Paradox' stance on 64-bit support?

[Doodleroo]

Has there ever been a clear word from Paradox if the Clausewitz Engine will be ported to 64-bit in the future?

Today, all Clausewitz Engine games are 32-bit only and from the looks of it, this will also be the case for the upcoming Imperator Rome.

For a Mac user, this question is highly significant, because yesterday marked the release of macOS Mojave and this will be the last macOS version supporting 32-bit applications.
In other words, a year from now, all my Clausewitz Engine games will cease to run on the then current Operating System.

 

[AndrewT]

a year from now, all my Clausewitz Engine games will cease to run on the then current Operating System.

I don't think that is what Apple are actually saying, is it? 32bit apps will not be supported, but they will not be barred from running.

High Sierra had been announced as the last macOS release to support 32-bit apps "without compromises," and in April, macOS users began receiving alerts that 32-bit apps were not optimized for the current operating system.

So Mojave will run them "with compromises" whatever that means. From what I can see 32bit apps will not be actually barred until 10.15 at the earliest.

 

[Doodleroo]

Thanks for the response. I take it that means 'no intend to update the engine at all'.

Mojave still supports 32-bit apps, that is true. But like I wrote above, this will be the end of the line. Starting with 10.15 next autumn, 32-bit support will be gone.

This info has been all over the net since last WWDC.

For instance here is the quote from Ars Technica:

Mac OS X began life as a 32-bit operating system, but a slow, steady transition to 64-bit hardware and software has been happening for over 15 years. Today’s Macs—and any Mac running Mojave or any version of the operating system going all the way back to Mountain Lion—have been all-64-bit, barring a handful of first-party apps and background services and a steadily shrinking list of third-party apps. Still, 32-bit apps run just as well as they did when Snow Leopard shipped on 32-bit Intel Macs back in 2006.

That doesn’t change in Mojave, but this is the last version of macOS that will run those 32-bit apps at all.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/09/macos-10-14-mojave-the-ars-technica-review/#h40

 

[Taran14]

I assume that since 64-bit is pretty much the standard nowadays, that future Paradox titles will be 64-bit. Either starting with Imperator Rome or the games after that. That is my guess at least. Would be nice if someone at Paradox could tell us a bit (no pun intended) more.

 

[AndrewT]

Thanks for the response. I take it that means 'no intend to update the engine at all'.

I have no info from the developers or game directors on this topic at all. Do not take what I say as Paradox's official stance on the issue. I'm just looking at what i see in public documentation.

 

[Denkt]

Today, all Clausewitz Engine games are 32-bit only and from the looks of it, this will also be the case for the upcoming Imperator Rome.

Imperator: Rome is 64 bit.

 

[satoru]

Imperator: Rome is 64 bit.

The concern is that existing games that currently work under Mac, will no lnoger work next year. T

 

[I'm Felix]

I hope that as least macOS version for all existing title should go for 64-bit, since Apple decided to discontinue 32-bit apps in next and future macOS releases

 

[satoru]

I hope that as least macOS version for all existing title should go for 64-bit, since Apple decided to discontinue 32-bit apps in next and future macOS releases

The odds of Paradox having to recompile and test every version imaginable under the sun (CK2 has like 2 dozen historical builds available to users) to 64-bit for a 7 year old game , are basically zero

 

[I'm Felix]

The odds of Paradox having to recompile and test every version imaginable under the sun (CK2 has like 2 dozen historical builds available to users) to 64-bit for a 7 year old game , are basically zero

while they still selling NEW dlc so they should do that jobs

 

[Kaganis]

The newest version of the current games should be ported to 64-bit macOS. They didn't touch the "roll back" versions to update the privacy policy, so I can't see them doing the extra work for 64-bit compatibility. Which is fair enough IMHO, but then I'm happy with the newest versions! I'm sure all current supported games will get at least one major patch in the coming year - using one of them to go 64 bit would be ideal.

The problem that I see is that when 10.15 comes out, the active macOS player count will drop off a cliff without 64 bit support. Without any indication such support is coming, then the macOS sales of DLC in the run up to 10.15 are going to really suffer. Heck, I'm going to really be debating buying the next Stellaris DLC for just this reason. I want to play it long term!

 

[satoru]

while they still selling NEW dlc so they should do that jobs

And again making new DLC has nothing to do with going back and re-compiling again literally DOZENS of builds to be 64-bit compatible. There is no magical switch you turn on and a non-crashing 64-bit exe comes out the other side.

Also this is a problem Apple created. The majority of users are on Windows and the game works fine in 32-bit. You're gonna hvae a very very hard buisness case to do a forklift upgrade to the engine to 64-bit for probably 5% of the userbase. Especially for something as old as CK2

 

[Doodleroo]

I agree with Kaganis. No need to update old builds. It would be perfectly fine if they ensured future builds work on then current hard- and software.

 

[Smartcom5]

You can't expect every software developer in the world to start building every project twice because Apple strongly prefers exclusivity a closed-up and as proprietary and non-compatible as possible closed-up eco-system and looking like they're on the cutting edge to usability or actually being on the cutting edge.

FTFY. You're welcome, chap! ♥


Smartcom

 

[magriboy0750]

Good evening,for mac Users,i think you can use virtual machines or the emulation for your 32 bit software.Even if Apple doesn't allow the running of 32 bits code,you can always use a virtual machine or emulation,i think Paradox Games should work fine even in virtual machine.
Cordially.

 

[satoru]

Well i guess pds will forcibly compile them new in 64 bit...

but tbh personaly i would say screw macs. If apple is a dickhead and people still buy their shit they screw theemselves, so no tears from me....but well i do not like apple at all and are strongly biased...for the record i do not like windows much more but unless they remain open enough i can tolerate windows

A lot of devs are simply going to pull support for Macs for older games. Its generally not profitable to go back and do a major engine overhaul for what amounts to a very small population.

you're already seeing a small trend of games supporting Wndows/Linux and skipping Macs. This is due to the fact that a large population of Mac users are using the Airs and those only have terrible Intel cards.

With Apple actively telling devs OpenGL is also goign to die soon (this is literally 5 years in the making) expect even more games to stop working as OpenGL gets killed off in future OSX version. Devs aren't also keen on supporting a entirely different rendering API just because OSX doesn't support OpenGL. Expect game support for macs to drop off for even new titles as large portions of your existing library becomes unusable on Mac in the future.

 

[AndrewT]

Dissing of your fellow users' OS choice is completely unacceptable in our forums. The Mac/PC wars will not be prosecuted in our forums.

 

[Hootieleece]

See article in this link: https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/14/the-engine-behind-paradox-development-studios-future-games/

This means 64bit support for PC starts with Imperator.

 

[satoru]

See article in this link: https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/14/the-engine-behind-paradox-development-studios-future-games/

This means 64bit support for PC starts with Imperator.

The problems really is several layers and mostly about older games:

32-bit problem
1) older games like CK2/UE4/Stellaris are 32-bit and are unlikely to be upgraded to the new 64-bit engine. Even if they decided to do a forklift upgrade on these gaems, MAYBE, and MAYBE the latest builds might get 64-bit on mac but I seriously doubt they're gonna go back and recompile older versions.
2) This means that pretty much next year these games will just stop working on Macs once the nextOSX version comes out

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208436

3) If you have a Mac, probably 90% of the games you own will stop working next year if you upgrade OSX


OpenGL problem
1) Apple has for pretty much the past 5 years said that OpenGL is dead and that devs should use Metal
2) Devs who want a cross compatible rendering pipeline have by and large used OpenGL anyway rather than maintaining a Metal pipeline just for Macs
3) Apple has already sent out notification that OpenGL is 'deprecated' in Mojave, which is kinda silly given that they haven't updated OPenGL in like 5 years so I mean for all intents and purposes it was "deprecated" in reality.

https://developer.apple.com/macos/whats-new/

4) Apple is pretty much indicating the death of OpenGL on Macs. Likely within 1-2 versions it will simply not exist just like the 32-bit libraries.

Thus any dev looking at their Mac back catalog has 2 GIANT problems

1) upgrade their games to 64-bit
2) redo their entire rendering pipeline to Metal or MoltenVK (note MoltenVK isnt a drop in replacement for OpenGL support on Macs as Vulcan is still fundamentally different than OpenGL)

Any one of these would be a nightmare for the engineering team. BOTH of them together and you're pretty much looking at a dozen people working non stop for tens of thousands of hours. Let alone QA testing and everything else needed for something this extensive and complex.

 

[Kaganis]

3) If you have a Mac, probably 90% of the games you own will stop working next year if you upgrade OSX

Of the games I've currently got installed, 3 are 32-bit, 4 are 64-bit. There's definitely going to be a hit, but 64-bit is quite a few years old now (11 with limitations, 9 without). Mac Witcher 1 is 64 bit! This is also a pretty low end Mac so my sample skews to older games which are more likely to be 32-bit. I'd put that percentage nearer 40%, but it's going to vary wildly between people.

You make a good point about OpenGL support. I think that's going to be a bigger problem than migrating to 64-bit. Fortunately, that's going to be further down the line. If they give the same advance warning they did on killing 32-bit support, we can expect to see it removed from 10.16 I think. Giving another year to deal with that separately. Though it does raise the business question of "is it worth making the 64-bit jump for only a year before you run into the OpenGL problem?".