32 bit vs 64 bit windows 7 gaming
Processor manufacturers are exclusively shipping bit processors in their desktop computers, and even the chipsets of most laptop computers support x64 technology. It is important for game developers to take advantage of the improvements that bit processors offer with their new applications and to ensure that their earlier applications run correctly on the new processors and the bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.
This article addresses compatibility and porting issues and helps developers ease their transition to bit platforms. The first thing most developers notice is that bit processors provide a huge leap in the amount of physical and virtual memory that can be addressed. The remainder of 4 GB is allocated to the kernel 32 bit vs 64 bit windows 7 gaming can result in failing driver and service configurations.
The bit architecture also has improved floating-point performance and faster passing of parameters. As explained earlier, enabling this flag for a build allows a bit program to access more memory with 32 bit vs 64 bit windows 7 gaming boot options on a bit OS or on a bit OS.
However, developers must be careful that pointer assumptions are not made, such as assuming that the high-bit is never set in a bit pointer. 32 bit vs 64 bit windows 7 gaming applications that are large-address-aware can 32 bit vs 64 bit windows 7 gaming at run time how much total virtual address space is available to them with the current OS configuration by calling GlobalMemoryStatusEx.
Values that are larger than 3 GB can only be obtained on bit editions of Windows. For example, if IncreaseUserVa has a value ofthe result is ullTotalVirtual with a value of bytes. Sixty-four-bit Windows operating systems are 32 bit vs 64 bit windows 7 gaming compatible with the IA32 architecture, and the majority of APIs that bit applications use are available through the Windows bit on Windows bit Emulator, WOW WOW64 has an execution layer that handles the marshalling of bit data.
WOW64 redirects DLL file requests, redirects some registry branches for bit applications, and reflects some registry branches for and bit applications. Most applications developed for a bit platform will run without problems on a bit platform.
A few applications could have issues, which might include the following:. In addition, developers need to be wary of bit programs that they might still be using. The next section discusses issues related to porting code to bit native for developers that want to ensure their legacy programs work on bit platforms.
It is also for developers who are unfamiliar with bit programming. Having the right tools and libraries will help to ease the transition from bit to bit development.
Microsoft Visual Studio and Visual Studio support code generation for both x86 and x64, and they comes with libraries optimized for generating x64 code. However, it will also be necessary for developers to distribute the Visual C runtimes with their applications.
Developers who are targeting bit platforms can prepare for bit development to make their transition easier later on. Switching to bit tools and libraries will probably generate a lot of new build errors initially; so, it is advisable to switch bit-neutral tools and libraries and correct any warnings before switching to a bit build.
Changing tools, changing libraries, and using certain compiler flags will not be enough, though. Assumptions in coding standards must be reevaluated to ensure that current coding standards don't allow portability issues. Portability issues can include pointer truncation, size and alignment of data types, reliance on bit DLLs, use of legacy APIs, assembly code, and old binary files. Pointers are bits on a bit OS, so casting pointers to other data types can result in truncation, 32 bit vs 64 bit windows 7 gaming pointer arithmetic can result in corruption.
Since pointers are bit on new platforms, developers should check the ordering of pointers, and the data types in classes and structures, to reduce or eliminate padding. While pointers increase from 32 bits to 64 on a bit platform, other data types don't. The changes in pointer size and data alignment require special handling to ensure bit-tobit compatibility.
More information can be found in Getting Ready for bit Windows: The New Data Types. The performance penalty for non-aligned accesses is greater on x64 platform than on an x86 platform. Correct use of these aforementioned macros should eliminate potential non-aligned access penalties.
Additional Considerations and Getting Ready for bit Windows: Rules for Using Pointers. Inline assembly code is not supported on bit platforms and needs to be replaced. Intrinsics can be used in place of assembly code, but should only be used after full profiling and analysis has been performed.
The instructions sets are still present for backward compatibility for bit mode; however, to avoid compatibility issues in the future, their use in current and future projects is discouraged.
Visual Studio issues deprecation warnings, and these changes are not an issue for developers who use the latest APIs. All developers need to re-profile any applications that are being ported to new architectures. Many applications being ported to bit platforms will have different performance profiles from their bit versions. Developers need to run bit performance tests before assessing what needs to be optimized.
The good news about this is that many traditional optimizations work on bit platforms. In addition, bit compilers can also perform many optimizations with the correct use of compiler flags and coding hints. Some structures may have their internal data types reordered to conserve memory space and improve caching. Array indices can be used instead of a full bit pointer in some cases. More information on declspec restrict can be found at Optimization Best Practices.
Managed code is used by many game developers in their tool chain, so an understanding of how it behaves on a bit OS can be helpful. Managed code is instruction-set neutral, so when you run a managed application on a bit OS, the Common Language Runtime CLR can run it as either a bit or bit process.
By default, the CLR runs managed applications as bit, and they should work fine with no problems. However, if your application depends on a DLL that is native bit, then your application will fail when it tries to call this DLL. A bit process needs completely bit code, and a bit DLL cannot be called from a bit process.
Because processors with AMD64 and Intel 64 architecture can execute bit instructions natively, they can run bit applications at full speed, even on a bit OS. There is a modest cost for converting parameters between bit and bit when calling operating system functions, but this cost is generally negligible.
This means that you should see no slowdown when running bit applications on a bit OS. When you compile applications as bit, the calculations get more complicated. A bit program uses bit pointers, and its instructions are slightly larger, so the memory requirement is slightly increased.
This can cause a slight drop in performance. On the other hand, having twice as many registers and having the ability to do bit integer calculations in a single instruction will often more than compensate.
The net result is that a bit application might run slightly slower than the same application compiled as bit, but it will often run slightly faster. Sixty-four-bit architectures allow developers to push the limitations on how games look, sound, and play. Transitioning from bit programming 32 bit vs 64 bit windows 7 gaming bit programming is not trivial, however. By understanding the differences between the two, and by using the newest tools, the transition to bit platforms can be easier and faster.
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Windows Firewall for Game Developers. Windows Games Explorer for Game Developers. Windows Installer for Game Developers. Collapse the table of content. This documentation is archived and is not being maintained. Is this page helpful? We appreciate your feedback.
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