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anonymous 3 February 2009

Hi there.
I have recently acquired a new PC running a dual core processor and 8GB of RAM.
I've installed XP 64bit as it's the only operating system that will support this.
Does anyone here have experience with 64bit?
I mainly use Sonar, Nuendo and Reason, and need to know if there's anything I should take into account before I try configuring it.
ANY information at all would be appreciated.
Thanks.

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Boswell Wed, 02/04/2009 - 04:36

Drewmillar wrote: Hi there.
I have recently acquired a new PC running a dual core processor and 8GB of RAM.
I've installed XP 64bit as it's the only operating system that will support this.
Does anyone here have experience with 64bit?
I mainly use Sonar, Nuendo and Reason, and need to know if there's anything I should take into account before I try configuring it.
ANY information at all would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Are these specifically the 64-bit versions of these programs? XP64 will host 32-bit programs, but of course will limit the amount of memory available to them to 4GB. XP64 is not the only 64-bit Windows OS, there is Vista64 as well.

The big problem with 64-bit OSs (XP64, Vista64) is the availability of signed device drivers for them that actually work with full functionality. Check very carefully the audio I/O drivers supplied with your chosen programs and update them if there are more recent available.

Why do you need to run all of Sonar, Nuendo and Reason?

lostindundee Wed, 02/04/2009 - 13:50

If you use lots of plugins, you may find that many your favourite ones won't work using the 64 bit version of your chosen recording software. If that's the case then use the 32 bit one.

Many peeps are opting to use the 32-bit stuff until manufacturers catch up to 64 bit. One day you will be glad you have the machine you do though. :wink:

LiD

anonymous Thu, 02/05/2009 - 14:14

Cheers all, I kinda knew what I was getting into.
The computer I'm using just now has 2GB RAM, and in some projects I'm using 2 instances of Drumkit from Hell, which the computer struggles with. Even after freezing all other instruments I get the occasional cut out.

I've decided just to install XP 32bit on another partition in the mean time, which will at least give me 4GB RAM to play with.

To answer Boswell's question: My preferred DAW is Sonar 7, which I like to wire to Reason for alot of resons (no pun intended!) including the super-decent sampler and analog synths.
I've only just recently discovered the joys of Nuendo and its friendly interface, which I'm using alot right now so I can weigh up the differences.

Boswell Fri, 02/06/2009 - 02:42

A 32-bit OS like Windows XP can address 4GB of memory (2^32). XP needs some memory for its own operations, so it arbitrarily limits the amount of physical memory available to any application to 3GB.

When a 64-bit OS running in 8GB or more physical memory hosts a 32-bit program, it can afford to give the 32-bit program the whole of the 4GB that the program can address, as the OS has more addressable memory beyond that for its own use.

anonymous Fri, 03/27/2009 - 20:37

I've been running Sonar 6 for a while on a 3.0 GHz Pentium D / 4MByte RAM DAW that I built about 4 yr. ago. I've been thinking of building a new system, and will definitely think about seeing what Win7 looks like when it is finally shipping (maybe even after SP1 or SP2 comes out for it ;)). I really like the idea of a 64 bit OS, as long as I can find all the software and hardware drivers I need.

What I would like to know is what DAW software comes in a 64 bit Windows version, and how well they are set up for multi-threading. I see that there is now a 6-core Xeon shipping and dual socket mobos to put them in.

I'm confident that prices will eventually come down enought to make a 12 core system not totally insane.

audiokid Wed, 04/15/2009 - 13:11

bwmac wrote: I use a 64 AMD duel core with XP 64 windows edition and Sonar-6, 64 install. Ya getting the right drivers are a real Be-yatch but when you find the right ones that work with ur system, Lordy Lordy ya got room ta mix.
Here is a link for you
[youtube:a99b37bdf7]http://www.youtube…]

Very impressive clip, thanks!

Rain is sending me their new ION Octo Core AMD 64 bit with 16 gig ram loaded and tuned with Sonar 8. After seeing this clip, I'm excited and thinking it may be one kick ass DAW system.
For Sonar users out there... I'll let ya all know how it goes on 64 bit.

audiokid Mon, 04/20/2009 - 18:35

ADK audio wrote: hate to burst your bubble but...
a single Core i7 would kill that silly Opteron system.

Scott
ADK

well, it won't burst my "bubble", however, I have a feeling it maaaaybeee deflated your "bubble" a bit by me mentioning anything about Rain's silly ION :wink: It can't be that silly?

I also have a new 3.2 965 i7 from PCAudioLabs here, a killer system like you mentioned, on Windows XP 32 bit. Time provided, maybe I'll do a comparison using Sonar 8 for fun. It should be an interesting comparison between 32 and 64 bit at least. I think the two systems are probably both powerful enough for most applications. I'm guessing ( from specifically a Sonar POV) having more ram is definitely a bonus and possibly the 64 bit may be an improvement in sound over the 32 bit? Has anyone compared this?

Guest Tue, 04/21/2009 - 12:32

note i said "silly opteron" didnt say silly rain..

point being the opteron is outperformed by intel very easily. now we have DUal Core i7 Xeons (new apple and now PC) nothing AMD has can come close.

in all fairnees both XP and Vista 64 should be install on both systems.

64 bit is still very very lacking unless you are going to run VSL or EW play.

Sonar 64 is also very flaky at times when using bit bridge.

ideally Sonar 32 on a 64 bit OS is best for stability.

Scott
ADK

audiokid Tue, 04/21/2009 - 16:20

ADK audio wrote: note i said "silly opteron" didnt say silly rain..

point being the opteron is outperformed by intel very easily. now we have DUal Core i7 Xeons (new apple and now PC) nothing AMD has can come close.

in all fairnees both XP and Vista 64 should be install on both systems.

64 bit is still very very lacking unless you are going to run VSL or EW play.

Sonar 64 is also very flaky at times when using bit bridge.

ideally Sonar 32 on a 64 bit OS is best for stability.

Scott
ADK

I'm sure its still about Rain Music Computers, and promoting your systems in a round about way. Why else are you here. :roll:

That being said, In all fairness to what? I'm not, comparing PC's. I'm
simply excited over the youtube video on Sonar and pumped over getting that Rain ION and hopefully appreciating Sonar 8 more than I have at this point.
And more... so very interested in the audible difference between the two OS. windows XP 32 bit apposed to Vista 64 bit.

I'm told there's quite an audible difference between 32 bit and 64 bit. Has anyone done a test for that?

Guest Wed, 04/22/2009 - 08:02

oh please....
not even worth an answer to that part....

in all fairness, means IF you are going to do a shoot out then it needs to be done scientificly

test both systems with XP and both systems with Vista 64.
using the same testing methodolgy acrross the board.

you are confusing 32bit and 64bit. this is the OS and had NOTHING to do with sound quality.

vs bit depth of a recording. vs bit width of the data

i have yet to see any conclusive proof that it sounds better.

Scott
ADK

audiokid Wed, 04/22/2009 - 10:19

You are killing me. I feel like I'm arguing with an accountant having PMS

I've read this below, and have been told this as well. ( I haven't a clue until I hear for myself), so its got me a tad excited. I'm only interested in what my ears tell me for this. Not interested in doing some shootout between two or more CP's. Thats your journey. I'm simply only interested if I hear a difference between the 32 bit or a 64 bit OS running Sonar 8. I'm not a tech wiz but I think that should be a pretty simple comparison. I'm not planning on installing different OS in the same machine to see if it make some scientific difference.

Excerpt from http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/the-vista-from/Apr-07/27456

You can get any edition of Vista from Home Basic on up in either a 32- or 64- bit version. Your computer must have a 64-bit CPU to run the latter, though it will also run 32-bit Vista. There are two types of benefits to a 64-bit OS. First, applications written for it can address a lot more memory — up to 128GB of RAM compared to 2GB in the 32-bit world. With that much RAM, you can play a huge sampler sound bank, or record an entire multitrack project, without ever accessing the hard disk. Then there’s 64-bit processing, wherein the math behind your music is done at twice the precision. To take full advantage of this, every program that generates, processes, or records sound must be a 64-bit native app, though Sonar 6.2 can run 32-bit plug-ins within its own 64-bit environment. ReWire is an exception — see “Maiden Voyage” below.

Though 32-bit processing offers plenty of headroom, the 64-bit advantage has to do with the quieter, subtler half of your music’s dynamic range, where things like reverb tails or the “air” around a vocal dwell. Will you hear the difference on a demo that has just a few tracks? Probably not, but in a dense project where every frequency space in the mix has something in it, we have experienced a difference. It’s not so much that any given track sounds more hi-fi, it’s that the increased elbow room for all tracks makes for less ear fatigue, better mixing decisions, and thus better results — particularly if your final summing to a stereo audio file occurs in the digital domain

Guest Wed, 04/22/2009 - 11:10

"""shootout between two or more CP's. Thats your journey."""

yet when i comment on benchmarks you disagree...

no comment on the author of that dribble...
i cant believe they have not fixed it yet.

you can run Sonars 64bit double procision engine in a 32bit environment including XP. (64 floating point)

one is word length truncation the other has to do with an OS bit ability.

SONAR

64-bit audio mix engine means you are mixing with the best audio quality in the industry today. Best of all, you can take advantage of this audio engine on both 32-bit and 64-bit PCs.

so you caould have been playing with 64 bit proceesing all along :)

this right from the horses mouth..

You can use the double precision engine on *any* computer running 32 bit windows or 64 bit windows. Dont confuse double precision with SONAR X64.
SONAR X64 is a version compiled to run natively on Windows X64 taking advantage of the extra memory addressing and special 64 bit instructions only available in X64.
This is completely independent from double precision mixing. Thats why we call it double precision mix engine - to avoid this confusion.

_____________________________

Noel Borthwick
CTO, Cakewalk

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

in other words you dont even have to have a 64bit processor to do it or an OS.

Scott
ADK

Guest Wed, 04/22/2009 - 11:15

Codemonkey wrote: Sounds like marketing hype.

Or maybe I'm just ignorant of details that playback at less than 20dB in real life, compared to everything else blaring away at 90dB.

and you get the award for the day.....
i am unable to hear the difference, but i do not have anything close to golden ears (way too much loud rock and roll in my youth)

there has soo much forum discussion on this at the cake forum
most would say the same.. cant tell.
but then i dont claim to be a producer/mix engineer.

Scott
ADK

Guest Wed, 04/22/2009 - 16:44

sheesh
what are we changing the subject from how great 64 bit sound is going to be back to hardware again OK...

actually you would have that fairly backwards...

AMD shows better for gaming than Audio or video.
i long stopped benchmarking games.

i do however benchmark audio and video systems daily yes daily. even system we shi gets benchmarked.

i would link to the benchmarks but you think thats trolling for sales so i wont.. when everyone else can have a link in thier sig...
besides you already know where they are.

what i am saying is the opteron has long see its days.
it was only a few short yrs ago AMD was king and was for about 4-5 yrs.
Intel could not catch up for nothing, but they also were not that far behind.

in part was the onboard memory controller for AMD.

when Intel Core came out 2 yrs or so they slapped down AMD in a big way. AMD still has not recovered. at that time i removed AMD from my systems selection.
i just put AMD Phenom back up but only as a samples box/cheap system.
certainly not as pro level daw.

a single Core i7 will outperform the 8 core opterons by a long shot.
the new Xeon 8 core (2 x 4 cores) makes the opteron look like a toy.
in fact even previous gen Core 2 like Q9550 outperforms the opterons.

i stopped benchmarking opterons awhile ago
and i am having a hard time find benchmarks against the opteron as most no longer use them but here is 1

it.anandtech.com/
and its a program that AMD does fairly well in. Opterons getting killed by even the older Xeons 54xx series never mind the new Xeons.

then go here where the Core i7 beats the older Xeons 54xx series.
http://www.cubendo.com/showthread.php?t=12

so you can conclude that if the older 54xx Xeons beat the opterons and the Core i7 beats the older Xeon then a Core i7 beats the opteron.

so yes i am saying Intel kills AMD.

however the new Phenom does rather well for samples box. just dont add effects as this is where Intel exceeds.

so that $4k + opteron is beat by a system 1/2 its price.

Scott
ADK

pr0gr4m Wed, 04/22/2009 - 17:36

Why are you guys arguing about processors in an OS thread?

FWIW, I took the "silly" as referring to the AMD processor as it compares to the I7. As in, the I7 so outperforms AMDs it would be silly to purchase an AMD system at this time.

I understand that, and believe it. But it's all relative.

-How much money does one have to spend? The general attitude is that AMD is cheaper and gives people access to processing power they might not be able to get otherwise. However, the older dual core Intels outperform AMD chips and their price has dropped making them a viable alternative when pinching pennies. If money is no object or one wants to future proof their system, I7 is most defintely the way to go.

-What sort of plug-ins does one use with their DAW? If you are running lots of VSTs (not samplers) then Processing power is more important than memory. If you are sample intensive, then you'll want as much memory as you can get.

What works is what works for you. There are so many options, variations, combinations that trying to buy a new computer can literally take months.

Someone who owns an AMD x2 Dual Core may think that someone else who buys an I7 is silly because all they'll ever do with it is record hip hop vocals. It's all relative.

**********

Anyway, audiokid, does the system have Vista 64 of XP 64? Just curious.

audiokid Wed, 04/22/2009 - 17:49

Well,

You have a good point. Scott seems to feel compelled to indirectly derail the topic by mentioning silly after I mention a Rain product. So, in defense of AMD being called silly, and in respect to pro's who use AMD ( http://www.amd64live.com ), and other music dealers who sell AMD... I think its important to find out why (another computer dealer, who trolls here) is calling a very useful, and proven music system silly; while we try and keep this topic, on topic about windows XP 64 bit and have fun at the same time. :wink:

New does not necessarily mean better, or out perform if it crashes etc.

What is silly, I am a Mac guy neck deep in PC ka ka lol. Including myself, I'm sure we'll all come out learning something valuable in all the mess.

(y)

Guest Thu, 04/23/2009 - 06:56

you are the one who used Rains name not i..

amd live 64? LOL do you believe evry marketing thing you read? you believed the keyboard article.

i built every one of those guys systems yrs ago, we worked very closely with AMD back then.
again at the time AMD was the KING, Intel could not touch them.
also NO ONE sold AMD but me, every other daw builder included your beloved scoffed at them even though they were by far faster.
PCal started building them eventually.
AMD and i had a falling out about the time Intel lauched the new processors. so AMD went hunting for other daw builders.

here is the deal, every one of those guys on amd live were GIVEN those systems by AMD. a full 1/2 never used them.
i got a call from one of them 14 months after i delivered a system to them, just now unboxing it. their b room system died and neded to replace it.
MOST of them have a MAC or an intel Xeon.
Rain didnt start doing AMD until AMD approached them and only after AMDs hey day was over.
PCal is AMD's main company they use now.
look at my client list every one of those guys is listed but it was yrs ago...

as someone who owns an audio forum i would think you would know how this industry works.
Artist endorsement.... etc.

without mentioning any names i have been to numerous studios where the stuff given them is not even used.
lastly most of the videos up there were done back when AMD was King.
i was at AES NY yrs ago when AMD was filming a good chunk of them, i was interviewed as well. (they took mine down of course now)

pr0gr4m: you would be correct if we are talking about a single quad core Phenom vs Core i7. however the price point is only like $150-200.

audiokid is talking about a $4199 dual opteron (8 core)
vs an under $2k Core i7 that beats it. a $3299 Mac Pro that beats it hugely or a Xeon PC $3500 that beats it hugely.

again this is not rain vs... as rain sells a Core i7

its technology vs technology. and that 64bit is true 64bit on any new platform AMD or Intel.

its AMD is soo far behind vs Intel.

audiokid is who dragged the rain part into this...

as far as trolling funny how now that i dont advertise with you anymore your attitude changes.
shall we pull up old posts and see the difference in attitude?

"""is calling a very useful, and proven music system silly"""

a older G5 is a proven system as well. so is a Pentium 4.
they are both "Silly" compared to todays products.

"""while we try and keep this topic, on topic about windows XP 64 bit and have fun at the same time.
"""

uhh lets see you are the one who after i was discussing 64bit changed the subject back to being about the AMD system. just 3 posts up...

"""New does not necessarily mean better, or out perform if it crashes etc.""""

LOL what do you think is under the new Mac Pro Hood? Nehelam Core i7 Xeons......

shakes head.........

oh and QUIT BOLDING my A.D.K...
oh i see what you have done how immature of you... you have made the "ADK" a link to ADK mics and all the "Rain" a link to Rain.
yet you allow others to have links in thier sigs when i refse to do it as i see it as trolling...

Scott
A.D.K.

audiokid Thu, 04/23/2009 - 09:06

[[url=http://[/URL wrote: ="http://www.adkmic.c…"]ADK[/]="http://www.adkmic.c…"]ADK[/] audio]

as far as trolling funny how now that i dont advertise with you anymore your attitude changes.
shall we pull up old posts and see the difference in attitude?

Scott
A.D.K.

Scott, people pay to advertise here whereas you don't. I would prefer you don't use my site. If you do, I will ban you.

blaumph2cool Thu, 04/23/2009 - 11:43

Scott, your level of professionalism sucks!
It's obvious you are using this topic to get into a pissing match and to try to show that you are superior to Chris.

Try some tact dude! While the latest i7 bla bla bla might be better than AMD there is no reason to go on like that. Like pr0gr4m said many people's buget's don't include Top-of-the-line bleeding edge technology.

I will never buy from you or go to your website because you are a fool.

audiokid Thu, 04/23/2009 - 20:46

This was sent to me, to share with our members. Well written and well said.

enjoy,

audiokid

___________________________

Let me first answer the original post by Drewmillar: Yes, I have a lot of experience with 64 bit. In the real world of computer audio production, using the software you listed, you will currently not be able to rewire Reason into either Nuendo or Sonar, since Propellerhead hasn't released a 64 bit version of rewire as of yet. For now, I would recommend to stick with XP Pro so you can do what you want to do. Luckily, you have acquired a computer that is compatible with a 64 bit OS, so you wil be able to enjoy better performance of your computer and audio software once it all plays nicely together in 64 bit land.

Now, since this thread has gone way off topic...

This thread demonstrates a very interesting phenomenon that occurs in the audio production and music products market. Nowadays, everything is, or soon will be, based around the computer as the central nervous system of the recording process. This is because of the amazing things we can do with the computer and our music that we could never do before.

It used to be that we musicians would buy a black box that had ins and outs, not knowing anything about what was inside. We didn't care. All we cared about was how to use it and the sound that came out of it. Sure, some people eventually got way more into the gear itself and how it was made, what was inside it, etc. but most of those people went on to gear manufacture and design, or became mastering engineers, (that was a feeble attempt at a joke) while the larger portion of musicians and audio professionals continued to pay more attention to the sound coming out of the black box, completely uncaring about what was inside. In fact, in most cases, caring about what was inside would ruin their whole creative process.

With the computer being the center of the studio, musicians and audio professionals have now been asked to also be technicians, which, if you know the same musicians I've met, usually isn't an easy crossover! Even just navigating through the various offerings from computer companies requires a lot of technical knowledge in order to make the right choice. Its definitely a "war of attention" between the right brain and the left brain, which usually results in a lack of musical inspiration.

Benchmarks, tests, compatibility, 32 bit vs. 64 bit computing, etc. should not need to be the focus of the musician, nor should the musician have to care about these sorts of things. They just need a black box with ins and outs that makes their music sound good. They want to use it to write music, not run tests on it and see that they could run 500 compressors. What musician is going to run 500 compressors, anyway? Since the computer hardware is so powerful now, creating a test project to see what the computer can handle is ridiculous. The fact is, each individual project will place differing demands on the computer, depending on what hardware and software is being used.

So, it SHOULD be the mission of an audio computer company to find out the needs of the musician in a musical sense, and then use their knowledge of music technology to translate that into the correct set of components to get the job done, usually at the lowest cost possible.

It should NOT be the mission of an audio computer company to sell a musician the most powerful box man can make when its not needed, confusing them with specs they don't want to know, and wasting money the musician could have spent on a new guitar or some software. Unfortunately, we don't live in a utopic society, and the level of trust between the musician and the computer company has been all but lost due to the products not working correctly or being given false advice.

So, to say that an Opteron computer would be crap for music is simply false. It was good for music back when the Opteron was the best platform for music, so why wouldn't it be good for music now? Just because something more powerful came out? Man, my first four track sure did the job, and you know what? It still does that same job today. And my first Atari computer still does the same sequencing job it did when I first got it. Sure, it won't run Sonar, but I never expected it to. Would you tell me that its a bad computer to buy for music? Most people aren't even using the latest versions of their software (which are optimized for use with higher numbers of cores), and in reality a two core Opteron computer may actually work better than an 8 core money waste. Or they may not use lots of plugins, or record more than 16 tracks. For these people, the Opteron, or even a Pentium would be a better choice, as long as its configured correctly.

The reality is, very few musicians need the power of the Core i7 platform or a Dual Xeon or Opteron system. VERY FEW. Most musicians will never even utilize the full power of a higher speed Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM. That is, until some new software they absolutely HAVE to have comes out.

Think about it. People love tape, still to this day. Is it better to them because it is technically superior? Heck no! Its because it has a more pleasing sound to people (although I argue that most of these people grew up listening to recordings made to tape so nostalgia is a big factor). The point is, its what comes out of the black box that matters, not what goes into it.

Computer hardware, from a musical viewpoint, is so far ahead of the software available right now. We all have fully 64 bit systems with tons of processing cores, yet not all of our hardware and software we use for music is compatible, and just one small incompatility, such as that with Rewire, can be a showstopper when it comes time to upgrade. Its nice to see companies like Cakewalk leading by having 64 bit versions, but until everything us musicians use is compatible, we're stuck with XP Pro and 4GB of RAM, unless, like Scott said, you are dedicating the computer to something like the Vienna Symphonic Library.

And to respond to Scott's misinformation about PCAL's relationship with AMD: Almost every single AMD endorsee that we have worked with has come back to us and purchased additional computers, sometimes up to 9 computers, total. These were purchased directly from us, with AMD not involved. Although I do feel that our computers are the best on the market, I know that our clients return to us due to our ability to support the musician after the sale of the computer, and our knowledge of the integration of complete music systems. We continue to service the clients on the AMD64Live program, and they are happily using our computers for their projects, some even winning Grammies with them. Its nothing big to sell someone a computer, but its huge to have them come back again and again. I think that really says something about a company.

Also, we've sold AMD computers from the beginning, and we sell them still now.

Wow, I wrote a novel. Sorry about that. ;-)

Thomas Bolton
http://www.PCAudioLabs.com
818.986.2673 ext.101

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