Bying a new laptop should I get 64-bit OS?

essami wrote on 8/28/2008, 1:52 PM

Hi,

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

Should I get it with Vista 64bit, XP 64 bit or what OS? Im totally confused on what would be the best thing to do at this point. I want to be able to use the upcoming Vegas 64bit version if its free fro Vegas 8 owners.

Also it would be cool to be able to use the full 4GB of ram, that would mean Vista right?

Ive tried Vista on few of my friends computers and it seems like a lot of sugar and thats that, didnt like it at all.

All advice on my questions and opinions on the laptop choice are welcome. Oh and I live in Finland so I cant order my laptop from the US.

Thanks!!!

Sami

Comments

xberk wrote on 8/28/2008, 3:33 PM

Sami I've had 64 bit Vista on my main station PC the past year. No big complaints. But no big advantage yet. I think we'll see 64 bit Vegas very soon and then it will be a no brainer to upgrade. Go for it now. I see no penalty to do so.

Terje wrote on 8/28/2008, 6:27 PM

If you want to use all the RAM, Vista 64 or XP 64 is it. Hopefully Dell offers it with Vista 64 pre-installed. Vista 32 will only be able to access about 3.5G of your 4G of memory (as will XP).

I am with you in not liking Vista too much, but you can turn off most of the candy and improve performance in that way. I just got Vista 64 on my new Lenovo laptop, and it was a bit of a pain. Much of it Microsoft's fault and an awful lot of it Lenovo's fault. As with most vendors Lenovo installs all kinds of crap on their PCs, such as Norton and stuff, and it is a pain in the neck to get rid of it all. When I started out, if I logged in as a second user I would get "Not enough resources to do that" message from Vista regularly, and that with 200G disk and 4G of memory.

After stripping all the junk away life is much better. In a few hours I will see how it works with Mac OS X. :-)

blink3times wrote on 8/28/2008, 6:39 PM

I have Vista ultimate 64 on one machine and Vista home 32 on another. The vista 64 is well worth the time and effort. It runs smooth clean, and problem free. However I am not that impressed with vista 32. I find that there is little to be gained over XP and therefore not worth the effort.

Xander wrote on 8/28/2008, 6:52 PM

I have been running Vista 64 HP on my Dell XPS Gen 5 for over a year. Only upgrades I did were increase the RAM to 4GB and replace a DVD drive that died after 3.5 years. System runs flawlessly. My attitude now is, I'm 64 bit - either you work or I don't purchase you. Vegas 8b and Adobe Master Collection CS3 run without issue.

essami wrote on 8/29/2008, 3:13 AM

thanks, thats very reassuring!

Sami

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 8/29/2008, 3:25 AM

Moikka Sami,

If you want to run the upcoming Vegas 64 bit on an OS that is officially supported, then you don't have any alternatives!!! You have to get Vista x64. This info comes directly from SCS.

XP x64 is not going to be supported, and that was about the only reason I scrapped it and installed Vista 64bit. Vp8.0b runs smoothly on Vista 64 even if not officially supported. Ok, the other reason was to get support for Blu-ray drives natively, a thing that XP x64 lacks. I would never get Vista because of its eye-candy effects. So far the only remarkable improvement I value, is the improved search...

Now, only the 64 bit Vegas is missing... when...september... this year?

Christian

essami wrote on 8/29/2008, 4:01 AM

Thanks Christian, good advice! My only gripe about the Dell is that theres no blu-ray drive.

Apparently Vegas 8.1 coming in September yeah:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=610316

Sami

Marc S wrote on 8/29/2008, 9:00 AM

I'm also thinking about upgrading to Vista 64 and was wondering if I need the Pro version as opposed to the Home?

Thanks, Marc

riredale wrote on 8/29/2008, 9:10 AM

Could someone explain the benefit of going to 64 bit? I'm not picking for a fight here, I just don't understand.

I currently run XPpro (32 bit) and my system has 2GB of ram. RamPage shows that, even for my complex HDV projects, Vegas never uses more than about 1GB of ram. I understand that the fundamental benefit of 64 bit is a larger address space and thus the elimination of the 4GB ram limit, but if we're talking Vegas, which according to my experience never taps even my 2GB, then what's the point?

Xander wrote on 8/29/2008, 9:24 AM

"Could someone explain the benefit of going to 64 bit? I'm not picking for a fight here, I just don't understand. "

Let's see:
Vegas 8.1 64bit
After Effects CS4 64bit
Photoshop CS4 64bit

Clearly, your computer should have 4GB of RAM or more before it is worth making the move. When I buy a replacement for my XPS Gen 5 later this year, it will either be a Quad Core with 8GB of RAM or a Dual Quad Xeon with 16GB of RAM.

essami wrote on 9/29/2008, 7:06 AM

Hi,

Im still totally undecided about going to Vista 64bit. Because to me it seems that the plugins I use (MBL etc.) wont work with it and also Ive heard people having trouble finding drivers for programs and hardware.

Im want to use this laptop as an all around machine on the go. I need a good laptop that I can use for recording audio as I travel a lot, use it for offloading SxS cards from my EX1 (this dell laptop descirped above should handle editing well too) and the usual internet and email everyday stuff. So the OS should definately be as compatible as possible.

Any thoughts on this? Im leaning towards XP pro since that seems to have least problems for my type of usage.

Heres my main question though: Does the vista 64bit allow use of 32bit programs and hardware and does it emulate 32bit OS in these situations, or am I just doomed if I wanna use a soundcard that doesnt have 64bit drivers?

Sami

rmack350 wrote on 9/29/2008, 6:35 PM

You are doomed if you want to use a soundcard that doesn't have 64-bit drivers, BUT Vista64 is much more likely to get drivers than XP64, so of the two, pick Vista64.

If you just want a 32bit OS and can choose, choose XP Pro. You miss out on the last GB of RAM but the laptop is 64-bit ready and you know the basic drivers must be available.

If you haven't bought gear, you still have the option of choosing a sound card that does have a 64-bit driver.

Rob Mack

blink3times wrote on 9/29/2008, 7:41 PM

"Heres my main question though: Does the vista 64bit allow use of 32bit programs and hardware and does it emulate 32bit OS in these situations, or am I just doomed if I wanna use a soundcard that doesnt have 64bit drivers?"

Drivers need to be 64 bit compatible. You can't use a 32 bit driver in a 64 bit system.
32bit programs on the other hand will work. I have only run into 2 in my arsenal that won't.... Wavelab 6 and my firewall.

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 9/29/2008, 8:58 PM

As long as all your hardware works in 64-bit - there's no reason IMO to not get it.

All the 32bit software I've tried in it works just fine, and you can have more than 3.5 Gigs of ram avail.

Dave

tcbetka wrote on 9/30/2008, 5:01 AM

Anyone here now running Vegas Pro 8.1 on their 64-bit machine? How well is it working for you, compared to your old 32-bit version? Also, which version of Vista 64-bit are you using?

Apparently there is no support from SCS for v8.1 on XP 64-bit.

Thanks.

TB

JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/30/2008, 5:19 AM

> Anyone here now running Vegas Pro 8.1 on their 64-bit machine? How well is it working for you, compared to your old 32-bit version?

Well it's not working out at all because both of my audio interfaces, M-Audio Firewire 410 and PreSonus FireStudio Project, have no 64-bit drivers which means I have no audio which means I can't get any serious work done. So... thus far Vista64 is a bust for me. I dual boot into XP most days and stay there.

I "played" with Vegas Pro 8.1 a bit and it did seem to load and respond faster but that may just be because it's a new install of an OS and XP was very fast when I first installed it too.

> Also, which version of Vista 64-bit are you using?

I bought Vista Home Premium. The Ultimate version seems to be a complete waste of money. All it has extra is BitLocker which doesn't work on 99% of the PC's and some "extras" that either haven't been defined yet or are so uninteresting as to be negligible. Home Premium at $99 street price seems to be the sweet spot.

~jr