Vegas 32 / 64

[Danny Hays]

Yes, I’m running Vegas Pro 9 on Windows 7 64 bit. 32 will only see 2 gig of ram I believe, where 64 will see up to 8,, I think.

[Scott Francis]

32 bit can see more than 2 gig…my XP Pro 32bit machine with 4GB ram sees just under 3.5gigs. I looked under the help pulldown, “about sony vegas” computer tab..hope that helps!

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[John Rofrano]

32 bit can see more than 2 gig…my XP Pro 32bit machine with 4GB ram sees just under 3.5gigs. I looked under the help pulldown, “about sony vegas” computer tab..hope that helps!

Actually it cannot. What you are seeing under the About Vegas Pro… tab is Vegas reporting the specs on your computer. This is done with simple system calls. It has no bearing on how much memory Vegas can actually use.

The 32 bit architecture only allows an application to address 2GB of data space unless they are compiled (or hacked) as being Large Address Aware. So most 32 bit applications (including Vegas) can only use 2GB of memory.

~jr

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

[Scott Francis]

So this is a Vegas issue? Could they develop their 32bit version to see more than 2gb?

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[David Shirey]

If you want an individual application to use more than 2gb of ram, you’re a lot better off moving to a 64 bit OS. If there’s some reason you’re clinging to WinXP 32 for some sort of software compatibility, you may be better served by moving to a version of Windows 7 64 bit (professional or ultimate) that included Win XP virtualization.

https://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/

[Sam Caino]

Thank you all for your input. Can someone please confirm that Vegas 9 64bit does work on XP 64? Again, the release notes only mention Vista 64 and so far we’ve all been talking about xp 32 or Win7 64.

What about the maximum number of render threads? Goes past 4 on the 64 bit version?

[Jeremy Rasnic]

I have a dual quad machine I built. Depending on your version of windows you can have more ram than your computer can hold theoretically speaking (although some versions of Windows 7 limits you to less RAM).

You can set the thread #’s in Vegas to what you want. I have mine set at 8 or 16 I believe (Vegas did not utilize all my cores at 100% on most renders).

As far as your question concerning xp 64- I don’t have a definitive answer. However, I would issue this warning– if you have any problems with your setup running this version of Windows, you will get no help from Sony as it is not supported. I would further caution you to stay away from it as I don’t think you will have much help anywhere you turn with it as not many people installed it (or if they did they don’t have it installed anymore). It just didn’t take off like Windows 7 64 did.

I hope this helps you. A question for you: Why is Windows 7 64 not an option for you?

j razz

https://www.jrazzcreations.com

[Sam Caino]

Jeremy – thanks for your input. That is good to know about Sony support, that’s a huge deal for my department.

Here’s a bit about my scenario, to answer your question:
Within my department (web delivery for a news network), we are running Vegas on 11 machines (4 for editing, 7 for network rendering). We are testing HP z800s with the goal of upgrading our edit machines to them. Any type of software/OS upgrade must be presented to management with a detailed proposal, and such upgrades would involve our support staff.

So, it’s not necessarily that Win 7 64 isn’t an option for me, it’s that I need to compile as much data as possible before I propose making such a step, especially since we’d ideally want all 11 machines running the same OS/software. If this were my home office, I’d be much more open to trial and error. Since I often don’t have that option, I rely on the vast resource that is… you guys!

[John Rofrano]

So this is a Vegas issue? Could they develop their 32bit version to see more than 2gb?

No, this is not a Vegas issue. It’s a 32-bit architecture issue. All Windows 32-bit application have a maximum memory of 2GB.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

So, it’s not necessarily that Win 7 64 isn’t an option for me, it’s that I need to compile as much data as possible before I propose making such a step, especially since we’d ideally want all 11 machines running the same OS/software. If this were my home office, I’d be much more open to trial and error. Since I often don’t have that option, I rely on the vast resource that is… you guys!

The business case is pretty simple:

1. Windows XP is limited to 2GB of memory which may have been fine for single core SD renders but in this day of, multiple cores and HD, it is not enough. A 64-bit OS is needed to take full advantage of today’s multi-core processors.
2. Windows XP 64-bit is not supported by Microsoft. It’s a dead operating system so it’s not an option.
3. Windows Vista 64 was a dismal failure, plagued with problems that Microsoft would like to forget. No one should be installing it or basing a business strategy around it.
4. That leaves Windows 7 64-bit Professional which is a pretty nice operating system given who wrote it. It allows for up to 192GB of memory and can support up to 256 cores. This is the platform for the immediate future from Microsoft.

It’s up to you to determine if the cost of upgrading to Windows 7 64-bit is worth it. That depends on how your old XP machines are holding up. But when you do upgrade, Windows 7 64-bit is the only sensible answer.

~jr

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