Friday facts #158 - The end of the 32 bit era

[malecord]

As steam allows me to check the hardware survey of users playing factorio,

Just out of curiosity. Do you also see also the OS they use? Is this survey updated every month?

[bobingabout]

As steam allows me to check the hardware survey of users playing factorio,

Just out of curiosity. Do you also see also the OS they use? Is this survey updated every month?

Yes it tracks OS, and No it's not monthly.

I saw a steam survey on my PC last week... but the time before that? well, I don't think there was a time before that, and I've had the computer for a year.

The curious part was that it still asked me what my connection to the internet was, and still listed the same selection from a decade ago, including strange and obscure things. I chose "Cable", my internet is actually ADSL. and Speed is part of the type, ADSL can be anywhere from 512kbps down, to 24Mbps down. and up is up to 2Mbps. The option I chose was "Cable 1Mbps", because it was the closest fit.

It also auto detected my optical drive as DVD. It has a DVD-RW in there, but also has a BD-RW drive in there. (I like to throw in 2 writers because when I am writing disks, I often end up chain writing disks, and the computer can definitely handle doing more than one at a time. So 1 DVD-RW for the chain writing, and 1 BD-RW for the rare instance I want to use BluRay.)

[aubergine18]

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

[luc]

I just noticed the download page mentions nothing about this:

The conclusion is to disable multiplayer in 32 bit version right away (0.14.10)

You might want to note on the experimental downloads page that 32-bit is singleplayer only.

[Nova]

It might take a year of developer time to fix every 32-bit bug. (If you don't fix them all, you will get complaints and negative publicity). And you end up with zero profit.

1 year of development time sounds like a pretty huge number. Don't think it takes THAT much, not even close.

[DaveMcW]

1 year of development time sounds like a pretty huge number. Don't think it takes THAT much, not even close.

100% loss of 32-bit sales sounds like a pretty huge number. I think 0.14 without multiplayer or megabases is still a great game.

[Piroko]

Let's assume there are 2500 more 32-bit sales, and they are worth $10 profit each. $25000 is a year's salary for a developer in Czech Republic.

Eh, the salary is only a small cost for a company. With taxes and accomodations you can easily double if not triple that number.

[Apotheosis]

Very disappointed in this decision, to say the least. I feel betrayed.

This is not a decision you should make in the middle of a game release. If you didn't want to deal with 32-bit then you should have decided on that from the outset, so that people like myself didn't waste our time on it.

[hoho]

This is not a decision you should make in the middle of a game release.

They didn't. The game is still in prerelease/alpha mode.

If you didn't want to deal with 32-bit then you should have decided on that from the outset, so that people like myself didn't waste our time on it.

How many hours have you played this game?

In most $60 AAA titles, people rarely play more than a few dozen hours unless it's multiplayer.

[bobingabout]

Yeah, I get that a lot actually.

They want me to spend $40 on optional upgrades? How much do I play this game? How much would that have cost me at an arcade? Screw it, it's worth it.

Looking back at how much I spent on this game (I got the furnace attendant option... speaking of which, weren't we supposed to have been offered something for choosing the middle option, when they integrated those bonuses into the base game with steam launch?), it kinda makes me feel bad that I didn't pay top tier and get my name put in the sponsors list. I mean, if you play mods, you've heard of me, even if you don't use my stuff.

I remember when I first started, and rk84, or DySoch's names would appear in my lab, or as the name of a train station. It was like... Awesome! I feel bad for not doing the same.


Sorry for rambling a bit
So, what's my point? well, if you've already played the game a fair bit on 32bit, you will likely have got your money's worth out of the game already. and it's not like they're saying you can't play anymore. Big games have made hard descisions like this in the past, such as when WoW discontinued Windows 98 support. And probably XP since then (I don't play WoW, I wouldn't know), I know a game I play a lot is Startrek Online, and they decided to discontinue Mac support... and then released the game on PS4 and XBone.
So, you can't play the latest version on 32bit anymore... but when you finally upgrade your computer, the sweet spanky pants latest 64bit version will be waiting for you. It's not such a bad deal.

[Blaster]

About 64-bit Support

What computers can't support 64-bit?

Pentium 4 Northwood computers and older (Socket 478, DDR 1 RAM)
AMD Athlon XP computers and older (Socket 462, DDR 1 RAM)
Intel Pentium M (predecessor to the Intel Core Series)
VIA C7-M and Cyrix knockoff CPUs (seriously, those could barely even XP)
Intel Atom First-Generation
Intel Bay Trail Atom Tablets (32-bit EFI and no legacy support because Intel)

All except the last two were sold and discontinued from the market before 2005. That means those computers are TEN TO FIFTEEN YEARS OLD

In the tech world, these computers are ancient.

Let's see what these systems can do...

CPU: An Intel Y-series CPU, which is made for tablets, performs better than all of those jokers with 5-10% of the power usage
RAM: 1-4 GB MAX of DDR1
Hard Drive: Usually IDE, rarely SATA 150 Mbps, which is SLOW and not supported anymore
Graphics: AGP 4x or 8x, extremely rare PCI-E 1.0 Spec, not compatible with anything today
Operating System: You know, Windows 10 32-bit CAN run on these specs if you can get 2 GB or more RAM, and it won't be any slower than if it ran XP

Relevance to Factorio: If your CPU is slow, guess what? You're the guy that can't connect to any of the bigger maps, because you can't catch up to it.

Now, if you're on 32-bit because Windows XP, and your computer is 64-bit Capable, go get Windows 10 and a new SSD and treat yourself to a refresh. Clean install 10x64 on your computer and now you have a new, modern, fast machine, even if it is an old Core2Duo-age or Athlon 64 dog.

If you're one of those Linux or anti-purchase-Windows tards, well, go download 64-bit Lubuntu and use that for your rig for free.

[bman212121]

Yeah, I get that a lot actually.

They want me to spend $40 on optional upgrades? How much do I play this game? How much would that have cost me at an arcade? Screw it, it's worth it.

Looking back at how much I spent on this game (I got the furnace attendant option... speaking of which, weren't we supposed to have been offered something for choosing the middle option, when they integrated those bonuses into the base game with steam launch?), it kinda makes me feel bad that I didn't pay top tier and get my name put in the sponsors list. I mean, if you play mods, you've heard of me, even if you don't use my stuff.

I remember when I first started, and rk84, or DySoch's names would appear in my lab, or as the name of a train station. It was like... Awesome! I feel bad for not doing the same.


Sorry for rambling a bit
So, what's my point? well, if you've already played the game a fair bit on 32bit, you will likely have got your money's worth out of the game already. and it's not like they're saying you can't play anymore. Big games have made hard descisions like this in the past, such as when WoW discontinued Windows 98 support. And probably XP since then (I don't play WoW, I wouldn't know), I know a game I play a lot is Startrek Online, and they decided to discontinue Mac support... and then released the game on PS4 and XBone.
So, you can't play the latest version on 32bit anymore... but when you finally upgrade your computer, the sweet spanky pants latest 64bit version will be waiting for you. It's not such a bad deal.

It's already been beaten down but the one great thing about the devs of this game is that they are more than willing to help someone out. In another thread I stated my appreciation for being able to download a stand alone version, as well as their support on steam to put out other releases you can use. If this were another game on steam or done by a large publisher, it would be a burden for players of 32 bit systems as they would become locked out of their game. Steam or other would auto patch the game and would make it unplayable. This is not the case with Factorio, you can just grab a copy of 14.9 from their site and I suspect they will leave the 14.9 version of the game in Steam for a long while. You'll still be able to play the game as you are right now forever, and it will work just fine. Like Bob said once you get a newer computer it will be like getting a whole new game for free.

As a side note I'm surprised people are able to play this game on 32 bit pcs. I've noticed memory usage going well over 2GB so unless the game is large address aware, it probably has issues when you get to that point. I can definitely understand there are a lot of Windows 7 32 bit computers out there, and those might have enough resources to play the game and just need to be reinstalled as 64 bit (Windows 7 unified the keys so if you have a 32 bit key, track down some install media for 64 bit and it will work). I doubt an actual computer that is 32 bit only (Read: Athlon XP) would have enough cpu, memory, or gpu to make the game playable. It's a touch slow on a dual core i7 laptop with 8gb of memory and integrated graphics once you get rolling, but it is playable.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Like they said, why should they spend obscene amounts of development time supporting archaic technology used by a mere 1% of their player base (and restricting their utilisation of x64 features in the process) when they could be adding cool new features and fixing some of the big remaining balance issues *cough*COMBAT*cough* instead?

Will they lose sales from x86 players? Maybe, but by making a better game they will encourage the players who do upgrade their kit more than once every ten years to get their friends playing it and with a more popular game they will have more visibility so it's possible they won't lose sales at all.

[Asterix]

OK, so, new to the forums, I just registered (and man, how many bot checks do you NEED?).

I have several hundred hours in factorio, on both 64 AND 32 bit systems (I'm still terrible, at it, mind, I just played it a lot ), and all I wanted to say was: I do understand the problems inherent in supporting both versions. Supporting both 32 and 64 bits is not worth the effort.

So, how hard would it be to release a 32-bit "unsupported" version?

As in: the underlying code is the same as the 64-bits version, recompiled for 32-bits, but the game is only supported for 64-bits, so if you only have a 32-bit system, and the port doesn't work, well, sorry about that, try a different version.

Dropping "support" doesn't necessarily mean no longer *releasing* 32-bits versions - it just means that all 32-bits versions will be "unsupported":if they work by sheer luck, good, if they don't work, well... Try downgrading to the last supported version.

Just a thought.

Have a nice,

*

[ExcessionOz]

It's a classic case of <anyone> being unable to please all of the people all of the time.

If people didn't get their $US20 worth from the current STABLE release (0.13) then they haven't played enough to be a part of the audience that the developers actively encourage and develop -for-. 32 bit support is still there, in the old releases, have at it.

If you';re unable to move forward to 0.14 thats sad for you, but for the rest of the world it's Business as Usual.

Back in the 1990's I was an Amiga-freak, I did everything on my Amiga, I spent $$,$$$ on hardware and software and had a kick arse system and games coming out of my ears. But I couldn't play Doom, and that's what all my PC owning friends were playing (this was before the age of '3d graphics accelerators, 1994 or so). Commodore was going under, their hardware was ok, but it had stopped innovating, and was gradually being out-done by Microsoft. It was a hard decision to go away from the Amiga, but I sold up (amazingly, I got real money for my kick arse system, enough to pay for my Pentium and 64MB of memory and a 17" monitor), and never looked back. Prior to my leaving my comfort zone, the Amiga was my life, afterwards? I never got attached to PC's in the same way, but they worked, and I adapted, learned new things, and got on with life. I didn't moan and whine and pout at Commodore for not keeping afloat, I couldn't say 'give me back the $$,$$$ I spent because you're not adapting fast enough'. If Commodore had produced an Amiga-killer using the AmigaOS, I'd have been all over it like a rash, rather than succumb to PC-ownership, but that's all water under the bridge.

I had tens of thousands of dollars invested in -dead- hardware and software.

These guys have $20 invested in an -alpha- release of a game, and are whinging and whining like it's the end of the world and they have been 'RIPPED OFF' (when they can still play prior releases to their heart's content, it isn't as ive 32bit support for OLD releases was turned off!).

You can't please a very tiny proportion of the people ANY TIME. Even if you gave them time travel and infinite stash space they would cry foul eventually, because humans ...

<no, I am not a biter. Honest.>

[ssilk]

Haha, that was my way, too. But before that I had a C64. And I didn't spent so much Deutschmarks. For example: I bought me an RLL-disk with impressive 10 Megabytes (Wow, I could copy all of my floppies onto it, amazing!!) and soldered the disk-controller myself. The device-driver I pirated. And in 92 I also bought me a PC, but I keep the old Amiga in my cellar. It still works! sometimes I take it out and play a bit with it, but the times between such events get longer and longer.
And I was frustrated by PCs. I spent €€€€€. I had several ones till then, most of them running with Linux, then with the notebooks we get in the company for work I switched back to Windows; all of that was crap. Shitty hardware in plastics with shitty software (Linux at that time was crap).

Until my company asked me to have a MacBook instead. (Plug: Till that time I know, why Apple is at this position on market: They don't make compromises like others. I really brought me back this Amiga-feeling from the first days. )

But back to the subject: This comparison (you just spent $$, but I spent $$,$$$, so it is o.k.) is - hmmm - not really fitting. I really understand your point but don't agree with the comparison. And I don't want to dig deeper here, cause it will bring nothing useful. I think the position of all is really clear: here cannot be a compromise and (with my life-experience) it's also not useful to tell the people how they need to think about it, that they change their opinions.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Can't stand Apple myself, they restrict everything so much you just can't do anything on it. Plus Windows is generally more compatible with, well, everything. Also Windows is designed around the fact that it might crash and gives you tools to fix it. Apple is designed around the assumption that it won't crash. I remember a few years ago a Mac laptop froze and it took them like half an hour to get it running again because it wouldn't respond to anything.

I dunno. I've always said something along the lines of "Windows is designed for the administrator, Mac is designed for the user" so as an Administrator I will naturally prefer Windows. In the end it is down to preference (and to some extent budget).

Having said that Asus do some real quality kit. My G73 laptop has been running for almost six years now having played thousands of hours of games, and the hinges are still smooth. I'm only now getting problems with the USB ports (and only because my wife sat it on its side where the mouse and headphones were plugged in...) but otherwise it's given me no reason to replace it.

EDIT:

So, how hard would it be to release a 32-bit "unsupported" version?

As in: the underlying code is the same as the 64-bits version, recompiled for 32-bits, but the game is only supported for 64-bits, so if you only have a 32-bit system, and the port doesn't work, well, sorry about that, try a different version.

Dropping "support" doesn't necessarily mean no longer *releasing* 32-bits versions - it just means that all 32-bits versions will be "unsupported":if they work by sheer luck, good, if they don't work, well... Try downgrading to the last supported version.

There are so many things wrong with this. What exactly would this accomplish? Either the release would work or it wouldn't, and unless they specifically fix it to work it won't.

Even if it -sort of- works, everyone would be forever repeating themselves that the x86 version is unsupported, not to mention how many bug reports would surface which then requires manpower to deduce if they're running the supported version or the unsupported version.

Lastly it's bad image for a company to release something like that. Say someone does buy it, assuming the 32 bit version is basically the same, only to encounter hundreds of bugs and performance problems and the like. They're going to think "what a crap game, why would the developers release something like this?" rather than getting their friends into it, then there's the impact it would have on Steam reviews.

[mrvn]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-158

A small note about the rail sprites. When rails cross in a # then they need a gap at the intersections. How else are the wheels of the train going to pass both ways?

[DaveMcW]

Also, when a track splits there needs to be a gap for the wheels between the track used and the track not used. And it should update every time a train comes through.

[VolvoxGlobator]

And that's why you don't buy games in EA, Devs like to change things and fuck you up.
Hope we get 1.0 before they stop supporting 64 bits

I guess we could also drop 64bit support in 0.15.

Of course that would mean no one would be able to play the game, but we have a right to do that, don't we? Everyone agreed to the Terms of Service which clearly state the cases in which you're eligible for a refund and that we can change anything at any time just because we feel like it.

What an extremely shitty attitude towards your customers -or to be more precise - supporters of your alpha development. I have no doubt that ToS gives you right to my oldest son. But this doesn't mean that it is the "right" way to do.
You have also changed the estimates when the 1.0 game will be released. But everyone is ok with that, because it was communicated ok, you make frequent updates, there is simply visible progress in the game... so noone really minds. On the other hand, you would get the shitstorm going on if you would just announce that, didn't make much of an aplha updates and simply didnt communicate with community.
Yet you have managed to not make it the right way now.
Dropping 32 bit supports, thus locking <1% of your backers from new content - meaning that they will never get to play the 1.0 release. The release they have paid for. Alphas are just part of what you sell.
Either you need money of 32bit players and thus you should keep developing 32 bit version - or you don't need their money and you should do the gracious thing and at very least refund portion of their support. Considering the actual success you have then returning 100% is the easy and right thing to do.

Oh, personally I am not affected - I am 64 bit. I also don't have son, just daughter, so that part of ToS doesn't apply to me either.