While the countdown for the Athlon 64 chip from AMD has already started, support from various important developers is gradually increasing.
According to AMD's Marty Seyer, Microsoft will be releasing a 64 compatible version of Windows either in Q4, 2003 or Q1, 2004. The figures suggested by the company's VP actually represent a delay since he expects a beta version of Windows to be available for testing in Q3, 2003 while Microsoft had planned a Q2, 2003 beta release. With both desktop and server versions of, 64-bit optimized, windows promised, AMD are now beginning to look for support from the world of gaming.
Game developers are very willing to provide such support because game development stands to gain, technologically by the introduction of 64-bit precessing. The main advantage offered by the architecture is the ability to process more than 4 Gb of memory, the current limit for 32-bit processing. According to analysts only 20 per cent of servers and about 5 per cent of desktops stand to gain any noticable advantage from using the new design of processor. The fact that the new chips will run 32-bit applications however, makes those chips extremely attractive to computer enthusiasts.
64-bit processors will however, offer great improvements when running video and in gaming by keeping complex 3D backgrounds and large chunks of video in memory. Utilizing that potential will take some time though and such applications and games are not expected for another 1.5 to 2 years. Epic's founder Tim Sweeney claims his company is already working on a 64-bit game, not Unreal Tournament, which will feature photorealistic textures.
It will be a year and a half before you see lots of consumer products, he added.
For the time being Epic Games have promised a patch for the 32-bit version of Unreal Tournament 2003 that will allow the game to take full advantage of the processor's 64-bit capabilities.
It is all 100 percent 64-bit code, promises Sweeney.
With 64-bit Linux already released and Windows on its way and with Intel not certain on what to do it seems that AMD is counting on the technological edge offered by its Athlon 64 desktop and the Opteron, the 64-bit server chip, to appeal to our constant craving for speed.
SHOW COMMENTS (22)
HIDE COMMENTS (22)
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
Mahahha ... *runs away**drools * mmm 64 bits.
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
Athlon is da bomb
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
blah blah blah
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
more bits than u can poke a stick at...
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
hurry up already, sooner = better than later. *plays yatta song in background*
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
64 bits god i can't wait
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
64 bits suck! That's like Nintendo 64! We need 128-bit!!!
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
why the hell do we need 128bit? we wont even be taking full advantage of 64bit for years... idiot
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
i doubt 64bit will actually make a huge difference in performance and marketing and technolgy.
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
chances are, when 64bit optimised code is released the performance difference will actually be quite noticable, let alone been able to build a pc with more than 4GB of ram, also, the onboard memory controller of the Athlon 64 makes latency almost non existant, so in games, even a low clocked Athlon 64 can out perform the top of the line P4, and thats b4 u even get the 64 bit optimised code.
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
Lol yea after Intel grabs the complete market since the 3200+ don't even run on par with the 3.0C chip. There in the **** boat now. They have reached the end of the athlon XP cycle and the highest 2 processors get beat out in every benchmark othen then office application where speed is not needed anyways.
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
lol, i agree with the guy below me, AMD is in deep **** since their new processors don't come close to what the new intels perform, so they resort to this 64-bit processor idea, that no PC application of today needs or will substantially benefit fom (Servers and mainframe computers are the only ones that will actually take full advantage of 64-bit processing). Intel, a few years ago, considered producing a 64-bit chip but abandoned the idea because it proved to be of no benefit for the common PC user (that's us people:))
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
Goes to show, AMD is following in Intel's footsteps. (That's gonna get alot of AMD lovers flaming at me lol :P)
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
Goes to show, AMD is following in Intel's footsteps. (That's gonna get alot of AMD lovers flaming at me lol :P)actually, amd will be the first company to have a 64bit cpu(b/s the mac G5).i'm not biased to either. i'd go with intel right NOW if u have the money. but once the A64 comes out u shud go for it. the A64 runs intel prescott apps at the same speed...in 32BIT!!!! but A64 will get the large boost with the 64-bit. i know alot when it comes to new CPU's, so if u have a question just gimme a IM ataim: uberl33tjarad
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
i'm not biased to either. i'd go with intel right NOW if u have the money. but once the A64 comes out u shud go for it. the A64 runs intel prescott apps at the same speed...in 32BIT!!!! but A64 will get the large boost with the 64-bit. i know alot when it comes to new CPU's, so if u have a question just gimme a IM ataim: uberl33tjarad
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
2004 is gonna be a good year for new technology...pci express...64-bit athlon
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
whats the minimum u need to take full advantage of the doom 3 engine?
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
1.5 Ghz processorRadeon 8500 or ti4600512MB DDR RAMThis is what I believe the minimum specs are to enable you to play Doom3 at playable framerates.I have got the Doom3 alpha leek and Ive played it on roughly the same specs as the hardware above, runing the alpha in 800x600 using the mediumquality.cfg.I was using an AMD Athlon XP2000 with a Radeon 8500 64MB. The alpha ran very slowly, so I purchased an nVidia ti4600 128 MB and the framerates crept up a bit, but the game was a little unstable with long loading times and lock ups.Then I purchased a P4 2.4b and clocked it up to 2.7GHz, Doom3 ran much better, loaded faster and I was able to up the quality to the highquality.cfg - so long as I turned off the Anisotropic filtering. I was still only getting an average 15FPS.Then 5 days ago I splashed out on a Radeon 9800pro 256MB and the performance is excellent - even when using AA and AF in 800x600. 1024x768 with AA and AF is still a bit of a strugle though, but it looks amazing :)
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
4 gb of ram in a pc!!!WTF are we gonna do with 4GB of RAM? Ive had more upfrades than I care to think about since my first PC which was a top of the line power house at the time (for at least a week). My 486 DX2 66 with 8MB RAM and a 400MB hard drive. The .5MB VESA LOCAL BUS graphics card was truly outstanding :)I currently use 512 MB ram and I have no issues whatsoever, I understand the principle that 64Bit code will require different memory configurations and probably more RAM to compensate for the extra code being processed - but 4GB of ram is way OTT for todays use! Still, who knows what the minimum specs for the next M$ operating system will require ;)
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
Anonymous - Still, who knows what the minimum specs for the next M$ operating system will require ;) - you speak the truth, so far Win XP uses up more system resources than most programs, it uses up system resoources, (ram; memory; cpu etc) that applications need to run well. Thats what makes it a bad os: its SLOOOOOOOOOOW.
UT 2003 Support for Athlon 64
Actually you are completely full of **** soulraver a quick visit to anandtech.com will prove you are. The 3.0C pentium destroys even the 3200+ barton when it comes to gaming.
Add new comment