Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx> writes: > On Thu, Sep 16, 2021 at 1:22 PM Peter Zijlstra <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> On Thu, Sep 16, 2021 at 12:10:25AM -0400, Gabriel Krisman Bertazi wrote: >> >> > I find this weird. I'm not even juts talking about compat, but even on >> > native 32-bit. But also, 32 applications on 64, which is a big use >> > case for games. >> >> Seriously, people still make 32bit applications today? And for legacy >> games, I would think the speed increase of modern CPUs would far offset >> this little inefficiency. > > There are 32-bit Windows games apparently, because it's easier to build it > that way than having both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Yes, many modern, recently released, tiple-A Windows games running over Proton/Wine are published only in 32-bit. We also keep a 32-bit Proton for that reason. > There may be native 32-bit games built for Linux from the same sources when > that is not written portably, not sure if that's a thing. > > One important reason to use compat mode is for cost savings when you can > ship an embedded system with slightly less RAM by running 32-bit user space > on it. We even still see people running 32-bit kernels on Arm boxes that have > entry-level 64-bit chips, though I hope that those will migrate the > kernel to arm64 > even when they ship 32-bit user space. > > Similar logic applies to cloud instances or containers. Running a 32-bit > Alpine Linux in a container means you can often go to a lower memory > instance on the host compared to a full 64-bit distro. > > Arnd -- Gabriel Krisman Bertazi