Ableton Forum

ava wrote:

jonny72 wrote:which means they can access 64Gb of memory

4gig is the max for every machine ive had or heard about...

you havent had any servers then!

adventurepants_ wrote:

ava wrote:

jonny72 wrote:which means they can access 64Gb of memory

4gig is the max for every machine ive had or heard about...

you havent had any servers then!

what was i thinking?...
guess i should of said "Windows xp32 is only a max of 4gig"

Windows XP (32 bit) can only address 2 GB of physical memory at a time (or 3GB if you have 4 GB memory and implement a dodgy hack which can have some unwanted side effects).

Ask a Sonar 7 or 8 PE user with Vista 64. They are running 64 bit and I know some people who have 8GB ram installed on their new quadcores and they say it flies. Of course, Vista 64 is still quite limited in driver support, so that still has some influence on proceedings.

Live, Logic etc should be on 64 bit before too long. Cubase has a beta 64 bit version of Cubase 4 and Cubase 5 will almost certainly offer 64 bit (at least for most applications).

For the most part 2-3 GB ram is sufficient, but for streaming samples it can really help to have that extra RAM. And there is less swapping off the hard drive too.

http://www.supermicro.co.uk/products/mo ... X7DWN+.cfm

beasts

There is one difference between x86-32 & x86-64 that stands out head and shoulders above the rest, and that is the amount of registers (8 & 16 respectively).

Registers are a sort of holding area in the processor which can be accessed faster than any other memory in the computer, including the L1 cache.

This means smoother audio at lower latencies while running more plugins. The more cores you have, the more you benefit from extra registers. Low latency RAM will also assist greatly in the search for usable lower latencies.

Here is some easily digestible information from cakewalk about the benefits of 64 bit for audio.

Lokio

I went Vista 64bit when it came out, since I was also using Sonar's 64bit version.
It was an interesting little experiment.
Little, because at the time, pretty much only Sonar was actually x64 capable.

That's changed a bit now.
You can find almost a dozen other things that are 64bit.

Not ready... nearly 2 years after Vista's mighty 64bit revolution. Hehehe...

Shame really.

- zevo

For the record, the company I work for is an msdn subscriber, which means I could be running any microsoft o/s of my choosing from windows 7 beta to enterprise server 2008.

I'm running XP64 because it's lean mean and goes like the clappers.

Lokio wrote:For the record, the company I work for is an msdn subscriber, which means I could be running any microsoft o/s of my choosing from windows 7 beta to enterprise server 2008.

I'm running XP64 because it's lean mean and goes like the clappers.

are you running Sonar64 on it? Does Live work on it?

I'm not running sonar. Live works fine, as does any other 32 bit software. The only problem is that you can't run 32 bit drivers. XP64 is basically the 64 bit version of windows server 2003, with a 32 bit API called WOW64 bolted on. It is pretty much the same thing as Linux's wine project, and is also how Vista runs 32 bit software.

It runs great. Sometimes while I'm playing I look down and think "oh shit, the virus scanner is running, and yet there is no crackles even with the Audiofire 12 set to it's lowest or second lowest latency setting.

Lokio wrote:I'm not running sonar. Live works fine, as does any other 32 bit software. The only problem is that you can't run 32 bit drivers. XP64 is basically the 64 bit version of windows server 2003, with a 32 bit API called WOW64 bolted on. It is pretty much the same thing as Linux's wine project, and is also how Vista runs 32 bit software.

It runs great. Sometimes while I'm playing I look down and think "oh shit, the virus scanner is running, and yet there is no crackles even with the Audiofire 12 set to it's lowest or second lowest latency setting.

wow, cool, might be worth an install...I only have 2gb of Ram though, but with my Q6600, it might be worth checking out.

I only have 2gb of Ram

I only have 2GB, (although very low latency), I would need more for Vista and probably windows windows 7 too. The only time I find it limiting is when I want lots of virtual machines running in vmware.

Lokio wrote:

I only have 2gb of Ram

I only have 2GB, (although very low latency), I would need more for Vista and probably windows windows 7 too. The only time I find it limiting is when I want lots of virtual machines running in vmware.

ok, you're inspiring me to try this I have 64-bit drivers for all my hardware, so I should be good to go.

Do I follow the same optimizations as in MusicXP.net?

^ well wait a second - from the NI website: This product is currently not compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows XP/Vista.

For my desktop, RME does have the right drivers.

Do I follow the same optimizations as in MusicXP.net?

I'm not a member over there, and have no idea what the advice is like. Two things I would say though are don't turn off anything remotely related to security like automatic updates, and the best service to switch off which is often not mentioned is the themes service.

Also, if you're game, there are registry settings for memory management worth playing with. One of the better ones is to enable "large system cache" which can be found at HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Lokio

I may try to do this after the Native Instruments drivers come out for XP64. But thanks for the suggestions...interesting.