Seattle (WA) - Valve unveiled a 64-bit version of its "Source" game engine and announced availability of Half Life 2 and Lost Coast based on the technology. According to the company, the games have been developed in collaboration with AMD and are optimized for Athlon 64 FX processors, but Intel processors with 64-bit extensions are likely to provide a similar experience.
Valve is currently offering the 64-bit versions to Half Life 2 owners via its Steam network. "Bringing the Source technology to the AMD64 processor platform is an important step in the evolution of our game content and tools," said Gabe Newell, Valve's co-founder and president in a prepared statement. "This investment in future processing will allow us, and third party developers working with Source, to push the boundaries of the gaming experience."
Half Life 2 is not the first game to move to 64-bit and follows with a considerable distance to Far Cry 64-bit, which was released in May of this year. At that time, we considered the 64-bit version of the game to be a "nice upgrade" that provided some improvements in detail, but certainly was not worth the money to justify a purchase of the game for people who did not already own the 32-bit version of the game. That may also be the reason why the 64-bit versions are offered as a free download.
In case of Far Cry, Ubisoft added some details that only were available in the 64-bit version. We do not know if the same applies to Half Life 2, as Valve did not release specific details if there are new features or if the 64-bit game performs differently than the original 32-bit game.
Despite the fact that Valve stated that the 64-bit version of the game was created in collaboration with AMD and the processor manufacturer leverages the game to promote its Athlon 64 FX chip, we would expect the 64-bit version of the game to display a similar performance or possible improvement on Intel's processors that integrate 64-bit extensions.
e ja começou a invasao dos 64bit, pro nosso bem.
Fikem bem...










