How to play on 32 bit system

Maj3stic · Post by **Maj3stic** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 17:00

Can some one please explain how to make this game run on a 32 bit system. Please post in laymans terms.
After the patch I am getting the "Game cannot run on 32-bit without 4-Gigabyte Tuning enabled." ??
Thanks

Nijinski · Post by **Nijinski** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 17:10

You don't get it to play on a 32bit system.

The game requirements say 64bit and the devs have been clear that playing on a 32bit system is unsupported

bacon · Post by **bacon** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 17:17

I think your only chance is to try something like /pae switch:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_GB_barrier

Although I wouldn't hold out much hope of it working... Oh and you'll still need more than 4GB memory in the machine anyway.

SunofVich · Post by **SunofVich** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 17:17

Read games requirements. Then go buy new PC. [I]<I think you possibly mean install an x64 OS. Alan Phipps>[/I]

B_O_L_T · Post by **B_O_L_T** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 19:06

This game will run on a 32 bit OS its just not officially supported. FWIW, running a 32 bit exe on a 64 bit OS results in the exe being run on a 32 bit virtual machine, and results in a performance hit of around 2-5% over the same exe run on a 32 bit OS; one in the eye for you self righteous pricks.

Now op, you will have to edit your boot.ini file to enable PAE, and should you mess up the entry you could stop windows booting; with that said, if you want to try it, do the following.

At the run command, type c:\boot.ini, and once open, before doing anything, save a copy as a backup. If the file will not open from the run command, find your folder view options and un check the entry next to "Hide protected operating files" and hit apply, then navigate to c: and you should see the file boot.ini, open it in any text editor, and save that backup. iirc you can also access this file using the command msconfig at the run command and switching to the boot tab.

Once open, your Boot.ini file should look something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"

You need to edit the line that includes options for your OS, in this example, the entry after [Operating systems] that starts with multi(x)disk(x)partition(x)\"your OS version". Do not edit the line that starts with "default=".

You may have additional entries after the OS version, this is ok leave them, and add the following as the last entry /PAE , save the file, exit, go back to folder options and re hide protected operating system files if you changed that option, then restart windows. This will enable 32 bit windows to access all memory installed on your machine as 4 gig memory pages. You should note, that some motherboards with older bios will not allow the cpu access to additional memory, if you have one of these motherboards there is nothing you can do.

esd · Post by **esd** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 19:07

one in the eye for you self righteous pricks.

Rather unnecessary, was it not? Don't do it again.

timmmmmy · Post by **timmmmmy** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 19:39

I'm running XR on a 32bit (3200MB RAM allocated to the system, 4000MB installled) with minimal slow down/performance issues but the frequency of saving failed messages arising is quite high. Try what BOLT suggested and you should at least be able to run the game.
Refer to http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=350235 for my own experience with a 32bit OS.

The interesting thing is, insofar as I can tell, the executable is a 32bit but they recommend 64bit OS for additional RAM allocation. In effect, if I install a 64bit OS I'll need to run XR in a VM and so lose a chunk of the additional 800MB I'll be able to access. Anyone using a 64bit OS getting Saving Failed messages and the occasional CTD when saving as then I don't know if there is a point upgrading if the experience is going to be roughly the same?

BloodSlinger · Post by **BloodSlinger** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 20:33

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The official MSDN article covering all their OS for 4-Gigabyte Tuning is here
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I had posted this helping another but of course it got buried in seconds. There was another fella that I think wound up finding my post and then he made a post detailing how to actually use what I provided, and then that got buried too.

Boot ini is for legacy Win 2k3 and earlier.

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BCDEdit is for those after.
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If you're still using Windows XP you are more and more at risk. That OS is EOL and you will continue to see a growing set of things you can't run reliably (or at all).

Vista (regardless of other issues it has) does a better job on in some areas (including memory management) than XP so Vista-32 and Win7-32 are more likely to work or crash less often while configured for 4-G.

But regardless which 32bit OS, unless it changes official statements are 32b it isn't supported. This is primarily due to the fact XR has the LAA flag set so it can (thankfully) easily exceed the 2Gb limit, especially in prolonged play.

Also, there are tons of people that really want to see a full 64bit XR that actually takes advantage of 64bit processing. Whether Ego will act on this is unknown, but the results (if they did) would be a huge positive deal for everyone running modern OS and hardware.

Bottom line is you'll have trouble getting official support trying to run it on 32bit as it will compound (but are not directly related to) the actual bugs in the engine (AFAIK currently).

meremale · Post by **meremale** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 20:43

I personally blame MS for this 32/64 problem. They should have stopped making 32 bit OS's with Win7

BloodSlinger · Post by **BloodSlinger** » Mon, 18. Nov 13, 20:52

meremale wrote:I personally blame MS for this 32/64 problem. They should have stopped making 32 bit OS's with Win7

Countless companies (consumers of their OS on mass scales) are the #1 reason we continue to see it, especially gigantic corps with thousands of PC in their infrastructure, that also need to support legacy systems and software. MS likes money too. That requires supporting the companies that are supporting them.