Why 2147M is the Max Stack in RuneScape

What’s going on guys! My name is Theoatrix, and today I am going to be

explaining exactly why 2147M, or the exact number on the screen, is the maximum cash stack in Old School Runescape and Runescape 3. Now, this may be a bit of a shorter article. But, I feel like this is a mystery to many people, and I feel like it is worth addressing in an article.

So, starting off with a little bit of background information… Old School Runescape is a game coded with Java, and RS3 used to run off Java of course, because it was Old School. But, now they use the NXT Engine.

Now, while a lot of people believe this max cash stack value comes from some sort of Java specific storage system, it is actually relevant to pretty much anything computer related, since it is pretty active in C++ coding as well, and a lot of other coding languages.

The reason why the max stack is 2147483647 is because Runescape uses 32-bit signed integers in terms of data value storage, and pretty much anything from computers to servers to apps, they all use these integers and data unit. These restrictions are set by the programming language itself that is used to create whatever software was created.

Now, basically, the system which stores the data for both RS3 and Old School Runescape can only store numbers up to 2147M, which is actually equal to 2 to the power of 31, minus 1. The reason why it is 2 to the power of 31 and not 2 to the power of 32, is because 1 full bit is used to determine whether the number is a positive or a negative value. That bit that is used to do that has no way of actually storing any other data values. This positive / negative component also derives from the fact that it is a signed integer, not an unsigned integer, meaning ‘signed’ as in it has a positive or negative sign. Also, the reason why there is a minus 1 is to account for the number 0, which is also a possible value within the storage system. But, you cannot have positive 0 and negative 0.

If Jagex wanted to expand this value higher, they would need to upgrade to a 64-bit system, which allows the maximum number of things of a singular item or a singular value to be 9,223,372,036,854,775,807. But, 9 quintillion, which is more than enough money that anyone would ever get in Runescape itself.

An example of when this has actually happened in real life, where they actually need to upgrade their system, is with YouTube. In 2014, Gangnam Style reached the maximum value of 2147M, and since YouTube was running on a 32-bit system, the views simply just stopped going up.

I guess they never really expected that many people to be using YouTube or a video to get that many views. So, a few days after, they had to upgrade their system to 64-bit. Since then, quite a few songs in particular have passed that maximum stack value.

Quite a lot of other games use a 32-bit system – things like Call of Duty, the maximum points that you can get (I have seen it in a hacked lobby before) someone got 2147M points.

Also, the maximum cash stack on Grand Theft Auto 5 is 2147M coins or dollars.

Currently, about 250 000 000 Runescape accounts have ever been created.

So, perhaps when Jagex reaches 2147M accounts, that is when they will need to upgrade to 64-bit systems. But, other than that, I do not really see a reason for Jagex to move up, since they have included platinum tokens and other items like that.

But, perhaps it would be something vital for RS3 because party hats and a lot of other items are way over the maximum cash stack value, and everything is overly inflated in price. But, they have still got ways around it like certain stable items to invest into and other things. So, it is not really necessary to upgrade to 64-bit.

Anyways, that sums it up for today’s fairly short article. I hope you learned something today or enjoyed. If you did, be sure to leave a like, and make sure to subscribe if you are new. As always, thanks for reading this article, and have a nice day!