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  #1  
Old 10-09-2006, 07:18 AM
floatingpoint_32bit floatingpoint_32bit is offline
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Default When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

Hi!
Just read about Calkwalk Sonar Producer Edition 6.0, which is a 64 bit program.
Makes me wonder when ProTools LE will be a true 64-bit application...

/floatingpoint_32bit
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  #2  
Old 10-09-2006, 07:23 AM
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spkguitar spkguitar is offline
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Default Re: When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

You might want to check out the old Answerbase article on the subject.
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  #3  
Old 10-09-2006, 08:33 AM
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JCBigler JCBigler is offline
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Default Re: When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

Quote:
You might want to check out the old Answerbase article on the subject.
That answer base article is almost three and a half years old, and only mentions MAC OSX. Windows XP x64 Edition is a "true 64-bit" operating system, and just as stable and usable as Windows XP.

I think the real answer is that Digidesign is afraid to be on the bleeding edge of anything--I mean, it's not like they are pioneers in audio technology or anything--and won't release a 64-bit version of Protools LE until Windows Vista has been out for about two years, and Windows XP becomes considered to be "archaic". Also remember that 64-bit OS's require 64-bit device drivers. And since Protools software requires Protools hardware to run, it could be that Digidesign hasn't figured out how to build 64-bit drivers for their hardware yet.

Windows Vista is supposed to ship sometime early in 2007, so figure on seeing a 64-bit capable version of Protools sometime in 2009.

Currently, I believe that only Cakewalk's Sonar is capable of running on Windows XP x64.
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  #4  
Old 10-09-2006, 01:22 PM
JMS40 JMS40 is offline
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Default Re: When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

Cubase 4 and Cubase Studio 4 as well.
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  #5  
Old 10-09-2006, 03:08 PM
PTLExp PTLExp is offline
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Default Re: When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

"it could be that Digidesign hasn't figured out how to build 64-bit drivers for their hardware yet."


Or, have u considered that this whole 64-bit floating point is just marketing hype?

Seriously, I'm sure there are people at the Digidesign camp who know more on this subject than me and perhaps anyone on here, and I'm pretty sure that it would be in their best interest to explore this, and if 64-bit floating point was indeed going to be much better, upgrading the software/hardware would probably be something they'd jump on. From the Answer Base article, it looks like they've done the math (pardon the pun), and they really don't see the need.

Personally, I've done a bit of reading and instead of asking for 64-bit floating point, I've actually "stepped up" my PT rig with high-end analog processors, and I would suggest anyone who is interested in more from Digital Processing to explore that option.
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  #6  
Old 10-09-2006, 08:38 PM
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Default Re: When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

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have u considered that this whole 64-bit floating point is just marketing hype?...Personally, I've done a bit of reading and instead of asking for 64-bit floating point,...
Umm, we're not talking about the internal processing that Protools uses at a software level. We're talking about the actual architecture of the CPU, and it's ability to crunch twice as much data in one clock cycle as the current 32-bit CPUs (though not many of the current processors are 32-bit anymore).

As it stands, all of the current x86 family of CPUs (those from AMD and Intel) use a 64-bit data register and 64-bit wide memory bus architecture, which means the CPUs themselves can process 64-bits of data in one clock cycle, and can access up to something like (theoretically) 16 terabytes of RAM, rather than the current 4 gigbytes.

What this would mean for Protools and audio/video editing is that you could load your systems up with gigs, upon gigs of RAM, and load entire sample and sequencing libraries in RAM, rather than streaming off the hard disk. And also that you could possibly use twice as many RTAS processors at a time.

Right now, many of us are currently using the 64-bit CPUs from AMD. Even though these CPUs work amazingly with Protools, they are still only using half of their potential horsepower. When Digidesign makes the move from a 32-bit Protools LE to a 64-bit Protools LE, I would expect a significant jump in performance.

Though my theory is that it will impact the TDM systems less than the LE systems, which is the main reason that I think we haven't seen a 64-bit version of Protools LE yet. Because the curent LE systems are already rivaling some aspects of the TDM systems; 64-bit version of LE would completely obliterate the performance gap between TDM and LE in terms of plug-in performance.

Wikipedia article on 64-bit CPUs
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  #7  
Old 10-09-2006, 08:56 PM
bb_aus bb_aus is offline
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Default Re: When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

64 bit has been 'on the verge' for sometime now but its going to be another 2 years before we see any large scale implimentation. the technology has been around for 20 years, we are only now starting to see a demarnd for it.

XP 64 is not the same beast as home or pro we all know how much of a nighmare it is to get PT to run on anything different. moving to XP 64 and would cause alot of problems and the devolopment and support costs wouldnt be small, they couldnt make back the money before they had to devolop for vista.

any move now would just cause problem and the performance gains wouldnt be as big as some might think. wait it out, good things will come in time.
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  #8  
Old 10-10-2006, 12:51 AM
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Default Re: When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

Most of us already offload plugin processing to wider-than-32bit floating point math units, so it makes little difference if the whole app is 64bit or 32bit. For example, a Quad PowerMac G5 has four cores that have two Altivec units per core, totalling 8 float units, and processing audio with 64bit float double precision plugins is a piece of cake. Having 64bit application code would not speed it up very much; unless you're processing audio files larger than 4GB (which Protools does not allow).

Wake up guys, bigger numbers do not always matter.
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  #9  
Old 10-10-2006, 03:01 AM
zangief zangief is offline
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Default Re: When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

JCBigler, I think you may want to take another look at that wikipedia article you linked to...

Quote:
We're talking about the actual architecture of the CPU, and it's ability to crunch twice as much data in one clock cycle as the current 32-bit CPUs...
...
As it stands, all of the current x86 family of CPUs (those from AMD and Intel) use a 64-bit data register and 64-bit wide memory bus architecture, which means the CPUs themselves can process 64-bits of data in one clock cycle
No, you're wrong. By your logic, having 64-bit integer units would actually mean not 2x, but 3x or more performance improvement with respect to a 32-bit machine: what used to take 3+ instructions now takes only 1 (if you assume the same numer of integer units, working set in cache, and a host of other things that won't hold true). However, even if real-world integer performance got that big a jump, it only translates to a very small overall performance gain, especially for host-based DAWs which are "crunching" all their data as 32-bit floats. And for the record, x86 processors have had 80-bit or better native floating point precision for as long as they've had floating point capability (x87, I believe).

Also, having a 64-bit CPU does not mean that you have a 64-bit wide memory bus archiecture. The G5 system architecture has a 36-bit physical memory address bus. According to wikipedia's AMD64 page, the current crop of AMD processors can handle 40-bit physical addresses.

The performance different between today's 32-bit and 64-bit CPUs is mostly due to microarchitectural improvements (wider execution pipelines, advances in memory subsystems, multi-core, etc.). The biggest, most important benefit you get from 64-bit chips is the ability to address more than 4GB of RAM, which you seem to at least have some grasp of below...

Quote:
What this would mean for Protools and audio/video editing is that you could load your systems up with gigs, upon gigs of RAM, and load entire sample and sequencing libraries in RAM, rather than streaming off the hard disk.
Yes! Finally some truthiness!

Quote:
And also that you could possibly use twice as many RTAS processors at a time.
Doh... oh well. Wrong again.

Quote:
Right now, many of us are currently using the 64-bit CPUs from AMD. Even though these CPUs work amazingly with Protools, they are still only using half of their potential horsepower.
Ouch... same mistake.

Quote:
When Digidesign makes the move from a 32-bit Protools LE to a 64-bit Protools LE, I would expect a significant jump in performance.

Though my theory is that it will impact the TDM systems less than the LE systems, which is the main reason that I think we haven't seen a 64-bit version of Protools LE yet. Because the curent LE systems are already rivaling some aspects of the TDM systems; 64-bit version of LE would completely obliterate the performance gap between TDM and LE in terms of plug-in performance.
For certain types of plugins, such as samplers that need to access huge sample libraries, 64-bit could provide a huge performance boost (assuming you buy a ton of RAM). But it doesn't mean a whole lot for convolution reverbs, eqs, or other processing plugins (besides being an incremental improvement in microarchitecture). Also, the comparison between LE and TDM here is not valid. Even if host-based DAWs at some point surpass dedicated DSP solutions in terms of raw processing power, in the forseeable future they will still be at a loss in terms of latency and stability.
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  #10  
Old 10-10-2006, 06:13 AM
kmshroom kmshroom is offline
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Default Re: When will ProTools LE be a 64-bit application?

The problem with Cakewalk being all noisy about Sonar being 64-bit is that almost all third-party plug-ins are still 32-bit float, which means that as soon as you use a plug-in that isn't completely 64-bit, you've lost ANY AND ALL advantages of the 64-bit host app.

So basically, it's too early for it to make any difference at all (and at this point it's just purely marketing hype for companies like Cakewalk to make a hopeless attempt at survival), because I don't know about you, but I use a lot of third party plug-ins.
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