What to Use 64 or 32 Bit O/S

[Lee]

One of the things I have notice here on Win 7 is there are those who still are attempting to let people know that having a 64 bit OS is at present not worth having. “Wrong.” The large software companies are not just starting to put out 64 bit software, they already have. Here are a few examples:

Adobe – Photoshop CS4 , and CS4 Suite, Photoshop Lightroom 2.5, Acrobat 9 (pretty much all Adobe products are available in both 64 and 32 bit.

VM Wear – VMWear virtual work station (virtual machine)

Corel Draw X4 Suite

Microsoft Office 2010 will be in the dual flavor of 64 and 32 bit

Sun Systems Virtual Box goes either way

I am a photographer by trade, and the advent of 64 bit processing power is a blessing. My main system is an Intel® Core™2 Quad Q9300 2.5GHz X4. Memory consists of 16 GB of DDR2 PC6400. All my work in Lightroom and Photoshop is done using the RAW format (very large files (10 -30 MB) and the difference between 32 and 64 bit processing is like night and day (sorry about the chic). On the average Lightroom (the application used most) can take up to 6 GB of memory when rending photos of over 10 MB.

So ask yourself what am I going to use this computer to do; play games (must games, even 32 bit will run on a 64 bit platform), crunching numbers (with the upcoming availability of 64 bit data bases, and spread sheets this is no longer an issue), photo rendering (believe me you cannot go wrong with 64 bit
applications).

The long and short is go with the 64 bit system. If you’re still in doubt and have both 32 and 64 bit O/S’s then setup a dual boot system. If you’re not able to dual boot then a Virtual PC/Machine application may be just the thing if you are running a 64 bit O/S (remember, a 32 bit O/S cannot run a 64 bit Virtual Machine program, nor can a 32 bit Virtual Machine run a 64 bit O/S). An oh-by-the-way: Virtual Box from Sun System is Freeware, and works a very well as a virtual PC.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi lee
I also do "Free Lance" shooting - often for some technical journals and then some travel stuff so I know about RAW files.

Using amongst others Canon 1DSM2 which produces very large files.

Surprisingly though for "One Off" picture processing say in a hotel room I've had Photoshop CS4 64 bit running on a small Laptop (dual core T7250) with 1GB RAM installed and it's quite dooable (Not for 100's of pics in batch etc etc).

Of course when I get back home I refine it better -- need a decent monitor with accurate colour calibration / CYMK / loads of other pre press stuff but even a small laptop is worth running 64 bit OS on if the CPU can handle it.

I haven't tried adobe lightroom yet -- I'm not sure I like the idea of a proprietary data base but people who have used it do like the fast workflow.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Lee]

Hi jimbo

Lightroom has a few nice things going for it (to many to go into at this time), and at present you can down load a thirty day full working copy from the adobe site. Lightroom has the ability to sent your photos into Photoshop CS4 for further processing just my right clicking on a photo.

My Laptop has a Intel Core 2 Dual 2.0 GHz processor with 3 GB of DDR2 PC6400 memory. (Seventeen inch screen; just love working on it in the field. Do primarily landscape - mountains, rivers, valleys - do a great deal of climbing, and hiking.

 

[swarfega]

Theres still no 64-bit flash player. That really will kick off the 64-bit browsing movement.

 

[Digger]

the only reason so far i have seen WHY to have/use 64 bit.... for either photo or video editing.... other than that, more mem or server, other than that... i reallllly realllly dont know

 

[patrickt]

For me, the issue isn't whether you need/should run 64-bit now. A few programs are written for 64-bit but very little that interests me.

When Microsoft offered the betas, I downloaded both. Why not try 64-bit for free? What's to lose?

So, I loaded 32-bit and got comfortable with the Windows7 beta. Then I did a clean install of the 64-bit version. Unfortunately, I had a defective motherboard/processor and the defect didn't appear until I ran 64-bit. System died. I got a replacement motherboard and processor, loaded 64-bit and was very pleasantly surprised.

I got all the drivers I need save one. I can't use Pentax Raw Codecs with 64-bit. Irritating but not a deal breaker. All of my programs, not that many, ran save one. And old Microsoft Bookshelf in Spanish won't load. That, too, is not a deal breaker.

So, I'm running 64-bit and when it's available I will buy Windows7 64-bit.

What advantage have I seen? None. But, as more programs are written for 64-bit I might. I think it's inevitable they will be.

Concerning IE8 64-bit not having Flash. Both the 64-bit and the 32-bit version of IE8 are on the disk so I have both icons, which are thoughtfully different, on my taskbar. I normally use 64-bit but if I need Flash I use the 32-bit.