Vista 32 or Vista 64?

[von_Runkel]

Hi all,

My new workstation (Dual Intel Xeon E5440 / 4 GB RAM) needs an operating system. The options are Vista 32 or Vista 64. Among other things, the computer needs to do:

Avisynth video serving and filtering
TMPGEnc 2.5 MPEG-2 encoding
Windows Media Video encoding
Virtualdub filtering and uncompressed AVI transcoding

Question:
If the workstation is dedicated to only the above mentioned software and tasks, is it performing slower with Vista 64 than Vista 32?

(And yes, I'm going to dual boot XP32 for safety...)

Tried to find an answer to this but found not so much about Vista 32 / Vista 64 performance.

All inputs are very welcome.

Thanks.

[JohnnyMalaria]

32-bit processes running on 64-bit Windows perform about the same as on 32-bit Windows. In my experience, some video-related apps ran about 1 or 2% slower and some were a little faster.

Because you specify 4GB RAM, 64-bit Vista won't give you the benefit that more RAM can. With more RAM, you can run more 32-bit applications at the same time without the usual performance drop with 32-bit Windows (lots of paging etc). This is very helpful when multitasking.

Also bear in mind that hardware support isn't as good with 64-bit.

[burfadel]

With 32 bit Vista there's also the 3GB problem, you may not be able to access all your memory. Its more complicated than just saying you'll only be able to access 3gb under 32 bit, as there is Physical Address Extension and PCI remapping etc., however this has to be supported by the BIOS and CPU and even then you may be limited to just 3gb of RAM under 32 bit!

The hardware support point argument is a bit iffy, as for Vista I believe to get WHQL they need both a 32 and 64 bit version of the same driver version? Display, sound, ethernet, etc drivers are well covered by both 32 and 64 bit versions under Vista.

[JohnnyMalaria]

The cautionary advice about hardware is valid because many people have legacy hardware no longer supported by the vendor. Even new hardware won't necessarily have 64-bit driver support. It isn't a requirement to get logo certification just as it isn't for software. Many leading vendors market hardware that has 32-bit driver support only or beta 64-bit drivers. Therefore, anyone considering Vista 64 should do their homework to ensure that they won't run into unexpected problems.

[von_Runkel]

Thanks for the reply.

I don't think HW drivers will be any problem. I don't use any legacy HW and the assembled system (Dell) has the 32 or 64 bit OS option when purchased. I'm convinced that WHQL drivers are included for 64 bit.

Memory utilization in 32 bit is not of that big concern. My old WinXP workstation has run on 2 GB for the last 3 years now, and I never have felt that the system is starving.

I feel rather confident from JohnnyMalaria's experience saying that the video apps runs at equal speed. This points towards 64-bit. Then I have take into account all other software I run (which is a bit OT)

[Reimar]

I feel rather confident from JohnnyMalaria's experience saying that the video apps runs at equal speed. This points towards 64-bit.

Given my experience on Linux, Video stuff should run 3% - 15% faster on 64 bit. The only problem is that there are almost no properly working 64 bit video codecs for Windows, at least 64 bit ffdshow seems to lack loads of optimizations and is very slow (you can still use the 32 bit version though, so that does not speak against a 64 bit OS), and Windows 64bit builds of MPlayer/FFmpeg are at least very hard to find.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Given my experience on Linux, Video stuff should run 3% - 15% faster on 64 bit. The only problem is that there are almost no properly working 64 bit video codecs for Windows, at least 64 bit ffdshow seems to lack loads of optimizations and is very slow (you can still use the 32 bit version though, so that does not speak against a 64 bit OS), and Windows 64bit builds of MPlayer/FFmpeg are at least very hard to find.

I'm refering to 32-bit apps running on 64-bit Windows.

I agree that a native 64-bit apps should be capable of noticeable performance improvement over the 32-bit equivalent as long as the apps are optimized for 64-bit.

[dimzon]

(Dual Intel Xeon E5440 / 4 GB RAM) needs an operating system. The options are Vista 32 or Vista 64.
Avisynth video serving and filtering
TMPGEnc 2.5 MPEG-2 encoding
Windows Media Video encoding
Virtualdub filtering and uncompressed AVI transcoding

If You can use 2Gb only - WinXP32bit is the best solution for your puposes. And you still can by OEM WinXP 32bit until 1st June for 99$. (according OEM licence you can by it only if you buy any HW - in this case you can by something like SATA cable for 2$)

[Blue_MiSfit]

Memory utilization in 32 bit is not of that big concern. My old WinXP workstation has run on 2 GB for the last 3 years now, and I never have felt that the system is starving.


Just wait until you start using a quad core processor to encode 1080p in x264 through MT AviSynth while running Photoshop, Lightroom, Foobar2000, Firefox with 10 tabs, etc...

I push the limit just with Photoshop and Lightroom open, when I do a batch convert of 10-20 of my 10MP RAWs to 16 bit ProPhoto TIFFs, and open these TIFFs in Photoshop, then apply a noise reduction / sharpening / dual output action to them. I have crashed Photoshop several times with out of memory errors. Add 1080p x264 + MT AviSynth (which can push the 2gb barrier on its own) and you've got one RAM hungry system! I'm definitely sometimes feeling RAM limited by my 4GB 32 bit XP system. There's a reason Apple chose FB-DIMMs for their MacPro workstations. You can use most of 16 GB working on heavy Photoshop.

It's scary how many programs are hungry for RAM these days, especially when you use more than one or two of them together!

I'm very much looking forward to a day where all applications are 64 bit, and we have workstations with 8-16gb of RAM as standard (as 4GB is becoming now, due to its low prices).

True though, if your system is a single purpose video encoding box, 2-3 gigs of ram is plenty, even for MT AviSynth -> x264 on a quad.

If your system has good hardware compatibility with x64 Vista, then go for it. Why not? You will be able to take advantage of 64 bit apps as they come online. Vista x64 runs VERY smoothly provided all your hardware has reasonable drivers. This isn't as common as you might think. Do verify that ALL your hardware has GOOD drivers, not just that it HAS drivers. Creative's sound card drivers are _TERRIBLE_. Realtek does a good job. ATi/AMD, nVidia, and Intel all have their acts together. Printer manufacturers are hit and miss. Other stuff like scanners, webcams, and modems are spotty. Apple just recently made all their iPod / iPhone devices compatible. Pro-video and specialized hardware is typically not there yet, but it all depends.

Sometimes there is a loss of functionality with 64 bit drivers.

Oh well...

~MiSfit

[von_Runkel]

@Blue_MiSfit
Thanks for your comprehensive reply.
Just wait until you start using a quad core processor
Well, I'm going to use 2 quad core's :)

And I'm adding 4 more GB RAM to the system. I've looked up the few drivers I need and they are there but I can not verify how good they are. The most important are from nVidia, and Intel and they come bundled with the system.

I can always fall back to XP32 (dual boot) if there are to many issues in the workflow.

[Blue_MiSfit]

No prob :) Give those quads a lot of RAM! IIRC the Windows Media Encoder is actually 64 bit optimized (in addition to being multithreaded), so that's all gravy!

x264, AviSynth etc... can be 64 bit, but it's far from being SOP. Squid_80 has put in heroic effort to change this, without nearly enough recognition.

nVidia and Intel drivers are rock solid for x64 now. It's the silly things like sound cards, capture cards, scanners, printers, iPhones etc :)

If you're building a workstation, you should be just fine!

I'm just a tiny bit jealous of your octobox :D

~MiSfit

[JohnnyMalaria]

IIRC the Windows Media Encoder is actually 64 bit optimized (in addition to being multithreaded), so that's all gravy!

And it's free! Not to mention damned useful and fast.