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Watz up with 64 bit Processing ???
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WAVELOGIX
Wavelogix
Started Topics :
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1214
Posted : Jan 28, 2004 20:24
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hey guys 
ok i know pro tools does all processing @ 64 bit and there are even some software plugins that i came across thay say about 64 bit high precision processing ...
but i dont understand wat actually 64 bit processing is all abt ???
i know about 32 floating point operations tht computer uses to give better sound quality when processing ...
but what exactly is this 64 bit thingie ??
is it some algorithm or some code ???
or it just doubles the calcualtions required to compute 32 bit operations , making the process more accurate ???
some one out here pls help with this and also tell me which all plugins use 64 bit processing ???
at present im only aware of anwida and tc electronics plugins tht do tht ...
bye and take care
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTPJuMSwzUQ |
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Pavel
Troll
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313
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8649
Posted : Jan 28, 2004 21:00
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It's internal processing as far as i know.
Something inside the program's Algorythms Everyone in the world is doing something without me |
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Te_nTe
IsraTrance Junior Member
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444
Posted : Jan 28, 2004 21:02
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it doesnt matter pavel.
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ZilDoggo
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Posted : Jan 28, 2004 21:59
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64 bits processing means that the end result is represented as a 64 bits value (which is more precise than 32 bits, even with floating point since everything after the floating point has to fit into the 32 bits as well).
It also means that components which are calculated can be 64 bits big but this doesnt have to be so.
ANY computer can do 64 bits calculations.
Even 8 bit computers.
But it takes an 8 bit computer a lot more code to do this.
That's because 8 bit processors cannot do the calculations in one go.
16 and 32 bits processors can't do it either but it takes less instructions to do it on those.
Nowadays we are entering the 64 bit era.
This means that we get cpu's(processors) that can do calculations on numbers that are 64 bits big.
This, in turn, means that doing 64 bits calculaions becomes as fast as 32 bits calculations were on 32 bits processors, etc.
hope this helped.,
greets.,
aka!!., .,
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ZilDoggo
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Posted : Jan 28, 2004 22:43
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processing doesnt imply that it's real time.,
so i didnt consider it.,
but a 32 bits processor can easily do 64 bits ops in real time. especially if you have a computer that does 3 bilion instructions a second.,.,
btw..,
new mac G5 is 64 bits ( http://www.apple.com )
so is new Athlon 64.. ( http://www.amd.com )
and protools does it too, but i'm not sure wether it is in software or in hardware. anyway: http://www.digidesign.com
aka!., ., |
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ZilDoggo
Started Topics :
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663
Posted : Jan 28, 2004 22:50
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64 it's not for the final result!.,
64 bits is for calculating.
in computers calculations have one bit errors.
if you must do a lot of calculations then you can get more bit errors in your end result.,.
if you do the calculations on 64 bit numbers and later make the result into 16 bits, the errors (the one bit errors) will become less than one bit..,
grts,
aka!., ., |
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ZilDoggo
Started Topics :
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663
Posted : Jan 29, 2004 00:01
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.,., dont mention it.,
aka!., . |
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WAVELOGIX
Wavelogix
Started Topics :
136
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1214
Posted : Jan 29, 2004 13:25
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thakns zildoggo for that really good help and info
so as u said abt the amd athlon 64 which is being developed to do 64 bit calcualtions , im actually going to be upgrading my computer from 700 hz to 3 ghz with 1 gb ram ddr 400 .
so should i go in 4 the athlon 64 ??
is it really good 4 audio ???
or the other processors will also do 64 bit calcualtion but will take more time ??
pls help |
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ZilDoggo
Started Topics :
4
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663
Posted : Jan 29, 2004 13:33
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well, there is one big problem at the moment.,
there is very little software which is 'aware' of the 64 bits possibilities of the athlon.
old software still runs correctly on the athlon 64 but it just does it's stuff in the old way.
this will be fixed in the future.
but this also means that you will need to upgrade every software to fully use the capabilities.,.
so untill the whole software marked has switched over to 64 it's not so interesting.
but if you are planning to buy a machine for the next 2 or 3 years it could be interesting.,.,
grts,
aka!., |
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Kaz
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jan 29, 2004 13:42
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64bit in audio is overkill. The theories for the quality of the human ear in receiving signals range everywhere from 12.5 to 18 bits. 24bit is to provide an interpolation of really high quality so the ear won't get it wrong no matter what - after EQs, filters, whatever. 32bit is just for paranoid sound engineers. 64bit is plainly useless as of the human ear.
64bit processing would probably mean the software is coded using 64bit operations - just as Logic 6 for mac utilizes this in order to make EQs that take nearly NO cpu power. Technically, you could use a thousand of them and not get your CPU into the danger zone.
BUT, other than the mac high end platforms, there's no one standard for 64bit CPU processing, so the optimizations that this gives to code will not be very applicable to windows or even unix based platforms (unless they are 4+ times more expensive than a high end mac).
The Athlon 64 is just a damn powerful processor, so it's a good buy either way, but in the end it will be Microsoft that will decide what the 64bit standard on the PCs will be, and they'll probably go with Intel. This is of course irrelevant to the next 2-3 years (as MS took about 5 years until they actually got from 16 to 32bit work - from win95 to win2k, despite win95 being claimed as a 32bit OS).
http://www.myspace.com/Hooloovoo222 |
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ZilDoggo
Started Topics :
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Posted : Jan 29, 2004 14:26
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kaz,
actually well trained ears can hear about 21 bits of precision.
There is also the point of how loud you play the sound.
The louder, the bigger the bits become and are more easy to differenciate. Any errors in previous calculations will become more obvious.
So actually any satement of how many bits people can hear cannot be stated withous saying how loud it was played to the people trying to hear the bits.
The whole point of 64 bits calculations is that all computer calculations have a +-1 bit error.
If a certain algorithm (say, a convolving reverb) needs to do hundreds of thousends of calculations for every sample then these errors can and will acumulate!!!!
And most of the time you do not have one process running over your audio, you have several. You have eq (+ gain), you have compression (+ gain), you may have a gate (+ gain), you could have several timedomain fx (+ mixing) , you propably will have some reverb (+ gain) and you could have some limiting (+gain) .. and possibly lots more..
If you do your calculations in the 64 bits domain and scale the results down to, say, 16 bits then you will only have about one bit of error (from the scaling) and this is easily masked with dithering.
on the topic of cpu's you say:
"The Athlon 64 is just a damn powerful processor, so it's a good buy either way, but in the end it will be Microsoft that will decide what the 64bit standard on the PCs will be, and they'll probably go with Intel"
I say, well, the nice thing about the athlon is that it's backward compatible with 32 bits code so windows doesnt need to be 64 bits to make the processor execute 64 bits instructions on data. This has immediate positive consequences for music software as only the apps/plugz need to be upgraded and not the OS.
So with this i think that amd is setting a more realistic 64 bits standard for pc's than intell and intell will have to follow amd in this tech.
I think Microsoft recently said that they are not planning to port for the intel 64 bits plaform anytime soon., but you never know....
got a bit off topic here.. sorry to the uninterested.
grts,
aka!., |
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