@Everyone who doesn't go by the name of Maktaka, please just don't bother reading... Seriously, it's getting old.
@Maktaka I'm well aware of LAA, do a little forum search, you'll find PLENTY. Believe me. You'll even find posts from other people talking about what I might possibly say or how I might react once I get around to reading a post about it... Vegas puts odds on it. Okay, not really, but they could if they wanted to. Don't take the following as a rant or anything like that since most people tend to twist my comments into something like that when it had no intent at all, because they're retarded or insecure or something... It is what it is, and what it is, is me explaining to you why I know better.
32-bit applications are limited to 2 GB of memory on a 32-bit operating system.
No shit, really? 
Didn't I say:
LAA doesn't work on 32bit systems period. You have to modify the system to allow for it, not just the executable in question,
I believe I did not 4 posts before you. And of course there's more that proponents never seem to get around to discussing, things that can cause system instability and poorer performance overall because you've been toying with things in an OS that wasn't designed for it in a system that potentially cannot handle it.
The most recent beneficiary of this 64-bit advantage was Skyrim,
Don't care. Supreme Commander took advantage of it too. Here's the deal though. Neither of those are Sins of a Solar Empire now are they? But we'll get to the reason that is in a little bit, I want you to think about it first.
In my own experience, it seemed to be tied to a memory leak triggered by alt-tabbing or using the Steam overlay for anything (e.g. chat or screenshots). Setting the flag using a 3rd party mod almost completely eliminated crashes for many (most?) users experiencing them, so much so that Bethesda released a patch the week before Christmas that officially put LAA support into the game.
Been down this road before. Different game, different results. Here's the deal. I've been playing and modding Sins since it came out on both a 64bit OS and a 32bit OS. I've played the game with the flag enabled on both systems and off. Guess what?
Further, it produces little to no gain on 64bit systems.
That is from personal experience with THIS game, not taking testimony from another one and getting all frazzled over why it's not a part of THIS one. And guess what again? Sins doesn't really have a 2GB limit crashing issue anymore either.
I have to do this just because I think it's damned funny.
The most recent beneficiary of this 64-bit advantage was Skyrim, where a lot of users suffered constant crashing without this flag set. In my own experience, it seemed to be tied to a memory leak triggered by alt-tabbing or using the Steam overlay for anything (e.g. chat or screenshots). Setting the flag using a 3rd party mod almost completely eliminated crashes for many (most?) users experiencing them, so much so that Bethesda released a patch the week before Christmas that officially put LAA support into the game.
So what you're basically saying here is... Pay close attention now, cause this is funny... No, it really is... That Steam screws the game up so much that the game's creator had to modify THEIR game so that people could continue to play it... With Steam... 
Are you kidding me!?!?! If you're a fan of Steam, that is a terrible thing to admit! It further verifies my refusal to have any dealings with them. Holy hell that is funny. And then outside of that there's a memory leak in their game that they'd rather not take the time to fix. Amusing as hell. Okay, now back to what we were talking about before this little detour.
Now, would SoaSE and its userbase benefit from this?
Nope. Already explained why twice now. In fact, I've even pointed out negatives to doing it. No updating, no online play, also no tech support if you have a problem, and it's a clear violation of the EULA that you agreed to at install... Not that anyone really cares about that last one, as I've said before in other threads, but still... Those that are outraged by online piracy and other things that are illegal should also be made aware that modifying the exe is illegal, just for completeness sake.
The Steam hardware survey last month (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey) showed that ~55% of the Steam userbase could make use of an LAA-flagged executable.
Okay, steam did that survey last month, Brad is doing an informal survey kind of about the same thing starting a couple days ago... But even so, that's only an approximately 55% of users TODAY... What about back in 2006? You know, when this was happening:
Do remember that the engine being used was designed and created well before 2008. Just because in 2011/2012 most everybody has 4gb of RAM or more has no bearing on the fact that in 2005/2006 most everybody didn't.
You know, I said most, I was wrong, I guess it's really only just a little more then half... Damn, so far less then I thought... Oh well. This game was made all the way back then to be playable on a wide range of systems including what would be considered underpowered even for back then. 55% today still wouldn't get Sins converted over because of the 45% who can't take advantage of it. Huge difference between the two companies right there. Also, why would anyone give a shit about a survey taken last month at the tail end of 2011 while they're hard at work busy building a game for as many people as possible to enjoy back in 2006? Seriously, if anyone knows for certain what is going to happen 6 years from now, all I want from that person are 6 little numbers I can enter into the state lottery, or the names of a few horses I can bet on at the tracks, or the final score of Super Bowl LII (that's 52 for those that don't know Roman Numerals). That's it. Just one of those so I can put my money in now and make a truck load on it later and we can all be off on our own happy little ways. I promise to everyone right here, right now that I will abandon these forums in a heartbeat and never look back if I'm given that information and it pans out... That is assuming these forums are even still here, I mean, 6 years is a long time for lots of things to happen. Oh right, not possible, because for all we know, in 6 years, 128bit computing could be in the middle of making 64bit computing its bitch. How would Skyrim compare to a game that is made to take advantage of that? Probably not well.
You also don't necessarily need to actually have 2 GB of physical RAM to benefit from the LAA flag; there's also the swap file on the hard drive if you can handle the accompanying lag.
Yeah, lag, about that. Ask the ICO players how much they like lag, hell ask anyone how much they like the late game frame rate drop off and general slowness because the CPU is so over burdened with everything going on... Let's just do this thing that can slow the game down even more in a different way. I'm pretty sure you've just made yourself into an enemy of the state here by recommending something that you openly admit will bring us all more suffering. =P
It would also give modders breathing room when adding more ships/races/detail into the game without bumping into the 2 GB limit.
That's not really an issue. It was before, but like I said...
The current bottleneck is with the CPU, not RAM (thanks to one of the more recent patches),
We have room, but there are limits. Just like in every other game. There are always limits to what can be done, and several mods out there have done A LOT. Try a few of them. You won't be disappointed.
It also SEEMS to be a simple enough change to make if the speed with which Bethesda rolled it out is any indication, releasing it in about 5 weeks after release while also releasing two patches for all three platforms during the same time.
I laugh at you for actually thinking this is some sort of an accomplishment. LAA has been brought up dozens of times before, people (Some still in basic programming classes in college) have passed around programs that will enable it for the casual user with no experience right here in these very forums, as well as the occasional post of a how-to instruction for doing it yourself, just for Sins... This was all YEARS ago! If Bethseda was all bad ass and on top of their game like you want to think they are, how come they didn't learn from Supreme Commander and just do all of that in the first place, rather then release it without it and have to do it while releasing a couple of patches over multiple platforms to make it all happen? I mean, THQ isn't exactly a slouch outfit that has no industry recognition. And again, we're talking about a game designed fairly recently with every intent on not only taking advantage of current technology, but also making the game pretty much out of reach for those with older technology, which again was the opposite of Sins during creation... Do you get why I can sit here laughing at you for saying the things you're saying? I mean, honestly, I'm not being a dick or anything, but it's just a ridiculous comparison and I've had one hell of a good laugh through it all. Karma for you.
I may not know everything about it, but I certainly know more about it and how it relates to Sins then the random poster who comes here after playing some other game touting it as a great thing. It's not. If it was, it would have been done years ago by everyone industry wide once 64bit OSes started appearing. I mean, it's a simple flag in the header after all. Select it, recompile, release, done. It's absurdly simple. The fact that it isn't happening except on a case by case basis speaks volumes. Those that know better then us don't do it.
/TLDR
For those of you thinking about doing this on your own, I will again add in the disclaimer that the proponents typically fail to present you with:
The current bottleneck is with the CPU, not RAM (thanks to one of the more recent patches), making LAA pointless to even consider. Adding LAA also excludes you from online play or updating. So there are serious negatives attached to it.
And you lose tech support for all future problems with it, and it's illegal. Just saying. Have a nice day.
