Vegas / xp64/vista64

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

Fusion won’t work with video files, and I haven’t had much luck running Sonar under it, so just running plain ole’ bootcamp. It works great.
large, continuous files (like video and audio) don’t work well under Parallels or Fusion.
Why are you set on running Vista 64 vs 32 anyway? You gain very little in the operational speed of these apps, and Vegas 8.1 (64bit) is not as feature-robust as the 32 bit version.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Paul Fey]

Thanks for your input .

I have no experience in using Windows on a Mac , or even what is best .

All of the forums that I have been on have confusing and contradictory information on them .

This is why I came to Creative Cow . The users on here seem to have a better grip and more experience on these matters .

So let me rephrase my question .

How should I set up my Mac Pro to use Sonar 8 , Sony Vegas , Sound Forge , Acid ect .
the are all 64 bit Vista programs .

Thanks ,

[Franklin Mcmahon]

I would not go 64-bit..no huge advantages that I can see. Also I assume if you are doing intensive audio and video work and you want to work on windows, just reboot into Vista via bootcamp.

Ideally though since you have a new mac look at some of the mac audio and video programs. Sonar is great but investigate Logic Studio. It’s a huge suite for a low price that will run natively (its a fast program too) and it’ll do everything sonar does.

Frank

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[Tim Wilson]

First, welcome to the brave new world of Windows on a Mac! Note that we’ve got a forum on this very topic here at the Cow, where I’m one of the happy hosts.

I also cover some of these general issues in articles here and here

Please check out those articles and that forum for some of the general questions, but for now, here’s a summary of those general topics.

–Go Vista. It’s stable, and it’s fast. (Not that it matters to YOU, but it’s also my favorite OS yet…this from a full-time Mac user since 1984.) Just make sure your drivers and apps are good to go with Vista…and by now, most are.

More important, XP support ends after April 14 ’09. No reason to wait.

–Ignore 64. As Douglas and Franklin note, more disadvantages than advantages. If you NEED it, you’ll know it. If not, your life is easier without it.

–The only reason to consider Fusion (and do go with Fusion rather than Desktop) is to run both OS X and Vista *at the same time.* This would allow you to drag and drop between them, copy a file in Mac and paste in Windows, stuff like that. Is that really what you need?

If not, use the Boot Camp Assistant to create a Windows partition, and boot into that. It’ll be very nearly like running a Windows PC that has no idea that it’s a Mac or has OS X installed anywhere on it. Please see the forum and articles above for details.

Now then, if you really really really want to run Vegas, Sonar, etc. AT THE SAME TIME you’re running Mac OS X, it can be done. Swing by the VMware website, and you’ll meet plenty of folks using Fusion to run Audition, On Location, Ultra, and other audio and video apps. Here’s one and here’s another.

While his project doesn’t look too tough, here’s part 1 of a guy working with Edius under Fusion.

So yeah, audio, video, Fusion, it can be done. But it can also get really, really complicated, which is why we have a separate forum for it. (Again, virtually painless if you’re using Windows on your Mac all by itself.)

Electronic Musician has a story about what you might be in for if you want to use Sonar and Vegas under Fusion. I’ll skip to the end:

I easily got a dozen audio tracks playing, several with Sonar’s CPU-intensive Perfect Space convolution effect, as well as low-latency input from my MIDI keyboard controller triggering the Rapture soft synth. I also installed Sony Vegas 8, a 32-bit app, to see how it would perform, and after running ten stereo tracks, each with two Track inserts (and a 10-minute animation for good measure), I figured I was in good shape. Overall, both programs seemed very responsive…

Cool!

Here’s the part I’m leaving out of his story:
–tweaking monitor resolution
–discovery that Sonar’s audio drivers wouldn’t work, but fresh ones from RealTek did
–trying to run external interfaces required new ASIO drivers
–lots of poking around online and trial-and-error to discover all of the above

He also mentions one of the least known, but most important troubleshooting tactics in the world of dual-platform computing: get the latest drivers for your wireless card. If you’re still getting problems you can’t explain, turn off your wireless connection altogether in Device Manager.

Strange but true. You won’t believe how often this will be the solution to a problem running Windows on Mac.

If you’re willing to take the time, Electronic Musician also has some great tips on using music and MIDI in both OSes at once, optimizing your Mac to run Windows, etc.

Anyway, I hope I’ve covered enough of the Vegas, Sonar, et. al. side of the story to get you started.

And if you need help getting started with Windows on your Mac at all, swing by the Windows on Mac forum for more help.

Tim Wilson
Associate Director, CreativeCow.net
Associate Publisher, Creative Cow Magazine!

[Mark Moss]

I would agree. There doesn’t seem to be any advantages to the 64. I’ve had problems with mine and had to switch to the 32 version to finish a project.

For example, the 64 version kept hanging up and locking my computer when I tried to render as an AVI file. The 32 version rendered it without problem. Also, the 64 version doesn’t seem to recognize Quicktime files. I don’t know why. Rendering on 64 was not any faster, so I’m back the the 32 until I hear that the advantages outweigh the headaches.

Just my 2 cents.

Take Care

Mark

[Sebastian Alvarez]

I would say that if editing in Vegas is a priority to you, Vista 64 makes a lot of sense. Vegas 8.0c is bad joke, it’s so buggy that working in it is almost a nightmare, despite some good changes in functionality. Not to mention that sometimes you may need it to render something, and it will just crash, and crash again in successive retries. Vegas 8.1 has bugs and it crashes, but much less than 8.0c, which is why I’m moving to Vista 64, since I like the Vegas interface more than any other NLE. Vista 64 is also useful, as far as I’ve read, if you have 4 GB of RAM or more, since apparently Vista 32 cannot give one program more than 2 GB.

I’ve found some problems dealing with Vista 64 but I was able to use workarounds and have it suit my needs.

[Tim Wilson]

[Sebastian Alvarez] “Vista 64 is also useful, as far as I’ve read, if you have 4 GB of RAM or more”

Outside the needs of 3D artists and scientists — whose applications are optimized for 64 — you’ve on the one area where I think there’s a legitimate reason for other folks to consider 64 bits. I didn’t know about the limit for a single application, but I know that the 32-bit OS can only access 3.1-3.5 of installed RAM. If you’ve only got 4 MB of RAM, it’s simply not worth it, imo, but if you have more, I’d say go for it.

And for all the well-founded observations here about the need to find workarounds for 64-bit issues, the truth is that before SP1, the 64-bit version of Vista was overall *more* stable than 32. Early adopters were typically in enterprise environments with very narrow tolerances. MSFT — to its credit or otherwise, depending on who you ask — has always aimed a bit over median use cases for maximum development efficiencies. That’s why there are different levels of Vista — it’s not reasonable to ask people to pay for features that were never designed for them.

(BTW, rather than point at MSFT and laugh, wouldn’t you really rather that ALL developers do the same? Adobe has started down that road, and I think others will too.)

Anyway, my point is that the median use case in the enterprise is much higher-level than in the studio or the home.

Fortunately, things are now about where they should be, so *other* than using well over 4 GB of RAM, there’s not much reason to look to closely at 64 *for Vegas, Sonar, etc.* But if you have the RAM, and are using 64-bit addressable apps, 64 looks pretty wise.

[Norman Willis]

Quote: I’ve found some problems dealing with Vista 64 but I was able to use workarounds and have it suit my needs.

Hi Sebastian. I apologize if I am coming into the thread late.

How did you get QuickTime to install on your machine? And what version of Vista 64 are you using (Home Premium, Business, Ultimate?)

Thank you.

Norman Willis
servant@nazareneisrael.org
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Sebastian Alvarez]

I didn’t have any problems installing Quicktime. I think it’s 32 bit, but I didn’t have any problems, but to be honest, I barely use it at all. What kind of problems are you having with it?

My Vista 64 bit is Home Premium, although now I’m running the public beta of Windows 7.