[est1895]

Will my brother need OpenAL 64bit on his new system for freespace?  New system will be Windows 7 Pro 64bit. Link please

[Scourge of Ages]

In general, I would recommend to always use the 64 bit version if your system can handle it (do they even BUILD 32 bit CPUs anymore?).

Or, just use the version that's hosted on hard-light: http://scp.indiegames.us/builds/oalinst.zip

It'll work, and you are guaranteed to not notice any difference.

So I guess to answer your question, no he will not need OpenAL 64bit.

[Nuke]

do they even BUILD 32 bit CPUs anymore?

yes, they are all arms.

i really blame ms for keeping the legacy 32 bit cruft going for so long. x86-64 cpus have been around for over a decade and im rather angry that half the code i use is still 32 bit.

[Fury]

32-bit executables use 32-bit dll's. Likewise 64-bit executables (typically) use 64-bit dll's. Hence, as fs2_open is 32-bit, it uses 32-bit dll's. There is no 64-bit version available of Creative's OpenAL, but there is of OpenAL Soft. Still, you should use 32-bit dll even if using OpenAL Soft.

[The E]

And aside from FSO, most applications that use OpenAL will have either the installer or the dll bundled with them. It's not something you should need to take care of.