Windows 7 and moving to 64 bit

[jonathansorensen]

Hi all,

I have a pretty techy question. I've recently run up against my cpu/ram limitations and am thinking seriously of going from XP 32 bit to Win 7 64 bit in order to be able to go over 4 gigs of Ram. I use Cubase 5.5.
Can anyone advise me in general if it's too early to be going to 64 bit or using win 7? Some people act like it's a done deal and you're a dinosaur for not and others say it's way to early and there isn't enough support. What kind of trouble am I looking at with this move?

Any and all experience and advice welcome. Thanks all!


(if you're a pc guru, see below)

I have a PC with:

Model : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz
Speed : 2.67GHz
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 2 Unit(s)
Type : Quad-Core

Mainboard:
Manufacturer : ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Multi-Processor (MP) Support : No
MPS Version : 1.40
Model : P6T DELUXE V2
Type : Mainboard
Version : Rev 1.xx


System Memory Controller
Location : Mainboard
Error Correction Capability : m-bit ECC
Number of Memory Slots : 6
Maximum Installable Memory : 24GB
BANK0 - DIMM0 : Manufacturer00 ModulePartNumber00 SerNum00 AssetTagNum0 DIMM 1GB/72
BANK1 - DIMM1 : Empty
BANK2 - DIMM2 : Manufacturer02 ModulePartNumber02 SerNum02 AssetTagNum2 DIMM 1GB/72
BANK3 - DIMM3 : Empty
BANK4 - DIMM4 : Manufacturer04 ModulePartNumber04 SerNum04 AssetTagNum4 DIMM 1GB/72
BANK5 - DIMM5 : Empty

Logical/Chipset Memory Banks
Bank 0 : 1GB DDR3 6-8-8-27 6-35-4-8 2T
Bank 3 : 1GB DDR3 6-8-8-27 6-35-4-8 2T
Bank 6 : 1GB DDR3 6-8-8-27 6-35-4-8 2T
Maximum Installable Memory : 1GB
Supported Memory Types : DIMM DDR3
Channels : 3
Width : 64-bit

[davewalton]

I can give you my overall experience with going to 64 bit on the Windows platform... VERY positive. I first made sure that my sound card had a 64 bit driver. Beyond that I made sure that my software (or at least most of it) supported 64-bit. I use Sonar, most of the EWQL virtual instruments, the Spectrasonics stuff (Omnisphere, etc), Kontakt and a few others. All have 64 bit versions.

It's made a huge difference, I can load up lots of stuff and not worry too much about running out of RAM (my biggest problem in the 32 bit environment).

That's the short version and nothing more really to report in a longer version.

[llama]

I agree with Dave. I made the change from 32bit XP to 64bit Windows 7 a few months back and it is great. I use Sonar 8.5 and a bunch of East West, Spectrosonic and NI stuff. It is nice to just load up the VSTs and not run into memory issues. Your machine will easily handle Windows 64bit. As Dave says just make sure that your main SW and sound card is 64 bit compatible or you can get 64 bit drivers. The only issue that had me a little concerned was random pops and clicks on playback but I narrowed this down to my WLAN card inside the machine. Now I just use the Ethernet connection and disabled the radio card and all is bliss.
You probably want to make sure you have at least 8G of RAM too.

Derek

[mazz]

I have a Windows 7 64 bit machine that I use for a sample playback slave. It works just fine for that purpose and I'm sure if I ever switched to doing a DAW setup on that, it would work well for that too. Drivers are always an issue as are plug in compatibility, so make sure that the stuff that you use all the time is ready for that 64 bit prime time.

+1 on more RAM. You will need to put more RAM in your system, otherwise you really won't reap the huge benefit of a 64 bit system, which is access to an almost infinite amount of RAM memory. Your system can take up to 24G, get as much as you can afford.

I'm not that much of a Windows user, it's never been my cup of tea for a computer OS, but I do have to say the Windows 7 is the closest to a very smooth computer OS that I've experienced outside of the Mac OS, which I'm much more familiar and comfortable with. Not sure if that's worth the electrons it's written with but just thought I'd throw that out there in case you had any reservations on going with Windows 7 in general.

Go ahead, the water's fine!

Mazz

[jonathansorensen]

Thanks so much everybody. I I'm definitely going to make the move after a little research on my particular software/plugins. . .

Jon

[guscave]

I don't think that there are any issues with Cubase. Unfortunately I have Pro tools 7 and if I want to go the 64 bit route I have to upgrade to Protools 8. Not too big a deal, but it's another $150

[marcblack30]

If you decide to do it, keep us posted on how everything goes.

I'm still running 32-bit and Cubase 5, and I can tell that memory will be an issue.
I just checked my system again and it says that it's 64 capable, I upgraded to W7 awhile ago and looked in to installing the 64 bit version but I swear I found that it was not capable... hum, maybe I was wrong.

So... if I were to move to 64 bit, would I be able to install more RAM? That would be awesome!

[mazz]

I believe that there's a utility that you can run to determine if your system is 64 bit capable. I believe it's on the Microsoft website somewhere.

[marcblack30]

I believe that there's a utility that you can run to determine if your system is 64 bit capable. I believe it's on the Microsoft website somewhere.

Thanks Mazz, I'll run that to double check.


edit: I ran the check and it looks like I'm good to go, and W7 Home Premium will support up to 16GB of memory, even 8GB would do me wonders!
Well, this is nice to know for the next time I need to wipe everything.

Here's a link to the upgrade advisor if anyone's interested:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/d ... laylang=en

[t4mh]

I have to admit to curiosity about one issue with DAWs and W7, and after making the change to Mac I won't be finding out for myself. So I'll just ask some of the people who are doing it.

Have you found that while running in W7 64bit mode, that your DAWs ( Sonar, Cubase, etc.. ) have or had any trouble finding or loading any 32 bit VSTs like EWQL? If there have been no problems then great! But if you've had any problems I'd sure like to hear how you solved them.

Just technological curiosity from an old computer geek!

Keith