Vista 64 problem with VST plugins

[EdRyan]

Originally Posted by Churst

P.S. (the more ranty, less relevant bit)
It seems to me that among the music fraternity there is just general hostility towards the apparently "scary" move to 64 bit. I read a piece in Sound on Sound, not all that long ago, that claimed that 64 bit computing has little or no benefit to audio production on computers. That shocked me somewhat, being as every single other computer based industry on the planet is embracing the phenomenal power enhancements that 64 bit computing will bring.

There is truth to what S.O.S says.

1) No current or planned audio codec records or plays at 64bit. We're lucky to get to 32. The more bits you have, the more of a problem denormal numbers become. a 64 bit floating calculation would hit your cpu like a small moon hitting the earth. The memory required is also quite staggering.

2) Bearing in mind the above, the dynamic range of of 32 bit system is in excess of what we can detect (even using fixed integers). Therefore, its pointless making extra hardwork for your computer...when we're not gonna hear the benefit of it. On paper, you'd expect double the performance at 64, but thats not strictly the case.

64 bits is useful for some mixing type applications. Specifically, applications that seek to mimic the response of analogue devices. the extra accuracy is useful in mapping and recreating smaller details that might go under the radar at lower bitdepths (the question is...if they are that small, are they worth picking up). at 64, you got a bit more room to mix mix in, but its minimal gain for a lot of work. If you're good at making and mixing music, you simply don't need to use 64bit mix engines.

Some apps (such as Izoptope, Reaper & Sonar) do run with 64bit mix engines in them. But the proof of the pudding is that none of these are holy grails for audio engineers. The most important thing is how the engineer works...32 bits is more then ample

Now, if you want to talk about 64bit addressing. That makes much more sense. Basically moving data in blocks of 64 instead of 32 will obviously move data twice as fast (per clock cycle, anyway)..providing your data bus supports 64 parallel bits, and your cpu can also do the same. This is why operating systems and computers are moving to 64 bits, but audio production isn't. Its useful for faster computers, but pointless for better audio.

[Dave Boulden]

I'm pretty sure all the discussion thus far in this thread was about 64-bit addressing and not 64-bit audio... at least it was on my part.

[bscully]

Sonar is Massive in the states!

Sonar by far pushes the envelope much harder than any other DAW out there and they always work really closely with Intel and Microsoft to make sure they are there on the money. They just don't have the clout that the big 3 have over here. Opinions change from region to region.

the US lives by DP and Sonar, both could be held as better than their counterparts (DP - Logic, Sonar - Cubase).

64 bit Sonar is solid, as is there multicore processing!

What's the deal with Vista. I've been using it and testing it for a long while now and once you get used to the quirks, and pull out the useless stuff, it's ok. It's also pretty reliable. Truth be known after an initial head scratch and a few broken keyboards my life has been made easier through the changes implemented with Vista.

This is an OS that is designed around current hardware. Data transfer rates and general disk usage are by far and beyond much, much better in Vista. Everyone's already looking towards 7 being the saviour, and i really do hope that we get another Windows ME - 2000 situation where one OS has, essentially, a major update and re-branding and becomes a rock solid OS that no one ever wants to upgrade.

[xon]

hey guys, i have been using vista 32 since it came out and about 6 months ago, updated everything in my box to 64 bit standards, took a while to work out bugs etc., but now my system is running fast and powerful... here's the list of stuff that works well:
E-MU 1616M audio interface [PatchMix DSP software]
sonar 7 & 8
acid pro 6 & 7
sound forge 9
cd architect 5.2
Edirol PCR-500 [controller]

[PARTIAL LIST OF VST & VSTi's that I have tested to be STABLE in Vista 64bit]
Melodyne Studio
389111bytes
Albino 2
Antares Auto-Tune DX
Arppe2600va
Atmosphere
Battery 3
Rob Papen - Blue
b-station
EWQL Colossus
CronoX 3
Delta III
Drumkit From Hell 2
Drumular
Drumazon
EWQLSO Gold Edition
FM8
Hades XT
Hydra
Kontakt 2
Massive
Melodyne Bridge
Mercury
Microtuning
Moog Modular V
Ninja
Octopus
Orchestral VSTi v1.03
Ozone 3
PCR_XPx64Drv101
quadraSID
Rapture
ravity
ReFX JunoX2
ReFX PlastiCZ
SUPERWAVEP8
Symphonic Choirs
tb_triforce_1_6
TC Native Bundle
TCWorks
unknown 64 pro
Vanguard
VurtBox
Waldorf Attack & PPG Wave
Waves
X-cita
ASynth
cm303
CS-80V
dblueGlitch
iZotope Ozone 3
JunoX2
Mercury-1
Moog Modular V
Neptune
ppd Tritium
ReCycle
Spook Keys
Trancemitter
Tune 1.1
V-Station

[PARTIAL LIST OF VST & VSTi's that I have tested to be UNSTABLE or UNINSTALABLE in Vista 64bit, I tried several times and these just would not install & work, not that they absolutely won't install, i just was not able to get them working ]
Novation Bass Station
Absynth 4
Korg Legacy Pack [MS-20, Polysix, etc.]
Anything from Ohmforce
Ivory
KARNAGE
Nexus
Atmosphere
Predator
iZotope Trash & Vinyl
QuadraFuzz
Trashcoder
voctopus
Big Tick Angelina

Point being, almost every VST & VSTi out there will work well in a 64 bit environment. There are those few annoying exceptions though... all in all, i have experienced a HUGE boost in performance and stability, especially with vsti's with big sample libraries that suck lots of ram like EWQL stuff. I have over 30 vsti's loaded in my sonar template that are ready to rock whenever, no hick-ups or anything thanks to 64 bit! hope this list helps or at least lets people know what works & that it is very possible to have your cake and eat it too...feel free to add to this list for everyone's reference.
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running: vista 64 ultimate, intel core2 quad, 8 GB ram, 5 TB of HD, dual 22" displays, nvidia geforce 9400GT gfx card, emu 1616m sound card.

[sureno]

you got one hell of a lot of software
why do you repeat some twice?
Moog Modular and mercury for instance?

[xon]

@ sureno, well, I wish they were all mine. about half are and the rest are property of the studio i work at, but we both are running the 64bit vista ultimate with similar hardware etc. sorry about the "doubles" i just did a file list text export of our vst folder 'cause i'm a bit lazy and didn't feel like typing out all those names, heh, my bad. hopefully others can add to the list so everyone knows what will be compatible before they spend their money on [usually] non-returnable software...

[Churst]

Novation Bass Station

I have the VST 2.2 version that came with my Remote Zero SL installed and working fine for me on Vista 64bit.
It probably makes a difference that I use Ableton Live 7 though due to the fact that Live is still 32 bit and thus doesn't use 64 bit VST(i).