You need to match it to the DAW.dynamo wrote: Fri May 29, 2020 10:58 pm Do 64-bit versions of plugins that offer both give a better performance/demands less CPU power?
If you are running a 64-bit version of Waveform, use 64-bit plugins. If you are running a 32-bit version of Waveform, use 32-bit plugins.
That will give you the best performance.
Going with 64-bit allows more memory to be used and in some cases can allow data to be shuttled around in memory faster, but at the cost of consuming a bit more memory to begin with as basic numbers within the code might take up twice as much space (64 bits instead of 32 means double the memory usage for some types of data, though not for all, so it doesn't exactly mean that memory requirements of the program in general actually double - how much of an increase will depend greatly on the program itself).
In theory, 64-bit code can sometimes mean faster processing, but audio plugins are generally working with 16-bit or 32-bit values anyway (there are not too many 64-bit audio engines around) so they will not benefit much from this. Having access to more memory means being able to load more plugins while working on larger projects, but if your computer is old enough that you would need a GPU upgrade to run Mojave, chances are you will hit a CPU bottleneck before you would run out of memory for your plugins...
In the end, it is probably a bit of a toss-up, as long as you keep them matched to the DAW. Using 64-bit plugins with a 32-bit DAW or vice versa will incur the biggest performance cost as some things would need to be translated in between which adds overhead.
However, chances are you will eventually need to replace your computer, and when going to a newer one will likely be on a version of macOS that does not support 32-bit, so if you are starting at this point, I would suggest favoring 64-bit as much as possible in order to future-proof your investments - so they continue to work when you move to a newer computer.
