running 32bit sequencer / vsti on 64bit systems

[kensuguro]

I'm a little confused with the 64bit os situation.. I've been avoiding it since it 64bit seemed impractical, but I guess since most recent setups require win7 64bit to use all ram, it seems the path is inevitable.

So, I get the impression that even if the OS is 64bit, it'll run 32bit apps (and vsti), just they can access 4gb of ram.. is that correct? So, basically there's no problem with downward compatibility. Or is it done through an emulation method with some sort of performance hit?

i7 notebooks are fairly cheap, I was thinking up upgrading just for the heck of it. I mean, my setup is all native now, so all I need is a working USB or firewire.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/6 ... puter.html

[garyb]

emulation and a performance hit, afaik...

[valis]

Not enough of a performance hit to notice or care. I doubt you'd see any drop in your plugin counts or track counts on any application that wasn't making obscure/outdated OS calls.

Also note that the i3/i5 dual cores are not turbo-locked on the laptops and so dual core laptop versions of these cpus are far better performing than dual core desktops (where the dual cores have no turbo and have a few other features disabled for positively anemic performance.) That i7 you've linked should work well too.

One thing about ALL nehelem generation computers though, if you're used to pushing a system to 85-95% cpu performance the core 'parking' (changing states from C1e to C6) seems to cause some serious dsp throttling due to the amount of time it takes for a core to 'wake up'. So if you're finding you get less performance than you wanted you can try disabling C6 (if it's exposed) or just all of EIST in the bios (some allow the disabling of EIST/Speedstepping 'sleep states' without disabling the turbo features, it just limits the turbo to less steps 'upwared') and you'll get more performance but you'll also have to deal with properly cooling the laptop as well (a high performance laptop cooler is recommended.)

However chances are that laptop will be fast enough that you'll never need to worry about this.

[siriusbliss]

http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2010/febr ... pport.html

64-bit OS is really only an advantage with apps - hosts, plugins that are updated to take advantage of extra RAM overhead.
Otherwise 32-bit hosts and 32-bit VST's should still run OK in the 64-bit W7 (I'm doing it here with no problems on a laptop).

If anything, this is still currently a transitionary period where the developers are still getting things built for 'real' 64-bit environment.

64-bit plugins can be run in most hosts using jBridge - although I'm finding it a little clunky here in initial tests.

FWIW I'm loving W7 on i7 with 12G RAM here.

Greg

[kensuguro]

cool, thanks or the info. Seems 32 on 64 is not a problem then.

[dawman]

It's a nice jump up from the 3G B PAE Switch actually.
I seemed to only get 2.65GB's using the PAE Switch.
THe guy who's using my old P35 installed Windows 7 and claims he is using all 4GB's of RAM....??
Perhaps I should install it and become familiar w/ W7 and if 4GB's works even better, screw the 64bit stuff until I really need it.
I think it's great to know you are ready for the day when all of the software is mature and stable, but using all of your RAM is an upgrade in itself.
I only need to add a Rhodes, and Wurly to my live rig and dump the PTeq Pro.
Kontakt 4.0 also has the NCW compression that can trim/truncate unnecessary 0's form the sample ends, and lets say you're one of those guys that already knows how to purge your instruments, you can see a 70% decrease in size. You can even save the file that way seperate form the original folder and off load the original folder in an archive drive.
This is how you prepare your content for SSD's using Kontakt instruments only. Just for a live gig.

To the Soniccore Warrior, Trickery Is His Weapon,....................Illusion......A Way of Life.

[CroNiX]

I just installed win7/32 on my daw with 4GB ram. The system reports 4 GB installed, but only 3.5 is usable (it states that).

[dawman]

I have a great little i5 1U DAW that I will be adding Windows 7 to in July. I have to wait for time off to have time to experiment.
Here's some important discoveries that are sure to make Windows 7 32bit users happy.

Kontakt 4.0 NCW will trim the fat from instruments and compress them to a size that will halve the previous footprint. The CPU does require more IPS to make this smooth but Kontakt is already a fairly light CPU VSTi.
SandForce equipped SSD's can house the entire apps + OS + Sampled content.
So the idea of spanning content across several drives, or using RAID 0 or even a seperate OS+Apps HDD is no longer necessary.

I hope that once S|C satisfies the 64bit crowd we can concentrate on the maximization of our real power that resides in the DSP's.
A whole year wasted chasing Microsoft around should only need to be done once every 3 or 4 years.

[CroNiX]

Are you using sandforce? I hadn't heard about this before and it looks like, from a very brief reading on their website, that you can use this to convert regular flash memory into a custom sized ssd? If so that's pretty cool and something I've wondered about the possibility before. Meh, on 2nd thought...512GB max ain't enough I'd like to do this with my hd stored bluray movies too, but that's 4TB of data I can't wait for spindle hd's to just die.

One thing I kinda like in Win7 is the "Libraries" feature, where you can combine individual directories or whole drives into a library and it shows up as a single folder, like raid spanning except with more control (don't have to do whole drives if you don't want to).

[dawman]

On the MacPro notebooks the 256GB SSD that is a less performing SSD already stores everything and has better performance than mechanical HDD's.
The developer for Omnisphere uses his live exactly in this way. We have been cheering EPer on since the early '90's when he made our Roland S760's sound like GOD..
I follow this persons advice becasue he has decades of hardware/software experience,and still plays his ass off too.
His app is true 64bit, not like the NI stuff or Arturia VI's.
When I see his app really excelling from being a true 64bit app, and he demos it live again at NAMM using his " live " mode, and I see it changing presets and smoking, I will then move to 64bit, because all other reasons to go 64bit seem to be because of convenience and ROMPLER needs. Which IMHO are not suited for realtime work.
I always wonder why the 64bit guys don't whine to the developers of the ChiggaByte sized instruments to shorten the load times.
I know guys who leave their DAW's on 24/7 to avoid having to wait for 2 hours to load it.
Thats why the guys that complain here about 64bit obviously haven't had much experience with big intstruments yet. With video and software development I can see the RAM being a huge speed increase and bonus, but when guys talk about samples and 64bit they are in for a big surprise when they try and load a 600GB String instrument..............
Sample purging and compression, along with 3.5GB's of RAM for a larger footprint is a less painful way to pretend you are a conductor in a giant symphony.