When will Windows XP x64 be supported?

[James A. Abdo]

... particularly 002R drivers?

[technician]

considering how long it takes them for petty things, I'd say a DARN long time... probably not until microsoft vista is fully released. At best probably 2 years.

and if digidesign reads this, your the only reason I'm stuck in 32-bit land
every peice of hardware and software my computer has, have 64-bit drivers. bummer digidesign hardware is strictly 32-bit...

[crs117]

I dont understand everybodies hurry to run 64 bit computers. Unless you are a scientest running major scientific simulations or calculations, a weather person running weather simulations, or a balistics expert running trajectory calculations, 64 computing will most likely not benifit you much, if anything will only slow down your computing.

I love new technology and embracing it, but very very few programs will actually take advantage of 64 bit extensions perhaps cg rendering will be the first major reason to upgrade, but other then that whats the hurry. 64 bit extension allow for more addressable memory, but very few motherboards (even 64 bit boards) allow for more then 4 gigs of ram. Also 64 bit computing changes the memory bit size from 32 bit chunks to 64 bit chunks, essentially doubling the amount of memory used by all common programs (os included). So if you are happy with your memory usage at 32 bit then you might as well double up your ram if you want to upgrade to 64 bit. This is a sad reality that many folks are about to find out and that some of my friends have already run into.

I by no means want to stop the use or adaptation to 64 bit hardware and software, but at this point it would make very little sense for companies like digi to jump into 64 bit territory when probably less then .1% of the user base requires 64 bit computing for any specific program, and when they could be working on much more useful features. Sure it would only require a driver re-write but why the headache with so few results when 7.0 could be right around the corner.

Why hassle yourself at this point. Enjoy the ease of 32 bit until vista arrives. At least those are my thoughts. Cheers.

Christian

[technician]

crs117:

there IS a benefit from 64-bit computing. I don't want to get scientific, but I did run some 'test' files between ableton live and a few other programs. And the 64-bit windows xp ran faster. the ableton live cpu was 3-4% lower than in 32-bit mode. Keep in my the 32-bit xp was removed of ANY running background programs. So that isn't a cause here.

both stripped down to nothing, the 64-bit XP was definitely faster. why? I don't know, but that was my testing results.

you also have to think 3-4% of a cpu decrease isn't much, but mhz wise that is probably a 400mhz jump in cpu usage. if you ask me, a free 400mhz on top of what your used to is more than enough reason to give protools a try here also. although it's never going to happen. grrrr

[crs117]

The resulting boost could have been from any of a number of other factors. If you where running a clean install on your 64 bit xp then it very well could have been from not having as much software running in the background. It could be that since you reformated your hard drive it was not nearly as fragmented and you where still able to read and write to the fastest sectors. Without doing a strictly scientific test between the two on two identically setup freshly installed systems I would have to be somewhat cynical. Every other scientifically tested comparison has shown 64 bit xp to be the loser over all mostly because memory maxing out way before it did in the 32 bit version. The only tests 64 bit xp won were for programs that had been recompiled for 64 bit OS that actually required 64 bit processing.

My whole point above is that it will not be what many people think it will be and will actually cause a performance decrease more often then increase in most software that people run.

Christian

[kv331]

Aside from the 64 bit address space, 64 bit compiled apps will run more efficiently (in theory), as the number of CPU registers will double from 8 to 16. That IS enough reason to go 64 bits, even for ordinary users.

Best,

Bulent Biyikoglu
President, KV331 Audio LLC.

[James A. Abdo]

Also, not all 002R owners use PTLE as their primary DAW. There are other audio apps ready to take advantage of 64-bit. That's why I ask specifically about the ASIO driver. It's kind of sad that M-Audio, and Avid company, is ahead of the curve on this.