itch.io Community » itch.io » Ideas & Feedback

Tags for 32-bit and 64-bit requirements on the game page

A topic by Obigre Fichtredonc created Sep 11, 2021 Views: 333 Replies: 3

Viewing posts 1 to 3

Obigre Fichtredonc2 years ago (3 edits) (+1)

Following suggestions made here, here and there:

Please allow uploaded builds of our games be tagged as compatible for 32-bit computers, 64-bit computers, or both.

Currently, this is a problem for both developers and gamers, as showed above in previous topics.
Developers miss an opportunity to further specify the required specs for their games, ~~and seemingly struggle to upload different builds for the same OS~~, while gamers cannot know in advance if the game they're downloading will work on their computer.

👉 As games on itch.io are published in a wide variety of shapes and forms, deployed on wildly different machines and OS, having more ways to identify and predict the behavior of games downloaded will greatly help everyone.

EDIT: to illustrate my claim, here the typical download page you're faced with on itch.io
You can identofy the OS just fine, but how can you know this 65MB game will work on your 32bit infrastructure after you've downloaded it ? As of now, if you don't ask the developers, you can't.

Like Reply

Afloof.devModerator2 years ago(+1)

and seemingly struggle to upload different builds for the same OS,

With the current system, you can upload different builds for different reasons. This includes supporting different CPU architectures, and support 32 bit and 64 bit systems. It is then up to the user to make the right choice and download the right version of the app, but if unsure, they can download multiple versions and try each one.

What you are suggesting would only work for the Itch app, so that it can automatically play a compatible version, although I’m not sure if the Itch app can do that already or not.

Like Reply

Obigre Fichtredonc2 years ago

Alright, i don't have experience in uploading different builds of my game on here, so i just assumed from one of the topic i linked :)

But my point still stands: the uploaded builds are not *tagged* as working on a 32bit or 64bit architecture.
Here an example:

Here you have a bunch of different builds, named by the developers as working for windows, mac or linux... but as you can, the 32bit and 64bit architectures are not differentiated by a little badge like OS are. Allowing this tag would be especially useful for indie games with a single build (which are legion here) which are most of the time just named after the game itself.

Another example here:

See ? as a gamer i cannot know if this game will work on my 32bit architecture.

If itch.io adds a tag for 32bit or 64bit games, it will at least raise attention to the devs that this difference exists, because right now i bet most don't know this is a crucial difference.

Like Reply

itchchanel2 years ago

+1 That seems like a good idea.

Like Reply