EU4 - Development Diary - 5th of February 2019

[James The Red]

I assume my computer is 64 bit compatible. Is there a simple way of checking?

 

[Casko]

Not sure why people keep repeating this claim for EU5, why EU4 could not live for next 10-20 years? Software went from product to service, so games are nowadays migrating towards this direction. Either with free-to-play for skins and similar (League of Legends) to series of DLC's/extensions like EU4 or dying species of monthly subscriptions. And then technically you have Total War: Warhammer 1 & 2 as different instalments but when you buy 2nd you got all the factions from 1st and there are DLS's on top of that. So why people keep talking about EU5? It's great mystery of the universe to me. I would assume it's holly grail for unhappy customers that see EU5 as finally 'EU4 done right'.

Well, its just my personal side on the argument. However people tend to wish for EU5 due to multitude of reasons, such as feature bloat /features being disconnected from each other. Genuine desire for more HUGE-ish reworks such as pop mechanism including minority/majority religion and cultures. Dynamic trade, Imperator Rome style map. Among other things,

I assume my computer is 64 bit compatible. Is there a simple way of checking?

Control Panel/System and Security/System

 

[rho]

Not sure why people keep repeating this claim for EU5, why EU4 could not live for next 10-20 years? Software went from product to service, so games are nowadays migrating towards this direction. Either with free-to-play for skins and similar (League of Legends) to series of DLC's/extensions like EU4 or dying species of monthly subscriptions. And then technically you have Total War: Warhammer 1 & 2 as different instalments but when you buy 2nd you got all the factions from 1st and there are DLS's on top of that. So why people keep talking about EU5? It's great mystery of the universe to me. I would assume it's holly grail for unhappy customers that see EU5 as finally 'EU4 done right'.

CK2 and EU4 were Paradox's first titles to use their current DLC model. And while there's a lot that's good about the way that they do it, I think it's fair to say that there have also been teething problems. There are major gameplay mechanics that are considered mandatory by a lot of players but which are included in DLCs. There are parallel systems that don't interact with each other due to being in separate DLCs, leading to a vastly increased breadth of gameplay, but not as much extra depth as many would have hoped for.

I think that the hope that people have for EU5 is to be able to address some of these problems. If all the current DLC features were rolled into the base game then that would potentially allow the different systems to be more thoroughly integrated allowing for deeper gameplay. It would also allow for some cutting of the fat and dropping the features that they've tried in EU4 that didn't really work, just as they dropped a bunch of features from EU3 when they made EU4. It would also mean that they'd potentially be making a new "game as a service" with the knowledge of how to do so successfully that they've gleaned over the lifetime of CK2 and EU4.

Now, don't get me wrong. Personally, I think that there's still a decent amount of life left in EU4; I'm not among the numbers calling for EU5. But I do see why people are advocating for it.

 

[Mr. ZAP]

So am I going to have problems? My system is 64 bit but I only run on 4gb of memory. I have noticed late-game getting worse in terms of memory usage/lag the past few updates but didn't know why. I don't know anything about computers. Will the update mean it routinely has to go over 4gb, and if so, will that make my game crash?

 

[Ornlu Wolfjarl]

I'm suprised that 1.1% of users still use 32 bit computer.

It's likely mostly people who run the game on laptops with 32-bit systems while travelling. I don't think a lot of people actually game on 32-bit computers as their main platform. 64-bit processors have been around for 15-20 years now.

 

[shibby191]

I assume my computer is 64 bit compatible. Is there a simple way of checking?

Someone else posted how to check. But if your computer is less then 15 years old then the hardware is 99% chance to be 64-bit. Now that doesn't mean that Windows/Mac OS that is installed on it is 64 bit, that's a different piece of the puzzle. Need both at 64 bit to be truly "64 bit".

 

[Konigi]

The more they do for EU4, the more they will learn about what went right and what went wrong. This would lead to a much better EU5 upon release.

EU5 confirmed.

 

[IMAGY]

2nd core use planned for 2029 xD? Don't get me wrong, this change is one of the biggest optimisation changes I've ever seen so far. I am really happy it is going to happen and can't wait to see that juicy boost. However it's 2019 and overall game performance is quite sad. Even with modern day PCs you can't play it as smooth as other games, let's be honest. The game is also not the newest one. There is still much to achieve in performance I think. At some point you will start thinking about EU5, and I bet my house EU4 is not going to run very well even untill the release of the next game. After all these years it almost feels like it is impossible to make this game run better, the only solution being buying faster and faster CPU. It's been 6 years for the game itself not counting development phase, I would love to see something make this beautiful game run smoother. Good luck Paradox and thanks for another positively characterized update!

 

[Gwayne]

Funny last time I made remarks about this a few years back people told me that it would never be needed. So it was just a matter of time.

 

[IMAGY]

Funny last time I made remarks about this a few years back people told me that it would never be needed. So it was just a matter of time.

Same thing with multithred. No one ever listened. And now what? 18 core CPUs still can't handle this game at speed 5.

 

[grommile]

Same thing with multithred. No one ever listened. And now what? 18 core CPUs still can't handle this game at speed 5.

I don't think anyone seriously claims that multithreading wouldn't be an improvement.

The problem is that EU4's cut of the Clausewitz engine very much gives the impression of being made of tentacles and unexpected compulsory serialization.

 

[Onisuzume]

So am I going to have problems? My system is 64 bit but I only run on 4gb of memory. I have noticed late-game getting worse in terms of memory usage/lag the past few updates but didn't know why. I don't know anything about computers. Will the update mean it routinely has to go over 4gb, and if so, will that make my game crash?

Nothing as drastic as that.
For the player, the main difference is that 64-bit means that the game can use more than 4GiB of RAM if your PC has that much.
If your PC has only 4GiB RAM, than there won't be any real changes for you, and no crashes related to that.
A 32-bit PC with more than 4GiB RAM installed can use only a maximum of 4GiB, however (afaik).

 

[PhoenixG]

So am I going to have problems? My system is 64 bit but I only run on 4gb of memory. I have noticed late-game getting worse in terms of memory usage/lag the past few updates but didn't know why. I don't know anything about computers. Will the update mean it routinely has to go over 4gb, and if so, will that make my game crash?

No. If you have a 32bit system, having more than 4GB is useless since the system can't read more than 4GB. With a 64 bit system it can read more than 4GB. Like if you system has only 4GB the game can only use that 4GB since don't have more. It won't crash the game, but you'll the impact of the switch less.

 

[Marcus @ Linux]

A game can hardly benefit from AVX instructions.

AVX is used extensively to optimize string processing due to the wide register sizes and the data-parallel instructions available in AVX. And string processing is something which EU4 is surely very heavily relying on.

 

[AndrewT]

How old is your computer? How can it even run EU4?

I would see people with 32bit Windows 10 maybe once a month. The age of the computer has nothing to do with it.

Why MS even made a 32bit version of Win10 is beyond me.

 

[potato_nuggets]

Will saves from 1.28.2 work fine on the new patch?

 

[Coldrefreader of Bulgaria]

Well, its just my personal side on the argument. However people tend to wish for EU5 due to multitude of reasons, such as feature bloat /features being disconnected from each other. Genuine desire for more HUGE-ish reworks such as pop mechanism including minority/majority religion and cultures. Dynamic trade, Imperator Rome style map. Among other things.

Considering Vicky 2 with the mod HPM is one of my favourite games, seeing an EU-styled game with a pop mechanism will be amazing. Still waiting for Paradox' version of Half-Life 3 though.

 

[Vetgirig]

Paradox would probably still want to give minimal support for the 32-bit version of the game for some time but without any feature updates thus only with bug fixes. Thus should leave room for further number changes in the future for that version.

Since there are at least one longstanding bug which are easy to fix still in 1.28.3.

Calling the next version 1.29 is a big mistake from a management position. Would be better to call next version 2.0.


I said this before - but I think I need to repeat it - changing hardware requirement for a already released game should not be done lightly. It can give large backlashes from those who will suffer so giving them some support is always required.

 

[soregix]

How old is your computer? How can it even run EU4?

It can run... with some of lags and long loading times
Heavy mods like M&T causes crash but vanila game works
Hmm I need to change my computer....

 

[withche.07]

Nice to hear right after I ordered new desktop system components. All new games are 64-bit now. Eu4 needed that change.