Isn' it about time for a true 64-bit windows viewer?

[Rhett Elan]

I just got a new high end laptop, windows 7 64-bit, 4 core, 8 threads intel i7 CPU, 8 gb of ram, nvidia gt 445m with 3 gb of video memory. I did post a question for support for the graphics card, since it is not recognized by he viewer.
But besides that, I really think that linden should concentrate more on developing a real 64-bit viewer for windows.
Let's face it, the 32-bit is an old technology and is really faced out.
Instead of adding useless gadgets like social network links and web profiles concentrate 1st on a solid viewer which takes advantage of the new technology and graphics cards.
If you look at the current system requirements, windows 7 64-bit is not even supported.

Give me your thoughts and maybe we can wake up some developers. By the way, there is/was already a jar out for this for 2 years now. Started with a request for Vista 64-bit support.

[Lee Ponzu]

What advantages do you think a 64-bit version of the viewer would offer?  Beside being 'cool'?

The "developers" (both Linden and not) have discussed this on and off over the past year.  They might even being discussing it now.  It is not a trivial thing to do, and probably not worth the effort.

32-bit apps work fine for most things.

[leliel Mirihi]

The advantages aside from the larger address space, more registers, and no execute bit you mean? Well not many to be honest.

While you're right that making a 64 bit viewer is a lot of work, it however has already been done. The viewer has been 64 bit clean for years now. You can build a 64 bit viewer if you want, LL chooses not to due to the extra regression testing that would be needed.

Yes 32 bits work for most things, but it's that most part that's bothersome. The real question is will the viewer use more than 4GB of ram some day, and judging by the direction SL and other games are heading I'd say yes, definitely. Nvidia agrees with me on that too, their fermi architecture has a 40 bit address space you know.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

As there would be very little difference in a 64-bit viewer at the moment, I believe the efforts of their technical teams are better directed at addressing some of the other problems in SL.

[Rhett Elan]

Actually after trying the last build of the 2.0 Viewer, I downloaded the last version of Phoenix. My graphics card was found, it supports SSE2 and LAA. Maybe Linden labs should just STOP delevoping viewers, since 3rd party viewers appenrently do a better job and concentrate on upgrading their infrastructure and keep the servers running smooth.

For sure I am completly done with viewer 2.xxxxxx and hopefully someone else then Linden can pick up the slack of developing a viewer which is more in line with the current technology.

[Cerise1488303085]

 

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onyx Marabana wrote:

this is an interesting discussion, but i have a problem: i'm about to purchase a new laptop specifically for sl, and the windows7 package comes as 64 rather than 32 bits. any suggestions on what i should do?

thank you.

om~

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Hi, you don't need to worry, even the regular consumer versions of 64 bit Win7 run the 32 bit version just fine.

 

[Dgis Gausman]

 

i have w7 64 bits and i cant install SL ... mmm .. is have tried installing the official viewer .. is there another one i can try installing? thx

 

[Ann Otoole]

The only thing they might improve is the number of avatars in view and the time before it runs out of memory and crashes. (currently memory leak crashes viewer at 1.5 to 1.6 GB and it has always been this way on 32 bit)

Since the number of avatars would only decrease FPS to an unusable level then there is little reason, at this time, to bother. Maybe in 5 years when the computers and video cards can handle what we want. Battlefield 3 being the new ruler to live up to that will force thousands to buy new computers and video cards should be a serious hint.

Yea. This is the new measure to live up to:

[Jane Valentino]

Hello all - I am about to start my Virtual Worlds Design class at SFSU.  Haven't taught it in 2.5 years (damn budget cuts) and I have a newer laptop now with Windows 7 installed in 64 bit mode.  I just need to confirm that, according to these messages, if I run my OS as is, I should be OK???  Everything should work???  Or do I need to have my whole OS re-installed with the 32-bit mode and warn students about this???

thanks so much for help - big time saver!

Jane Valentino

[Tristizia Demonista]

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Rhett Elan wrote:

I just got a new high end laptop, windows 7 64-bit, 4 core, 8 threads intel i7 CPU, 8 gb of ram, nvidia gt 445m with 3 gb of video memory. I did post a question for support for the graphics card, since it is not recognized by he viewer.

But besides that, I really think that linden should concentrate more on developing a real 64-bit viewer for windows.

Let's face it, the 32-bit is an old technology and is really faced out.

Instead of adding useless gadgets like social network links and web profiles concentrate 1st on a solid viewer which takes advantage of the new technology and graphics cards.

If you look at the current system requirements, windows 7 64-bit is not even supported.

 

Give me your thoughts and maybe we can wake up some developers. By the way, there is/was already a jar out for this for 2 years now. Started with a request for Vista 64-bit support.

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Well, apart from me seeing no real advantage of having a "pure" 64bit Viewer, why bother ? It would be called Viewer 3 (or whatever) and all the (same) ppl would go into a rage why LL is doing such a "stupid viewer" noone uses, TPV's are sooooo much better etc., etc. blah blah If i were LL, i wouldn't .