Hi folks

Well it's that time again for me.  I am finally relegating my old system to my 11 yr old daughter, and building a nice new quad core AMD system.  I need some advice though and I hope someone here can help.  I will be using the new AMD Phenom 9600 CPU and I am thinking of switching to Vista Ultimate 64Bit so I can have more addressable memory.  The 32 Bit version is still shackled to the old 4GB limit and usually a lot less.  My quandry is this.  Will Carrara 6.0 Pro run under the 64Bit version of the OS.  And what of other programs like Poser, PSP Photoshop Bryce etc?  If anyone has any experience with running these under the 64Bit version of the OS, I would appreciate some input.

Thanks for your time.

Rich

I'm in the same boat.  I'm going to build a new pc and I'm hesitant to go with 64 bit.  I'd also like to hear some pros and cons.  I have XP Pro and I've tweaked it to a relatively rock solid state.  But...more addressable RAM would be nice!  :D

To increase your chances to get the 64b implementation, you should vote HERE:

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=75847&sid=bfaade744c15e081e48b7d290c4b648c

SparrowNightmare said:  "*[...] I am finally relegating my old system to my 11 yr old daughter..."

*-->A chance for you she is a girl! I did the same think last year with a young boy, who came to Counter Strike, and my old machine was so slow that the poor kid was killed by the lags before having time to begin to play. So, to save the threaten family honour, I let him to play on the  new machine and, day after day, I have been finaly relagated to check my mails in the children's room!

Friendly, LocusSolus.

Quote - I'm in the same boat.  I'm going to build a new pc and I'm hesitant to go with 64 bit.  I'd also like to hear some pros and cons.  I have XP Pro and I've tweaked it to a relatively rock solid state.  But...more addressable RAM would be nice!  :D

I am definitely going with 64Bit hardware.  I suppose I could get the retail Vista Ultimate and use the 32 Bit version for now.  I have been told that they also include the 64Bit version in the retail box.  I have been doing some research and it sounds like the Phenom quad core is going to fly when rendering; even in 32Bit mode.

Personally I would go for the 64 bit version if you are going for Vista.
Vista has some problems and those problems are the same for the 32 and 64 bit versions.
Virtually everything that works in Vista 32 will also work in Vista 64.
First going for a 32 bit version and later switching the a 64 bit version is twice the effort without any advantages.
Should you happen to have 32 bit version of XP handy then I would advice creating a dual boot system but installing everything in Vista 64 first and only using XP 32 for programs that simply do NOT work in Vista 64 (hopefully the upcoming SP1 will fix the remaining issues).
Performance wise you won't see any big differences. The 64 bit OS allows addressing more memory (even if you don't actually have that much memory) so in all (64 bit) 3D programs you can see a major increase in the complexity your computer can handle.

I do have a dual boot system and for the last 6 months I'm still waiting for the right moment to make the switch. Just reinstalling all software and setting up everything will take a week. All my critical software works but until I've installed everything I can't actually switch over and I just don't seem to find the time.

Windows XP 64 bit might be a safer bet until Vista acknowledges that making things work is actually more important for an OS than copyright protection schemes. Carrara flies on my XP 64 quad core.

Hmmmmm...  I suppose I could dual Boot XP Pro and Vista 64Bit...

I run pro 6 under XP 32 and XP 64 with no problems.

Well I have parts beginning to arrive.  This is what I settles on.

MSI K9A2 Platinum MB
AMD Phenom 9600 (Full Retail Box, unopened.got it for $140, some kid bought it and didn't realize it wouldn't work on his Mobo, so he sold it on ebay..) :)
4GB Micron High performance Memory (2x2GB DDR2-800 DIMMs)
Samsung SATAII  DVD-RW
2xSeagate 500GB 16MB Cache 7200RPM SATAII Hard drives.
ATI Radeon 3650 512MB PCIE Video Card.
Creative Labs Audigy 2 Sound Card.
Viewsonic 22" Widescreen Monitor.
Logitech LX-500 Wireless Mouse and Keyboard Set
PoWork 600W power supply.
Thermaltake Swing ATX Mid Tower case.

I got the retail box of Vista Ultimate so I will have both the 32 and 64 bit versions (Another ebay steal at $138 from someone who couldn't get it to install on her PIII system )

I plan on triple booting with both vista versions and XP Pro for when nothing else works with something.

I am dying to see just how much speed I can get out of this box.

I am also on the same boat I will change my system next month.I plan for 6 GB Ram So i will need to install 64 bits ; XP64 or Vista 64 ????? Still hesitate I will choose for the futur support (so may be Vista )

I am going to see how well the new system handles C6 with 4GB, then if I need to, I can up it to 8GB.  Memory is so dirt cheap nowadays...

**See this article
**Vista Workshop – Performance Boost with 8GB of RAM

at
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-Vista,review-30272.html

Martial: Thanks for this very interssant link, undestandable by a non english speaker, which is unusual in the "hardware worls". As a beginner in 3D I came here to get some help with software turmoils, but never could imagine that I could kept safe from hours of forthcoming hair pulling when changing my old PC within few weeks. Friendly, LocusSolus.

Yeh Tomshardware is a great site, although usually the US site is a bit more up to date.  Thats just www.tomshardware.com 

I feel a lot more confident in my choice of motherboards after reading their review.

Well i have a quad core intel extreme PC, and it just smokes- but running XP64 pro i find P7 to be VERY unstable- it crashes totally at random after deciding that whatever PZ3/cr2 im working on is unacceptable- then after a few days it forgets the taboo on that particular figure and i can use it again.

since this does not happen on my laptop with P7 and XP32 i can only assume it is the OS.  it's driving me friggin crazy

Quote - Well i have a quad core intel extreme PC, and it just smokes- but running XP64 pro i find P7 to be VERY unstable- it crashes totally at random after deciding that whatever PZ3/cr2 im working on is unacceptable- then after a few days it forgets the taboo on that particular figure and i can use it again.

since this does not happen on my laptop with P7 and XP32 i can only assume it is the OS.  it's driving me friggin crazy

After 3 days of dicuss with some vendors and friends on a french forum, I heard exactly the same song. They all come to vista 64 in dual boot. Asking for the best config I could find for my limited means of money, we made a little test (not a real bench): A nice cat with very hairy coat under Lightwave:

• Intel QX9650 + 4Gb +W32 + 8800 ULTRA (the two tops in perf today):  quite 4 hours render (thats very fast) cost is here: 3500€. 
• for the same price: 2x (Intel Q6600+8G+V64+ 8800 simple) Ethernet nested: 1 and half hour render! cost: 2x1550€. 
  I think Lightwave "maps" the 16Gb (2x8) memory, I'm going to ask confirmation to some LW9 user, that I'm not. 
  We have just to wait from Sirs developpers they implement 64bytes on their dear products, but you should ask from MSDN if they have a roadmap for XP64.
  I am like everybody, I walk in darkness. Friendly, LocuSolus.
    

I have Poser and Carrara 5&6 running on a dual core 4Gig XP Pro x64 and it works like a charm.  I really can recommend it. The only thing I miss is a DVD RAM packet driver.

Waiting for a 64bit Carrara version...

The system flies with the 32Bit version.  I am going to triple boot with the 64Bit version as soon as I can get my hands on another 500GB Hard drive.