Native Instruments is pushing 64bit even on older products...

[sprnva]

Yup

[electro]

Not good policy and the OP is 100% right. 64bit only has to be reserved for a full version upgrade and announced ahead of time. Kontakt 6 (64bit only)

[elxsound]

I think there are many of us, including myself, who were happy to see that K5.6 was not a full version upgrade, even though the features included could have warranted being a full version (pay-for) upgrade.

I was very happy to gain new, long requested features for free.

This idea that it "has to be reserved for a full version" does not make sense to me since the numbering is arbitrary. The decision to drop support of old hosts/operating systems (32bit) for the new features does not NEED to be tied to just full version upgrades when the previous versions still work.

Not good policy and the OP is 100% right. 64bit only has to be reserved for a full version upgrade and announced ahead of time. Kontakt 6 (64bit only)

[sin night]

I think the majority of users prefer a .x free upgrade with some new features/fixes and the catch of 64 bit only, than going directly to a x.0 paid upgrade 64 bit only with (maybe more) new features/fixes.

Switching to 64 bit only is something bound to happen sooner or later... a developer could be in the situation where it makes sense to (read: he's forced to) make the switch: should he release a not-ready x.0 paid update, pissing all his customers, or a .x release which will make unhappy just a few customers who keep on using things being phased out? And I swear everybody who's still working with 32 bit software is aware it's an outdated pratform and it's bound to become unsupported (that's not to say it's broken or you can't work with it, but you can and should expect things to become unsupported).


This is normal software life circle... And, by the way, Kontakt is also a .6 release, not a .1, so they are not breaking something immediately after a paid update (that would be wrong, indeed).


I think the only mistake could be not displaying a warning that you are upgrading to a .x version which will break compatibility with something...
Anyway, the Service Center - and I think also the Native Access tool, but I'm not familiar with it - shows the changelog on request; I don't know if they put a warning for 32 bit users, but I would think so, since they put warnings when some older hardware is discontinued and unsupported by a particular driver/software release.


By the way, reading the changelog before installing something is a good practice with whatever vendor and it saves a lot of headackes.


It sucks when something you own becomes unsupported on your environment or it loses (perceived) value, I can sympathize about it, but there's really nothing that could be done... I know the feeling very well, for example buying a phone only to find it way cheaper less than a month later (or buying a cf card and having a friend who, the very same day, tells me I could have bought it twice the size for the same price on another store)... that's the way it goes...

[felis]

My point is: NI can't just decide to make a product obsolete with an update because they want to push a new technology....

Are you sure about that?

Planned obsolescence, throwaway software, and all that.
Maybe try hardware.
That has its own problems too though.

[metamorphosis]

And this is dangerous because if they update older products like this, older project will be unusable for many people because please understand: we are not using 64 bit and we have our reasons. No one can discuss us that. And we bought a product that worked under 32bit and now it doesn't. That's a d*ck move.

Agreed. It's almost Microsoftian.

[Zombie Queen]

Updating is not mandatory. Just say no.

[acYm]

well in their defense, in 2011, they were quite clear about the new direction they were taking and that professionals should stop relying on their solutions. since then, those of us who continue to use NI do it at their own risk and peril.

[SODDI]

I have been using 64 bit, but don't NI installations install the 32 bit versions of the .dll to a separate directory?

It should be an easy rollback if you have retained archived copies of the NI installers. Also, unless you hear it here first, there is probably no reason for you to update your stable set up, as Absynth, FM8 and Massive have not undergone any substantial operating upgrades in quite some time.

[JonSolo]

64 bit. Welcome to 2006. I have no idea, no matter how stubborn we are, how this is still a conversation.

[naujpablo]

This is a boring a story, so i'll do the "too long, didn't read" version right away: NI suddenly made kontakt 5 for mac (not windows) 64 bit only since version 5.6.0. They didn't even announced it and if you updated, your projects are now unusable.

Now the long version: why is this dangerous? because it means that NI is following a very dangerous approach by forcing users of an old product to update to new technologies even if they don't want to or simply can't, because many users need a 32bit host because of reasons. What if they do the same for other products? Massive? FM8? Suddenly unusable for many users?

I mean, NI can push 64bit and new technologies on their new product, like they did with Reaktor 6 which is 64bit only. And that's fine, because Reaktor 6 has never been 32 bit and I accept that is a new product i can't use. But kontakt 5? ...

all this is talk is only for Mac users, correct? Reaktor 6 currently works just fine on Windows 32-bit.

just want to make sure this "scare" isn't pertaining to Windows users (though i'm guessing that day is coming).

yep, at least in the kontakt 5 case; version 5.6 is available both 32 and 64 bit on windows, but only 64 bit on mac.

[waltercruz]

well in their defense, in 2011, they were quite clear about the new direction they were taking and that professionals should stop relying on their solutions. since then, those of us who continue to use NI do it at their own risk and peril.

what happened in 2011?

[acYm]

they took out their instruments from a high-end professional platform (Kore) to put them into a baby crib (Maschine / KK)

[TheKid]

It just makes sense to let 32bit Kontakt die. More and more sample libraries have a huge sizes due to more and detailed samples, higher sample rates and higher bit depths. This all increases the memory size. And since 32 bit only allows 2 GB of RAM for applications maintaining the inevitable death of Kontakt for much longer doesn't make sense.

Stay at 5.5 if you need 32bit or step up to the future.
All that 32bit stuff needs to die a quick death (IMO!).

[SeeingInMidi]

It's time to kick all 32Bit apps to the moon.

Same with Windows xp. Learn to adapt.

learn that its not the tools you use but the skill behind their use.