64bit DAW attempt-- disaster

C

CPhoenix

CharlesAllen/ BMR Studios
Ugghhh... Anybody got a 64bit DAW fully working for them by any chance?

My latest attempt at stepping up to 64bit was an EPIC fail lol. For whatever reason... my current setup just won't allow my 64bit bridge to operate correctly. I use Jbridge... and let me start by saying the programmer of Jbridge is AMAZING customer service-wise. Dude literally took time out of his schedule to help me troubleshoot almost every aspect of my system, even remote logging in to my computer to help out.

Turns out.. my issue is with my video cards and most their IRQ assignments, which can't be manually changed in Win7. Whereas they technically aren't sharing an IRQ... the video card still isn't playing nice for some reason. So... i'm stuck with 32bit for now. My 64bit DAW technically runs the plugins, but it becomes waayy too unstable for comfort once my projects start getting large. I don't necessarily NEED to be in a 64bit environment... but it sure would be nice to use all this RAM lol. I even tried reverse bridging 64bit plugs into the 32bit DAW (which would at least give those few plugins that were bridged access to all of my system's RAM)... but that yielded the same performance results. It's not the bridge that's the issue... it's my system. Must be an issue w/ my motherboard/ video card combo etc and it's ability to properly communicate.

But anyway.. i'm just curious... Does anybody have a 64bit setup that actually works? I mean... a setup that works as well as their 32bit DAW works? If so... how many plugins do you have bridged in your setup?

I'm not going to drop any extra money on my computer just to use the 64bit version... but, eventually i'd like to make that move a few years down the line. Why the hell not.

I'm especially interested to hear from you Intel i7 users out there. I choose AMD when I built my setup, but now i'm wondering if I'd run into this problem w/ an Intel-based system.
 
No problems with Reaper x64. Has a built in bridge. I don't have any problems with the various cards I have used with my AMD setup.

If it was me I'd do a fresh install of Win 7 and download the latest drivers for all your hardware and latest software updates.
 
What third-party VST instruments do you use if you don't mind me asking tho?

(I'm not interested in switching DAWs again, too in love w/ S1. But dammit.. u make me contemplate lmao)
 
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Loads, all the Stillwell stuff all the Bootsy stuff, DDMF, a few Waves plugins but mostly free stuff. The beats are made in FL, I just use Reaper to mix and occasionally record.

Download the reaper the demo its fully functional and never expires. Even if you don't switch its so small and another DAW is handy to have around if you need to troubleshoot plugins. You can even run it from USB.
 
Yeah... i already downloaded and am installing my plugs now LOL.. just curious to see if everything will work. If it does... i might use it as a backup DAW to run in 64bit which i want to make something huge that requires more than 4GB.

Do you run any instruments or synths though? IE nexus, albino, gladiator, kontakt... anything like that that's CPU/RAM intensive? Or do you mostly just load up effects?
 
Occasionally I'll load up nexus to add something instead of goingt back to FL and exporting it out but mostly its effects. Most of my stuff is sampled but I play around with synths when I get bored of stealing :D

I have had like a bunch of Nexu instances loaded up at once with no problems. 8GB of ram and a 3Ghz Quad helps.
 
Haha... that's interesting. Yeah I loaded up Reaper and it actually looks like it would run good if i decided to use it. I haven't done a heavy test yet though. Ugghhh.... S1 needs a bitbridge.

N yeah... i'm a 3.2 quad w/ 16GB. I shouldn't be having these problems lol.
 
*sigh* tell me about it. I got a deal on it, so i'm not that mad. It's just...uuggghhh!!!!!! lol

I need to write a letter to Presonus haha
 
Do a fresh system install. IRQ issues are rare. Just start off with the essentials, and install your audio device at first boot. Also, download your latest drivers. It's possible that one of them is corrupt and creating instabilities.
 
I just fought the same 64 bit fight with Cubase 5.5.

Setup: Intel Core i7 ( the one with 12 cores !!!), 16 GB of ram.


99% of my plugins are working..... and Ive got some old ones, like Edirol Orchestral.

The folks in the Cubase forum over at steinberg.net report that Cubase 6.1 64 bit has better support for 32 bit pluggins. I'll try that later, but for now, jBridge is a life saver.
 
krushing said:
Wow. I last remember having IRQ issues somewhere back in Win95 world. :D
Click to expand...


I know man... its pretty sad isn't it. The thing that gets me is the videp card is technically on its own IRQ number, but the number is -2. How the hell can it be negative lol. Something is just too fishy about that and I'm almost certain that's where the problem is coming from. Maybe it happened after I installed a 2nd dedicated video card.

I didn't think about a fresh system reinstallation, but I might actually try it. *sigh*. Good thing I have an external. This is gonna be a freakin project.

Would this fix a negative IRQ number though? Is having that number negative a bad thing? A google search didn't really answer that for me yet.

---------- Post added at 08:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:08 PM ----------
mistaox said:
I just fought the same 64 bit fight with Cubase 5.5.

Setup: Intel Core i7 ( the one with 12 cores !!!), 16 GB of ram.


99% of my plugins are working..... and Ive got some old ones, like Edirol Orchestral.

The folks in the Cubase forum over at steinberg.net report that Cubase 6.1 64 bit has better support for 32 bit pluggins. I'll try that later, but for now, jBridge is a life saver.
Click to expand...

What did u do to fix it if you don't mind me asking?
 
CPhoenix said:
I know man... its pretty sad isn't it. The thing that gets me is the videp card is technically on its own IRQ number, but the number is -2. How the hell can it be negative lol. Something is just too fishy about that and I'm almost certain that's where the problem is coming from. Maybe it happened after I installed a 2nd dedicated video card.
Click to expand...

Some info about negative IRQs here, no actual solution though.
 
Thanks man. I'm going to try a few tricks that were linked to that article. If they don't work, it sounds like I'm pretty much screwed with win7 since I can't adjust IRQs. Its not the actual OS causing problems, but the drivers have to be clashing, and since Windows are assholes they took away the ability to manually change them lol. Just my luck.

Contemplating dropping to vista 64 or maybe even xp 64. since my FW410 looks like it finally has an xp64 driver.

Uuuuggghhh... why can't shi-t just WORK!!!
 
Update...


Okay, now I feel completely stuck. Stuck on stupid.

I was about to begin the system overhaul last night, but something slowed me up. I started double checking if IRQ assignments are possible in XP.. and it appears it's not as easy as I thought it would be. Anybody ever hear about ACPI? Well... I feel like ACPI is single handed destroying me LOL!!!

ACPI apparently has to be disabled to reassign IRQs. And from what i'm reading, it appears as though ACPI is required to use multiple cores of the processor. Is this correct? Am I reading into this wrong? If this is correct..... this means I am totally screwed. Even an OS change wouldn't solve the problem... b/c to fix it, i need to have clean IRQ paths for my firewire port and my graphics card. To change that IRQ path, i have to disable ACPI. Disabling ACPI leaves me with one freaking CPU core. It's a classic case of which came first.... chicken or the egg!!

Stuck on stupid. Pllleeeeassseee tell me if any OS allows you to use all cores and reassign IRQ, or if there's any other Hal's out there besides ACPI that allow you to do this under Win 7, Vista, or XP... if you're aware of any. I have a feeling this topic is a little too technical for most... but if you know ANYTHING about this, pplllleeeeaaassseee share.

I only have 3 options, 1) change PCI slot for firewire port, 2) reinstall Win 7, and 3) reinstall Win XP 64bit. And i'm no longer confident either of these options if going to allow me to take advantage of my quad core and 16GB of RAM at the same time.

I feel like shootin somebody... but that's illegal. Anybody have a spare slingshot?

---------- Post added at 07:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:18 AM ----------

or 4) buy a new interface w/ better drivers that know how to communicate w/ the CPU.

---------- Post added 11-25-2011 at 09:52 PM ---------- Previous post was 11-23-2011 at 07:22 AM ----------

2nd update.

I have a PCI firewire card that connects my interface. I wound up switching it to the 2nd PCI slot and saw a big improvement. Still get issues in 64bit world when the project gets larger, but feels like I'm on the right track. Its most likely a mixture of IRQ issues and I'm also thinking my maudio drivers may just not be written well. Gonna try a few more tweaks tomorrow, as well as possibly reinstalling win 7 to see if that fixes things.

If that does work n I can't get 64 bit plugs to run smooth... sigh, might seriously try win xp again. Why the hell not.. its a 4 day weekend lol

---------- Post added 11-29-2011 at 02:17 PM ---------- Previous post was 11-25-2011 at 09:52 PM ----------

Update>> In case anybody's wondering or is having similar problems in 64 bit world.

I installed Win XP64.. close but no cigar. No significant improvement. More stable w/ nothing going on but ASIO spiked worse when switching between GUIs and other tasks. It's a shame too, b/c XP is lighter and functions felt like they were moving a little faster. XP doesn't nearly use up as much RAM to run the OS as Win 7 does. So.. i'm switching back to Win 7 anyway. Worse performance in XP, plus I'm waay too used to the workflow in 7 now. It's definitely an improvement over XP. 64bit XP wil not allow an IRQ change either. The only thing clashing was my sound card, and I guarantee that has sometime to do with the problem. I might end up disabiling some USB slots in win 7.

Interestingly enough though, I changed my PCI firewire card to a different slot and that dramatically helped the situation, in both OS. Even though there was never an IRQ conflict. The card was ALWAYS on it's own IRQ technically.... however, that number was always above 16, so it likely did share a physical path to the CPU, just not a virtual path.

Anyway, i'll keep yall updated if anything changes for the better. As of now, i'm just going to have to be content w/ 32bit S1. The insulting part is that after some baseline tests Cubase seems to operate well w/ bridged plugins, and Reaper seems to operate VERY well w/ their bridge. So... shoutout to you Cubase & Reaper users. Too bad i don't like those DAWS lol... i'm too stuck on S1 now.
 
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