GTAV-PC & 64-bit

[Smiler-Online]

Many people think that 64-bit is just about enabling access to more RAM, but it is so much more than just that.

 

I would compare it to a car park,

Parking spaces = RAM.

Car park entrances = how much data can be pushed through the CPU into the RAM at any one time.

 

Say that the car park has 100 parking spaces, but it only has 4 entrances, on a busy day there is going to be que's to get into the car park.

having 8 entrances/64-bit can enable you to reduce those que's, but, if there is 200 cars then the 8 entrances/64-bit is kind of useless as you have to wait for the data/parking spaces to be cleared,

so having more RAM/Parking spaces will be required to allow for all of the data/cars to enter memory/to park.

 

So how will this affect GTAV-PC?.

 

Well, look at GTAIV-PC, all too often the game doesn't have enough memory and it starts to stutter, so it has to clear the memory and load the new data into memory.

If we have more memory it is less likely to have to continuously clear the previous data.

So if we were to spin the camera around it wont have to unload things that are temporarily out of view to put the new objects in view into memory, only to have to unload them again and reload the previous objects as we move the camera back to where it started.

And when we look behind us, it is less likely to stutter as it has to load the new objects into view, because with those extra entrances that 64-bit provides, it can chuck all of that data into memory much faster and you will be less likely to see a sudden frame rate drop.

 

With GTAV-PC only supporting 64-bit, it may reduce the chances of 32-bit components being required for the sake of compatibility (R* could make separate components for both, but many developers don't put in the extra time to do so), and without any of those "4 entrance"/32-bit component bottlenecks many of us with 64-bit systems are less likely to suffer the performance hit.

 

Many of us have had 64-bit CPU's for years, but because of the 32-bit software that is used in most cases (including GTAIV-PC), the CPU can't perform at its best,

Which would explain why the GTAV-PC CPU requirements are much lower than most would expect, as with 64-bit the CPU can put more data through the extra lanes, so those lanes don't need to be able to push the data through faster to enable the next lump of data to go through the CPU, as the data can just go through one of the "less busy" lanes and get into memory fast enough to avoid any stuttering.

 

 

 

I may have over simplified some of this, but I just hope to give some people a better idea as to why 64-bit only in GTAV-PC may be a good thing.

I also may have left out some other important key facts, if you would like to add some useful information, then please go ahead and post below!.

 

Anyway, I hope that you will all enjoy GTAV-PC when it is released, have fun, and I hope to meet many of you online!.

[Mike0]

I think an SSD or better RamDrive is even better for playing games. Optimal would be to have for example 128 GB RAM and make a ramdisk 80 GB, and install GTA V on the ramdisk, and the rest is RAM.

 

I wonder how smooth the game would be then ? No HDD, no SSD, the whole game is in RAM.

 

Smooth as butter?

[Smiler-Online]

I think an SSD or better RamDrive is even better for playing games. Optimal would be to have for example 128 GB RAM and make a ramdisk 80 GB, and install GTA V on the ramdisk, and the rest is RAM.

 

I wonder how smooth the game would be then ? No HDD, no SSD, the whole game is in RAM.

 

Smooth as butter?

 

Definitely, but if you think of the CPU as a pipe between the Storage & RAM, then 32-bit may be too slim to fit all of the required data through at once, but 64-bit will be twice as big, and reduce any limitations.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Smiler-Online

[Antaxi]

I think it might be work on 32 bit system, but developers these days very lazy to doing this for CG consoles port, which 64 bit is default

Edited January 18, 2015 by Antaxi

[Geeteeaifive]

64bit is only about 1-2% faster than 32bit. The real improvement comes from increased ram size from 3.25gb to all the way of ridiculous ram sizes..

[Smiler-Online]

(In Windows) "32-bit programs can only use 2 GB of memory each, while 64-bit programs can use much more."

http://www.howtogeek.com/194119/why-are-most-programs-still-32-bit-on-a-64-bit-version-of-windows/

Edited January 18, 2015 by Smiler-Online

[EvilDog77]

I think it might be work on 32 bit system, but developers these days very lazy to doing this for CG consoles port, which 64 bit is default

 

 

[utack]

64bit is extremely useful because all CPU's supporting it also have SSE and the compiler can just use it where needed.

 

 

64bit is only about 1-2% faster than 32bit. The real improvement comes from increased ram size from 3.25gb to all the way of ridiculous ram sizes..

It depends on how it is used. Theoretically it can be twice as fast. In most games I would expect about 1.2x performance improvement.

Edited January 18, 2015 by utack

[Smiler-Online]

64bit is extremely useful because all CPU's supporting it also have SSE

 

I would also like to mention that from personal experience when I used to use the PS2 emulator 'PCSX2', using newer versions of SSE in the emulator made a massive difference in performance, I mean, I was previously getting below 10fps in most games, but when using the newer versions of SSE I started to get a near solid 60fps.

 

Thats the kind of difference that you can potentially see when using SSE.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Smiler-Online

[hunk41]

 

64bit is extremely useful because all CPU's supporting it also have SSE

 

I would also like to mention that from personal experience when I used to use the PS2 emulator 'PCSX2', using newer versions of SSE in the emulator made a massive difference in performance, I mean, I was previously getting below 10fps in most games, but when using the newer versions of SSE I started to get a near solid 60fps.

 

Thats the kind of difference that you can potentially see when using SSE.

 

use AVX, it's faster.

[Smiler-Online]

use AVX, it's faster.

 

 

I don't really play the old PS2 games anymore anyway.

 

But back on topic,

 

I remember playing Crysis 1 with the 64-bit executable, and I believe that a large amount of the code was optimised for 32-bit compatibility, so the 64-bit mode wasn't really any better.

 

But GTAV-PC appears to have been built strictly for 64-bit, so the overall experience may be much better.

[Yogensia]

I think an SSD or better RamDrive is even better for playing games. Optimal would be to have for example 128 GB RAM and make a ramdisk 80 GB, and install GTA V on the ramdisk, and the rest is RAM.

 

I wonder how smooth the game would be then ? No HDD, no SSD, the whole game is in RAM.

 

Smooth as butter?

 

You probably wouldn't notice much of a difference in FPS, maybe no difference at all over an SSD. Ramdisk applications rely on creating a logical drive in your ram and launching the game from there, but data is still read from this virtual drive in your ram, and then written in the actual ram available to windows while you play, meaning you're not removing the I/O operations. As long as you can't get rid of that, you might as well stick with an SSD.

[BS_BlackScout]

 

 

X

 

X

 

use AVX, it's faster.

 

I would actually know if there is real difference and if so how much performance we would get with it...

I mean, there are games like GRID 2 which uses it, but I couldn't find any comparisons between the AVX and SSE modes...

Anyone here has it so we can have some idea?

Edited January 19, 2015 by BlackScout

[utack]

 

 

 

X

 

X

 

use AVX, it's faster.

 

I would actually know if there is real difference and if so how much performance we would get with it...

I mean, there are games like GRID 2 which uses it, but I couldn't find any comparisons between the AVX and SSE modes...

Anyone here has it so we can have some idea?

 

I tested the x264 video encoder to get an idea how much impact it can have on well optimized programs.

 

#1:

x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2 LZCNT BMI2

encoded 4535 frames, 38.73 fps, 8466.29 kb/s

 

#2:

x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 AVX2 LZCNT BMI2

encoded 4535 frames, 41.56 fps, 8466.29 kb/s

 

[Paladin Goo]

I think it might be work on 32 bit system, but developers these days very lazy to doing this for CG consoles port, which 64 bit is default

Lazy? It's 2015 for god sake. If you're PC gaming and using anything other than 64 bit, you're doing it wrong.

[Smiler-Online]

Lazy? It's 2015 for god sake. If you're PC gaming and using anything other than 64 bit, you're doing it wrong.

 

I kind of agree, but I get the impression that many gamers would still prefer to see better compatibility with older/slower hardware & software rather than better performance on modern hardware and better future proofing for the next generation of hardware.

 

If it was up to me, I would remove compatibility for anything lower than DX11 & 64-bit, and optimise it for 1080p up to 8k though to be honest...

 

What can I say, I am a geek that loves to push the boundaries of today's & tomorrows hardware (and software).

[BS_BlackScout]

 

I think it might work on 32 bit systems, but the developers these days are very lazy to do this for CG consoles port, which 64 bit is default.

 

 

 

It won't.

By the way, I don't think there is a default for CG...

It's X86-64, if they don't really need that much of RAM, no need of making it x64.

Edited January 19, 2015 by BlackScout

[Smiler-Online]

Even GTAIV-PC needed more RAM than what was available to it in 32-bit, so I just don't think that 32-bit makes any sense for GTAV-PC.

 

When I play GTAIV-PC online now, I still often see frame rate drops when it is clearing memory, and then suddenly my frame rate jumps back up to 56fps immediately... if there was no memory limitations, then surely this would not happen so frequently, especially considering that I have 16GB of RAM which could potentially be usable if the game was 64-bit.

[GrindoLindo]

64bit is only about 1-2% faster than 32bit. The real improvement comes from increased ram size from 3.25gb to all the way of ridiculous ram sizes..

8gb to 16gb should be a minimum these days for any gamer, video editor, 3dsmax user etc.

 

for a start many console ports use crazy amounts of ram due to memory leaks and not being optimized

 

3dsmax uses a fare bit of ram when building complex scenes

 

photoshop is another high ram app

 

video editing apps can use quite a bit of ram

 

anything that has to cache a big load of files before it does something uses lots of ram, not much ram and it uses the dreaded slow ass pagefile, although it's quicker if you got a ssd, some say you don't need one with an ssd but some apps still crash or refuse to work if you haven't got one.

 

4gb isn't enough for all these modern console ports, it's scraping at the bottom of the barrel.

[Smiler-Online]

Also I have to say,

It must be crazy to think that some people still expect graphically demanding PC games to only require 32-bit and less than 2GB of RAM, yet now smartphones are starving for 64-bit & upwards of 4GB of RAM and most flagship smartphones in 2015 are going to be 64-bit ready.

 

I mean, its crazy to think that mobile apps will have access to more memory than some graphically demanding PC games.

 

Some tech noobs need to remember that PC gaming isn't all about the CPU & GPU, the RAM is just as important and so are many other components.

[PhillBellic]

I certainly hope the game runs smoothly, and loads/unloads assets much quicker.

[r34ld34l]

Also I have to say,

It must be crazy to think that some people still expect graphically demanding PC games to only require 32-bit and less than 2GB of RAM, yet now smartphones are starving for 64-bit & upwards of 4GB of RAM and most flagship smartphones in 2015 are going to be 64-bit ready.

 

I mean, its crazy to think that mobile apps will have access to more memory than some graphically demanding PC games.

 

Some tech noobs need to remember that PC gaming isn't all about the CPU & GPU, the RAM is just as important and so are many other components.

Textures are not saved in RAM, so for high graphically demanding games RAM is not important. VRAM is.

Smartphones are not the same as PC nor consoles. If you need 4GB of RAM on phone, then what the f*ck are you doing with you phone? What kind of nonsense apps do you install? Or are you playing demanding games on it? If yes then what the f*ck are you doing with your life.

 

CPU/MB is the most important, then RAM then GPU, then the "other" things. Nobody claims only CPU or GPU is important, but those two are one of top things you consider when asking "Can I run it?".

Edited January 20, 2015 by r34ld34l

[Smiler-Online]

 

Also I have to say,

It must be crazy to think that some people still expect graphically demanding PC games to only require 32-bit and less than 2GB of RAM, yet now smartphones are starving for 64-bit & upwards of 4GB of RAM and most flagship smartphones in 2015 are going to be 64-bit ready.

 

I mean, its crazy to think that mobile apps will have access to more memory than some graphically demanding PC games.

 

Some tech noobs need to remember that PC gaming isn't all about the CPU & GPU, the RAM is just as important and so are many other components.

Textures are not saved in RAM, so for high graphically demanding games RAM is not important. VRAM is.

Smartphones are not the same as PC nor consoles. If you need 4GB of RAM on phone, then what the f*ck are you doing with you phone? What kind of nonsense apps do you install? Or are you playing demanding games on it? If yes then what the f*ck are you doing with your life.

 

CPU/MB is the most important, then RAM then GPU, then the "other" things. Nobody claims only CPU or GPU is important, but those two are one of top things you consider when asking "Can I run it?".

 

 

I happen to do a lot of multitasking on my smartphone, and when away from home, I remotely connect to my home computer with a bluetooth mouse & KB connected to my device & the device is also connected to the nearest available TV wirelessly via Chromecast.

 

And yet it is doing this whilst playing my music from the device, and alerting me of any communications (Via email, SMS, phonecalls, etc).

 

And often all of this is going on whilst I have other apps running in memory for quick access.

 

The most demanding game I have on my phone is GTASA, and I don't play that very often.

 

 

*EDIT*

Also remember that the game doesn't consist of just Textures

Edited January 20, 2015 by Smiler-Online

[Barrett_killz]

What about the parked CPU threads on hyperthreaded processors?

[IcePwrd]

It's quite simple really

 

GTA V minimum RAM requirement = 4GB

Maximum RAM usable in 32 bit systems = 3.25GB

3.25<4

 

And that's why you need to upgrade.

[Phorkz]

If you are a PC gamer, and are still using 32 bit, you need to take a long hard look at your life.

[Smiler-Online]

Here is a video from January 2014 explaining 32-bit vs 64-bit a little better and also mentioning why 64-bit is not just about memory, but also Registers, which can help performance even on processes which require less than 4GB's of RAM

 

 

*EDIT - wrong video fixed :\*

 

Edited January 20, 2015 by Smiler-Online

[GrindoLindo]

If you are a PC gamer, and are still using 32 bit, you need to take a long hard look at your life.

only thing people should be concerned with is their cpu & gpu.

 

intel gpu's are all pretty bad, shared memory lack of shader, pipelines etc. not designed for gaming, basic gpu's for work / business use.

 

all they are good for is like basic games, some emulators etc. the hd4000+ can runs some mordern-ish games but not well.

seen many youtube videos of users playing new games on slow gpus. claiming they are playable. failing to lists things like resolution etc.

 

i know not everyone can afford the good stuff, but as you say, you gotta be realistic.

 

a little bit research will get you what you need, sometimes you won't even have to spend a fortune.

[Smiler-Online]

"There are 3 most obvious advantages of 64-bit processors over their 32-bit counterparts: extended address space, capacity increase and bigger number of general-purpose registers.",

 

"The bigger number of registers and increase of their size allow the processor to handle large memory areas simultaneously, to handle variables and arrays more effectively and to pass function arguments in registers instead of the stack."

 

http://www.viva64.com/en/k/0002/

[Kampret]

It's quite simple really

 

GTA V minimum RAM requirement = 4GB

Maximum RAM usable in 32 bit systems = 3.25GB

3.25<4

 

And that's why you need to upgrade.

 

Maximum user-space applications RAM allocation are 2GB on Windows, unless you're using 3GB boot switch. So yeah, 32-bit games will only have access to a max of 2GB RAM, no matter how much you already have (even if you enabled both 3GB boot switch AND PAE x87).