[Closed] Are you running Windows 32 bit? The developers would like to know!

LaFayette

The TripleA developers are pondering if we should continue offering a 32 bit version of TripleA.

The download counts for 32 bit are higher than what they should be and we are wondering this question:

Are more than 10% of windows users actually running 32bit, or are people installing 32 bit without realizing they could (and should) be installing the 64bit version?

If you are running windows 32 bit, kindly please add a comment!

Cernel

@LaFayette Also, a question. Does the 32 bit installer get different vmoptions settings? Because I'm pretty sure, in a 32 bit system, TripleA should not even start at the 2 GB memory default setting.

LaFayette

Likely not, the vm settings file and configuration is the same, there is no special casing for 32 bit or 64, it's only the installer bundle that makes the distinction.

Cernel

@LaFayette Then I assume that whoever is on a 32 bit system will not be able to play TripleA after downloading, until going manually change the vmoptions settings. If anyone is in such a condition, we should see people in forum asking about that, which we aren't, so far. There is no way 2 GB xmx can be playable on a 32 bit, as that is the theorical maximum.

Cernel

What I'm saying is that you are already practically not offering a 32 bit version of TripleA, since the memory default was increased to 2 GB (unless I'm missing something here), quite a long time ago, by now.

Panther

My experience is that not every user is even aware whether he runs a 32bit or 64bit windows. Sometimes you have to explain how to determine that. Also I am sure that in some (or many?) cases the 32bit installer is downloaded and executed on 64bit systems.

There are 32bit Windows versions out there, of course. I see people running Windows 7 either 32bit or 64bit. Windows 10 users almost all are on 64bit.

Just my experience when troubleshooting software issues...

RoiEX

It might be worth adding some javascript to determine the "best" installer based on the browser information.
This way we could eliminate "false installations" for the most part

ssoloff

The 32-bit installer creates a different .vmoptions file than the 64-bit installer (see #4336) :

<action name="" id="458" customizedId="" beanClass="com.install4j.runtime.beans.actions.control.SetVariableAction" enabled="true" commentSet="false" comment="" actionElevationType="inherit" rollbackBarrier="false" rollbackBarrierExitCode="0" multiExec="false" failureStrategy="2" errorMessage="">
  <serializedBean>
    <java class="java.beans.XMLDecoder">
      <object class="com.install4j.runtime.beans.actions.control.SetVariableAction">
        <void property="script">
          <object class="com.install4j.api.beans.ScriptProperty">
            <void property="value">
              <string>final boolean is32BitJavaRuntime = "x86".equals(System.getProperty("os.arch"));
final long halfMemoryMiB = Math.round(SystemInfo.getPhysicalMemory() * 0.5 / 1024L / 1024L);
return Math.min(is32BitJavaRuntime ? 1024L : 2048L, halfMemoryMiB);</string>
            </void>
          </object>
        </void>
        <void property="variableName">
          <string>heapSizeMiB</string>
        </void>
      </object>
    </java>
  </serializedBean>
  <condition />
</action>

LaFayette

Thanks for the reference @ssoloff

The download count for 32 bit is concerning, I'd expect <10% if not <1% of users to be on a 32 bit OS. Not being sure which option to choose is extremely likely, as @Panther pointed out many users are not sure. IMO this is a case where offering "freedom of choice" is making for a poor UX and wrong decisions.

Regardless, I'm secondly concerned about how we can test the 32 bit installer. We'd need to find someone with a 32 bit OS and coordinate with them. Previously when TripleA did that kind of testing coordination, releases took a solid month. Grant it, it would be mostly one-time, but because there is manual work to get the package together, it is not guaranteed to work and we would want to test it.

32 bit is also becoming quite obsolete, if we enable a couple users, is it worth the cost of the wrong decision for thousands of other downloads?

It's also going to be very difficult to know if have any 32 bit users, I'm reluctant to think they'll see this forum thread.

I would propose we do the following:

remove the 32 bit download link from website
add a "need a 32 bit Windows installer?" link to the website that directs to a page that asks those users to post here.

If we then get some posts requesting 32 bit, then we can easily restore the 32 bit windows downloader link on the website and we'll know to invest the effort for the next release. We might even then line up a potential tester to help us verify the 32 bit installer.

Failing that I am concerned:

we would not package it correctly and those users would perhaps think the game is broken instead of contacting us
64 bit users continue to download the wrong version
us investing time for potential no return if in fact nobody is actually using a 32 bit OS.

RoiEX

Well I know that my father's PC is running a 32 bit installation of windows, even though the cpu supports 64 bit.
My assumption is that there are a lot of tech-illitrrate people with - in comparison - low-end PCs aka 4 GB RAM or less where 64 bit doesn't make a difference at all. So wether or not they have 64 bit windows is a 50:50 chance.

Cernel

@RoiEX Well, I disagree that with 4 GB RAM it doesn't make a difference at all. With 32 bit you can run programs hardly going above 1 GB RAM (the 2 GB maximum is theorical), so you waste most of your RAM.

LaFayette

Can we line up a volunteer to test a 32 bit windows installation?

RoiEX

I could try running triplea on a 32 bit windows

LaFayette

@RoiEX Excellent. I just got done packaging a win 32 JRE. I hope that will suffice for some time until we can more reasonably drop win32 support.