On Shadow Ops Athlon 64 gets 64 bits booty!

[CaptNKILL]

Originally Posted by Cheimison

64 bit processors compute 64 instructions at a time. Thus a 128 instruction count is processed in two passes, as opposed to 4 with a 32 bit processor. Thus it is 'faster'. This frees up resources, thus more can be spent on graphics processing (which is still done partially by CPU) and map volume information.

I dont think CPUs do that much for texturing... they have more than enough to do with AI, physics and geometry... i dont think the little resources that might be used for texturing could possibly warrent doubling or trippling the texture resolution as shown in those screen shots.

Besides, textures are stored in video memory (usually), if the CPU needed to do anything with them, youd be constantly swapping over the AGP bus to system memory. Im pretty sure it doesnt work that way.

[Star_Hunter]

Originally Posted by CaptNKILL

The processor has nothing to do with textures and rendering, thats all based on the GPU and memory bandwidth. Having a CPU thats 32bit, 64bit or 82349234bit wont change your GPUs ability to map and filter textures.

And 64bit doesnt run faster. As far as I know, it just allows more instructions to be used... if they can make something take advantage of that in a way that speeds things up, then it will run faster. But it wont help in GPU limited cases. Not one bit.

The Athlon 64 has more registers when in 64-bit mode, in 32-bit mode the extra ones are off. That is where the performance difference comes from. Due to that performance they can add in more. (although I am sure the performance would be find anyways, its also a PR type deal.)

[Nutty]

64 bit processors compute 64 instructions at a time. Thus a 128 instruction count is processed in two passes, as opposed to 4 with a 32 bit processor. Thus it is 'faster'. This frees up resources, thus more can be spent on graphics processing (which is still done partially by CPU) and map volume information.

Completely and utterly wrong.

64bit cpu's excute instructions 64bits long as opposed to 32bits long. (When running in native 64bit mode). Their register widths are 64bit, as opposed to 32bit, so maths on very big integer numbers can be done more efficiently. The amount of instructions it performs at the same time is do with the pipeline depth, which has very little basis on the size of instructions it executes.

Also the A64 has alot more general purpose registers, so an .exe specifically compiled for it, can potentially create better code in areas that are very variable heavy. Instead of storing variables on the stack, it can keep more data in registers, which is faster.

[CaptNKILL]

I think we need to see some benchmarks

Im still skeptical... Ive never heard of CPUs having anything to do with texturing, so unless 32bit CPUs are limiting texture resolution somehow, why does a 64bit get better textures? I understand, speeding up the whole thing means you can add more details, but if the details arent something the CPU controls anyway, then you can increase texture resolution regardless of the CPU's power.

I honestly dont know what to think of this, I dont think we have had any 64bit games yet. Id love to see some benchmarks... it really doesnt make sense to me though.

[Holy Smoke]

The whole point of 3d accelerators to begin with was to offload ALL texture-processing OFF the cpu, and the point of implementing pixel shaders was because the cpu CAN'T access the textures once they've been transferred to the graphics card.

So, no... this is pure PR bs. I don't know if I'm right about this part, but the only case (that I can imagine) where a 64-bit processor would have any *major* effect on texture size performance is in a case where the textures exceed a 32-bit processor's 4gb limit. And, well, a 2048x2048x32 texture only takes 16 MEGAbytes, so we're a good ways off until it becomes a limiting factor.

Of course, 64-bit optimizations should be able to help in other cases, like geometry, AI, and physics.

[Nitz Walsh]

Originally Posted by Holy Smoke

The whole point of 3d accelerators to begin with was to offload ALL texture-processing OFF the cpu, and the point of implementing pixel shaders was because the cpu CAN'T access the textures once they've been transferred to the graphics card.

So, no... this is pure PR bs. I don't know if I'm right about this part, but the only case (that I can imagine) where a 64-bit processor would have any *major* effect on texture size performance is in a case where the textures exceed a 32-bit processor's 4gb limit. And, well, a 2048x2048x32 texture only takes 16 MEGAbytes, so we're a good ways off until it becomes a limiting factor.

Of course, 64-bit optimizations should be able to help in other cases, like geometry, AI, and physics.

Exactly. This is strictly a promo deal, the PR is...well, it's PR. Nuff said.

Not that the 64-bit version won't have additional performance - it might simply due to the added registers in the A64 - but it has absolutely bunk to do with increasing the texture quality. The shots provided indicate the 32-bit version has been crippled, rather than the A64 version being propelled forward due to "64 BITZ OF POWER11!!".

[Leech]

This isn't even the first 64bit game. There is a port of Unreal Tournament 2004 to 64-bit linux. Icculus (Ryan Gordan) did the port, anyone interested in if the 64-bit would help textures, etc. would do well to send him an email. http://icculus.org

Leech

[CaptNKILL]

They are sort of milking the thing the console market did a few years ago...

Remember when everything was 16bit, 32bit or 64bit? That had squat to do with the actual power of the system, and I almost wonder if the "bit" thing was made up entirely (just as a way to gauge the consoles power in compairison to others).

I mean, people thought the Gameboy Advance had the power of a Playstation because it was "32bit". When the PS2 and XBox came around, no one even mention bits because it didnt mean anything any more (it never really did, but i guess people got smarter).

Heh, sorry for the OT... i realize A64s are beasts, im not downplaying 64bit CPUs (though their performance advantage is probably 90% related to the integrated memory controler, not that they are 64bit)

[jbirney]

Originally Posted by Leech

This isn't even the first 64bit game. There is a port of Unreal Tournament 2004 to 64-bit linux. Icculus (Ryan Gordan) did the port, anyone interested in if the 64-bit would help textures, etc. would do well to send him an email. http://icculus.org

Leech

Since this is built off the unreal engine, I wounder how much of his 64 bit work is used (granted opengl vrs d3d so not all of it...)

[nVestor]

Originally Posted by nVestor

And no, it doesn't require a 64bit OS in order to run the game in 64bit.

I'm sorry, I was wrong apparently. I could have sworn I was watching a video of behind the game that said it wasn't necessary to have a 64bit OS in order to run the game in 64bit.

After purchasing "Shadow Ops: Red Mercury," gamers can immediately take advantage of the game by installing a public trial version of Microsoft® Windows® XP Pro x86 Edition on an AMD64 platform and installing relevant 64-bit drivers. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/6...n/upgrade.mspx

Again, I am sorry for the apparent misinformation.

[Holy Smoke]

Here's a few bench comparisons between 64-bit and 32-bit (among other things), including Quake3 and what I presume to be a 64-bit optimized version of UT2004.

http://www.linuxhardware.org/article...39&mode=thread

[CaptNKILL]

Originally Posted by Holy Smoke

Here's a few bench comparisons between 64-bit and 32-bit (among other things), including Quake3 and what I presume to be a 64-bit optimized version of UT2004.

http://www.linuxhardware.org/article...39&mode=thread

Seeing how the performance barely increased in those games, I really doubt this 64bit edition will be more than a PR stunt.