What the hell happened to 64 bit?

A few years ago, AMD was huge on 64 bit processing, even though there were only a few 64 bit games out then. Now, there are still under 10 64 bit games that I know of. Since it offers at least 20-30 percent increase over 32 bit, and even more on multicore processors, why hasnt it been adopted yet.

It seems like a pretty obvious path for games to take, yet they arent taking it. Is it really that hard to add 64 bit support into a game? Almost everyone has a 64 bit processor, yet most (unlike me) have a 32 bit os. People dont buy 64 bit because of the drivers, and the game makers dont make 64 bit games because nobody buys 64 bit os.

Crytek has said that 64 bit is supported in crysis, and that it confers huge performance gains, so why hasnt everyone just gotten 64 bit os? If more people will get it, the drivers will come. I just built a pc 2 weeks ago, and all of my drivers worked fine except my wireless card, but I can use a cable anyway. Since 64 bit also allows 4 gigs of ram, which will be required in as little as 2 years for some games, it seems obvious for it to eclipse 32 bit.

Does anyone know of upcoming games besides crysis that utilize 64 bit? I assume UT2007 will (since 2004 did), What about other unreal engine games like gears of war, moh airborne, and bia hells highway? Assassins creed would probably benefit greatly from it as well since it will need a hefty cpu to handle the crowds of people.

Yeah, it seems 64-bit has been very slow to progress since we've have x64 processors for quite a while now. However, MS never did really make a push for XP 64-bit. Vista 64-bit appears to have much more of Microsoft's marketing and support however.

I'm running Vista 64-bit, and since day one have never had a driver issue, application compatibility problem, performance, stability, etc issue due being on 64-bit OS. Works like a charm, absolutely, positively no reason at all to cling to 32-bit any longer :D

Crysis will have 64-bit support (enhanced performance over 32-bit) out of the box, so that's cool. But like you mentioned, RAM is probably what is going to drive people to 64-bit sooner than later. With Windows 32-bit, applications cannot access all 4GB of ram that the system can address (the actual limit depends on the system in question, and the memory mapped devices). The max ram for 32-bit that makes any sense to install is 3GB please read, important for 32-bit owners

You might be surprised how many people are actually running on 64-bit though. There are quite a few people even here on the Gamespot forums! :)

No one needs 4 gigs of ram though unless you are running a server or something. Deihmos

Just give it a few more years and we will all need 4g.

Grab vista 64-bit or OSX with 64-bit and you'll see just how faster everything is. One game that utilized 64-bit is called 'infinity online'. It should come out in 2009-2010 or mebbe even later lol. Go the the foums, then developer jounal, and look for the 'asteroid belt' thread+video. a complete simulation of the millions of thingies in a single ring of a saturn like world. Works with 32-bit as well! 64 just lets millions of more things kept track of. He's working on completely, accurately simulating over several billion fully populated stars, with billions more planets and other stuff.

64 also allows up to 64 exabytes of ram. It goes like this -> kilo, mega, giga, terra, peta, exa. imagine the possibilities!

Everything works with 64-bit, all you need concern yourself with is getting windows vista 64 drivers. and in vista, yes, you NEED 4gigs. otherwise 50% of all your ram usage wil end up in page file...

Microsoft did not have enough balls to completely drop 32 and invest in 64.

So here we are, stuck in the middle.