No 64-bit P3D coming according to Orbxs' John Venema

[gfd 15]

Their are many ways to convert a 32 bit product to a 64bit product. But the OOM issues are not due to structure sizes alone, it's their size AND number of allocations. The data types don't need to be changed, just compiling to x64 target will resolve the quantity of allocation issue.

 

It's extremely unlikely any single allocation is going exceed 4GB, nor the quad-tree capping out ... In fact I'm almost certain the quad-tree allocation isn't the issue.

 

The challenges I see for LM:

1. DX11 references

2. Any 3rd party development tools (Xceed, SlimDX, etc.) used will need to have 64bit versions so they can be linked in

 

3rd party will have their own challenges and they'll need to decide if that's a direction they want to go. Their will be 32bit AND 64bit products.

 

Not trivializing the process, but I see no reason to change any of the data structures outlined here. LM could to increase precision, but I see no need to do that to solve basic OOM issue?

 

Cheers, Rob

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the information. It is helpful when you and other developers offer your insights. This is not about 64 bit, but it would be interesting to understand what 64 bit along with the upcoming DX12 could do in tandem. My understanding is that a Futuremark test showed DX12 achieving a 600% increase in draw calls over DX11, with no additional overhead. Now I am not a developer, but wouldn't that put authors in a position where they could increase the memory load in the simulator (64 bit) and mitigate that by being able to draw more pictures per second, thereby keeping the memory load manageable (DX12)? I'm not even sure that's the right question.

 

Your insight would be appreciated. If you consider this inappropriate in this thread, please delete. If it's worth expanding on in another thread, perhaps you could move it. It seems to me that 64 bit and DX12 would be 2 powerful tools...increase revenue and reduce cost.

 

Thanks

[denali 74]

 

 

if/when 64bit does come we'll soon see the bottleneck shift to another part of the platform, be it CPU or GPU and we'll all be bemoaning the poor performance

 By the time 64bit comes about there will be good enough advances in both CPU/GPU hardware and also their utilization that the errors and stutters won't be an issue anymore.  "Immersion errors" will go away.  The limitations will be the programmers (as it is kind of right now!) and their ability to use all the resources to an immersive conclusion.  As it's been predicted a few times, artists and the ability to interpret their work is going to be more important as time goes on.  

 

Things do get better.  Have you notice how new cars break down less and less?  Why won't this be the case for computer simulations?

 

There is another bottleneck coming up on the horizon.  It's going to be a humans ability to take in all of this "immersion".

[CrownCityMisfits 58]

WHAT are you doing to get OOM's?  I don't care, P3D or FSX.  Never have had one.  EVER.  PMDG products or Majestic, full-on ORBX mesh, LC, Vector, REX, add-on airports, air traffic at 25-50%, cars and ships at 5%, running TrackIR, OPUS, FSUIPC, ASN, and a USB FMC and MCP/EFIS.  Aivlasoft EFB running.  ATC running.

 

I completely understand where you are coming from and have had a similar experience. Furthermore, I can tell you exactly how I got my first and only OOM in FSX...

 

I tweaked the LOD radius too high in the cfg.

 

Otherwise, never had a OOM in FSX, and still never had one in P3D2.5, with tons of eyecandy installed. Average system - i73930+GTX680.

 

Full disclosure - I have gotten CTDs in P3D while editing the keyboard functions.  <_<

[darrinward777 0]

Perhaps you could try it again ,

 

if all would switch to that great platform , we would nt be here talking ,

 

chk this out

 

 

this is what 64 bit can offer

It is true that the 64 bit platform for X-Plane is outstanding however there is one factor alone that scares me and perhaps the third party developers as well. This program is not developed for the Novice. The Novice is the future of this hobby ( In my opinion ) without the newcomer we will beat this horse into the ground. I am 55 years old and I am not afraid of change but I am afraid of investing thousands into a program that might get lost down the road. 

[tonywob 4,769]

This program is not developed for the Novice.

 

I believe they'll be addressing this in XP11. They've released a mobile version with a simple UI which is apparently going to make it into the next version (This isn't confirmed, I only read it in an interview)

 

Also, I don't think it's even possible to buy thousands worth of scenery/planes for X-Plane. There simply isn't that much payware unless you collect everything. Most of the good stuff is free ;-)

 

Anyway back to the topic of 64-bit. I don't think it will be the magic solution everyone thinks it will be. As people have quite rightly said, it will simply move the the bottleneck to somewhere else, and scenery developers will become lazy.

[EngineRoom 205]

 

 

 By the time 64bit comes about there will be good enough advances in both CPU/GPU hardware and also their utilization that the errors and stutters won't be an issue anymore.

 

If/when 64bit arrives the simulation will be pushing round a lot more ones and zeroes. That means the CPU is going to have to do more work. We're then back to the old conundrum of CPUs not getting much faster in terms of clock speed, but instead are gaining more cores... which P3D, being built largely on legacy FSX/ESP code does not take proper advantage of. Even the move to DX11 only offloaded a fairly marginal amount of work to the GPU, which in the case of a modern mid to high end gaming GPU is a massive source of computing power sitting largely unused.

 

So we're then back to needing an overhaul of the code to take full advantage of multithreading.... which just like the move from 32 to 64bit is a considerable undertaking, if not an even bigger one.

 

Which is one of the reasons why I don't put as much stock in P3D as some here do.

[DylanM 1,069]

It's becoming rather obvious that you don't own actually P3D do you...? 

[Guest]

Which is one of the reasons why I don't put as much stock in P3D as some here do.

 

Sounds like you have an agenda ... your statements are not accurate and clearly you don't have access to the source code to make any such statements.  I have numerous videos that can prove your statements false (demonstrating threading CPU usage and GPU usage).  Since you're making these claims the burden of proof is on you ... are we going to see any of that proof to support your claims?

 

 

 

If/when 64bit arrives the simulation will be pushing round a lot more ones and zeroes. That means the CPU is going to have to do more work.

 

No, if you're on a 64bit OS a 32bit application will run slower than a 64bit native applications.  More data doesn't mean slow with today's hardware which has long ago improved on moving large data chunks.  Here is an example of how much faster 64bit code ... on 64bit operations about anywhere from 2X to 4X faster:  http://the work is less in most cases and equal in worse cases ... this

 

In some cases a 64bit compiler will only generate 4 lines (assembler code) vs. 32bit compiler generating 6 lines (assembler code) to perform the same operation.  CPUs and compilers have long ago been optimized to provide much faster 64bit code than 32bit code.

 

There are more registers in 64bit process where operations can be performed entirely which would be considerably faster than 32bit register limits which would have to fetch. 

 

 

 

We're then back to the old conundrum of CPUs not getting much faster in terms of clock speed, but instead are gaining more cores... which P3D, being built largely on legacy FSX/ESP code does not take proper advantage of.

 

I agree I would like to see Intel stop the core madness and at least offer higher clock CPUs ... but I went from a 6/12 core CPU to a 8/16 core CPU and my terrain paging resolves much faster and in many cases I can no longer detect it.  Those extra cores do help.  LM have removed several legacy supported items in P3D that were causing performance issues and spaghetti code.

 

 

 

Even the move to DX11 only offloaded a fairly marginal amount of work to the GPU, which in the case of a modern mid to high end gaming GPU is a massive source of computing power sitting largely unused.

 

No, I can max out my Titan X GPU and my 5960X core 0 and hit about 60% on the remaining cores ... nothing left unused.  Hardware accelerated Tessellation will use the GPU to full advantage and is only available via DX11.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[DarkstarF16 72]

Agreed ^^ my 5960X is also firing full throttle on core zero and all the other 15 cylinders are taking up the slack. Process explorer is a sight to behold! Tessellation slider full right of course. Compare process explorer on FSX and it looks like a quite Sunday afternoon in the country by comparison.

[darrinward777 0]

 

 

I believe they'll be addressing this in XP11. They've released a mobile version with a simple UI which is apparently going to make it into the next version (This isn't confirmed, I only read it in an interview)

Thanks

I will be watching for this development . I have not ruled out X-plane as an alternative but I want to see third party groups in the process along with an all groups consideration . Having a 64 bit platform on the market, X-plane put themselves in a good position. All it would require now is a whole community market view. 

[Kattz 132]

I completely understand where you are coming from and have had a similar experience. Furthermore, I can tell you exactly how I got my first and only OOM in FSX...

 

I tweaked the LOD radius too high in the cfg.

 

Otherwise, never had a OOM in FSX, and still never had one in P3D2.5, with tons of eyecandy installed. Average system - i73930+GTX680.

 

Full disclosure - I have gotten CTDs in P3D while editing the keyboard functions.  <_<

 

In the interest of full disclosure, I've never maxed out my LOD.  Just next to last setting.  Nice to know I'm not the only one.  :wub:

 

@ Rob, I admire you for your... um, subtlety...  Woot!  Woot!

 

Can I drive your car in the picture?  Pleeeeasse?

 

On a non-P3D note, according to experts, DCS does not use SLI.  However, when I start DCS, all four GTX760SC cards ramp up the fans and the back of my case gets so hot I can't touch it.  Think I can expect that once P3D supports SLI?

 

In the interest of all honesty, I haven't upgraded or installed either FSX or P3D into the new rig.  So right now I'm not running either one, just DCS and IL2 FB.  We're building a new house and I'm waiting until I get the new den installed downstairs and sorted.  Probably Dec '15 timing. 

[BeechPilot 0]

I'm hard pressed to understand just why the platform changing to 64bits would affect scenery anyway? BGL files simply aren't affected by address space to begin with...

 

Executable files and dynamic link libraries would be affected, but nothing else that's purely data.

 

At last  -- the voice of reason

 

+++

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

On a non-P3D note, according to experts, DCS does not use SLI.  However, when I start DCS, all four GTX760SC cards ramp up the fans and the back of my case gets so hot I can't touch it.  Think I can expect that once P3D supports SLI?

 

 

To check, open nVidia Inspector and find the profile for dcs.exe. It's probably for an old version (or maybe even a different app with the same exe name). If the exe file has the same name then the profile might be working by accident. Next, check the SLI mode setting. Last, turn on the SLI indicator overlay.

 

P3D will run in SLI  using AFR2 mode but it just doesn't scale up properly as one adds more video cards. Hence, it's not worth the cost of the additional cards. The last time that I fiddled with P3d and SLI was a long time ago. It was with P3d 1.4 and I got about a 20-25% improvement in frame rates with two GTX 580 cards in SLI.

[Guest]

 

 

At last  -- the voice of reason

 

Agree, per my post ... I see no need to change data structures ... just need more allocation space.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[pracines 823]

Rob Ainscough,

 

You and other moderators (I have seen in the past) speak to users on the forum here about "an agenda".

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does not every living thing with a brain have an agenda? For example to live or die? You have an agenda Rob don't you? I know I have lots of agendas.

 

What bothers me about your use of the word agenda in this context is, all engine room said was they don't put as much stock in LM as others. You call that an agenda as per your response to him in order to label his opinion as forbidden or at least wrong. Is he not allowed to doubt the future of LM based on *his experience*? I don't claim to know the tech reasons for your or engines point of view, but remember that not every body has the same PC as you or the ability to buy top PC gear like you may be able to. In other words your situation no matter how much you *prove* any thing means nothing to others who cant have a PC like yours. I have seen many claims (including yours) about excellent P3D performance. The YouTube vids are shot far away from the likes of KJFK/EDDF or for example the AI sliders, shadows, and scenery density are reduced to the point of: "what's the point in having the max settings/features?" Even PC hardware 20 years from now will not be able to run the current P3D 2.5 at total max settings flying from say an EDDF to KJFK w/o an OOM because P3D is the problem. You see engine may not know the tech details like you, but generally this conclusion is correct: until there is a fundamental change in the simulator program, hardware will not matter. All these little fixes (I know they are free) mean nothing because full potential is currently never met.

 

There is no proof at the present time that P3D is on its way to becoming the "go-to" simulator for us, maybe it will be. however,it has been a very bumpy ride from the release of V2 to V2.5 - a very expensive beta-test for all who paid for this, not to mention the 3rd party developers. This is why I understand Engine's position on the matter, and I do not see his "agenda" as problematic or threatening to the future of simming, I actually see it as a push to greater things for simming.  

 

I'm not a hater of LM and I wish them well. Just remember that MS Aces crashed and burned when nobody ever would have guessed that were possible in the FS9 days.