (or was) a mostly working windows 64 bit build for Spring. I recall the performance being slightly better, but may be wrong. I think I made an old thread encouraging people to manually install and use it in general play. I stopped pursing it in recent months because I found bugs specific to the 64 bit windows builds and it was not the time to attempt to adopt a new build. The engine developers may take a closer look at the bugs if we express interest and do some further testing.
+0 / -0
[Spoiler]

edit for being wrong
+0 / -0
quote:
under the hood it's the same 32 bit zk running for 64 bit linux.

This is simply not true. Where did you get that idea?
+1 / -0
[Spoiler]

edit for being wrong
+0 / -0
5 years ago
quote:
utilizes 64 bit architecture/advantage.

The important thing is what architecture/advantage? 64bit vs 32bit means the size of the address you use in the program (any pointer or reference in C++ for example).

Here is a page explaining some of the concepts: https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/32-bit-and-64-bit-explained.htm

If you want to nitpick, using 64 bit means you use MORE memory for the same operations. Imagine you have 1204 pointers, o n 32 bits means you use 32/8=4 bytes per pointer which means 1024*4=4k bytes. On 64 bits means you use 64/8=8 bytes per pointers which means 1024*8=8k bytes.
+0 / -0
5 years ago
Downloaded latest itch.io package Zero-K semi-portable at https://zerok.itch.io/zero-k

Unpacked on Linux and executed commands below

quote:
file engine/linux64/104.0.1-287-gf7b0fcc/spring*

engine/linux64/104.0.1-287-gf7b0fcc/spring: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.16, stripped
engine/linux64/104.0.1-287-gf7b0fcc/spring-dedicated: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.16, stripped
engine/linux64/104.0.1-287-gf7b0fcc/spring-headless: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.16, stripped
engine/linux64/104.0.1-287-gf7b0fcc/springsettings.cfg: empty


All linux spring executable are compiled to use 64bit architecture (meaning pointers sizes, which this is all about).
+1 / -0
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