64 bit Windows Professional free beta

[John L.]

I am downloading the free Windows Professional 64 bit beta for AMD 64, as we speak. Cakewalk is offering a free alpha of Sonar 4PE 64 bit. Go to www.kvraudio.com for more info. What a crazy day!! :) :)

[JonFairhurst]

M-Audio has many 64-bit drivers. Cool.

-JF

[John L.]

This version of Windows has a lot of bugs, I cant even get the M-audio drivers to work. I wouldn't recomend it unless you really know what you are doing. I've got a long night ahead of me :confused:

[JBacal]

Does anyone know if GS3 would be able to take advantage of more memory using this new 64 bit alpha Win OS?

[Green Red Brownell]

This version of Windows has a lot of bugs, I cant even get the M-audio drivers to work. I wouldn't recomend it unless you really know what you are doing. I've got a long night ahead of me :confused:

Why not just wait for the real thing?? Last I saw in the press, it was shipping sometime in the 1st half of '05..... haven't seen anything about it lately...

[Nick Batzdorf]

I assume you'll need a 64-bit processor to get 64-bit memory access, right?

[EverlastingMan]

I assume you'll need a 64-bit processor to get 64-bit memory access, right?

You said it. :)

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Certainly anyone who CAN run some of this stuff would benefit the companies who are working to produce it...they need early guinea-pigs. Don't put it on a production machine, for sure.

But it's risky to run a beta OS. You're not going to benefit unless the software is written for it, and a beta OS can really break your heart.

Not to be discouraging at all, but don't put yourself in a heap of misery expecting to benefit at this juncture. Everything available right now is going to be early, early software on top of a buggy OS. So, just go into it knowing you're performing a noble deed, not getting some amazing boost in capability.

What I have heard so far is that there is definitely some DSP benefit to be gained, although how much benefit is still being determined. Obviously the nut for samplers is the available ram-addressing space to be gained. For DAW apps, probably only the DSP-bandwidth gains really mean much. There's not so much need for addressing huge amounts of RAM in a DAW.

[js33]

There's not so much need for addressing huge amounts of RAM in a DAW.

How do you figure that?

I only have 1 gig (all my current mb supports) and I can only load one instance of Gold with sometimes all 8 slots filled before I run out of ram. I look forward to having 16 gig of ram soon so I can load all the instruments and effects I want and run GigaStudio at the same time. :D

Also I do animation and graphics as a freelancer and I need all the ram I can get for that. I could easily load enough stuff at once to run out with even 16 gig.

Cheers,
JS

[John L.]

I set this up on an AMD64 laptop and found out that any device that did not have a 64 bit driver did not work. That included my built in wireless internet, and printer. What really puzzles me is my M-audio FW410. I tried all of their drivers 64 bit, 32 bit, nothing works. So I deleted the Windows 64bit OS and opened a new can of worms, Internet explorer stopped working, some kind of
error saying that it wasn't 32 bit, same thing for outlook express, they were both 64 bit versions, and you can't uninstall them, It's a good thing I just recently installed the Firefox Mozilla web-browser, and that worked, and Incredimail which worked fine. Then had to change the boot .ini file because it was booting up with two operating systems, and on the start-up screen you had to choose which one you wanted (windows 64 or windows xp) Everything else works but the M-audio the drivers just get lost somewhere.
Oh well,
Back to the drawingboard :confused:

[js33]

Yeah it's too early to try to use it for a production machine. At this point it is only meant to test things out or for developers. I would stick to 32 bit until it is officially released. Even then it will take awhile for all the device drivers to be updated and as usual some probably never will be and alot of previously useful equipment will wind up on the computer trash heap.

Cheers,
JS

[Green Red Brownell]

You got that right! It's the way of the world... I had to lose a couple of older hardware cards to upgrade to WinXP a while back.... 64-bit will be the same way.


- Green

[MDesigner]

Just an interesting note: owners of XP Pro will be able to trade in their license for a copy of XP 64.

[lumpyhed]

I wonder how easy it will be to upgrade from XP to XP 64. I dont really fancy doing a full reinstall when this comes out retail. When i tried to upgrade 2000 - XP thats basically what i had to do. ;x

[lukpcn]

I wonder how easy it will be to upgrade from XP to XP 64. I dont really fancy doing a full reinstall when this comes out retail. When i tried to upgrade 2000 - XP thats basically what i had to do. ;x

I personally think that You'll have to do a clean instal... all from scratch :(

[FredProgGH]

I personally think that You'll have to do a clean instal... all from scratch :(


It's ALWAYS wise to do that with Windoze. But in this case most of us will be putting it on a new machine so it's a moot point.