• Varyk
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    1 year ago

    You mean compared to the 4gb limit of 32-bit systems , right?

    I’m aware of that limit, but I’m not clear on exactly how that affects modding.

    Like the mods they make don’t have to be limited to using 4 gigabytes of memory?

    • sugar_in_your_tea
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      1 year ago

      Yup. It could be limited to 2GB depending on the software (e.g. some programming languages/platforms need the top bit to be clear, which halves the 4GB limit). I don’t know about Skyrim in particular, but 2GB and 4GB are both quite limiting for the game+mods.

      With 64-bit, the game+mods can use basically as much memory as it wants.

      • Varyk
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        1 year ago

        That’s super interesting. So as all of our computers have been kind of switching over to 64-bit, has the whole modding community been moving over to 64 bit as well? Well they must be.

        I’ve been blown away by some of the mods I put on the elder scrolls and fallout games, far grander and expansive than I would expect a mod to be able to improve a game, so maybe some of those are 64-bit.

        I think I’m going to look into that. Thanks again

        • sugar_in_your_tea
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          1 year ago

          It depends on the game of course. 32-bit games restrict mods to 32-bit address space because they share the same process. Modders don’t really get to choose, unless they do something funky like start a separate process to hold memory or something.

          • Varyk
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            1 year ago

            Got it, makes sense. That is such an interesting world, all these people devoting so much of their time and energy to these projects that must be almost unanimously passion projects

              • Varyk
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                1 year ago

                Oh yeah that’s a damn good point. I had never heard of the fediverse until Reddit shut down third party apps, then I left that day and I like this place much better, but I still don’t understand pretty much anything about it.

                • sugar_in_your_tea
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                  1 year ago

                  It’s both simple and complex.

                  Think of each instance as a service like Reddit. Each has its own users, communities, admins, etc. If you want to look at a community on another instance, you can ask your instance to start listening for new posts and whatnot, and then your instance will have a copy of that community. If you then post to that copy, your post will be sent to the original community so other people can see it.

                  Anyone can make their own instance and access all of the content across all of the lemmy instances. Think of it like making your own cable TV service, where you can access all of the channels available and even make your own channels to share with others. A lot of people aren’t willing or able to make their own, so people in the community make some available for others to use. But someone has to pay for all of that server space, so some instances ask for donations, and others limit how many users can use their instance.

                  And then you get to apps. There are several mobile apps, like Jerboa, Thunder, and others, and these are by and large passion projects. If you wanted, you could get involved and submit changes that the maintainer could accept and include in the next build of your favorite app (I’ve done that). Or if there’s a core lemmy feature you wanted, you could contribute to that project.

                  It’s a cool project where anyone can help out, and success or failure of the project doesn’t depend on a company finding a way to profit from it, but from people being interested in working on it.

                  • Varyk
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                    1 year ago

                    Thanks for the breakdown, I understood the basic structure all right, although I didn’t really understand how the communities were able to see each other across instances, but thinking about it is public broadcast channels. Makes sense.

                    I think my brain gets it, but I have to just internalize it for a while until it makes intuitive sense to feel comfortable floating out here in the fediverse.

                    I appreciate the explanation, it does help me kind of pull things together from the hints I’ve been getting from context clues as I read posts and comments and updates here.