Upgrading to 64 bit Windows

[Scott Francis]

I would warn about using 64bit if you use a lot of other non-sony F/X’s. I upgraded to Vegas 9 64bit and it did not see any of my other plugins, luckily 32bit can run on the same system…..at least that was my case, don’t know if I did something wrong.

gotscottgreen

[Kristofar Rieleef]

I’m running a 64 bit Vista system and am able to edit on both 32bit and 64bit Vegas, no problem. While I’ve ran both setups, I can’t seem to tell the difference between the two as far as speed. Some say 64bit renders faster, but I haven’t noticed. Actually my older XP 32bit renders faster, why I’m not sure. So if you do have a bunch of plugins, use the 32bit Vegas. It works fine and does the same thing. You won’t have the extended memory for dynamic ram preview, that’s the only drawback that I’m aware of. You can push the 32bit version up to 1000mb for DRP which is enough for me, but it’s all about the user.

[Al Bergstein]

Just remember that upgrading to 64bit if you are running an older machine is about more than buying the software. Your best bet is to buy a newer machine, with a lot of RAM. I have an older laptop that came with 2GB RAM and windows Vista 64, it’s always been a dog, and I ‘upgraded’ it to Windows 7 32 bit and it runs like a champ! However, for running Vegas I bought a cheap ($600) HP Pavilion w/ Windows 7 64 bit and 6 GBs RAM, and it runs really well. 64 Bit Windows will probably need 3GB of RAM just to be similar in performance to 32 bit on the same box. So more RAM should be an advantage with 64.

I don’t yet use tons of plug ins, but you are right Kris, about perceived performance. If the plug ins aren’t written in 64 bit, Windows will be using an emulation mode to execute the code, and that can slow the code down, so it might seem that your 32 bit system is running faster. It will all depend on how well Sony rewrites into 64 bit and whether they are taking advantage of the ability to address the extended memory. And if you are starving the OS by not having enough RAM, it will start using the disk more, which radically slows stuff down as opposed to running it in memory.

I’ll try and post some comparisons of various processes, like rendering and see how it’s addressing the multiple cores on my machine in 64 bit.

Alf

[John Rofrano]

> I have an older laptop that came with 2GB RAM and windows Vista 64, it’s always been a dog, and I ‘upgraded’ it to Windows 7 32 bit and it runs like a champ!

Actually, you changed two things at once so it’s hard to make an accurate conclusion from your experience. In fact, I would venture to guess that most of the performance improvement came from switching to the lean mean Windows 7 from the bloatware Vista, than from 64-bit vs 32-bit. Vista barely ran in 2GB of memory while Windows 7 runs very comfortably with that much memory.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Paul Gregory]

If I read everyone’s ideas correctly then I should be able to just install my existing copy of Vegas 8 onto a clean install of Windows 7 64 bit & it should work OK without any new drivers etc. It looks that I might not be gaining an extra speed my doing this but at least it work as well as it had done in the past. Correct?

Thanks in advance

[John Rofrano]

> If I read everyone’s ideas correctly then I should be able to just install my existing copy of Vegas 8 onto a clean install of Windows 7 64 bit & it should work OK without any new drivers etc.

Except for the fact that Vegas Pro 8.0 is not support by Sony on Windows 7. Only version 9.0 is support on Windows 7 so if you have any problems and you contact Sony support they will not help you unless you are using a supported operating system for version 8.0.

I would upgrade to Vegas Pro 9.0 if I was going to use Windows 7. Some people have reported issues with version 8.0 and Win 7 and had to tell windows to run 8.0 in compatibility mode and it seemed to work. I would not run a business with this unsupported configuration.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Al Bergstein]

On the issue of ‘changing two things at once’, no, I wasn’t clear. I upgraded without reformatting the hard disk to Windows 7 64 bit and I did not notice any change in performance of the laptop (this w/2 GBs RAM). still a pig. I then reformatted the laptop in order to load 32 Bit 7, since you cannot downgrade the two. This box was lightly used by my wife, who simply surfs the net and does email. The difference in performance after the 32 bit loaded was dramatic. My wife’s comment, “I just got a new machine without buying one”. My quad core desktop HP w/6 GBs RAM is very fast also. So the chipset, (the laptop is about three years old) and the amount of memory is going to matter.

I also loaded VV 9.0c, which is only 64 bit version supporting Win7. It runs fine with my AVCHD input, renders non layered video at about 1:1 ratio, no matter what the format. My only beef is the typical Windows one. I choose to update the driver for my relatively new Viewsonic 24″ monitor, a signed driver from MS’s own web site, and my machine started blue screening immediately. It took me the better part of three hours to finally roll back the driver, by switching monitors, deleting the older driver, and finally reinstalling the Viewsonic. This kind of nonsense with Windows NEVER happens with my MacBook Pro, no matter what odd stuff I throw at it, i.e. Protools, M-Box, large monitors, etc. While I am going to continue to struggle through Windows to use VV, I can understand why people pay more for Apple. It just works. But I agree, it’s great to spend a quarter of the price and get a fast working machine! just don’t change anything on it without a backup use ‘restore points’ (look it up if you don’t know what I mean!). Incidentally, the monitor seems to work better by using the DVI port rather than the VGA, in case any of you haven’t jumped totally to DVI yet. Both on Apple and Windows it’s better. Buy the cable if you have the connectors.

Alf

[John Rofrano]

> I upgraded without reformatting the hard disk

A reformat will always produce a faster machine and I would never recommend anyone upgrade windows in place without a reformat. Windows is just too much of a “bloat magnet” that runs slower and slower over time to keep the old junk around.

> The difference in performance after the 32 bit loaded was dramatic. My wife’s comment, “I just got a new machine without buying one”.

I have been reformatting my Windows PC every two years for ages now and it’s like getting a whole new PC and I’m just talking about putting Windows XP back on. Windows performance just degrades over time so reformatting always yields a faster PC.

I did look up the requirements for Windows 7 and the 32-bit version requires a minimum of 1GB of memory while the 64-bit requires 2GB of memory. Since your laptop only has 2GB, you were right at the threshold which is why the 32-bit version will run faster. If you had 4GB of memory, you probably wouldn’t have notice a difference between the two versions.

So for your laoptop with 2GB of memory, I agree that Windows 7 32-bit is the faster choice. Paul didn’t say how much memory he has so this is definitely something to take into consideration.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Al Bergstein]

Well, without belaboring the point, I’ve done many upgrades both with and w/o formatting the drives over the years. Sometimes, given the difficulty for most people to reload machines with all their programs, settings etc, even with backup, my belief is to always at least start from a standard upgrade, if possible. It doesn’t always screw things up, (I just recently upgraded (not reformated) my laptop to 7 with no problems at all), but the rule of thumb is, yes, reformat when possible. That’s another reason to just buy a new machine when you want to upgrade. It’s just easier to get it setup, ready to go. And my desktop machine only cost $600…not that everyone can afford this added cost.

We didn’t really know enough about his setup, and other information to make an informed decision, so I am only suggesting that he explore exactly what he has before assuming that a 64 bit upgrade will be the best way to go. He may need to upgrade his computer as well as Sony VV to get the best, or expected, performance. Then there is the issue of whether his video card(s), and accessories will support the upgrade. It’s not easy to properly prepare! And of course, “your mileage may vary”(G). Caveat Emptor..

Alf

[John Rofrano]

> …so I am only suggesting that he explore exactly what he has before assuming that a 64 bit upgrade will be the best way to go

I agree, and point well taken. I didn’t realize that the 32-bit version of Windows 7 used less memory and would be a better choice for computers with only 2GB of memory. So I certainly learned something from all this. 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com