x64 Compatibility

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The theme for this week is compatibility, brought to you by the letters W and O, and the number 64.

In the PlanetAMD64 forums and on their Wiki, we've been thrashing out some terms for games that run or don't run under Windows x64 editions.

My favourites so far are:

  • x64 (native or enhanced) - patched or compiled for true x64 operation
  • WOW64 - runs as a 32 bit process under 64-bit Windows (I know, it almost seems backwards, but the acronym is Win32 on Win64, I think)
  • UNWOW64 - doesn't run under x64, for whatever reason. Aka "broken" or "unworkable".

1984 was a doubleplusgood book, wasn't it?