This is just a general inquiry to all who wish to reply as to how much of a difference 64bit Cubase is making as opposed to 32bit?
The reason I ask is I’ve recently converted over to 64bit Cubase 6.5.1. After sorting all my plugin issues with the whole 64 bit nonsense I looked down at my ASIO meter… which was EXACTLY the same as the same project under 5.5.3.
I guess I’m a lil disappointed. I was expecting this massive CPU usage decrease with the exact same load as a project in a 32bit environment under 5.5.3. In fact, there was no improvement whatsoever.
Any ideas / theories as to whats going on with this? All my specs are below, and I’m going to add the fact that i upgraded to C6.5.1 64 bit pronto…
ASIO meter and CPU meter are two different things.
ASIO meter corresponds to throughput of audio data through your buffers. Bigger buffer, lower ASIO meter, but more latency. Unrelated to 32 vs 64 bit. Are your buffer settings the same?
CPU meter is CPU load. This should decrease since your processor is now capable of processing double the data per clock cycle.
Main benefit of 64 bit vs 32 bit:
With your Cubase 5, it could only use 4GB of memory MAX (in a 64 bit OS).
Your Cubase 6, however, will be able to use whatever memory is free.
Secondary benefit:
As I said, your processor is now processing twice the amount of data per clock cycle.
Do you still have your old system for comparison? In any case, you could try this benchmark test site: http://www.dawbench.com/benchmarks.htm. There was a thread where people were posting results from this but in the old forum, I think, although it might have been on the test site. Anyway, give it a try if you like, it might help you decide if you have any real improvement.
Wow! Hey thanks for clearing that up! I think I actually KIND OF knew this in the back of my brain somewhere, because it makes total sense. But for some reason I was expecting the ASIO to be somewhat related. So am I to understand that things like VSTi’s won’t strain my system as much… is that correct?
Yeah. Wow. I suppose I need to start going back and making sure every damn plug I have is using the 64 bit version and not the 32bit.
I actually have it set up (or at least, i TRIED to set it up) so that I can simply go back to 5.5.3 anytime I wish or even use them interchangeably. I’m probably doing this wrong, so i’ll run it by you guys seeing as you know how this works a lil better than I:
When I installed Cubase 6.5.1… I simply pointed Cubase to my Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VSTPlugins folder as one of the VST 2.x paths in the Plugin Information. Is this recommend? Or should I go back and simply copy over the individual plugs that remain in 32bit? Keep in mind I’m trying to be $$ frugal as possible, along with making it possible to open up older projects that I need to get into that are still in the works.
The concern with the above approach is you could end up with a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version both in your path which I have heard sometimes causes issues.
I use 3 folders. One for 64-bit dlls and only 64-bit Cubase can see this. One for 32-bit dlls that have an equivalent 64-bit dll and only 32-bit Cubase can see this. One for 32-bit dlls in which there is no equivalent 64-bit dll. Both versions of Cubase can see this.
This way I only have one copy of a dll and both versions see all VSTs. At this point the only issues you might run into is if a 32-bit dll (of which there is no 64-bit version) does not work with Cubase’s bit bridge. You then would need to use JBridge if you want to use it in Cubase 64-bit.
You could have tested everything in Cubase 5, it also exists in 64 bit version.
Later then you could have upgraded…but it’s O.K.
Today I again tested my Cubase Studio 5.5.3 (64 bit version) and this has proven superior over Cubase 32bit in terms of stability, mainly reflecting increased RAM benefits as Cb 64bit can use more of the 8 GB of RAM in my PC machine.
The crashing I experienced occurred e.g. today 7 times with Reaktor VST. All in 32bit Cubase Studio.
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