David,

You should refer your concern to Microsoft. It's not a problem I find is of any immediate practical concern or of much interest. Or are you just trying again to instigate some trouble where none exists?

David
spoken like a true old geezer. If it was left up to people like you we would still be programming our computers with punch cards and the digital age would have never happened. 64-bit operating systems are the future so any resistance you have two moving forward from the 32 bit systems we have now, you will just have to get over it. The reason Microsoft requires manufacturers to have their drivers digitally signed by Microsoft before they will work on a Windows XP or Vista 64 bit operating system is to increase reliability. Many of the problems currently existing in 32 bit versions of this and windows XP are due to bad drivers being installed on the systems by third-party vendors who do not wish to go through the trouble of having their drivers verified my Microsoft. Therefore operating a 64-bit system in your digital darkroom with digitally signed drivers will keep your system operating more efficiently and reliably. This is nothing that Apple does not do with the Macintosh. It is not Microsoft's responsibility to hunt down every hardware manufacturer and test their drivers. It is the hardware manufacturers responsibility to ensure that their hardware will work with new operating systems. Due to the fact that many photographers are operating businesses on the same computers that they do their digital darkroom work on, reliability should be a major concern. Of course this is just my opinion, and you may think I am just stirring up trouble where there is none, however this is an area that I honestly feel needs a little stirring up.

David,

You are correct in this sense that there has always been a problem with drivers, but you are also correct that it is not a responsibility either Microsoft or Apple can resolve without full and effective participation by the device manufacturers. That 64-bit by itself is an issue in this regard I think may be debatable. The fact is that until the majority of systems are 64-bit there is not the incentive for device manufacturers to step up to the plate. And with many kinds of devices it may not be a particular advantage if the driver is 64-bit or not in terms of what the device involves.

And, as I said to a reader earlier, 64-bit is largely only an advantage to processor intensive functions, which bitmap imaging is not, and is not any advantage at all directly to digital photography processing.

You see, David S., the thing about us geezers is that we learned a long time ago to sort out the important stuff from the rest of it. That's how we got to be geezers. Right now, I would think that device makers are concentrating more on ensuring overall compliance with an entirely new operating system (Windows Vista) than with one feature of an OS, like 64-bit.

You need to learn patience, grasshopper.......

Quote:
David,

And, as I said to a reader earlier, 64-bit is largely only an advantage to processor intensive functions, which bitmap imaging is not, and is not any advantage at all directly to digital photography processing.

David
Photoshop is a processor intensive application. 32-bit operating systems have a limitation of only being able to address 4 GB of memory. 64-bit systems are capable of addressing over a terabyte of memory. Let me put this scenario to you.
I am going out to shoot a wedding, I am bringing 2 Canon 1 D. Mark II bodies with 6 8 GB CompactFlash cards of which I fill up nearly all of during the job. When I get to the office I sort through all the images and wind up with approximately 18 GB of good images. Now I have to convert them all to lower resolution JPEG's for proofing over the Internet. I have two computers 1. 32-bit system maxed out with 4 GB of RAM. Next to it is my newer 64-bit system with 24 GB of RAM that is capable of working on all the images at one time loaded in the RAM. Now here is the question, which one of these systems should I use?

PS yes Bill, I wanted all, and I want it now. I am a impatient bozo hillbilly who does not want to wait around 30 or 40 minutes for the computer to process my images.

>>Photoshop is a processor intensive application.<<

David,

You are almost entirely wrong. Only a few PS functions like a Gaussian Blur are processor intensive. What slows down digital processing is the volume of data, which does not particularly affect processor functioning but rather I/O and internal bandwidth as well as RAM speed.

David beat me to it.

PS is not, in general, a processor intensive app. It is; however, a RAM intensive app. There is a difference. That said, PS can only use up to 2GB of RAM unless adjustments are made in the boot.ini file in which case it can access up to 3GB.

PS is a 32 bit app. There are two differences a 64 bit environment will make when using PS is in a 64 bit environment. If the system has 4GB or more of RAM installed PS will automatically use up to 3GB and the switch doesn't have to be made in the boot.ini file. The other is that if more than 4GB of RAM is installed PS will use the additional RAM (up to 6GB I believe, or an additional 2, anything more cannot be used by PS) as a cache rather than using the scratch disk. These can help speed up PS somewhat but not tremendously.

Here's the link that documents how Photoshop allocates and addresses memory on 32 and 64 bit systems like bob talked about.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=320005

And of course all this ignores the multitude of bottlenecks that are still present on even the most up-to-date system.

Thank you
after reading that I believe we should all be pushing for more 64-bit operating system compatibility from product manufacturers and software vendors. Face it, 64-bit systems are the future as file sizes and megapixels will increase so will the need for more efficient use of random access memory in our computer systems. Only moving to their 64-bit operating system and software will we be able to more efficiently use our RAM. So don't fight it just jump on the bandwagon call Adobe, Canon, Nikon, and any other manufacturer of computer hardware and software and demand 64-bit support.
Okay David
how is that for a tomato on the wall?

Very little software development for 64 bit is being done for the desktop. The exception is in the open source development arena. 64 bit is primarily a development area for the server side. I have attended several conferences in the past few years where somebady invariably asked about 64 bit this or that and the answer was almost exclusively the same, no intention of working on fully 64 bit software for the consumer. The lone exception was in video and scientific modeling as they place a greater stress on a system than any other use. In looking at the data flow that a friend of mine generates through his FCP Mac system, photography is a long way away from placing the same kind of loads.

I think it should also be noted that 64 bit computing is hardly a recent move. Mainframes have been utilizing 64 bit since the 60's. Based on the progress of development to the desktop side, I'd hazard a guess that 64 bit dreamers will be waiting a while longer yet.