MOTUnation.com

And I insist on what James just said: you can run 64-bit apps on top of a 32-bit Kernel (like I do with my slaves). You can even combine 32 and 64 bit apps!

Yes we are in agreement, we all have different Macs with different circumstances. If I can avoid the $499
expenditure ,keep my system simple and utilize the 24gigs of Ram my Mac came with I'll be happy!
The end result we are all looking towards is to have the ability to get more work realized with our DAWs,there are many different ways to get to the same end and specific Macs we base our DAWs on will dictate what avenues we proceed towards our goals.

Julia, I just bought VEP to deal with Omnisphere on the same Mac Pro 3,1. It has taken a load off of DP7.24 and I'm thinking of moving some other VIs to it, although I've been getting some distortion for a yet unknown reason (could be user error) VEP is running in 64 bit mode while DP7 is in 32 bit. I am also hoping that DP8 will eliminate the need for VEP but we won,t know until it's released. You might wait and see unless your need is immediate as mine was. Meanwhile you can try bouncing or freezing your Omnisphere tracks and then take Omnisphere off line.
Btw +1 to what James wrote: even if you boot into 32 bit kernel, 64 bit apps (like Dp8 and VEP) will and can take advantage of more than 4 gb RAM that 32 bit apps like DP7 are able to.
Frank

Wow. Thank you everyone!! This has been a crash course for me. I knew absolutely nothing about 32 bit kernal vs 64 (only that many here were looking forward to 64). I actually printed out this thread, read it over a few times, and now I "think" I get the picture! I see that my computer uses more that 4 gig RAM in my memory activity meter so I didn't get what the 4GB limitation was.

It's what is 'working' at that particular instant in time and not just loaded sounds?

I actually have an old G4 tower under my bed that I saved "just in case". (Of course all my RAM is for this computer.) One thing I don't quite grasp, is after I connect a slave computer, I am worried that I saw some complaints here about synching issues? Would VE PRO synch to DP, (like my old 1/2" 8 track with time code except backwards?) I am little nervous about making things more complex around here and am wondering if I purchased VE PRO and installed it on this iMac that would save that problem, but then there is the CPU thing----- Hmmm. Then I keep thinking I'll keep it real simple and work around it but Omnisphere is really messing things up.

One more thing I'm not sure of. Are fx and VI's installed ONLY on VE PRO or DP7 one at a time, or can you set it up to load them in either one, at any time? Once I get the 'flow' of this stuff in my head maybe I won't be so dimm!!!

The first thing I 'd do is establish if your old computer (G4) could run VE Pro (not sure about this).
You'd need Leopard at a minimum. But if this computer complies with their system specs, then you are one step ahead.

You would install VE Pro in the slave together with Omnisphere (or any VI you want to use). So your VIs would be in the slave, and you would only open a "connection window" in DP (your master) that joins everything.

I suggest you watch VSL's videos, so you get a better idea of what VE Pro does:
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/211/497/1685/1990/1999/1688.htm

You would need VE Pro if you are going to use slaves. Otherwise, the FREE regular Vienna Ensemble would allow you to host VIs in the same DP computer but "out of its way", so memory is not shared among them and you can use more than 4 GB.
This may be a good idea if you have a lot of RAM (at least 8 GB).

FMiguelez wrote:The first thing I 'd do is establish if your old computer (G4) could run VE Pro (not sure about this).
You'd need Leopard at a minimum. But if this computer complies with their system specs, then you are one step ahead.

You would install VE Pro in the slave together with Omnisphere (or any VI you want to use). So your VIs would be in the slave, and you would only open a "connection window" in DP (your master) that joins everything.

I suggest you watch VSL's videos, so you get a better idea of what VE Pro does:
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/211/497/1685/1990/1999/1688.htm

You would need VE Pro if you are going to use slaves. Otherwise, the FREE regular Vienna Ensemble would allow you to host VIs in the same DP computer but "out of its way", so memory is not shared among them and you can use more than 4 GB.
This may be a good idea if you have a lot of RAM (at least 8 GB).

What?!!
I didn't know there's a free version for 1 Mac setups!!!!

I will explore this, thanks for the info Fernando.

bummer it's only free if you own Vienna Software ;(

Interesting though .....

Sorry to get your hopes up for nothing

I didn't remember that critical part you just mentioned... that you must be a registered Vienna Instruments user to qualify for the free version...

Julia, just to clarify, the 4GB limit in 32-bit applications is per application. So each 32-bit app can address no more than 4GB of RAM while running. But you could have, say, eight separate 32bit apps use 32GB at once.

Now a 64bit application can address a lot more RAM than any Mac can handle right now (so much that I don't even know the number, because if I recall correctly, you'll never be able to install that much RAM in a current setup.)

This is completely independent of whether or not your OS runs in a 32bit kernel or in a 64bit kernel.

So you can run your OS in a 32bit kernel and run DP7 (which is a 32bit application, so it can't exceed 4GB of RAM on its own, into which it unfortunately has to also fit all hosted VIs.)

BUT: you can then also have VE Pro in 64bit mode open and fill it up way beyond 4GB of RAM, in addition to whatever space DP occupies. DP can then send MIDI and audio to VE Pro and get audio back from it, with VE Pro essentially acting like an external V-Rack.

So let's say, as an example, you have 20GB of RAM total.

Your OS will fill about 2GB of that, leaves 18GB.

Now DP (plus a few VIs you may want to keep hosted inside DP for one reason or another) can fill up to 4GB of RAM, leaves 14GB.

Now you can launch VE Pro or Bidule and in this scenario fill it up with up to 14GB of samples and VIs. (Realistically a little less, cuz things get crashy when RAM gets filled to the max.)

Hope this clarifies things a bit.

Decision made. I'm going to finish up my current project 1st, and then get the VE PRO for this computer since I have 12 Gigs RAM. If DP 8 comes out in the mean time I could always try that 1st but I'm not a big fan using brand new versions. One more question though. Since it will be on the same computer, would all of the plugins be available to both DP and VE PRO at the same time? Thanks again!

Only if you want them to be. In DP either disable the plugs from the preferences or start DP holding the option key to disable/enable the ones you want or select the plugin set of your choice (which you can create in either method - pref or opt launch). I keep a lean set of only the plugs I think I'll need.

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Only if you want them to be. In DP either disable the plugs from the preferences or start DP holding the option key to disable/enable the ones you want or select the plugin set of your choice (which you can create in either method - pref or opt launch). I keep a lean set of only the plugs I think I'll need.

Thanks. I'm going to try that. I'm always launching all of them but really only use a few of the same ones all the time.

I'm not sure of any CPU or RAM overhead they might incur if just loaded, but it also takes longer to load DP with lots of plugs. My own impression os that DP runs smoother with less plugs but that may simply be a perception error on my part.

I keep everything available to both VE Pro and DP. Sometimes I want to load a plug-in in DP (i.e. bc I want to use extensive automation) so I like to keep my options open. Or say I want to load a 32bit plug-in - VE Pro 64 can't host 32 bit plugs (you can run VE Pro 32 at the same time for 32bit plug-ins, but I don't want to deal with two VE Pros.)

Btw, when you install VE Pro, it will install both the 32 bit and the 64 bit versions, and you launch whichever you like. Of course in order to address more than 4GB inside VE Pro, you have to launch the 64 bit version.

Other than at startup, I don't think the number of plug-ins available to DP has any effect on how well/fast it runs.

Btw, there's another reason to use VE Pro for the time being - you can't run 32bit plug-ins in 64bit apps (at least not without some sort of wrapping device, which judging by Logic user experiences seems to be not that stable), and you'd be surprised how many plug-ins are still 32bit. Those aren't readily accessible in DP8, AFAIK. But using DP7, you can load all 32bit plugs in DP 7, and load large 64bit VIs in VE Pro 64, getting the best of both worlds until everybody's caught up to 64 bits.



Reading this I am thinking that, once most plugs are 64 bit, one can probably turn the tables and run DP8 with plug-ins in 64bits, using VE Pro 32 to keep one's remaining 32bit plugs accessible until those are caught up to 64 bits. Right?

I'm thinking the same thing. 64 bit DP with 32 bit Bidule for some older VIs (thanks, Korg!).