Thanks To Vulkan, We Should Be Seeing More 64-bit Linux Games

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Thanks To Vulkan, We Should Be Seeing More 64-bit Linux Games

One of the positive side effects of Vulkan is that hopefully we're going to be seeing more 64-bit-only Linux games...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=More-64-bit-Linux-Games

[Kano]

Seems to show that lots of cards were CPU limited with the test system (GTX 960 was already at the GPU limit). Nice to see that 64 bit Linux gives an extra boost with the same CPU. Interestingly my own tests with the 64 bit Windows build vs. 32 bit Linux was different (I forced the same settings!). There the 32 bit OpenGL code was faster (ok, i only used a GT 630 OEM). Just checked the 32 bit Windows build: OpenGL was basically the same speed as Linux (18 vs 13 fps). Will test my GTX 650 Ti after that. Just wanted to see how much you can expect with a lowend card.

[axfelix]

Huh, I'm surprised (and pleased) the difference is that significant. Are most game development environments really not at a point where they can just add a 64bits flag to the compiler and produce a 64-bit build on x86? I'm confused that this is novel

[SaucyJack]

64-bit has always performed better. It's mostly a case of ultra lazy game devs and I'm sure Visual Studio has something to do with it too.

[Licaon]

Did they update the Demo too?

[smitty3268]

Huh, I'm surprised (and pleased) the difference is that significant. Are most game development environments really not at a point where they can just add a 64bits flag to the compiler and produce a 64-bit build on x86? I'm confused that this is novel

The engines should be safe to switch between 32 and 64 bit builds, but low level stuff like bit-twiddling and pointer arithmetic is somewhat common in games, which is precisely the kind of stuff you have to be careful about when switching over.

It basically comes down to the games not wanting to have to support a 2nd version of their game for no real reason other than a few extra fps. Extra QA costs, extra bandwidth costs, extra everything. And they mostly keep 32bit versions around because there is a non-trivial number of 32bit windows 7 users. More than the linux marketshare, at least. So if you are going to have that version, they figure they might as well simplify things by using it for everyone.

[Awesomeness]

Valve's biggest mistake related to Linux was not to make Steam 64bit-only from day one. When Steam on Linux launched, 64bit was already the norm.
The small number of 32bit users even at that time could just use the Windows version of Steam via Wine.

[Cyber Killer]

Valve's biggest mistake related to Linux was not to make Steam 64bit-only from day one. When Steam on Linux launched, 64bit was already the norm.
The small number of 32bit users even at that time could just use the Windows version of Steam via Wine.

Huh, well thank you very much, I'd like to play some games when I'm travelling with only my 32bit intel atom netbook :-P. There should also be more Linux versions of the old games on Steam, especially the dosbox ones.

PS. I'm also fed up with 32bit games on my normal 64bit workstation. How hard can it be? I can develop my own games and apps for both 32bit and 64bit GNU/Linux and they work flawlessly and across multiple distros (and I'm not a developer by trade, just a sysadmin). Yet somehow multimillion companies can't do this simple task.

[kaprikawn]

Valve's biggest mistake related to Linux was not to make Steam 64bit-only from day one. When Steam on Linux launched, 64bit was already the norm.
The small number of 32bit users even at that time could just use the Windows version of Steam via Wine.

Definitely this. I really irks me that I have to enable multilib pretty much just for Steam. If it weren't for Steam I could probably do a pure 64bit install.

Having entire libraries installed just for one use hurts me in the OCD. Like having to install Java just for Minecraft...urg!

[tomtomme]

Valve's biggest mistake related to Linux was not to make Steam 64bit-only from day one. When Steam on Linux launched, 64bit was already the norm.
The small number of 32bit users even at that time could just use the Windows version of Steam via Wine.

what would that have changed for the games?
A 64 bit steam client does not automatically give you 64 bit games. Or are you just off-topic?