WinXP 64 question, --- anyone using it in its DAW?

[rsmus7]

I'm thinking about which OS I should take for a new DAW

what about WinXP64?

I know m-audio has a driver for the delta cards for WinXP64
and I have a delta 1010lt card.

would my plugins and hosts work in WinXP64?

I have eXT, CubaseSX 3.1

can WinXP64 handle multiple processore (quadcore or whatever might come)?

or should I update later to Vista?

what are the advantages of a 64bit OS?



I have no idea aboutthe recent OS,
I'm using WinXP home for more than 3 years now.

[RTaylor]

I have... I had no problems other than Norton and Avid's install. The Delta drivers worked nicely and the performance was exceptional.

...Can't promise that you'll get the same results.

[UltraJv]

I would stick with XP 32 bit. Most devs are going with Vista when its out but I wouldnt worry about that for a year. You want stability in a DAW, not cutting edge.

[BONES]

Pretty much the one and only advantage of a 64 bit OS for what we do is that it can allocate more than 2Gb of RAM to a single application. If you're not running out of RAM there is no point. A 64bit version of your host will probably not perform noticably better either. Applications like 3D animation benefit from 64 bit implementation because their data-sets are so huge but for something as simple as audio you won't notice much change.

[Hunter]

there was an SOS article a few months ago that summed up the advantages and disadvantages of 64 bit. I think Sonar 5PE can run it.

[rsmus7]

thx for your answers

I understand now,
that my hosts and plugins will run in a 64 bit OS,
but it's not really worth to get it.

I dont think that I need more than 2 gig ram.
I'm running now 1 gig and my ram isnt the problem of the cpu overload.



I think I will get me WinXP home, it should handle the C2D fine, or?
I think I dont upgrade to a multicore cpu for the next three years.
and wait till I need to upgrade to Vista with a 64 bit OS.

[bleebsen]

Cubase SX3 runs on WXP64, not natively, but using the "WoW" (Windows-on-Windows) Layer. I had the feeling it runs very nice without performance penalties from the emulation.

All the plugins I tried worked instantly, so I think from the plugins point of view WXP64 isn't all that different.

The showstopper for me was missing 64bit drivers for my UADs.

And any other dongled plugin won't work if there aren't 64bit drivers for the dongle. I think Pace has none yet but Syncrosoft does obviously.

But I don't think there's any advantage in switching to 64bit Windows yet (except the support for more RAM, but 32bit applications like Cubase probably won't be able to use it anyway).

[BertKoor]

No thanks, I'll wait some years for the juvenile problems to clear up.
Just like it was with Win95 some years ago, Win98SE was a major improvement and it took some troublesome years to get there.

[rsmus7]

it seems that the 64 bit "solutions" are not really solutions atm

[Stupid American Pig]

Pretty much the one and only advantage of a 64 bit OS for what we do is that it can allocate more than 2Gb of RAM to a single application. If you're not running out of RAM there is no point. A 64bit version of your host will probably not perform noticably better either. Applications like 3D animation benefit from 64 bit implementation because their data-sets are so huge but for something as simple as audio you won't notice much change.

Incorrect. Sonar is actually much improved and definitely noticeable. Infact winders in general is much faster in 64 bit.

[Pouckypluysch]

I understood that dual core systems were able to handle up to 4 gig of ram. Not true?

[Stupid American Pig]

I understood that dual core systems were able to handle up to 4 gig of ram. Not true?

Its not the number of cores, its the size of the address registers. 32 bit can only address 4 GB of ram, while 64 bit can address 16 billion gigabytes in theory, I think that win x64 is limited to either 16 or 64 gb(dont remember off hand).

[Pouckypluysch]

Its not the number of cores, its the size of the address registers. 32 bit can only address 4 GB of ram, while 64 bit can address 16 billion gigabytes in theory, I think that win x64 is limited to either 16 or 64 gb(dont remember off hand).

You're saying that XP at 32 bit can handle up to 4 gig of ram? I thought that was 2 gig of ram max...

[kp]

How much physical memory the system can handle is dependent on the chipset.

Under XP (32 bit), each process gets allocated 2GB (can be increased to 3GB with provisos) of virtual address space - this is *not* the same as each process getting 2GB of RAM.

The OS gets 2GB (or 1GB if processes get 3GB) of address space. Similarly, this is *not* the same as it getting 2GB of RAM.

[Stupid American Pig]

Its not the number of cores, its the size of the address registers. 32 bit can only address 4 GB of ram, while 64 bit can address 16 billion gigabytes in theory, I think that win x64 is limited to either 16 or 64 gb(dont remember off hand).

You're saying that XP at 32 bit can handle up to 4 gig of ram? I thought that was 2 gig of ram max...

well XP by default only allocates 2GB to apps, if an app is large address aware you can use a /3gb switch in the boot .ini to allow apps like cubase or sonar to address more memory.