What OS to choose for a new laptop with Vegas
 

Im considering bying this laptop:

Dell Precision M4400
Precision M4400 : Intel® Core™ 2 Duo
T9600 (2.8GHz,1066MHz,6MB)
4GB, 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel (2*2048)
Discrete nVidia FX770M Graphics Card
(with 512MB dedicated memory)
200GB SATA (7,200RPM) Hard Drive (Free
fall sensor)
8X DVD+/-RW Drive with Optical Media
15.4in Widescreen WUXGA (1920X1200) with 2CCFL

Im very confused on what OS I should choose, Vista 64bit was recommended so I could use V8.1. But I want to use Magic Bullet Looks so does that mean I cant use 32bit apps on 64bit Windows? Or can I use both Vegas 8.0c and 8.1 on Vista 64bit?

And will I have problems with getting drivers for my soundcards etc?

Sami

If you are getting more than 3Gb RAM then you need to run a 64bit OS. 32bit can't support more than 3Gb. Vista 64bit works great on my system, you should not have a problem getting drivers, most manufactures have new drivers out by now. You can also run both 32bit and 64bit software on a 64bit system. I have Vegas 8.0c and 8.1 on my system, I'm sure Magic Bullet will catch up to 64bit by end of next year until then just run 32bit 8.0c when you grade.

I run 8.1 and 8.0b on my Dell M6400 laptop. Work's great. I use XP64 bit on that laptop and couldn't be happier. I don't think that's a supported configuration though, so you might want to take that into account.

Hi Perrone,

Sounds great! yeah I think I have to go with Vista 64bit, it shouldnt be worse then XP 64bit?

Do you have a blue ray burner on that laptop?

Vista brings it's own troubles, and I preferred XP. I bought an external (Lacie) BluRay burner to go between this laptop and my primary editing machine. Be mindful that some BluRay players will NOT work with the NVidia card. I found that out the hard way. :(

At least on Dell Business side, you can get XP loaded with Vista to move up to at the time it becomes workable for you-- at least the last time I looked.

So you 64 bit guys-- what are the benefits of going that way, and will those benefits apply to his set with Core 2 duo only ?

I just bought a Dell desktop with Core2 Quad (9350 or something like that), but stayed with 32 bit Vista, and it certainly speeds up things already. Would I have been smarter to upgrade to 64 bit ?

I did a little looking and found this article on the 32 v. 64 bit situation. Some cases, using 32 bit applications in Vista 64 may slow them down...

Seems to me, we may be premature in looking at 64 bit for a while:

Performance Shootout: Vista 32-bit versus Vista 64-bit - Final Thoughts: What's Going On? - OS, Software & Networking by ExtremeTech

Vista 64 works good with Vegas 8C (Had Vista64 for10 months now). I'm hoping 8.1 will make my AMD6400+ fly a little faster. I've looked at MB a few times, and came to the conclusion Vegas did what I needed doing with excellent color correction capabilities. I don't claim to be an MB expert by any stretch.

I'm curious, what functions do you anticipate using MB for that you can't do with Vegas?

Magic Bullet is just a really good tool to do nice stuff quickly. You can do everything with Vegas I assume but it would take me hours instead of just a few clicks with MB.

64 bit OS is certainly not ready for prime time. do a little searching on the internet. you'll find that many apps are not ported. within vegas, itself, there are numerous 64 bit bugs, not the least of which are plugins that don't work in 64 bit. if you rely on editting for income, trust me, stay away from 64 bit, right now.

Hi

All of my work is my own films that I do so Im not dependant on time schedules or other people.

What do you people think the downside would be to running Vegas 8.0c and 8.1 on Vista 64bit? This way I could use both and see which works for me. Or would you still recommend I use XP 32bit and dont even bother with 8.1?

Boy this computer world has gotten so complicated.

Sami

PS. if anyone wants to comment on the laptop Im thinking about buying I would appreaciate opinions on that one too!

Set up a dual boot system and then you can use BOTH.

The biggest issue at this point with 8.1 is that the third party effects have not been updated to work in 64 bit so they're not available. The good news is that, generally speaking, scripts will work fine.

According to Microsoft's own knowledge base article 929605, all 32-bit versions of Vista support up to 4GB of memory, but the actual usable address space will be less than 4GB. It usually comes out to 3.5 for me in 32 bit, even with XP.

32 bit Vista is a safe bet, especially if you turn off all unnecessary features.

64 bit is now shipping on many new laptops, as I have witnessed at local stores, and it is running extremely stable for many people, including me.

Despite the fact I run 64 bit windows without issues, I cannot see much of a real world advantage with it.

But nevertheless, because the Precision Mobile M4400 is built as a 64 bit ready unit, it will run very well with 64 bit. And I see you can have buisness editition Vista 64 bit at no extra charge.

32 Bit apps, including Vegas run fine on 64 bit, and I found it renders faster for me, though I don't know why it does, but it does.

Regarding memory, it is said the reason many PCs are shipping with 3GB of memory and not 4GB is not because Vista won't use most of it, but because when it appears as 3.5GB users will complain about not "having" 4GB of memory to the manufacturers. The nightmare of people screaming at their tech support staff, etc made shipping PCs with 3GB a no-brainer.

I haven't figured it out, but when I ran 32 bit vista, all 8GB of my memory showed up. I know it is not supposed to, but it did. I'm sure it did not use it, of course, but the OS saw it. On a subsequent occasion after a reinstall it showed up as 3.5. Go figure.