Ableton Live 64-bit, when?

[Jekblad]

Thanks guys that answers all my questions. I would like a 64bit version of live... and a new computer

Srsly though great explanations, most people want to rant for themselves and not talk to others.

[davepermen]

not all of them..

i'll give half of my ram soon to my dad, as i have no further use for it anyways. nice to have, but, really.. maybe one day later

[studiologic]

with East/West Play, Kontakt, Omnishere, Stylus RMX, Trillian...

64-bit is needed...

I guess this is one area where having a mac is pretty great. Spectrasonics products allow you to use memory outside of the host with their memory server. So does Kontakt. Kontakt does it for PC too right?

Kontakt, Omnisphere and Trilian are the big ram hogs for me, so luckily they can all use ram outside Ableton. But if I wasn't on a mac, I'm thinking I'd be choking on that 2gb limit (more like 1.5 in practice), given some of the ram hungry instruments nowadays.

i am running vista 64 and ableton Live has access to 3.8 GB of RAM therefore Live runs pretty "well" on my machine (i7 920 9GB)...

[purpurkatten]

I am constantly running out of ram and crashing 8.2 with the new plugins I use.

Same here.

[kryz]

+1, please give us 64 bit soon.

[junqueira]

+1 for 64 bit

[leedsquietman]

64 bit is not without it's problems though fellas - there will HAVE to be a bit bridge because many plugins are still 32 bit only and will never be updated. And many 64 bit native plugins are still in very early, beta like formats and are not without their problems, so system stability negates a lot of the performance advantages.

Let's face it - it is the way of the near future, so Ableton will have to launch a 64 bit version if they wish to stay competitive. On Mac there is only Logic and Reaper with 64 bit right now (both very much like unofficial betas and less stable than 32 bit versions), but expect DP, Live and more to be 64 bit within a release or two. On PC, Sonar, Reaper and Cubase have 64 bit versions. Most are finding that J-Bridge, a $20 3rd party plugin is helping with many plugin incompatibilities, but not all. Many people with win 7 64 are still running the 32 bit version of the DAW for best compatibility and stability.

[davepermen]

indeed, same reason 64bit browsers so far never took off. plugins like flash are 32bits, so they don't work.

BUT

the solution that chrome (the browser from google) provides, having each tab AND extension in it's own process WOULD, applied to ableton live, allow each vst to be in it's own process. this would a) completely move away the burden from the 4gb limit to a 4gb per plugin limit, and b) could allow live to be 64bit BUT a 32bit plugin be hosted in a 32bit process.

so the rework makes even more sense (even while it would be hell to do).

[LoopStationZebra]

I heard its coming out next Monday.

this

[H20nly]

If you want 64 bit because you "need more RAM" then why does Live have to be 64 bit? A 64 bit environment doesn't give Live the option of accessing more RAM... it gives the OS the option of accessing more RAM.

[Digital_Damage]

indeed, same reason 64bit browsers so far never took off. plugins like flash are 32bits, so they don't work.

BUT

the solution that chrome (the browser from google) provides, having each tab AND extension in it's own process WOULD, applied to ableton live, allow each vst to be in it's own process. this would a) completely move away the burden from the 4gb limit to a 4gb per plugin limit, and b) could allow live to be 64bit BUT a 32bit plugin be hosted in a 32bit process.

so the rework makes even more sense (even while it would be hell to do).

There is a x64 version of flash

[davepermen]

If you want 64 bit because you "need more RAM" then why does Live have to be 64 bit? A 64 bit environment doesn't give Live the option of accessing more RAM... it gives the OS the option of accessing more RAM.

because live 32bit itself can only use up to 4gb of ram. the os of a lot of people is 64bit right now, so live now has to catch up. right now i'm on win7 64bit, 8gb ram. live can at most use 4gb of it, the os uses around 1gb, so the system still has 3gb left. live gets to a limit BEFORE the system actually is at it's limit. if live would be 64bit, it would put all 7 free gb to use.

[davepermen]

indeed, same reason 64bit browsers so far never took off. plugins like flash are 32bits, so they don't work.

BUT

the solution that chrome (the browser from google) provides, having each tab AND extension in it's own process WOULD, applied to ableton live, allow each vst to be in it's own process. this would a) completely move away the burden from the 4gb limit to a 4gb per plugin limit, and b) could allow live to be 64bit BUT a 32bit plugin be hosted in a 32bit process.

so the rework makes even more sense (even while it would be hell to do).

There is a x64 version of flash

maybe, but, well, there wasn't, for a loong time. just as most vsts never will be 64bit. and all of them won't work in a 64bit live, except if they have a special 32bit hosting process + inter process communication.

[Piplodocus]

I'm guessing if it needs major re-writing of lots of the code they'd just do it for Live 9?

I guess it all depends when they're thinking of releasing 9. If it's a long way off then maybe there will be 64bit L8. If L9's coming "soon-ish" then there won't be a 64bit L8, it'll just be one of the features list of why to upgrade to L9. Have no idea whether the more recent bug problems + bridge + M4L sorting have delayed L9 by a long way, or whether all this time they've been beavering away in the background for the last year or so writing a new L9 from the ground up with new features and 64bit.

[davepermen]

well. some of my guesses:

64bit live got major focus the moment they started bugfixing. it's the moment they had to start rewisiting all code anyways, so why not check for bugs in both compilation modes.
64bit is in the works, as visible by the 64bit files already in the distribution.
64bit won't bring us the magical per-plugin-process architecture that would be needed for 100% stability guarantees.
this would lead to 64bit being unable to run non-64bit plugins, essentially making it only interesting for new projects/pluginless projects.

i hope point 3 (and thus point 4, too) is not correct. even while it would be some massive work.

the worst (still optimistic) thought is, live 9 will not bring massive changes. but live 10 will be a full rewrite with a completely different architecture. multi process based, 100% stable core, fully 64bit with 32bit compatibility, and hopefully the wishes of most of us in here (working midi sync, curves and stuff in automation, automation in clips, all the big discussions). the problem i'd have with this: live 10 is still very far away..