Would Blockland benefit by having a x64 version?

[Filipe]

Some games nowadays gives you the option to run it in x32 or x64 mode, x64 allows you to use more than 4GB of memory so it could improve the perfomance of the game and a lot of computers nowadays are in x64, but then again Blockland runs on an old engine so I don't think this would be possible.

[Ad Bot]

[St. Francis Xavier]

x64 was still pretty new when the version of the engine blockland uses came out, it probably would be compatible but I seriously doubt Badspot would put the time into a 64-bit version of the game when it would not really generate any profit or return of effort

[Pecon]

In theory all that really has to happen to get a x64 version is that Badspot compiles the game that way, for most programs it's as easy as just flipping a switch on the compiler. However, TGE was made eons ago in terms of technical innovation; Windows NT was still relatively new at this time. I feel like if there wasn't some weird complication with compiling we would already have a x64 build available.

However compiling in 64-bit really won't make a big difference. Blockland rarely needs more than about a gigabyte of memory and the 'big thing' with 64-bit programs is that it raises the memory limit quite significantly. However, probably one of the bigger bottlenecks for Blockland is the fact that everything except for the physics runs in a single thread. This means that the game can't really take very good advantage of multi-core processors, and having access to more cpu power is something that could hugely benefit servers in some situations.

I meandered a bit there, but in essence I don't think we have a lot to gain from x64, and if it were trivial we would probably already have it.

[portify]

A 64-bit version would technically raise the limit for how many bricks and players the game can keep track of, but it'd also make the game run slower and use more memory as a baseline because 64-bit pointers take up twice as much memory. This additionally means that less pointers can fit into the CPU cache.

Though, of course 64-bit has its advantages as well (many registers) that outweigh some disadvantages, but it's a lot of work for something that has pros and cons.

It does make sense for Blockland though, with all its bricks!

[Zeblote]

Blockland needs a 64 bit version so it stops crashing around 300k bricks.