I actually would bet against this. While 64-bit will become the program of choice, I do not believe that this will be the year 32-bit is fully incapable based on features. Perhaps by choice, yes, but not features.

 

Well, I think exactly that is the problem. Look at the problem of the FSX world. They generally want to use their old Add-ons together with new ones and ... they are out of memory. There wouldn't be any big problems if they would select.

 

But this is the fundamental problem, they don't want to choose by instinct they more or less want everything.

 

In fact I am quite certain that it won't only be the Add-on authors that will bring 32 bit into trouble. I think Laminar will do their share, too. This isn't evil or anything it is simply a result that some internal rules no longer have to be followed as strict as before. If you have a nice feature and it isn't to hard on the frame rate, then why shouldn't you add it?

 

But in fact every developer has the tendency to test only with his own Add-ons. This is more or less a necessity, since you can only change something in their code and you have to restart very often. Every one will only use a bit more memory but suddenly you cross the line on the computer of the normal user. Yes, they can remedy the situation if they lower their settings, but they will probably have a scenery that is much worse than the current status.

 

This is a very compelling reason for users to upgrade. Memory is cheap and in fact a 32 bit OS makes no sense in our current hardware. When the year ends I would really be surprised if anyone, except a tiny group, will still be on 32 bit.

I agree with pretty much everything said there, Longranger.

 

The verdict is still out for those that are VATSIM users, but time will definitely tell. I see a lot of people sticking back for this reason alone, but I do wonder how long it will truly hold.