Well, there are few of us who are still using a 32 bit OS, my desktop still is, and the main reason I haven't bothered to upgrade it is I haven't been forced to.  I will probably;y just get a new comp, as it's almost silly to by a new os for a comp that is over 4 years old.

I think I looked into it and it would cost almost, or more than $100 to upgrade.  But, when it comes to technology I am pretty ignorant.  I figured that I could just get a new computer, which I need, for $500 that would come with a new 64 bit OS.  I don't think putting a new OS in my old crap is worth it when I know I will need to replace the thing soon enough any way.  And as a government worker, I am poorly paid and thus cheap.

This is incredibly important to the industry.

Not having access to more memory is very limiting these days.

For instance, for those of you who have read Elemental: Destiny's Embers, you know that the Fallen aren't just "big humans".  They are, effectively, a collection of fantasy archetypes.  The Ironeers are supposed to be dwarves.  

But we can't have lots of equally equippable body types because we can't fit it in memory. Obviously budget is a limiter as well but FE has, effectively, an unlimited budget. What we don't have is unlimited memory. 

harpo

32 bits apps are fine in a virtual environment - in this day and age it should be strickly legacy for devs

Please cut the cord now.

I really wish you could have gone hog wild with hero customization- make it as unique as some of the modern 3d fighters.  That would probably require 64-bit.

Out of curiosity, how much do you consider this also a design issue rather than just a memory limitation issue?

Elemental uses stuff that takes up a lot of memory. I assume all the equipment is shown on the units, in the sense that a unit that is given a red cloak also shows a red cloak on the strategic map. Isn't that a huge drain on memory? Or is the main drain something else than the bodies & equipment?

Could dropping details on how units are presented on the strategic map enable you to concentrate more on adding the stuff that is now missing? How about dropping something else?

Sometimes less is more.

Edit: I'm glad to hear the fantasy archetypes are present in the lore. Hopefully they come more to the fore in the future. And regarding the memory drain, I've worked on design and implementation of mobile game platforms of three different companies, so optimization is a nemesis of mine. Getting a game to fit on 64kB of memory with limited ram and processing power requires you to squeeze your resources until you hear their muffled screams from your hard drive.. and I did feel the big decisions are made in the design. Implementation can squeeze you more bytes, but in the end the larger boundaries have already been set.

So Galactic Civilisations 3 is gona be 64-bit only.  

Good to hear! The only game that I know of that's 64bit is Arma 3 if I remember right...  

GalCiv3 Please! 

Only one tiny problem I have heard is companies lobbing the console makers to have better hardware... Seriously Microsoft and Sony man up! 

So the Men look kinda the same and the Fallen look very similar as well because of RAM limitations!   I never thought that....I thought it was because you insisted on making an original world with original races.

If I have interpreted what you said correctly, then why didn't you ever say that when criticism of the sameness of the races first surfaced?

Didn't know how to respond to this at the time but here goes something.

Less is more might make sense from a gameplay perspective, but from a technology perspective it makes none at all.  I don't think any developer is happy about being hamstrung by the same restrictions they were struggling under five years ago, when the technology is readily available and already in most gamers hands.

Could their design be less ambitious?  Of course.  But if it was, would they want to play it?  Who would want to create a game they don't want to play?

I'm sure I could continue, but I assume you get the point.

So you're advocating they put in less stuff to give you more value?

I really can't parse this.  Perhaps I should go to sleep instead.

Mass Effect 3 multi til 4 in the morning is awesome. 

You know what else we can't have?

Gigantic maps.  Minor factions.  More impressive late game cities.  More random events.  More creatures.

It is not just one thing we can't have because of 32 bit limitations.