Vista - Re: 64-bit DirectX game?

> Guess there is just not enough 64-bit users to justify a true 64-bit gameThere are not enough 64-bit users out there to justify making the game ONLY
work on 64-bit native. Given that is not an option, you have three basic
choices:

(1) Make two versions of the game, one 32-bit and one 64-bit native. This is
expensive to develop and test. A few games have done this, including
Hellgate London and Crysis.

(2) Make one version of the game, a 32-bit version, that uses the Large
Address Aware feature to give 64-bit users a bit more content than would fit
on 32-bit. This is much less expensive to develop and test, but still means
only 64-bit users really get the benefits of some of the development cost.
This is what Company of Heroes is doing.

(3) Make one version of the game, a 32-bit version, and make it all fit into
the 2 GB limit of 32-bit OSes that still works for 64-bit users. This is
what most games do, although it's getting harder and harder to really do
this for games attempting to take full advantage of modern systems and video
cards.

Of course, there's also a fourth case of "ignore X64 Windows completely",
which is being done by a few too many publihsers still. The Games for
Windows branding is trying to address this by mandating 64-bit compatibility
at a minimum.

--
Chuck Walbourn
SDE, XNA Developer Connection

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