[Opensim-dev] General status of OpenSim on 64 bit Linux Architecture

Mon Jun 22 00:20:51 UTC 2009

Not really a fire, it's just that relatively few people have tested opensim
running natively under a 64 bit processor architecture.

I personally have had considerable success using opensim native 64 bit under
openSUSE 11.1 with only a few minor issues, some which we were able to
address completely, some which we never addressed. But t he problems were
extant on only two or three of the 120+ regions running on the 32GB, 2xQuad
core box.

I think the two most important areas to consider are .net/mono, and ODE. As
Neb mentions, ODE is a near or complete impossibility under 64 bit windows,
and I can tell you from long hours and hard experience that what revision of
mono you use has *everything* to do with the variation in mileage seen by
the various people testing opensim in these larger environments (I ran my
more or less successful operation under the 2.01 stable branch of mono as
shipped by novell for openSUSE).

I think the most important thing at this stage of testing opensim at this
scale, is to avoid making assumptions about how a particular configuration
will behave based on these early anecdotes; concrete assertions about
sweeping generalizations do not represent good data. If you have big iron
you can test with, by all means, try everything you can think of and let us
know how it turns out.

HTH!

Cheers,
Hiro P

On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 1:43 PM, Salahzar Stenvaag <salahzar at gmail.com>wrote:

> Wow, as I could have foretell this thing is really debated, sorry for
> having launched this fire :)
>
> Anyway at least I know that I can ask for help to Sacha Magne if our
> friends go 64 bits or to Nebadon if we are going 32-bit emulation :)
>
> This is REALLY a huge comfortant news. And I thanks people involved in
> this mailing list for answering such good hints
> (I eventually understood that, YES there are Lions and Dragons hiding
> here, but some people did survive)  :)
>
>
>
> Fran Lebowitz  - "Life is something to do when you can't get to
> sleep." - http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/fran_lebowitz.html
>
>
> 2009/6/19 Sacha Magne <sacha.magne at k-grid.com>:
> > I disagree completly. Osim run fine in 64Bits. All our sims are in 64B
> and
> > we don't experience any majour issues.
> >
> > Sacha
> >
> > Le 18 juin 09 à 19:39, Nebadon Izumi a écrit :
> >
> > regardless of PAE in 32 bit mode the most memory OpenSim.exe could
> consumeis
> > 3.3gb of ram, Also my experience with 64 bit is less than good, in
> windows
> > there is no 64 bit with OpenSim, you can not make ODE run in 64 bit mode
> in
> > windows, and in Linux i experiece major issues with openjpeg in 64 bit
> mode,
> > I personally do not suggest anyone run OpenSim in 64 bit mode unless you
> > like issues.  and to be honest I have not seen a single case to date
> where
> > any OpenSimulator could run much past 2gb of ram anyway without totally
> > blowing up, My conclusion to 64 bit opensimulator is that you would be
> > completly wasting your time, the only way a 64 bit system is good is if
> you
> > have more than 4gb ram and plan on running multiple single instance
> > simulators in 32bit emulated mode where the total combined requirements
> of
> > the multiple simulators combined equals more than 3.5gb ram.  Otherwise
> > running opensimulator in 64bit mode gains you absolutely nothing but
> > problems trying to run in Native 64 bit mode.
> >
> > Neb
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Mike Dickson <mike.dickson at hp.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> It doesn't take alot of "tricks" to use beyond 3.5GB of memory with a 32
> >> bit OS.  The PAE kernel will handle it. I have one system with 24GB
> >> that's 32bit (for othe reasons).  I've also run OpenSIm 64bit fine
> >> recently so I think either approach is feasible.  If I was starting from
> >> scratch with a system with lots of memory I'd probably do 64bit...
> >>
> >> Mike
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 16:45 +0000, Salahzar Stenvaag wrote:
> >> > I was curious to understand the current status of OpenSim on Linux
> >> > architectures (such as Linux Red Hat Enterprise 5 or similar) using 64
> >> > bit to access all the available memory.
> >> > Browsing the documentation it seems that OpenSim can run under 64 bit,
> >> > but I've seen MANY mantis referring to problems with 64 bit
> >> > compilation and running.
> >> > Also in the past I've seen some people dropping their 64 bit regions
> >> > (and installing instead 32 bit version) because they didn't work as
> >> > expected (instability, strange collision effects etc).
> >> > I've also seen a 32bit-OpenSim-launcher.exe (or something similar) who
> >> > allegedly can run opensim in 32 bit mode even on 64 bit systems, but
> >> > do not know if this applies only to 64-bit windows or also to linux
> >> > systems. There is some information on the wiki, but it appears quite
> >> > outdated right now.
> >> >
> >> > So the question is: if people want to install opensim on a 64 bit
> >> > system with say 8 Gbram, what do you suggest?
> >> > 1\ don't even think that throw away 64 bit system and use a 32 bit
> >> > system using just the 3.5 G ram it can access?
> >> > 2\ use some tricks to launch opensim.exe as if it were a 32 bit?
> >> > 3\ install 32 bit OS and use some tricks to make it see the memory
> >> > beyond 3.5 G?
> >> > 4\ go on and use 64 bit system it works like a charme and all the
> >> > MANTIS and the old problems had vanished in the void? :)
> >> >
> >> > Thanks for any suggestion on that and if you already run OpenSim on
> >> > RedHat 64 bit if you have any suggestions...
> >> > sal
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Rodney Dangerfield  - "What a dog I got, his favorite bone is in my
> >> > arm." -
> >> > http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/rodney_dangerfield.html
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > Opensim-dev mailing list
> >> > Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> >> > https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Opensim-dev mailing list
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Michael Emory Cerquoni - Nebadon Izumi @ http://osgrid.org
> > _______________________________________________
> > Opensim-dev mailing list
> > Opensim-dev at lists.berlios.de
> > https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/opensim-dev
> >
> > Sacha Magne
> > sacha.magne at k-grid.com
> > K-Grid, the Kool grid for the Kool Kats
> > http://K-grid.com
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
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