Hello All
 
could somebody explain what the benefits are,  (if any),  of installing the 64bit version of Sonar versus  the 32bit, on a Win7 64bit machine.
 
 
Thank You

fingerslearning


could somebody explain what the benefits are,  (if any),  of installing the 64bit version of Sonar versus  the 32bit, on a Win7 64bit machine. 
 

For starters you can use 64 bit plugins, which should be more efficient than the equivilent 32 bit versions.
 
No 3.5 GB RAM limitation, even individual instances of 32 bit plugins running on Bitbridge can each access up to 3.5G GB RAM.
 
Because you are able to access more RAM you will use the page file less which will improve disk access times and speed thing up in general.
 
 
Cue Freddie.......

Hello Glyn


are you saying that it Sonar 32bit imposing the RAM limitation. It was my understanding that this was a function of the operating system. Would 32bit plugins benefit from a 64bit operating system?


Thank You

I never worry about hitting a RAM usage point where SONAR is going to crash anymore. 

fingerslearning


Hello Glyn


are you saying that it Sonar 32bit imposing the RAM limitation. It was my understanding that this was a function of the operating system. Would 32bit plugins benefit from a 64bit operating system?


Thank You

Yes. 32 Bit Sonar, and all the plugins running in it will only be able to access 3.5GB. You will be ahead of where you would have been with a 32 bit operating system as other processes (anti virus, windows it's self etc) will use other available ram.

But really, how likely is one to hit that 3,5GB ceiling? I'm completely torn on this as well. On the one hand I'd like a beast of a machine, but on the other hand I don't want to suddenly find older plugins useless or even spend all that time getting everything to work in a 64 bit environment.

Really annoying. My 2006 PC is not really cutting it anymore, but I just don't feel ready to make the jump to 64 bit and it would seem a bit stupid to buy a brand new computer only to have it running my 32 bit Windows XP.

BlueSwan


But really, how likely is one to hit that 3,5GB ceiling?

Depends on what you are using. I don't have any huge sample libraries but I will run several several sample based applications in the same project. Kontakt, EZDrummer, Kitcore, Independence, M-TRON pro etc. When I look at the memory utalisation in task manager I am often using all 6GB of my RAM and still need to use a page file.
 
It would probably work in 32bit but there would be a lot more disk access going on and I would need to freeze synths more often.
 
Remember you can still get a 64 bit operating system on your new PC and run the 32 bit version of Sonar, so you can get a future proof O/S and run 64 bit Sonar in parallel until you are happy all your mission critical stuff works. That's what I did.

Glyn

thanks for the reply, your reply to BlueSwan regarding upgrading certainly seems like the logical way to go.

Mod Bod

is that because your way of working ensures that you don't reach that limit or is it that, if it does you don't worry about it and go off and have a beer somewhere. I think with me it would be the latter.


Regards

Because I am not afraid of bumping a RAM limit, I've actually started to use larger sample sets in Superior Drummer.  I load all available velocity levels and use more bleed samples.

I would crash SONAR in a 32bit, 2 GB machine fairly easy if I didn't watch the size of a drumkit I was loading.  I always worked around it by thinning out velocity layers or using cache mode to only load samples that were required.  Now with a 4 gig 64bit machine running SONAR x64, I can go nuts if I want to. 

64bit...both in Programs and OS. Today there are no excuse not to use it....
Even native 32bit applications and programs runs faster & better on 64bit OS then on 32bit OS...
Bitbridge work too in SONAR..
 
Still you can install and use the 32bit SONAR if you like... but I think end of the day----> you will end up use the 64bit version only. 

  
 
   

 
Regards
Freddie