Well, there are few of us who are still using a 32 bit OS, my desktop still is, and the main reason I haven't bothered to upgrade it is I haven't been forced to.  I will probably;y just get a new comp, as it's almost silly to by a new os for a comp that is over 4 years old.

Skyrim uses LAA, Fallen Enchantress uses LAA (supposedly) and might have 64 bit DLC coming, so yeah it's about time to move up.  Sounds like The Secret World will use LAA too.  

I'd be surprised if there weren't many newer titles using it that I don't know about (pretty sure APB Reloaded does, not that anyone actually cares.)

Plus unless its XP I'm pretty sure you can get the 64 bit ver from MS in some manner.  Wouldn't know off the top of my head.

I think I looked into it and it would cost almost, or more than $100 to upgrade.  But, when it comes to technology I am pretty ignorant.  I figured that I could just get a new computer, which I need, for $500 that would come with a new 64 bit OS.  I don't think putting a new OS in my old crap is worth it when I know I will need to replace the thing soon enough any way.  And as a government worker, I am poorly paid and thus cheap.

Right on.  I recommend Trinity (AMD A10) machines for cheap...they're not technically out yet but they just got the review batches out, I imagine it'll be next month systems will start popping up.

This is incredibly important to the industry.

Not having access to more memory is very limiting these days.

For instance, for those of you who have read Elemental: Destiny's Embers, you know that the Fallen aren't just "big humans".  They are, effectively, a collection of fantasy archetypes.  The Ironeers are supposed to be dwarves.  

But we can't have lots of equally equippable body types because we can't fit it in memory. Obviously budget is a limiter as well but FE has, effectively, an unlimited budget. What we don't have is unlimited memory. 

You don't know how much I wish you guys would just drop 32-bit... I would pay an extra $50 for a 64-bit fallen enchantress with that kind of content.

harpo

Give it time. We have games in development that are 64-bit only.  

Stepping back for a moment, I read a lot of forums so I've seen people say things like "Elemental was crippled because it was stuck with Wardell's lore" (as if all the races were men).

I look forward to the day when the Quendar and the Trogs and the Ironeers and the rest get the full treatment.

The good news is, FE is 64-bit aware.  It just depends when we cut the coord to 32 bit players.

32 bits apps are fine in a virtual environment - in this day and age it should be strickly legacy for devs

I'm not the worlds biggest Stardock fan but I keep buyin' yer stuff, so there is that.  Glad to hear it  

Please cut the cord now.

I really wish you could have gone hog wild with hero customization- make it as unique as some of the modern 3d fighters.  That would probably require 64-bit.

I think it's a bad business decision to cut the cord now, simply because you have 100 000 (I think?) people who get a free copy of FE for buying E:wom. If 40 000 of those are going to bad-mouth the game because they can't play it... you're done.

Out of curiosity, how much do you consider this also a design issue rather than just a memory limitation issue?

Elemental uses stuff that takes up a lot of memory. I assume all the equipment is shown on the units, in the sense that a unit that is given a red cloak also shows a red cloak on the strategic map. Isn't that a huge drain on memory? Or is the main drain something else than the bodies & equipment?

Could dropping details on how units are presented on the strategic map enable you to concentrate more on adding the stuff that is now missing? How about dropping something else?

Sometimes less is more.

Edit: I'm glad to hear the fantasy archetypes are present in the lore. Hopefully they come more to the fore in the future. And regarding the memory drain, I've worked on design and implementation of mobile game platforms of three different companies, so optimization is a nemesis of mine. Getting a game to fit on 64kB of memory with limited ram and processing power requires you to squeeze your resources until you hear their muffled screams from your hard drive.. and I did feel the big decisions are made in the design. Implementation can squeeze you more bytes, but in the end the larger boundaries have already been set.

Brad, a year ago I'd have said don't leave 32 bit behind.  With only a very slight qualification now I think it's better to go for 64. In computer repair I am seeing the shift--most customers now are bringing in Vista and Win 7 machines and that's what I am hearing from other shops too.  This past year seemed to be "it".

So Galactic Civilisations 3 is gona be 64-bit only.