what's going to work with dp 8 what's not?

[kgdrum]

My understanding is bridging 32-bit plugs can be dodgy and cause some instability and that may well be why MOTU decided against it. At a certain point, old plugs are going to die. It's not MOTU's fault that products got orphaned and didn't make the upgrade to 64-bit, but seems like as the years progress, bridging old plugs is really a courtesy much like Apple let us have Rosetta for a while, but eventually killed it in favor of efficiency and streamlining I suppose?

I talked about this with Magic Dave yesterday and that's almost word for word what he said,lol.


Bridging would introduce too many stability issues and it would be obsolete as soon as everyone makes the 64bit transition.

[Prime Mover]

considering I have an old MacPro 1,1 with 7GB of RAM (and hardly worth buying more for at the moment), it won't be till I can afford a newer Mac and put a lot of RAM in it that it will affect me.

Holy crap, James... those are my specs, exactly! Though, I end up editing more on my new MacBook these days, as it's a bit faster... though it only has 4GB of RAM.

My understanding is bridging 32-bit plugs can be dodgy and cause some instability and that may well be why MOTU decided against it.

While I understand that, and won't really complain, I'm not sure that's exactly fair. Building a bridge right into the playback engine is probably a risky affair... but creating a bridge plugin, like a stripped down version of Bidule or VEPro doesn't seem like a particularly dodgy thing to do. That way, it keeps the bridge completely out of the main thread, and makes users very aware of the fact that they are doing something a little out of the ordinary. It would seem that creating a 32-64bit "wrapper" isn't really that impossible, and has proven to be stable enough. Including something like that would have been a nice olive branch. However, MOTU obviously had their hands full with this update, and I can understand not wanting to spend the extra time. I'll quietly purchase Bidule when I next upgrade my RAM, and happily run in 32-bit mode for the time being.

[climber]

Once MOTU creates the "bridge" then they own the problem. It's not in their best interest to do that...

[Killahurts]

Once MOTU creates the "bridge" then they own the problem. It's not in their best interest to do that...

Agreed. IIRC, that's what happened to Logic when they put out their 32 bit bridge a few years back.. it didn't work right, at least at first, and they had a lot of bitterness from users.

If you don't include one, you might get some upset users, but if you do include one and it doesn't work quite right, you'll have way more.

I only have one VI that's not 64 bit, the Korg Legacy stuff. Myself and others have really been trying to amp up the pressure on Korg to update it.. other than that, I'm pretty sure all my VI's and the important plugins are 64 bit ready. I might be forgetting something, though.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Funny how much we still want those Korg sounds. Wavesequences! Who needs 'em!

We do.

[Shooshie]

Once MOTU creates the "bridge" then they own the problem. It's not in their best interest to do that...

That is the perfect and final response. Makes complete sense to me.



Shoosh

[toodamnhip]

OK, so how does this all work?
You open up DP and it starts at 64 bit if your mac is set up to be able to run that?
Is there some sort of icon that shows 64 bit?
Then what?
The moment you load a waves 8 32 bit plug in it all translates down to 32 bit? What?
I am confused.

I can see a weird scenario where I have tons of VIs finally running happily in DP at 64 and then I load waves 8 (32) and poof, it goes down to 32 and I crash due to sudden, insufficient ram.
Or, if I open DP at 64 and try to load a 32 will I get a warning dialogue asking me if I wish to go down to 32?

Questions, questions.

[Michael Canavan]

Well the way it works in the Live 64 bit version is simple:
Live opens in Mountain Lion on my Mac Pro as the 64 bit version. Plug ins in my AU and VST folders that have not been made 64 bit compatible simply do not show up in Live in 64 bit mode. AU's anyway that have been updated to work in 64 bit DAWs don't look any different. So you won't get crashes due to DP8 trying to load 32 bit AU's.

You can force any 64 bit application to open in 32 bit by selecting it and choosing Get Info, ( command I ), the dialogue box has a checkbox in it near the top that says "always open in 32 bit mode" or something similar! This way all AU's you own should work in 32 bit mode. With VSTs I believe you have to download the 32 and 64 bit versions.

We are going to get topics with people going, "My plug in doesn't show in DP8!!! "

OK, so how does this all work?
You open up DP and it starts at 64 bit if your mac is set up to be able to run that?
Is there some sort of icon that shows 64 bit?
Then what?
The moment you load a waves 8 32 bit plug in it all translates down to 32 bit? What?
I am confused.

I can see a weird scenario where I have tons of VIs finally running happily in DP at 64 and then I load waves 8 (32) and poof, it goes down to 32 and I crash due to sudden, insufficient ram.
Or, if I open DP at 64 and try to load a 32 will I get a warning dialogue asking me if I wish to go down to 32?

Questions, questions.

[toodamnhip]

That sounds cool. If that is true I would vote for a more elegant method such as an icon in DP indicating 64 or 32 bit. The days of “get info” seem very prehistoric. Remember long ago assigning memory amounts in the get info area?..lol

[Booter]

That Get Info thing has nothing to do with DP. It's a mac thing. All of the 64 apps that are on your mac right now have that checkbox. You can use Get Info to make any of them run in 32 bit mode instead of 64 bit. In general you never have to think about that with other programs because they're not loading plugins.

[Prime Mover]

The days of “get info” seem very prehistoric. Remember long ago assigning memory amounts in the get info area?..lol

Oh man, that brings back memories! I remember having to set HyperCard to 10MB once back in the early 90s, I felt like I was takin' over!

Remember HyperCard? God, I must have spent 10-thousand hours on that program, hacking stacks with ResEdit to insert soundtracks into my projects. I remember programming in a Scott Joplin rag into the HyperCard MIDI player. Man, those were the days. Along with Wild Eep and Dog Cow Moof!

Sorry... off topic. Yeah, I remember assigning memory allocations.

[David Polich]

Well, speaking JUST for myself, I have been doing mostly rock/pop type songs so the whole memory limitation issue has never really been much of a factor for me so I'll just use DP8 in 32bit mode for a while until 64-bit versions of my plugs are available. Really, considering I have an old MacPro 1,1 with 7GB of RAM (and hardly worth buying more for at the moment), it won't be till I can afford a newer Mac and put a lot of RAM in it that it will affect me.

My understanding is bridging 32-bit plugs can be dodgy and cause some instability and that may well be why MOTU decided against it. At a certain point, old plugs are going to die. It's not MOTU's fault that products got orphaned and didn't make the upgrade to 64-bit, but seems like as the years progress, bridging old plugs is really a courtesy much like Apple let us have Rosetta for a while, but eventually killed it in favor of efficiency and streamlining I suppose?

Good point, James, I was waiting for someone to say this. The 32-bit bridge
in Logic 9 has been very problematic for a number of people.

64-bit doesn't sound any better. The advantage is only for those who need to run large sample libraries.

[bongo_x]

If it comes down to old projects with something like Sampletank, just print those tracks. Or new projects even. Dial up sound, print.

[SixStringGeek]

My understanding is bridging 32-bit plugs can be dodgy and cause some instability and that may well be why MOTU decided against it. At a certain point, old plugs are going to die. It's not MOTU's fault that products got orphaned and didn't make the upgrade to 64-bit, but seems like as the years progress, bridging old plugs is really a courtesy much like Apple let us have Rosetta for a while, but eventually killed it in favor of efficiency and streamlining I suppose?

I talked about this with Magic Dave yesterday and that's almost word for word what he said,lol.


Bridging would introduce too many stability issues and it would be obsolete as soon as everyone makes the 64bit transition.

Not everything is going to make the transition. B4 II is NOT going to make it.

I've been banging on the memory ceiling for awhile and ended up springing for Vienna Ensemble Pro to move plugs out of the DP address space. It works for both 64 and 32 bit plugins (two different servers). I've started putting all my instruments in it.

So if you gotta have a solution - there it is.

I actually think a nice solution would be for DP to add plugins servers and always run them outside of DP. This would make the main app more stable. Even just doing a 32-bit version would be cool.

[SixStringGeek]

Oh man, that brings back memories! I remember having to set HyperCard to 10MB once back in the early 90s, I felt like I was takin' over!

Remember HyperCard? God, I must have spent 10-thousand hours on that program, hacking stacks with ResEdit to insert soundtracks into my projects. I remember programming in a Scott Joplin rag into the HyperCard MIDI player. Man, those were the days. Along with Wild Eep and Dog Cow Moof!

Sorry... off topic. Yeah, I remember assigning memory allocations.

Greetings fellow stack head. I did a whole suite of apps for my blind grandmother in HC using the Talking Moose. I used to pretty much live in that thing.