Logic Pro 9 64 Bit?

Andre Favreau

Logician
Hi

Would there be any advantage for me to switch from Leopard to Snow Leopard and using 64bit instead of 32? My Ram is maxed out at 4GB.

Thanks

Andre
 
Quite the opposite. You might have plug ins that dont' work under the 32-bit bridge and your audio interface may not yet have 64 bit drivers.
 
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I have an RME Fireface 800. I just got an e-mail from RME saying I could boot Snow Leopard in 64 bit mode.

My plugins are:
Omnisphere
Stylus
Trilian
Superior Drummer
Ivory

thanks again
 
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I have an RME Fireface 800. I just got an e-mail from RME saying I could boot Snow Leopard in 64 bit mode.

My plugins are:
Omnisphere
Stylus
Trilian
Superior Drummer
Ivory

thanks again

If your audio interface has 64-bit drivers, you're in luck that the Spectrasonics plug-ins either are or will go 64-bit in just a few weeks. So maybe wait a couple of weeks, and then go 64-bit when the update to Omnisphere and Trillian are available.

In that time, you may want to do a bit of research to make sure that Superior Drummer and Ivory work without issue in Logic's 32-bit plug-in bridge. They should work, but I don't know.

Keep in mind that there is no ReWire in 64-bit mode, so if you use ReWire, you're limited to the 32-bit version of Logic.

Hope that helps,
Orren
 
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The "64 bit" thing refers to memory addresses (actually 63 bit). Previously, 32bit memory addresses maxed out at 2^32 = 4,294,967,296 bytes (4GB). This means that Logic and all plugins could only "see" 4GB (except for EXS24, which was recently given its own 4GB of space as long as you had 5GB or more physical RAM). Even if an individual 3rd party plugin was coded for 64bit addressing, it was still treated as if it were 32bit.

Logic in 64bit mode can see 2^63 = 9,223,372,040,000,000,000 bytes (9EB aka ExaBytes). I found out it wasn't actually 64bit because I have 12EB in my Mac and Logic didn't see it all.

If you only have 4GB to begin with, the ability to address more than this won't be useful to you. In fact, there are several things that aren't 64bit compatible yet (Apple has listed them, such as Firewire Video playback, Euphonix control, etc.....).

Don't confuse the concept of memory addressing with audio engine. Both are measured in bits but have nothing to do with each other. Angles, temperature, and separation from Kevin Bacon are all measured in degrees, but they also have nothing to do with each other.
 
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I have an RME Fireface 800. I just got an e-mail from RME saying I could boot Snow Leopard in 64 bit mode.

You don't want to boot SnowLeopard into 64-bit mode. There is no reason to do so, because you can launch 64-bit applications even with the kernel being in 32-bit. A 64-bit kernel becomes important if you have MORE than 32GB of memory installed in your MacPro or Xserve, because then the actual kernel get's thight on address space. However, for Logic you don't need that.
 
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I have an RME Fireface 800. I just got an e-mail from RME saying I could boot Snow Leopard in 64 bit mode.

Clarification: Don't confuse booting Snow Leopard into 64bit mode with booting Logic into 64bit mode. There is no current reason to boot Snow Leopard into 64bit mode for Logic's sake.

To boot Logic into 64bit mode, first quit the program. Then do a "Get Info" on Logic (found in the Applications folder) and turn OFF "Open in 32bit mode" (or whatever it says).
 
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Hey Zerobeat,

I was under the impression that EXS could access more than 4 gig max, that it could use as much as you have available, for example, if you had 16 gig, you could load the EXS with 10 of them no problem.

Can you, or someone else who knows this answer, clarify this for me?

thanks,

George Leger III
 
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I was under the impression that EXS could access more than 4 gig max, that it could use as much as you have available, for example, if you had 16 gig, you could load the EXS with 10 of them no problem.

This is correct.

When running the 32-bit version of Logic, the EXS24 uses a memory mapping scheme by which instances of the EXS24 that would require more memory than the 4GB allocated to Logic are given their own memory space outside of the Logic 4GB memory space.

The EXS24 isn't the only sampler that can do this, BTW. I believe that Kontakt 3.5+ offers this same kind of memory mapping. I think one other does as well, but I'm not sure which.

However, you can still run into trouble in the 32-bit version of Logic if you have too many instances of the EXS or Kontakt (or any other plug-in using this memory mapping technique). Even when a sampler is mapped to an external memory space for it's sample instrument, that instance still takes up a small amount of the memory space inside of Logic (so that Logic knows it's running, etc).

That's my best explanation of my current understanding. :)

Orren
 
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The issue I face is that I quickly get limited in regards to RAM.

With Superior Drummer, Trilian and Ivory, it's not long that I hit the max.

My MacBook Pro doesn't allow more than 4GB.

That's why I often use Logic 7 instead. It works much better for me. I can put a lot more plugins. I then switch to Logic 9 at the end to benenfit from flex editing.

So I was just wondering if Snow Leopard and 64 bit could help with this issue.

thanks
 
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thanks Orren, that's what I thought.

Kontakt 3.5, Play 1.25, and VSL (the current version) all have 64 bit engines.

I have set up big templates for some of the composers I work for (one guy has a 32 gig Mac Pro that has 1 instance of Play with 51 QLSO instruments in it. The thing takes 15 minutes to load, but works perfect, and hasn't crashed more than one o 2 times in the last 6 or 7 months of almost daily use).

Not sure about Hallion, or Mach 5 though...

Sorry I missed meeting you at the show Mr O.

George
 
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My MacBook Pro doesn't allow more than 4GB.

That's why I often use Logic 7 instead. It works much better for me. I can put a lot more plugins. I then switch to Logic 9 at the end to benenfit from flex editing.

So I was just wondering if Snow Leopard and 64 bit could help with this issue.

Sorry, it won't. And you see the problem: Logic 9 is larger than Logic 7, because the new features of L8 and L9 cost a bit of additional memory. And because your computer only supports 4GB of memory, 64-bit mode doesn't really make sense.

However you _could_ use it, but if you run out of physical memory, your system will start swapping and get crawling slow. It won't crash, which is nice, but might be too slow to work with. But if you are running out of memory just barely, it might just do the trick for you!
 
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