Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: CommanderDJ on November 08, 2010, 04:16:35 am
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Hello all,
The time has come. I've finally decided to switch from my trusty Windows XP to Windows 7. Now, I'm not sure whether to get Windows 7 in 32bit or 64bit. So, I want to know the advantages of 64bit vs 32bit operating systems, and I wanted to hear it from people I'm vaguely familiar with, rather than some random site on the interwebs. So perhaps if someone has experience with both they can compare the two? Up to you guys, I'll take whatever info I can get. I don't know if my system specs will make any difference, so here they are:
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 Processor
Gigabyte EX38-DS4 Mobo
4GB DDR2 RAM
GeForce 9600GT Graphics Card
Thanks in advance.
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If you have to upgrade from xp as you have a 64 bit processor and plenty of power in theory 64bit version should bettwe utalise your processor
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No reason to get 32-bit Windows if CPU supports 64-bit.
End of topic.
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Question: What can 64 bit do that 32 cant? All I see/hear is people with issues with 64 bit from everything from drivers to games.
Ps: I'm quite happy sticking with lovely XP for a good while longer.
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Eventually programs, especially games, will no longer be available in 32bit.
I run 64bit windows 7 and 64bit arch linux no problem.
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If you have more than 4GB RAM you'll want 64bit. 32bit can only use 4GB (in practice, usually less).
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Question: What can 64 bit do that 32 cant? All I see/hear is people with issues with 64 bit from everything from drivers to games.
64-bit OS can use more than 4GB of RAM and applications can use more than 2GB RAM. There are very little problems with 64-bit OS today. Problems are often associated with outdated hardware and old software. Neither of which should be an issue since you're going to use 64-bit OS on modern, up-to-date hardware. For second problem there's always emulators and virtual machines, or just keep old rig around for old games. For obscure outdated software there are always alternatives.
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I could have sworn we just had this discussion a month ago. Maybe that was one of my other forums.
Anyway, Windows 7 should not be purchased in anything other than 64-bit. As of roughly 2 years ago (minimum), there was no longer any reason whatsoever to buy a 32-bit operating system if your processor supported 64-bit. Even Vista 32-bit was pointless if your processor supported 64.
The only problems with 64-bit, as Fury has said, can be backwards compatibility. That said, I use a lot of open-source software and play older games, and I have not had a single problem with them. The driver compatibility in 64-bit is as good or better than what's available in 32, and the signed drivers issue is a complete non-starter.
I have very similar system specs to what you've listed (possibly slightly older) and have been using Windows 7 64-bit Professional since it was released without a single issue.
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I have recently made the same upgrade you are considering.
I can tell you right now, all the programs I use on a daily basis didn't care one whit that I had upgraded to Windows 7 64-bit. A couple of them didn't even have to be reinstalled(WoW & Starcraft). Even programs that were new to me, but years old, like Half-Life 2 and it's sequels ran like a top.
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ive been using 64 bit for years. i had 8 gigs of ram when most people only had 2. i started with 64 bit versions of xp, moved up to 64 bit vista. now thinking of using 64 bit 7. 32 bit windows is really only around for netbooks and embedded systems, and has no place on a modern desktop or laptop. i hope the next version of windows dispenses with 32 bit entirely.
it has some drawbacks, you can only use 64 bit drivers, so old hardware wont work well. you also wont be able to run old 8 and 16 bit applications no more without an emulator. but very rarely do i ever need to do that. and when i do i have a couple 32 bit junk machines lying around.
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Just to get rid of this confusion before it arises. There are those convinced that you can't run 64 bit if you have less than 4gb of memory. Of course this is false.
I run 64 bit on my computer with 2gb of memory (i'll get more later if i reach my memory consumption ceilling). I do it for the sake that more and more software is going to be, already is, or will be very soon 64 bit. The other benefit to running 64 bit is because encoding stuff like video and audio is faster on a 64 bit platform than 32 bit. There are also some other performance enhancements with 64 bit compared to 32 bit. In practice, many programs with a 64 bit equivalent of the 32 bit version don't run any faster.
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Ok, so I take it 32 bit has been around for a while, and the fact that it has a version released on newer OS's is just a sort of useless tradition now? Is there any benefit to 32 bit at all?
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not really, no.
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No, not on modern Desktop/Laptop machines.
Calling it a "useless tradition" is wrong though. It still has a place in some areas (basically, anywhere where processing power is not critical, think netbooks, iPad-like devices, smartphones and embedded devices).
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we have actually done this a few times before. 8 bit to 16 bit, then to 32 bit. 32 bit was fine and dandy up till we hit the memory wall. only way past that wall is to upgrade to 64 bit. its been supported on many cpus for years. its just taken this long for software to catch up to it.
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Question: What can 64 bit do that 32 cant? All I see/hear is people with issues with 64 bit from everything from drivers to games.
A 64 bit OS can access more than 4GB of total adress space, a 32bit OS can not.
So it really is quite simply... if you want to have more than 4GB total adress space (which includes system RAM, graphic card RAM any adress space taken up by other devices etc.) ... you kinda need 64bit. No way around it.
And if we are talking about a new computer / mostly new hardware... please, don't even consider 32bit anymore. 32bit is over.
As far as "issues" go... it's actually the other way around by now and has been for a while, as we've seen several games that would crash in 32bit at some point due to hitting the 2GB RAM barrier for a single applications.
(This includes even games that are several years old by now like Supreme Commander.... can't play large Multiplayer maps without crashes in 32bit... well you can... if you tweak the 2gb limit and if you don't have a graphic card with too much memmory to make that hack feasible without compromising Kernel stability...yah).
In any case.... with graphic cards that have 1-2gb memmory by themselves nowadays (which also counts towards the 4gb max limitation of a 32bit OS) it's safe to say that getting anything but 64bit on a computer with recent/semirecent hardware is pretty... unwise.
With the OPs computer setup both 32bit and 64bit will work just fine. (His hardware isn't even close to being old enough for 64bit driver support to still be an issue.)
However, since the Geforce 9600GT likely has 512MB ram.... he won't be able to use his full 4GB system ram with 32bit. (4608mb vs. 4gb address space limit).
I.e. No reason not to get 64bit nowadays..... but only drawbacks/headaches with 32bit.
Ps: I'm quite happy sticking with lovely XP for a good while longer.
Only until you buy a new computer.... trust me ;)
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Regarding the memory limitation thing:
32-bit system allows 4096 MB of address space for memory.
Computer's hardware takes certain amount of address space to run, and that's booked first for the system to run in the first place. This includes motherboard's devices, network interface cards, video card, sound card and whatever stuff you have connected to the computer on hardware level. The biggest chunk would usually be the graphics card which these days have 512-1024 MB of memory by themselves.
So now you have a situation where up to 512-1024 MB out of 4096 available megabytes of address space are taken by the system itself, leaving 3-3.5 GB's of address space for the actual random access memory itself. This means that if you have 4 gigs of physical RAM, only about 3-3.5 GB of it will be mapped and available for the system to use. The rest is left unaddressed and un-used.
64-bit system theoretically offers address space of 16 exabytes (over 16 million gigabytes), so practically any amount of hardware and physical memory can fit there without any problems whatsoever, even though typically hardware manufacturers limit the address space to something more practical like 256 TB which, of course, is still plenty sufficient as far as amount of memory goes.
Of course, with the law of accelerating returns and Moore's law, we'll probably be hitting the memory wall again in about ten to fifteen years or so and have to change to 128-bit computing... ;7
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Except, probably not. Moore's law is coming to a point where it isn't sustainable anymore, as we are running up against our capability to make smaller and smaller structures economically (The smaller you go, the higher the need for precision and the smaller the margin for errors; This of course means that a chip manufacturer can't get as many chips from the raw material as a higher percentage will have crippling defects).
And while there is truth to the statement that data will expand to fill the space available, I have to ask myself just what kind of content or applications people will use that would require several Internets worth of information.....
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Except, probably not. Moore's law is coming to a point where it isn't sustainable anymore, as we are running up against our capability to make smaller and smaller structures economically (The smaller you go, the higher the need for precision and the smaller the margin for errors; This of course means that a chip manufacturer can't get as many chips from the raw material as a higher percentage will have crippling defects).
And while there is truth to the statement that data will expand to fill the space available, I have to ask myself just what kind of content or applications people will use that would require several Internets worth of information.....
Maybe it won't be "people" using it? ;) heh
But yeah... we won't get there on silicone.
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silicone
:blah:
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Ok, so I take it 32 bit has been around for a while, and the fact that it has a version released on newer OS's is just a sort of useless tradition now? Is there any benefit to 32 bit at all?
Pretty much. But, not totally useless. There's plenty of still working fine 32 bit only processors out there that's still useful. Apple has already made the move to 64 bit completely. Microsoft has made a nicely progressive swing to 64 bit with people no preferring to run 64 bit windows 7. Apple has already decided not to make a 32 bit version of it's newer os's, microsoft may follow eventually. Linux will however continue to support 32 bit processors for a long time into the future because linux doesn't really drop support for much of anything. This means that you will be able to install the latest version of linux that comes out in 2015 on a p4 computer. Whereas windows 14, and macosx liono wont.
No, not on modern Desktop/Laptop machines.
Calling it a "useless tradition" is wrong though. It still has a place in some areas (basically, anywhere where processing power is not critical, think netbooks, iPad-like devices, smartphones and embedded devices).
Not totally a useless tradition, but almost. The intel atom n450 is 64 bit capable is in all third generation netbooks (first was celeron M based, then atom n270, now it's atom n450). Most mobile devices don't use an x86 processor. I wouldn't really call a netbook a mobile device since it's just a really small laptop. Mobile devices have a very strong and almost definite assurance that they're ARM based. Really the continued support for 32 bit only processors is that there's plenty of decent 32 bit only processors out there (i'm speaking of the p3 (the p3 is still decent in my mind), 32 bit p4, and the k7) in good computers used for whatever. And like i mentioned, that continued support right now is coming from microsoft, and in the end will only be linux.
Speaking of ARM processors in mobile devices. ARM does not use the x86 instruction set, and while there is 32 bit and 64 bit ARM processors. The evolution of mobile devices is different since they're smaller devices that use a different processor instruction set that don't need to have so much horespower, storage, or even much memory.
EDIT: @CommanderDJ
Of course you can still run you're old 32 bit programs in a 64 bit environment. 64 bit os's have all the 64 bit libraries and dependencies they need for 64 bit programs to run. While within a 64 bit os there will be 32 bit libraries and dependencies to let 32 bit programs to run inside of a 64 bit environment. That's how 64 bit windows, macosx, and linux gets it done.
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64 bit systems also have other things in its favor other than just memory capacity. for example you can have 64 bit integers which can be operated on in one cycle. when using floating point it means you can use doubles instead of floats at no additional cost to cpu time. this means more precision when performing operations. you also have more registers to work with.
64 bit systems generally only use a 48 or 52 bit address bus, for practicality reasons. it means fewer traces need to be etched onto the motherboard, which would make the layout larger, and take up space which could be used to add more components. you really dont need the full bus on a board that only has room for a tiny fraction of the possible memory a full 64 bit bus could handle. if it wasnt for that pesky netbook craze, 32 bit would have been dropped by now.
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Well, after reading all this I am firmly set on upgrading my computer to the 64bit version of Windows 7. Keep the discussion going if you want, guys, it's a good read.
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if it wasnt for that pesky netbook craze, 32 bit would have been dropped by now.
Yeah, one of the reasons i didn't care for when netbooks became popular. I like to run the same version of linux on all of my computers. Since i blew up my first netbook. I was very happy to find the atom n450 in the acer is 64 bit capable, and i bought a replacement.
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32 bit isn't going anywhere anytime soon. it's not just netbooks and mobile keeping it around. there's no reason to NOT get 64 bit when you're getting a new OS anyway, but in most cases there's also no reason to drop your 32 bit XP (or whatever) if you already have it just to get 64 bit. a small performance boost in limited sets of applications is not enough for me to spend $100+ and rebuild a system that has been slowly built up, tweaked, and customized just the way i want it.
i believe we're a ways off yet from 64 bit becoming the standard.
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but in most cases there's also no reason to drop your 32 bit XP (or whatever)
Only true if you don't have over 4GB RAM and don't intend to upgrade soon either. Anyone who uses a computer for more than email and excel will have a use for more RAM and will therefore require a 64 bit OS to utilize it. Believe me, with the renderer crashing due to low memory and the deadline for it rapidly approaching, you'll soon learn to appreciate the differences between 32 and 64 bit.
Also, I've been using a 64 bit os for quite some time now and had zero compatibility problems. Even played some old games on Dosbox recently :)
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but in most cases there's also no reason to drop your 32 bit XP (or whatever)
Only true if you don't have over 4GB RAM and don't intend to upgrade soon either. Anyone who uses a computer for more than email and excel will have a use for more RAM and will therefore require a 64 bit OS to utilize it. Believe me, with the renderer crashing due to low memory and the deadline for it rapidly approaching, you'll soon learn to appreciate the differences between 32 and 64 bit.
Also, I've been using a 64 bit os for quite some time now and had zero compatibility problems. Even played some old games on Dosbox recently :)
oi i still only have 1gb
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..which doesn't really change my point :)
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Seriously though, the only people who need or can appreciate 64 bit CPUs are gamers and guys who need high-performance machines. Lest we forget, the majority of PCs serves time as glorified typewriters or web frontends, and those do not need 64 bit processing, or more than 2 Gb of RAM.
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but its not good for the industry to float around in the limbo area between 64 and 32 bit. manufacturers need to provide drivers for both, hardware needs to support both. you need to support 2 sets of users. the software industry has to provide builds for both.
when you consider most of the hardware thats been available for the last 5 or so years has supported 64 bit. and even with less than 4 gb you could reap the other benefits of 64 bit. moms computer runs win xp 64, despite having only 2gb of ram. the computer is 6 or 7 years old, with all the original hardware. i was able to find drivers for everything without trouble. i find the 64 bit os makes the computer run a little bit faster than it used to. if youre gonna by new hardware you might as well get a 64 bit os, because at some point in the not too distant future 32 bit is gonna be dropped, merely on the grounds that 4gb of ram will be dirt cheap. thumbing through any computer add its not hard to find low end machines with 4 gigs of ram. the next wave of low end machines will no doubt have more.
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One point that I don't believe has come up yet, but should be mentioned, is that, if you buy a normal retail (It should also apply to MSDN/AA keys as well, but OEM versions are still sold in seperate 32 and 64 bit packages afaik) copy of Windows 7 (upgrade or full, makes no difference), you actually get both 64-bit and 32-bit media in the box meaning you can install 64-bit (which, as mentioned previously, should be your first call if your CPU supports it and you have 2GB or more RAM) to start with and, in the event something doesn't work, can easily downgrade to 32-bit. If the misbehaving apps aren't games, and you're prepared to fork out for 7 Pro, then you can try XP Mode, which MS recently made compatible with both VT and non-VT enabled CPUs, but it's worth the price hike over Home Premium on its own.
As for application and hardware compatibility, I've been running x64 7 since the beta and, aside from the typical new OS teething issues early on, it's handled everything I've thrown at it more or less. If your experience with 64-bit OSs has previously been with Linux, XP or even Vista, then I highly recommend you give it another chance with 7.
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32 bit isn't going anywhere anytime soon. it's not just netbooks and mobile keeping it around. there's no reason to NOT get 64 bit when you're getting a new OS anyway, but in most cases there's also no reason to drop your 32 bit XP (or whatever) if you already have it just to get 64 bit. a small performance boost in limited sets of applications is not enough for me to spend $100+ and rebuild a system that has been slowly built up, tweaked, and customized just the way i want it.
i believe we're a ways off yet from 64 bit becoming the standard.
Again, the new pineview atom n450 netbooks are 64 bit capable. The end of 32 bit only netbooks has come and gone with past intel celeron m and atom n270 netbooks. Mobile devices are following a different evolution, one that netbooks don't share. For mobile devices it's mainly the ARM processor, which is not an x86 processor. For all points and purposes towards your thinking in mobile technology. Yeah, 32 bit processors can be in those devices for a long time because i don't think anyone any time soon is going to need something like an 64 bit ARM dual core 8gb ram iphone any time soon :lol:
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Latest high-end phones have dual-core ARM v7 based CPU's with clock frequency of around 1GHz. Internal memory capacity varies between 512MB - 1GB. :p
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embedded systems are an entirely different animal. and while there are embedded x86 systems everywhere running 32 bit. usually they run windows ce and windows embedded. there is really no point to running something like windows 7 enterprise on an atm or self checkout stand. it would essentially be overkill. so the oses only provide enough functionality to run one application. then you got oses for consumer portables, like windows mobile, but those devices are usually running on arm architecture. while there are small scale 32 bit x86 machines, they are generally not targeted to the consumer market.
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Latest high-end phones have dual-core ARM v7 based CPU's with clock frequency of around 1GHz. Internal memory capacity varies between 512MB - 1GB. :p
They don't have 8gb of ram yet :D
Mobile devices right now are most likely switching over to 64 bit capable processors regardless of whether or not it be arm or x86, but i'm thinking more of 64 bit arm adoption than anything (not for future proofing, but current demand for what smartphones need to be able to do and more). If it's an x86 mobile device out there, it's probably 32 bit since x86 processors are usually more expensive than arm based.
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Latest high-end phones have dual-core ARM v7 based CPU's with clock frequency of around 1GHz. Internal memory capacity varies between 512MB - 1GB. :p
They don't have 8gb of ram yet :D
Mobile devices right now are most likely switching over to 64 bit capable processors regardless of whether or not it be arm or x86, but i'm thinking more of 64 bit arm adoption than anything (not for future proofing, but current demand for what smartphones need to be able to do and more). If it's an x86 mobile device out there, it's probably 32 bit since x86 processors are usually more expensive than arm based.
I'm already playing Monkey Island (and several other Lucas Arts adventures that i bought a LONG time ago) on my Cellphone via ScummVM.
I say keep going until we get Freespace 2 capable phones, pretty please!!! Pretty please with a cherry on top! :)
(I'd so get one of these picoprojectors and a bluetooth joystick to go along with it too mwahahahah)
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i wish they would stop calling it a phone and call it what it is, a computer with voip.
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I'm just running linux mint 9 64 bit with 2gb of ram. It's going fine. I did it for the occasional speed increase in whatever i use, for when i get more memory, and i like 64 bit. By about now, almost all linux software has been ported to 64 bit, this also furthered my desire for wanting it. I still play my 32 bit only windows games in wine. All my other games have 64 bit executables. The only game i needed to accomodate a 32 bit library for was fso. I grabbed this specific 32 bit library, and away i was playing 32 bit fso in 64 bit linux.
As for anything else, yeah the community here knows the need to make some 64 bit executables.
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Umm.
You do know that at least on Linux, you can compile a 64-bit exe yourself?
And I would argue against there being a "need" to make 32-bit exes.
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Umm.
You do know that at least on Linux, you can compile a 64-bit exe yourself?
And I would argue against there being a "need" to make 32-bit exes.
I know that, but it was much easier getting the 32 bit one working. Well, if you think there's no need for 32 bit exes.....
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Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind fs2 which can use my 12 gigs of ram.. :)
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Err. ****. That's what I get for posting without sleep :P
What I meant was, there's no "need" for us to compile 64-bit exes. It's nice that it works on Linux (and, presumably, MacOS), but it's not a priority for Windows. Personally, I've never seen RAM usage go beyond a gig with FSO; I highly doubt that the ability to use more than 2 Gigs will be needed anytime soon (looks expectingly in Diaspora's direction....)
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Yeah, there's next to no need to go out of your way to support 64-bit on Windows if the program doesn't specifically require it (which is the vast bulk of consumer software) because 32- and 64-bit interoperability is virtually transparent and handled almost completely without user interaction. Mac OS X is better in some ways since you don't have to worry about drivers (on genuine Apple hardware anyway), 16-bit software or 32/64-bit separation of certain system directories.
Linux, on the other hand, is a completely different animal. multilib is OK, better than having to maintain a 32-bit chroot, but it lacks the transparency offered by Windows or Mac OS X. It's next to useless for pre-packaged software since package managers will reject (quite correctly, though for the wrong reasons) anything not in the same binary format as the system. More annoyingly, if you have a 32-bit app that requires a library not offered in your distros pre-packaged collection of 32-bit libs (such as FSO and libogg on amd64 Ubuntu), then acquiring and adding it to multilib requires more effort and skills than should be required for a desktop OS.
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I used a program called getlib for ubuntu and debian that grabs 32 bit libraries for 64 bit systems. For fso, there was only one library i needed. It went very smoothly which was really cool. I most likely got lucky since i'm using a distro that already includes a lot of 32 bit libs already. If it had been another pre-setup distro, this could be very different.
EDIT: Necro'd a little. It's pretty unnecessary to make a 64 bit build of the fso engine. I wouldn't do it for memory requirements; i wasn't theorizing that this game would take more than a 4gb of ram. I would be doing for adoption of a processor instruction set as more people move over to it.