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Games. Seriously. You have a lot of old (even new) games that depend on 32-bit binaries/libraries. And that’s why the recent “clash” between Canonical’s Ubuntu

Games. Seriously. You have a lot of old (even new) games that depend on 32-bit binaries/libraries. And that’s why the recent “clash” between Canonical’s Ubuntu and Valve’s Steam[1]. [1] https://twitter.com/Plagman2/status/1142262103106973698 https://twitter.com/Plagman2/status/1142262103106973698

hrktb 7y ago
can’t old games just be emulated or containerized ?
- pvg 7y ago
  A lot of these games aren't that old.
  - masklinn 7y ago
    Yup, for instance The Cave can't be run on iOS anymore, because it was developed as a 32b application. It's just one of a thousand.
    - olliej 7y ago
      It’s not just “iOS”: the modern (the last few years I think) A-series chips do not have any support for 32bit arm, they are 64bit only.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        Surely only the A11 and above?
        olliej 7y ago
        Honestly I can’t recall which gen dropped it, but presumably the moment they reached their EoL for the last non-64 bit device they had no reason to maintain the development cost of having a 32bit OS, maintaining support for communication between 32 and 64bit apps, nor the cost to users (doubling the size of the resident system memory, confusion of some apps running on some device but not others, etc). And then knowing that if you drop 32bit then you can gain space on your silicon. What irks me is that devs saw the first 64bit devices come out, and didn’t go “I should recompile my code”. Honestly the fact there are so many new apps made for pc that aren’t 64bit is mind blowing to me.
        duskwuff 7y ago
        > Honestly the fact there are so many new apps made for pc that aren’t 64bit is mind blowing to me. Assuming you mean Windows, there are still a nontrivial number of PCs in the wild that are running a 32-bit OS. It's not huge -- about 1.5% of gaming PCs according to the Steam survey, probably a bit higher for home and office computers -- but either way it's enough that building applications as 64-bit-only is problematic.
        olliej 7y ago
        Are they 32bit cpus or 32bit windows? I recall windows inexplicably treated(treats?) 32bit and 64bit as being separate purchases for some reason (I assume money, given they limit supported core count according to which type of windows you buy). But more seriously: why ship 32-bit only software. 64bit has been supported by all cpus intel and amd have shipped for more than a decade now. I had a consumer 64bit Athlon in 2005/6 that I could afford on a student budget. Given the perpetually increasing cpu demands of modern games, that you'd throw away something in the order of 15-20% perf by not support 64bit just seems insane. Seriously: make 64bit your primary target, and if that hurts 32bit perf, that's those user's problem: they chose not to buy a high perf system.
        duskwuff 7y ago
        32-bit Windows. Most of them are probably running on a 64-bit capable CPU, but one that can't be used without replacing the OS.
    - dmix 7y ago
      > because it was developed as a 32b application But why? The Cave was released in 2013. We're almost two decades into the 64bit transition.
      - megablast 7y ago
        Why would windows 64 bit transition matter to an iOS app?
      - cameldrv 7y ago
        The iPhone 5S was the first to support 64 bit in late 2013.
      - ori_b 7y ago
        Why did the game need to pay the performance penalty for going 64 bit if it wasn't going to address more than 2G of memory?
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- duskwuff 7y ago
  Containerizing / emulating OpenGL libraries (especially proprietary vendor drivers, like nVidia's) is difficult.
- ori_b 7y ago
  Not if the OS doesn't support 32 bit processes. Containers are fancy chroots, not simple VMs.
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
That’s what windows is for—they’ve made the choice to emphasize legacy support over deprecation.
pier25 7y ago
Apple doesn't care much about games on macOS. Each and every version of macOS for the past 10 years has shipped with 4+ years old versions of OpenGL. For example El Capitan (the last version without Metal) was released in 2015 and shipped with OpenGL 4.1 which was released in 2010.
- dpezet 7y ago
  Apple flagged OpenGL as deprecated in 10.14 so they have plans to drop it altogether.
  - bangonkeyboard 7y ago
    In the process of deprecation they broke it, for old time's sake: https://twitter.com/icculus/status/1054634481812992000 https://twitter.com/icculus/status/1054634481812992000
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
Also, games that work with Wine!

hrktb 7y ago

can’t old games just be emulated or containerized ?

pvg 7y ago
A lot of these games aren't that old.
- masklinn 7y ago
  Yup, for instance The Cave can't be run on iOS anymore, because it was developed as a 32b application. It's just one of a thousand.
  - olliej 7y ago
    It’s not just “iOS”: the modern (the last few years I think) A-series chips do not have any support for 32bit arm, they are 64bit only.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Surely only the A11 and above?
      - olliej 7y ago
        Honestly I can’t recall which gen dropped it, but presumably the moment they reached their EoL for the last non-64 bit device they had no reason to maintain the development cost of having a 32bit OS, maintaining support for communication between 32 and 64bit apps, nor the cost to users (doubling the size of the resident system memory, confusion of some apps running on some device but not others, etc). And then knowing that if you drop 32bit then you can gain space on your silicon. What irks me is that devs saw the first 64bit devices come out, and didn’t go “I should recompile my code”. Honestly the fact there are so many new apps made for pc that aren’t 64bit is mind blowing to me.
        duskwuff 7y ago
        > Honestly the fact there are so many new apps made for pc that aren’t 64bit is mind blowing to me. Assuming you mean Windows, there are still a nontrivial number of PCs in the wild that are running a 32-bit OS. It's not huge -- about 1.5% of gaming PCs according to the Steam survey, probably a bit higher for home and office computers -- but either way it's enough that building applications as 64-bit-only is problematic.
        olliej 7y ago
        Are they 32bit cpus or 32bit windows? I recall windows inexplicably treated(treats?) 32bit and 64bit as being separate purchases for some reason (I assume money, given they limit supported core count according to which type of windows you buy). But more seriously: why ship 32-bit only software. 64bit has been supported by all cpus intel and amd have shipped for more than a decade now. I had a consumer 64bit Athlon in 2005/6 that I could afford on a student budget. Given the perpetually increasing cpu demands of modern games, that you'd throw away something in the order of 15-20% perf by not support 64bit just seems insane. Seriously: make 64bit your primary target, and if that hurts 32bit perf, that's those user's problem: they chose not to buy a high perf system.
        duskwuff 7y ago
        32-bit Windows. Most of them are probably running on a 64-bit capable CPU, but one that can't be used without replacing the OS.
  - dmix 7y ago
    > because it was developed as a 32b application But why? The Cave was released in 2013. We're almost two decades into the 64bit transition.
    - megablast 7y ago
      Why would windows 64 bit transition matter to an iOS app?
    - cameldrv 7y ago
      The iPhone 5S was the first to support 64 bit in late 2013.
    - ori_b 7y ago
      Why did the game need to pay the performance penalty for going 64 bit if it wasn't going to address more than 2G of memory?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
duskwuff 7y ago
Containerizing / emulating OpenGL libraries (especially proprietary vendor drivers, like nVidia's) is difficult.
ori_b 7y ago
Not if the OS doesn't support 32 bit processes. Containers are fancy chroots, not simple VMs.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago

That’s what windows is for—they’ve made the choice to emphasize legacy support over deprecation.

pier25 7y ago

Apple doesn't care much about games on macOS. Each and every version of macOS for the past 10 years has shipped with 4+ years old versions of OpenGL. For example El Capitan (the last version without Metal) was released in 2015 and shipped with OpenGL 4.1 which was released in 2010.

dpezet 7y ago
Apple flagged OpenGL as deprecated in 10.14 so they have plans to drop it altogether.
- bangonkeyboard 7y ago
  In the process of deprecation they broke it, for old time's sake: https://twitter.com/icculus/status/1054634481812992000 https://twitter.com/icculus/status/1054634481812992000

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

Also, games that work with Wine!