Bit of a surprise, 32-bit Windows is no longer a recommended specification for this game and high res textures and sounds are removed from the game.

You would think ubi would have maintained legacy Windows support for a throwback.

Also it is a shame because this is a Unity game and 32-bit/memory issues may mean no iOS release.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but why are you playing a modern PC game on a 32 bit system?

You should get used to it. Microsoft is discontinuing WIndows XP (the bulk of 32 bit windows installations) support in April, 2014. I work as a software engineer and we are removing XP support from our software as well.

@believer258: 32-bit compiled software on Windows requires significantly less overhead in memory than 64-bit compiled software, thus there is typically little need to upgrade a license of 32-bit windows to 64-bit Windows unless you want to include greater than 8 gigabytes of RAM. I have been attempting to run the game on a 32-bit version of Windows 8 but will need to switch to my graphically inferior laptop to run the game.

The performance limitations in this case are artificial, imposed by the publisher to reduce QA costs.

Unity is designed to run on 32-bit systems, notably Android and most versions of iOS. It is also more likely that the target audience of this game is running a 32-bit upgrade of Windows. It is a poor business decision more than a technical issue.

That being said, I think 32 bit windows has little reason left for existing. Memory is cheap enough and hardware and software support is broad enough that I really don't see why it is still supported. I can't think of any applications that I have run in to in recent history that didn't work on 64 bit operating systems. Sure, there might be some weird business application somewhere that only works on 32 bit windows XP, but that shouldn't hold back the entire industry.

Uh... 32-bit operating systems can't address more than 4GB of RAM, not 8. You're not getting any performance increase by sticking to 32-bit, sorry.

Where are you getting the idea that the target audience of this game is running 32 bit Windows? It seems to me that the target audience of this game are PC gamers of the '90's who would have played this game's predecessors and likely have, or know something about, gaming computers. I don't really see average Joe with a 32-bit laptop having much interest in something like a dungeon crawl that hearkens back to ye olden PC gaming days.

@believer258: Yeah, any extra performance you MIGHT see in x32 with 3.6GB of RAM is going to be trampled and then surpassed by the 8-16GB that is in most gaming systems. Also, didn't 32 bit used to count VRAM as part of that total?

I'm not an expert in processor architectures but isn't VRAM addressed by the GPU and not the CPU? Unless you're using an onboard chip/integrated graphics/whatever the hell you want to call it, in which case the answer would be yes.

Anyway, short answer to take away from this: 32-bit systems are obsolete and you should be using a 64-bit OS on any modern machine that costs more than $300 or so.

VRAM is dedicated video memory on the GPU, so yes you're correct there. The CPU utilizes RAM.

I'm shocked and surprised that anyone is still using an OS built for a 32-bit (x86) architecture. Parts are so cheap now, and almost every current CPU uses a 64-bit architecture.

@believer258: 64-bit operating system typically require more memory to run the same applications as 32-bit operating system. A 64-bit register is double the size as a 32-bit register. Thus no significant gains are seen from a 64-bit system in terms of available system memory, compared to a 32-bit system with 3.9ish gb of RAM, unless the system has 8gb of RAM or higher. A 64-bit system with 6gb of RAM for example will likely be more memory constrained than a 32-bit system with just under 4.

This is all besides the point however. People do not run an upgrade version of 32-bit Windows 8 for technical reasons, the run it because Windows is a bad operating system and not worth the purchase price of a new retail copy. If you are 30 something I guarantee you have a 32-bit license of Windows somewhere and thus the core audience of this game is more likely to be affected.

Might and Magic X is a turn based Unity game I would gladly trade whatever frame rate hit from system memory the publisher is claiming for textures that do not look like wet garbage.

@exogenous: I wouldn't call windows a bad operating system at all. It's not everyone's favorite and it has it's problems, but it is not bad overall. In fact, I quite like it. I have several 32 bit copies of windows XP laying around, and I have access to free copies of windows 7 and 8 32 bit though my university. However, what do I have installed? x64. How much ram did I have? 6GB. And I'd do it again.

Also, looking around online, it seems that the worst case performance loss running 32 bit memory intensive applications in 64 bit windows instead of 32 is about 5%. I think that trade off is well worth, and probably outweighed by the performance increases from being able to run even a gig or two more ram.

I'm no scientist, but with 32bit Vista it was using 3.6 gigs of my 4 gigs installed. Transitioning to 64bit Win7, it of course uses all 4. If there's a 5% performance loss in applications run on 64 intended for 32 like you found, I'd imagine that extra 400megs of RAM makes that loss percentage even smaller.

Basically, there's really no good reason to stick with 32bit.

I'm pretty sure anyone with even a vague interest in modern PC gaming is using a 64-bit OS at this point. Just saying.

New iOS devices are 64bit

@hanskaosu: true but they have less than 4 gb of memory

PC hardware and Windows addressing are seriously crazy shit. It is a mess built on top of decaying corpses of prehistoric crazy people.

But anyway, SOME (maybe all, depends) of video memory is mapped into standard memory address space - always at least 256mb. So even though 32bit windows can address 4gb total only 3gb is available to CPU software because of memory-mapped peripherals include the gfx card.

The textures look like "wet garbage" on any setting. Might and Magic X doesn't look all that great in any respect, though some elements are better than others.

64 bit OS's have been standard for quite a long time now. The $400 or so PC my parents bought in 2008 had 64 bit Vista on it. If you're 30 something and have bought a computer recently that isn't a netbook, then you're likely using a 64-bit OS. You'd almost have to purposefully go for a 32-bit OS these days if you're buying anything more than the cheapest 15 inch laptop on Wal-Mart's display.

Otherwise, you haven't the foggiest idea of what you're talking about and I'm not too great at explaining it so I'll zip on out of here and watch UPF or something equally brainless.

@believer258: Thus proving the point. If it caused a performance hit, apple of all companies wouldn't be sacrificing the precious smoothness of their OS on their newest device to have it be 64 bit.

@exogenous: Apparently my mom's school finds a way. In the new pc's they order, they have an i3 processor which would be plenty for what they do. However, the handicap it with 32 bit windows 7 and only one stick of Ram for a total of 2GB. It drives me up a wall the tech purchasing decisions that they make.

My mind has been blown that you can buy a 32bit version of Windows 8... Anyone know if I can still cop a new copy of DOS?

@oldguy: http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-MS-DOS-Operating-System-Floppy/dp/B003HN9ZK8

Anything else I can do for you? lol

I'm surprised by that too, I seem to recall Microsoft claiming that Windows Vista was the last version of Windows they would ship a 32 bit version of, didn't know there were any 32 bit versions of 7 let alone 8. Could it be special OEM versions, because I have never seen anything other than the 64 bit versions in stores?

FreeDOS is available though, and at least a few years ago (2008 or 2009?), Compaq and IBM sold a few PC's with that preinstalled.

A quick look through newegg shows that all the 32 bit copies are OEM. So that might be what it is.

You can still buy 32 bit Windows 8 in the form of a "System Builder" license for use on a new machine. The local computer shop sells them and I've seen them on Newegg, NCIX, and the like. 64 bit costs exactly the same though so no reason not to get that. Some laptops (usually of the budget, cut a million corners variety) still come with 32 bit, but even those are becoming rare.

When I bought a Windows 7 OEM license in 2010, it came with both 32 and 64. When I bought another one last fall for use with VMs it only had 64 bit included. I imagine the license would have worked with 32 bit but who knows. And really who cares? The days of 32 bit OSes, be they desktop or mobile, are behind us. Even mobile platforms are moving toward 64 bit. iOS already is on new phones, and I imagine Android will be if it isn't already.

At this point, RAM is so cheap that there is no reason not to go 64 bit. You can get 8 GB for a song compared to even 4 years ago when 4GB was still well north of $100. With DDR4 coming out and RAM capabilities increasing even further 64 bit will be mandatory for most machines.