64-Bit and DirectX 11

[Shioban]

@shioban if a game running in 32bits was asking more of 4gb of rams, i think we agree for say it's stupid, since the game run in 32 bits it's only natural that the game will not use more of 4gb of rams.
passing in 64 bits will give them more room for the DX11 client actually.

You're confusing System Memory with GPU Memory, which are two completely different independent hardware components with almost no relation to each other.

A 64-bit client would make no virtually no difference in creating a smooth and efficient DX11 client.


Your average user has around 2-4GB of System Memory [RAM DDR3], and a GPU* with at least [1GB-3/4GB (usually GDDR5 now)].
Currently the FFXIV client is only using on average 1GB of SYSTEM memory, therefore it's simply unnecessary for the time being to invest the time or money into a 64-bit client.

Currently the client won't be adjusted in it's functionality, as the client must work on three different platforms identical in functionality; PS3, PS4, and a metric ton of Windows Based PCs.

Theres a ton of things the game could potentially add that would require more memory, I have a list as long as my arm I could write here, but the simple fact remains as long as the PS3 client hangs around this simply isn't a possibility as additional functionality to in-game content would cause huge development problems in having to adjust all new content for the PS3 client, or leading them to simply bar PS3 users all together from new content/features taking advantage of this. This will not happen.


In the future however, if the developers decide to drop support for the PS3, this may well lead the developers down the garden path of changing a multitude of things they couldn't before with a much wider pool of SYSTEM memory to use, and even after that if they somehow managed to eat up another few gigabytes of memory to the point where a 64-bit client would be almost a necessity (which is extremely unlikely) it'll be so far into the future that it's simply not worth arguing about at the current time.


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TL;DR

You're confusing system memory with GPU* memory.

The client currently uses around 1GB of memory which suits all three platforms.

ARR's development team will not add content/features that won't work across all of these platforms.

As for GPU memory this allows scalability to visual fidelity in the game without affecting the PS3 version whilst giving the PC/PS4 users a more aesthetically pleasing game at a performance cost.



*GPU = Graphics Processing Unit