The main difference between the current 32-bit windows Oolite and a future 64-bit one would the ability to use much more memory for the game - the current game is 'limited' to 3.something Gb of data in ram, which can slow Oolite down when it's saving/loading game data to the disk cache.
The difference in speed between 32 & 64 bit versions in a 4 Gb machine wouldn't be that great, but I'd expect to see a noticeable difference with 8Gb and above...
It's all relative, of course. I don't seem to have major speed problems with my 2Gb XP computer, but I'm sure I don't have as big an AddOns folder as Lestradae!
I assume this will be of more and more interest to more players as technology progresses into the 64bit region and the horde of oxps closes in on 400, and not only in my singularly special interest.
I have slightly altered/updated the original posting to accomodate a possible sticky function.
I have an x64 machine that I'm willing to 'donate' to the cause. My problem is I don't know enough of MinGW and stuff to figure out building it the 64-bit environment. If someone can help me with that, I'll happily set up a machine.
It'd be nice if someone did, but somewhat optimistic.
While you can happily compile 32 bit wide windows applications (so not able to access more than 3Gb of memory), we've got the minor problem that - as yet - no-one has been able to build a single 64 bit windows application with minGW...
(Mutters strange incantations in Latin)
Ahhh... Glad to see Necromancy still works. Least Thread Necromancy.
Anyways. I'm still willing to take a swipe at this if someone with a more firm knowledge of setting up the regular Win32 environment can collaborate. My knowledge on Windows is fairly top (having worked for them), but I am by no means a developer. Anyone want to lend a hand and see if we can make this happen?
As it happens, these guys have actually released a version of mingw that should make it possible... I'd suggest having a look over there!
Getting the compiler that can build 64-bit binaries would be only half of the trip. In order to fully utilize the capabilities of a 64-bit environment, apart from the actual game executable, the entire support dll set that gets distributed with Oolite should also be built using mingw-w64. That is not exactly as easy as it sounds. In any case, good luck to whomever wants to try it and we will do our best to help and support the effort from here.
Or someone may want to donate a 64-bit system and OS and speed the process up Well, at least I tried...
