What do I gain from using 64 bit vs. 32 bit.
I have Reason and right now I have plug-ins that don’t work in 64 bit so I use 32 bit.
What are the benefits, because I don’t notice the differene. And I would like to know it it is worth it, to upgrade the plug-ins at the moment.
The whole forum is full with threads abut this. And IIR there´s even a complete knowledge base article.
thanks - do you have links to some of the posts in here? I tried searching for 64bit and I don’t se any relevant threads.
And also to the knowledge base article would be nice as I have no clue to what IIR is…?
knowledgebase article Right on the knowledgebase start page, number one article of the top ten.
IIRC=If I remember correctly.
Thanks
but it doesnt explain the benefits, only that there might be difficuties of different kind.
What do I gain from running 64 bit?
Note. The article is mainly towards windows users, I have Mac.
More memory can be used.
Only real benefit of using a 64 bit software/OS is having able to use more memory. If you need more than 4G of RAM in your computer, move to 64-bit OS. If you need more than 4G (2G or 3G in Windows, depending on your application) memory for your single application move to 64-bit application.
Yes, it does - read…
As time goes by, more and more software will demand and make use of this increase in RAM. Some may even go as far as to say that some software (such as Cubase), has indeed being waiting for technology to catch up, in order for it to truly spread its wings.
In order to make use of the latest software, whilst enjoying the wonders of ever larger amounts of RAM and what can be achieved with this (In music production that’s a lot), you need to go 64bit. In the meantime you will find 32bit will become increasingly unsupported.
Is there a big performance hit using 64 bit or does the additional ram improve performance? What are users real world experiences? Curious what to expect and i haven’t found anything definitive ( haven’t looked hard either).
A little OT but I have just upgraded to C6, 32 bit from C4 and I have added NI Komplete and between the two additions I am noticing a huge cpu hit. My laptop core 2 duo with 5 gig ram is useable but it definitely feels the load and my tower which has never had to drop over 768 buffer with 30 -40 vsti’s and tons of pluggins per project( im not scoring major film projects) but wow … my last project was surprising how the asio loaded down. Just sayin - not b.tching
TIA
Im not sure exactly what you mean by there being a big hit in performance? The increase in RAM, simply put, allows you to open ever larger projects, use more and more instruments or plug in effects, without the system slowing. Indeed a 64bit system would typically be significantly faster. It makes sense therefore that workflow too should be increased. 32 bit had a limit as to how much RAM it could make use of (4gb), and so as the demands of modern software and its capabilities grow, the RAM restrictions imposed by 32 bit architecture become ever more of a limitation if not a barrier. 64bit can cater for significantly larger amounts of RAM.
About the only real hindrance to a 32bit-64bit transition, as far as Cubase is concerned, is backwards compatibility. IE - getting your 32 bit plugins n VSTs to still work in the 64bit environment. Whilst Cubase does offer a bridging solution, this is by no means a perfect solution to the problem. 32bit plugs are likely to crash in a 64bit world. Whilst other 3rd party companies, such a Jbridge, do to some extent offer a better bridging solution, this whole idea of making 32 bit plugs ins which work seamlessly within the 64bit environment is simply not there just yet (if indeed it ever will be). And even when it does, the old 4gb RAM restriction will still apply for these plug ins. For that reason most VST instrument/plug in manufacturers offer two versions of their software. One 32bit and one 64 bit. Allowing the user flexibility and choice as to how best set up their system during this transitional period.
A little oversimplified, and assuming you have enough physical RAM:
If you’re running a 32 bit app on a 32 bit OS, the OS (Operating System) uses a goodly chunk of the available RAM–your app and the OS have to share the same 4GB memory space.
If you’re running a 32 bit app on a 64 bit OS, your app gets the full 4GB of memory to itself–doesn’t have to share it with the OS.
If you’re running a 64 bit app on a 64 bit OS, it’s the same situation as running a 32 bit app on a 32 bit OS, except that now you’re limited to a 64bit memory space, which is roughly 20 billion gigabytes.
Modern OS’s “extend” RAM by “swapping” the contents of RAM onto your hard drive. This is relatively slow. The more RAM you have, the less (relatively slow) hard drive activity goes on.
Of course W7 versions limit the amount of ram the OS can see as a ploy to get you to upgrade.
For Win 7 64bit
Windows 7 Home Basic 8GB
Windows 7 Home Premium 16 GB
Windows 7 Professional 192 GB
And yer motherboard has some limits to how much you can install also.
Oh yeah and so does your pocket 
And your case. I bet I could fit 1 TB of RAM with some effort, but after that it’ll burst.
Thanks for the responses. When I asked about the performance hit I was wondering if running the 64 bit version taxed the cpu more than the 32 bit version. I understood that the 64 bit version meant cubase running in 64 bit could access more ram but not being knowledgeable in computer architecture I wondered if there was a trade off. ie more ram gives a performance boost but heavier cpu load because the “data streams” are now 64 bit rather than 32. sorry if im not using proper terminology.
To restate to make sure i understand correctly, if I have 64 bit architecture, ample ram , 64 bit os and software I will likely see an overall performance improvement ( lower latencies and more pluggins).
I think from the replies you can take it that there will not be any significant “performance” difference between 32 bit and 64 bit apart from having access to more RAM.
no, if anything you’ll see a slight increase in performance, number of tracks, number of plugins, etc. when running in 64-bit with the potential increase in ram Cubase might have access to.
you’re also more likely to see an increase in stability (less crashing) with 64-bit.
a slightly different example, as i just switched to Cubase from Logic, but when i went from 32-bit Logic to 64-bit Logic, the crashing was less and there were several tracks that would play back without being frozen that had to be frozen before.
this was on a first gen intel mac pro (quad core) with 19 gigs of ram – so, lots of ram became instantly available to Logic when i switched to 64-bit mode, which explains the results i saw.
It usually refers to x86 for 32 bit OS and x64 for system with 64 bit.
Technically x86 simply refers to a family of processors and the instruction set they all use. It doesn’t actually say anything specific about data sizes. The term x86 started out as a 16-bit instruction set for 16-bit processors (the 8086 and 8088 processors), then was extended to a 32-bit instruction set for 32-bit processors (80386 and 80486), and now has been extended to a 64-bit instruction set for 64-bit processors. It used to be written as 80x86 to reflect the changing value in the middle of the chip model numbers, but somewhere along the line the 80 in the front was dropped, leaving just x86.
Brian