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Everquest 2 goes 64-bit tomorrow both client and server side


xordevoreaux

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For anyone who's ever clamored for SWTOR to be taken to 64-bit (which in and of itself would not be the biggest performance hurdle to overcome for SWTOR), Everquest 2's server code and client code are being upgraded from 32-bit to 64-bit addressing tomorrow.

 

I started playing EQ2 when it first came out in 2004, so it'll be interesting after all these years to see if there's any improvement in the game's responsiveness, which is what the devs describe will be the case. I strongly expect my reaction will be meh, but we'll see.

 

I don't expect magic, but it'll be easy enough for me to report back here after the EQ2 servers come back up and I install all updates if I notice a difference.

 

SWTOR would basically need to be completely re-platformed (new engine, DX12 with far more efficient shadowing, 64-bit) and its developers engage a whole host of redesign considerations, but it's good to see a game as old as EQ2 with developers willing to do what they can to improve the game, even if incrementally. It's still a big step.

Edited by xordevoreaux
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SWTOR would basically need to be completely re-platformed (new engine, DX12 with far more efficient shadowing, 64-bit) and its developers engage a whole host of redesign considerations,

Here, you've munged together a bunch of different considerations as if they are a package.

 

64-bit, in particular, is probably less ... difficult, let's say, than the others. It's not as simple as just switching the "target architecture" switch on the compiler and rebuilding, but it doesn't involve rewriting almost the entire game. A new engine absolutely for sure does, and DX12 (with down-toggle for machines that can't cope) is still a major chunk of work.

 

Practicalities say that switching to 64-bit would still require a chunk of programming work, at the very least to remove the "two processes" thing once and for all, but that's still less work than a new engine or DX12 support.

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Here, you've munged together a bunch of different considerations as if they are a package.

 

64-bit, in particular, is probably less ... difficult, let's say, than the others. It's not as simple as just switching the "target architecture" switch on the compiler and rebuilding, but it doesn't involve rewriting almost the entire game. A new engine absolutely for sure does, and DX12 (with down-toggle for machines that can't cope) is still a major chunk of work.

 

Practicalities say that switching to 64-bit would still require a chunk of programming work, at the very least to remove the "two processes" thing once and for all, but that's still less work than a new engine or DX12 support.

 

It would be a ton of work, and EA's best shortcut would be

<fantasy>

licensing the Unreal 5 engine and starting from scratch

</fantasy>

 

And to me, all those things are a package. Leave one out, and the result would be lacking.

Edited by xordevoreaux
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And to me, all those things are a package. Leave one out, and the result would be lacking.

No, what I meant was that you said it as if they are a package of things that cannot be separated rather than a package that should not be separated. A transition to 64-bit, if done correctly, would be an improvement in and of itself, and it's probably a requirement for a proper implementation of the others.

 

On the other hand, I'm not convinced that DX12 (as opposed to DX11) is automatically the best way to go. DX11 allows multithreaded rendering and other improvements over DX9, but has the advantage of working on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. While those will eventually go the way of the dodo, they aren't there yet.

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I'm not convinced that DX12 (as opposed to DX11) is automatically the best way to go.

 

Aside from EA having to kiss off a certain section of the player base without DX12.1 cards, the advantage of DX12 over DX11 is the developer's ability to control the hardware directly rather than going through the middleware portion of DX 12'x API. Yes, put in the hands of a capable developer, DX11 effects can be built efficiently, but there's plenty of comparisons out there that demonstrate bypassing the overhead is the way to go.

 

In other news, I played EQ2 for about 4 hours last night after it opened as 64-bit, and mileage may vary.

I'm sitting on 32GB of memory, but any memory addressing changes the developers may have made (at this point) to take advantage of the broader memory addressing of 64 bit wasn't apparent while playing.

 

Also, because new hardware is involved, just the act of going from 32-bit to 64-bit processors doesn't tell the whole story, because blurred in there somewhere would be different clock rates as well as any other imaginable server-side upgrades to hardware.

 

The biggest difference I noticed was in heavy client-server interaction, specifically while crafting and building out the alternative advancement boilerplates. Those were definitely faster. Overall game play speed changing was perceptible but slight, since most of that is client-side dependent aside from the server keeping the player's location synchronized.

 

Loading from zone to zone seemed to be a bit faster, especially the "adding character to zone" part, but that may also reflect other hardware changes that may have been brought about by rebuilding the servers for 64-bit.

 

Side note: No one on a 32-bit computer can play Everquest 2 any more, per dev notes.

Edited by xordevoreaux
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