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Why I hate 64-bit

LameLefty

By LameLefty
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LethalDose

LethalDose

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I haven't kept up with developments in the Mac world for a very long time, but I've got to ask does the modern mac operating system have 64 bit support? and how much ram does your mac have?

OSX has had 64 bit support for a while, I believe. From the sound of this article, it's been only 64-bit since Mountain Lion.

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Robotengineer

Robotengineer

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-SNip-

I haven't kept up with developments in the Mac world for a very long time, but I've got to ask does the modern mac operating system have 64 bit support? and how much ram does your mac have?

I have 64-bit, intel i7, with 16GB's of ram. Know you can see why I (and other KSP Mac users) want 64-bit.

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weezl

weezl

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I'm actually surprised this discussion has been largely about Squad & and the modders but I don't think anyone has mentioned Unity yet. I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the lack of a 64-bit version of for OSX and, until recently, Windows was due to Unity 4.3.3 being unstable in those environments.

I think it's good to remember how Squad got convinced to release the windows 64-bit version in the first place. It wasn't so much "pushed" on Squad by the customers as it was the community figured out how to do it without them (or at least activated latent 64-bit features in released code). A few weeks to a month before 0.24 dropped, this thread go started with instructions on how to hack KSP to run in 64-bit mode. Squad saw that 64-bit of their own game was going to happen with or without their support, so they just got behind it and made it official.

I adore OSX, and I wish it software support to make it competitive with windows, but it doesn't, and this is an example. It's unfortunate that 64-bit Unity 4.3.3 isn't stable for Macs (or, really, stable enough), but that's it.

So OP, the modders don't deserve your ire and Squad doesn't deserve your ire, at least not on this issue (Yeah, I said it. Mark the freaking calendar). Your gripe is with Unity, well, life.

I generally agree.. but I think the restrictive memory model of 32 bit affecting a lot of their customers using Mods might have had a slight influence. Yes.. essentially folks were doing an end-run to use Unity 64.. but that, in and of itself.. is customer communication! How, exactly, do you think most features make it into software products? Many many times its smart folks outside the company filling some niche that is not originally provided by a manufacturer. And the company (if its paying attention) catches wise and puts that feature in their product. This is no different. I expect that some mods that right now exist on their own might get that same attention. Time will tell.

On the subject of the quality and useful ness of OSX.. I've never had a single issue with Mac.. As has been much lamented in my industry.. its not the OS/Hardware that sells systems.. its the apps available. Mac is a really nice platform.. but as you said.. reality is what it is.

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FenrirWolf

FenrirWolf

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Except it doesn't, not in the same ways. Not since they intentionally split the user-base this way. That is the point.

The userbase has been "split" in this regard for years already since Linux had a 64-bit build for a long time. Why hasn't this mattered to you until now?

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Dodgey

Dodgey

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Why would you even use a Mac or linux to game anyways?

People these days....

Ignoring the fact that Mac and Linux are two separate things KSP has been stable on 64bit on linux for the longest time now, people have installed virtual machines to be able to run Linux.

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godarklight

godarklight

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This sounds like it's getting a tad out of control - but I'll weigh in :)

By default, mods should run on all platforms and processors, But that likely depends on not having external dependancies.

I've developed DarkMultiPlayer on Linux-64 exclusively, because that's the only machine I have, and I don't see the point of using the 32bit one when the 64bit one runs perfectly. I don't own windows, so I cannot test for windows-specific bugs, although RockyTV/JoshBlake have poked a few little bugs in that area.

Prior to KSP 0.24, All builds were 32bit builds as that was my monodevelops default setting and I never bothered to change it. Afterwards, I switched to "AnyCPU" which compiles for both in the 1 assembly (kinda). KSP64 can load 32bit assemblies just fine, so we're unlikely to see mods that require a specific platform / CPU unless you're doing something outside of KSP, like the work-in-progress principa mod which is written in a mix of C#/C++.

Compiling to 64bit only or providing different 32/64bit assemblies sounds quite unlikely to me when AnyCPU is just a click away.

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styckx

styckx

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Why would you even use a Mac or linux to game anyways?

People these days....

Because OpenGL is just as capable of high end gaming as DirectX is?

Because Linux is more stable than Windows?

Because we can?

I can't believe in 2014 people still have this stereotype that Linux as a desktop is some fragile little solider that is only capable of browsing the web and using terminal commands.

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blendermf

blendermf

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Why would you even use a Mac or linux to game anyways?

People these days....

You know, sometimes gaming isn't the #1 priority for people when they buy a computer, but still enjoy it on the side. Like I do a lot of video editing, graphical things, and programming. I like having a unix environment, and access to the Adobe suite. I also personally like OS X. So I bought a Mac. (I do run KSP with Bootcamp though, just because graphics drivers are better on Windows)

As for the complaint, I'd say settle down and wait. OS X will get it when some of the bugs get worked out with Unity on OS X. Windows users had to wait a while to get it too (as Linux users have had it for ages), and it wasn't until the mod made it obvious it was a thing a lot of people wanted, and that wasn't completely broken.

And yes, KSP is meant to be multiplatform, but I would like to point out that the game works on all the main platforms, it's just this one thing has technical issues on certain platforms (outside of their control), and it's not even a gameplay feature but a technical feature that only helps with one specific issue. It's kinda like if they added an advanced graphical feature that improves performance on some cards, and it doesn't run well on some cards because of either bugs with the drivers or the cards just being old or just not supporting those features. It's not a big deal. And this situation isn't as bad, because they should be able to work it out once Unity fixes their 64bit issues on OS X. (Also if you really wanted this, you could install windows through bootcamp, and run KSP in 64bit, but I do understand that can be too technical for some people, and does require a copy of Windows)

And besides, I actually decided to stop using x64 on Windows because of how many crashes I was getting and the bugs (probably partially due to the mods I had, but that's really the only reason to use 64bit). So it's not even really that useful yet.

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Hodo

Hodo

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My only problem with 64-bit has been the lack of stability. Otherwise it is a good idea, 32-bit is a thing of the past, and is quickly going away across the board in all things computing. It is like the 16-bit OS of the early 90s.

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shrx

shrx

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Has anybody else tried the 64-bit Mac hack?

I tried, but when I installed Unity 4.3.3 there was no 64bit version of MacStandalonePlayer. Do I have to install a more recent version of Unity?

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Lilleman

Lilleman

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There is a potential Mac 64-bit hack. I've messed around with it some and if some people would want to test it, its basically just like the Win-64 hack.

I was wondering if this would work, since Unity 4.5.2 has a x64 player for Mac. Nice to hear it does.

This might need a new thread to let people know how to do this.

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Ignath

Ignath

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As far as I know Squad has never mentioned anything about 64bit KSP coming to OS X. In fact, they ignored all questions regarding this issue.

Perhaps because, as with the Windows x64 build, the team at SQUAD have their hands tied and are forced to wait for the guys at Unity to come up with fixes for the OS X x64 issues. It would then make sense that SQUAD isn't commenting on Mac x64, as they have no direct control over whether or not it'll become available.

I'd assume that SQUAD will do right by their Mac customers once the guys at Unity fix all their Mac issues and they can release a mostly stable build for Mac x64.

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John FX

John FX

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I think it would be right to repost the reply from the mod dev of RPM after he was made aware that lamelefty had `issues`

Sigh...

Okay, I think I should elaborate on what I actually meant to say.

Unity is a game engine, but this term, in this case, involves a so called execution environment for managed code. Unity is a program in machine code that includes an interpreter for managed code. Most game engines these days do. In case of Unity this is Mono which is itself an open-source implementation of Common Language Runtime, which is originally Microsoft's platform which was created with the idea to improve Microsoft's reputation regarding things that crash for no rhyme nor reason, by making what is essentially a not-insane version of Java. It turned out to be so much not-insane that an open source clone was created and it became one of the decent things to make an execution environment with.

What this means in relation to KSP is that when a plugin for KSP gets compiled, it is not compiled into machine code that a computer directly understands. It is compiled into so called Common Intermediate Language. The Common Intermediate Language has no notion of being 64-bit or 32-bit or even 128-bit if that becomes the thing in the near future -- it is a programming language that a virtual machine executes, sort of a pseudo-computer not unlike an emulator of a gaming console many of you have probably enjoyed. That's where the notion of "managed code" comes from -- as the code does not directly run on hardware, but is instead processed by a program that runs directly on hardware, there's no way in hell it can possibly cause a crash of the entire operating system, it's easy to disallow it from doing something, it makes no difference whether it's a 64-bit or a 32-bit operating system, and in the whole, such an approach offers a lot of help in writing games in particular.

Now, notice that the DLL file you get in the package of RasterPropMonitor or just about any other KSP plugin (The only exception in recent memory would be Kerbcom Avionics, which included routines in actual machine code) has no notion of what 32-bit or 64-bit even is. In an ideal world, it would run absolutely identically in either a 32-bit or a 64-bit operating system, because the "Common Language Runtime", the virtual machine that actually executes it, would take care of the difference.

We do not live in the ideal world, because just like plugins have to contend with the rest of KSP, this execution environment lives within a somewhat greater monster called Unity, which is actually a program in machine code, that deals on the low level with entities like graphics drivers -- particularly those. It offers a large structure that is controlled by managed code -- both KSP and KSP plugins. And that monster, itself is either 32-bit or 64-bit.

And it's common knowledge by now that Unity x64 on Windows is more buggy than Unity x32. :)

Now, I test "ONLY" because that's the only thing worth running on Windows, and because the likelihood of tripping over a 32-bit specific bug which is not present in 64-bit Windows KSP is really low. I do not code specifically for 64-bit Windows (I do not actually concern myself with anything beyond interfacing to KSP's managed code in the first place so the notion of 32 or 64 does not even come up) nor do I plan to abandon anyone if they DO find a 32-bit specific bug that is not present in 64-bit.

BUT, if you say 'oh, I run 64 bit, this must be the problem, your plugin doesn't work on 64 bit Windows', you can't say that because that's where I always test it.

tl;dr the mod is platform agnostic and is not compiled for 64 bit, can`t be and won`t be. It`s tested on the 64 bit version as that will show all the 32 bit bugs and also the 64 bit ones.

EDIT :

RPM does get tested in 32bit. I do it by using the plugin to build IVAs. Any issues I contact Mihara and it gets resolved quickly. Whatever he's running on x64 runs just fine on x86. If you have an actual problem post it and it'll get resolved.

so it even gets 32 bit testing too although this is outsourced it seems.

EDIT 2 :

Come on you're saying the only reason you hate 64 bits is because you can't have it. You sound like a kid throwing a tantrum.

Also this. I imagine if the Mac had a 64 bit version but windows did not lamelefty would be very happy even if it still caused the same `problems`...

Edited by John FX
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shrx

shrx

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Perhaps because, as with the Windows x64 build, the team at SQUAD have their hands tied and are forced to wait for the guys at Unity to come up with fixes for the OS X x64 issues. It would then make sense that SQUAD isn't commenting on Mac x64, as they have no direct control over whether or not it'll become available.

I'd assume that SQUAD will do right by their Mac customers once the guys at Unity fix all their Mac issues and they can release a mostly stable build for Mac x64.

(emphasis added by me)

This doesn't make sense to me. If this is the case and they are waiting for Unity support, then they should say so, and we will be less impatient than we are now with their ignorance.

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TNM

TNM

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I really, really don't agree with your initial statement. Splitting up the community? Common...this is taking it quite far.

There is always this one guy, i knew someone would come out of the woodwork complaining that we get something new to test. This is still an "unfinished" game, we are Early Access Customers, and finally with 0.24 we are allowed to TEST 64bit (as i think it should be in an EA-game) without a hack, and ppl complain that we can experiment and thus give SQUAD feedback (=metrics)?

Get a grip. Oh, btw, you didn't even put this into a question like "is the community beeing splitted?"...nope, you made your statement like "fact"...i see no facts, please provide some, otherwise this is just another rant.

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Zzabur

Zzabur

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I feel angry because some of my friends can't play KSP because they don't have a computer. As they don't have a computer, they can't play KSP with me. Because of that, Squad shouldn't release such game, people without a computer can't play it, it splits the community for me and my friends.

Wait, then every video game is splitting the human community? Oh my god !

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