Hello, I have decided to go fully 64bit with c6 on win 7 64bit system, with an Intel core 2 Quad 3ghz, 8gb ddr3 ram, 3 x 1tb seagate baraccudas 7200. I’m using jbridge to bridge my 32bit plugs. Now, I thought switching to c6 64bit i would unleash the other 6gb of ram that has been sitting idle in my system (working in c5 32bit) and I would be able to do twice as much as i could in c5 32bit?? but this does not seem to be the case! When I open an old project (one that was nearing 2gb ram and 100% asio usage in c5 32bit) in c6 64bit It behaves exactly the same as it did 32bit!! shouldn’t I be able to put more tracks and plugs in the project with the extra ram on my system? I also checked my system resources while the project is playing and the cpu is around 20-25% usage, ram just under 2gb usage, disk usage barely shows at all and my asio is 90% (512 samples). I thought that going fully 64bit my system could access more ram and my asio drop? Is this not the case??
Only 64bit OS’s can use more than 4GB of RAM. You could get another GIG out of it with the 3GB switch, but that’s it.
people are using JBdidge to allow plugs to use RAM like an App…
If you’re bridging to 32-bit plugins you’re taking a huge hit. The best strategy is to see if there are 64-bit versions of the plugins available and use those where possible.
You could also try using the 32-bit plugins directly in C6 … the VSTBridge seems to have improved since C5.
The other thing to remember is that, if your 3rd-party plugins were already sapping your CPU on a 32-bit OS, they’ll still be sapping the CPU on a 64-bit system, and worse still they’ll have an extra overhead because of the need for the host (Cubase) to bridge between the 64-bit and 32-bit worlds.
Hi Mashmitten,
That’s the point, I do have a 64bit OS, and am now using c6 64bit, but my ram does not seem to get above 2gb as my asio gets too high before it can access the extra ram. According to my resource monitor in win7, the memory, cpu and disk usage all seem low, but my asio is very high. Shouldn’t the other 6gig of ram I have in 64bit allow me to add more tracks and plug-ins before the asio gets as high as it does?
Hi MrSoundman,
I did try using 32bit plugs directly. But I think kore2 and reaktor 5.5 still have problems with vst bridge? podfarm 2 works very well directly though. But just to reiterate the cpu usage does not appear to be the problem. It’s just that my system does not seem to use any of the extra ram. for instance, I had a project I made in c5 32bit that I stopped working on as the asio was getting close to 100% and I thought opening this same project in 64bit with 8gig of ddr3 ram I would be able to add extra tracks and plugins before the asio would get that high again?? but actually what happens is I open the project in 64bit and the asio is exactly the same. Does this make sense?
I’m not sure I can follow all this … but I made the leap and I’m (so far) ecstatic.
But I’m running C6 32bit under Win 7 x64.
Win 7 x64 let’s you … depending on how much RAM you have … grab a full 4GB. Other programs rewired can have their own 4GB and certain plugs running in 32bit can independently access RAM without having to share with C6 (or any other DAW running 32bit). For examples I believe Kontakt and some Spectrasonic products have this capacity.
Anyway … 4GB for C6 seems a huge (so far) improvement. Don’t have to worry about bridging and all my old 32bit plugs work as well as ever.
Como
Hi, Wormhole.
Just increase the ASIO buffer size of your audio and watch your ASIO meter going down.
RAM usage and ASIO usage are two completely unrelated things. For instance, convolution reverbs don’t need RAM but they consume a lot of CPU - which is still something different than ASIO usage, however, there is a relation between ASIO and CPU. On the other hand, sample players with effects switched off and with the RAM preload parameter set to a high value consume a lot of RAM but less CPU.
Miloslav
Thanks for your responses,
I understand that increasing my asio buffers reduces my asio usage, however, should my asio be so high if my system tells my I am only using about a quater of my cpu and ram??
It’s weird, but sometimes the ASIO compares well to the CPU hit & other times it will be way higher…I think this depends on plugs & audio edit processing being used…I sometimes have issues with ASIO clipping & glitching when the CPU is only around 30% & often once it gets to this stage it can be really hard to get back to workable levels.
Other times I can use 60% cpu before problems occur in a real world project & if I open a brand new project & just add plugs I can load to around 80% CPU/90% ASIO & still run ok!
Things like variaudio & warping or playing back lots of slices can also have a big hit so try to flatten audio, freeze fx & instruments & up the buffer if necessary…it should only be in the last stages of a mix that you need to do it.
The key factor in determining ASIO usage is the buffer size. You’ll read almost everywhere that lower buffer sizes (equating to lower latency) are always better, but at the cost of CPU. The fact is, however, that unless you’re recording a track live, listening to playback while playing a VSTi from e.g. a keyboard, it makes no sense to have ultra-low latencies set up.
Now, before I get flamed, there are of course other cases where low latency matters, but I find that many DAW users have buffer sizes set way too low for the purpose at hand. If you’re mixing, you can of course set the buffer size much higher – you might notice a slight lag when moving a fader in the mixer, for example, but a latency of say, 12mS @ 44.1kHz is absolutely acceptable when mixing.
When editing and comping I often use buffer sizes as high as 1024, and I have a mobile rig based on an old Pentium III (!) laptop and a Firewire interface with which I can comfortably record 8 tracks simultaneously with a buffer size of 2048. How? Because it only needs to record, and not play back near-synchronously.
The other major factor of course is the audio interface and the quality of its drivers; my last card managed 6mS but I worked most comfortably at 12mS – my present card does 1.5mS hardly breaking a sweat, however I still work at 6mS, apart from tracking audio from live instruments when I switch down to 3mS.
Hopefully there won’t be a flood of responses to this along the lines of “OMG! I absolutely MUST have 0,25mS or I can’t work!!!”, but just to pre-empt the pseudo-science, the latency between your monitors and your ears is possibly more than 3mS …
Forgetting ASIO for a moment–I have a theory as to why the OP can’t access all his RAM. If his big RAM-consuming plugs are 32bit, it’s possible that they were written to not use more than 2GB of RAM. Also it’s possible that jBridge has a setting that allows them to use more that is off by default. Just a guess.
I bet if you opened up Kontakt x64 you could easily access all of your RAM.
Also remember if you use Kore to host your VSTs you are limited by Kore. So if you host Kontakt in Kore, it will be the 32bit version and have to share it’s RAM with any other plug in that instance of Kore.
My advice: dump Kore unless you very specifically need something it provides. And use it only for what you NEED it for, not as a host for all of your VSTs.
^^ +1
Exactamento, compadre!
Como
Thanks for everyones input on this thread,
Ok… I think it’s starting to become clear that asio usage is not directly reflected by the cpu and ram usage!! But it still baffled me as to why i could not access any more ram. I have opend up several old projects none of them seemed to access any more ram. But…
I think you may be onto something here! I will investigate this further today and let people know the results!!
Thanks.