64 bit Vegas in November?
 

Was anybody at the April 16th Sony Creative Software presentation at NAB?

I ask because a senior co-worker just killed my Vegas 8 upgrade because a "64 bit" Vegas was coming in November.

I remember this press release:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...?ReleaseID=660

Is this going to happen anytime soon? And wouldn't a 64 bit Vegas be useless unless you had a 64 bit platform?

My suspicion is that the "64 bit Vegas" is Vegas 8 taking advantage of the 64 bit Vista and AMD64 chips. OR at most it's a Vegas 8.1 upgrade/version and not a whole new version of the software.

I would find it hard to believe that Sony was going to release a whole new Vegas two months after the last revision. I hope I'm wrong, because the discounted upgrade price ends October 31st.

Any help or clarification is appreciated.

Just a guess but 64 bit Vegas is just going to be Vegas 8 certified for Vista64. No new features. Then the problem is finding a stable Vista64 box with all drivers being Vista64 drivers.

New features would be improved performance in some areas.

A- You can use more RAM. Though the amount you can use is still bottlenecked by:
--The chipset (or memory controller??).
--The OS
--The size of RAM chips
--That's all I can remember off the top of my head.

But yes you will be able to get longer RAM previews.

B- Optimizations for 64-bit processors. You have more registers available so there are optimizations that you can do which aren't possible in 32-bit. AFAIK.
There are some benchmarks out there comparing 64-bit apps to 32-bit apps... 64-bit apps are a little faster.
techreport.com would be one site

Thanks Glen.

So is there going to be a 64bit Vegas? OR is Vegas 8 just 64bit ready?

To obtain Certified for Windows Vista status for a 32-bit application, it has to pass the rigorous tests on both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms (specifically Vista Ultimate). Hence, the 32-bit version is already 64-bit Vista certified.

cool thanks.

Running VP8 on x64 Xp Pro
 

I haven't had a single issue running Vegas Pro 8 (Vegas 7 before that) on x64 XP Pro. As far as I'm concerned, SONY's apps run just as well on x64 XP Pro if not better, than on XP Pro 32 bit.

Unlike Adobe's apps which MIGHT install and MIGHT see your CD/DVD burner on x64 XP Pro, my copy of Acid Pro 4 works as if it were programmed for 64bit Xp Pro. Vista - well, that's another matter altogether.

Personally, I'm itching to see Vegas Pro 64bit released ASAP so I can see if it really will run on x64 XP Pro - if it does, I find no compelling reason to upgrade to the bloatware known as Vista.

My $0.02 worth

Finally talked to someone who would definitely know the answer to this. I can't say who or reveal much, but there is a new Vegas coming... But not for a long time. A long time in software terms.

I was right - it wasn't worth waiting. There is always a better version of [insert a camera, device or software here] coming just around the corner.

Well, the advantage of a 64 bit Vegas would be the amount of Ram it could utilize. 32 bit windows only will see 2-3 Gb, where as 64 will allow you to use much more, thus decreasing render times for intensive files. Now, will Vegas 64 bit utilize more ram......

Just to clarify:

32-bit version can run on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. On either OS, it will "only" get 2GB (unless the /3GB dodgy hack is used - correctly called 4GT or 4 gigabyte tuning)

64-bit version can only run on 64-bit Windows. How much memory it can get depends on how it is programmed.

Unless otherwise programmed, a 64-bit application on 64-bit Windows will still only get 2GB. To get the true benefits, applications have to be written in a similar manner required for /3GB aware applications. If this is done, the application gets up to 4TB of memory (it doesn't matter if the amount of physical memory is available - it will use the paging file on the hard drive as per usual).

It requires quite some effort to convert existing 32-bit applications to 64-bit AND to follow the stricter rules needed to support the 4TB option.

Interestingly, the amount of physical memory you can access depends on the version of 64-bit Windows:

XP: 128GB

Vista Ultimate: 128GB
Vista Enterprise: 128GB
Vista Business: 128GB
Vista Home Premium: 16GB
Vista Home Basic: 8GB