Is I-like-to-beat-dead-horses your middle name? It's already been explained that 64 bit is not something that there is a move toward. It's not required in photo processing and doesn't give any significant advantage. On top of that, the major image processing software, Photoshop, isn't a 64 bit app and likely won't be for many years if at all. In addition, if you looked at the specs for XP64 you'd see that it has the flexibility to run 32 bit apps as well as 64 bit so you don't need new 64 bit drivers or software.

Are you one of these people who just goes and buys the latest and greatest but really has no idea what they're buying or how to use it but just wants it because they've been told by some marketing schmuck that it's better?

Improvement is not a dead horse

It's an improvement for some, not all.

In addition, it's common for manufacturers to stop supporting older or no longer manufactured products after a period of time. Updating software or drivers or creating new software/drivers for older products is a not insignificant cost that manufacturers should not be expected to bear.

There was a similar discussion on another forum. A poster was crying about the fact that Epson wasn't going to be producing drivers for his 5 or 6 year old printers and scanner to be compatible with Vista. He was given ample explanation why his expectation of Epson was unreasonable and numerous workarounds but he continued to whine like a little school girl.

Chevrolet no longer makes tail light assemblies for the '57 Bel Air either. Should they be expected to? No. Nothing different in this case. The 20D isn't being manufactured any longer and Canon is putting its support into current products. Nothing new there. Get over it.

BobF,
I don't think you're right there. I've been using computer since the early 80's, back when OS's where 8 bit and there's been a steady evolution. 64bit support will continue to grow and eventually 32 bit OS will be left behind, just like 32 bit processors are being left behind. And then it will be 128bit... computer evolution goes on... Just because Microsoft slows it down it doesn't mean it won't happen.

Luca

Agreed Luca. The problem is, at this point, there is no major move to support 64 bit from the regular desktop user's perspective. The support for 64 bit is in applications that really chew on processor capacity like server applications or large database apps. As I indicated, Adobe has no plans announced to bring out a 64 bit version of PS. That seems rather telling.

I just built a new computer and it has an AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor so it is capable of using 64 bit apps but there aren't any available and won't be for some time, I don't believe.

Screaming to manufacturers to support 64 bit computing is a bit silly considering that there is no real benefit to doing so, at this point.

And in this case it's not really MS that's slowing things down. They have a 64 bit version of Windoze. They have 64 bit versions of some of their apps like Office, I believe. The fact that they want third party makers to submit their drivers for verification is a red herring. There is no requirement for that. What should happen is the same thing that happens now if you try to install an unverified driver. You should get a message window pop up to tell you that the driver is unsigned and do you want to continue even though MS cannot verify the compatibility with Windoze. MS has asked third parties to have their drivers verified for years. Some do it, some don't. I frankly don't much care whether MS has verified the driver or not. I leave it up to the manufacturer to test it and make sure it works properly before they release it.

Then there's the other issue of expecting manufacturers to support products that are no longer manufactured for more than a reasonable period of time. The 30D has been out for over a year now and if Canon's product announcement cycle continues will likely be replaced by a newer version in the very near future. Expecting Canon (or any manufacturer) to continue to support a product that is soon to be two versions removed from the current model is an unreasonable and unsupportable position; particularly in a world that is evolving as quickly as digital photography.

A couple other points to add to the discussion. 64 bit systems have been common in the server and mainframe rooms since the 60's. Certainly if there was a major amount of growing demand to put 64 bit on the desktop it should have formed by now and driven growth in desktop level software. It was mentioned that by logical conclusion, 128 bit systems would follow. Well, there were some 128 bit systems developed but nobody really wanted them so of course they died a quick death in the market.

Another thing to toss into the ring, just because something is called a 64 bit system does not necessarily make it so. There have been several systems called 64 bit but the processor was a 32 bit. 64 bit merely addressed how the bus width for addressing memory by the processor. For the user of desktop systems, addressing bus speeds will typically have a greater impact than moving to 64 bit.

I came across some recent information about a photographer I know of who is considered one of the top nature photographers. They recently had a new copmuter built for their photo business. The person that does the image processing and so on uses it as her main work center. It amazingly only has 4 gig of ram. Must not be able to get much work done when her boss comes back with several hundred photos to sort through since she doesn't have 4 to 5 times that amount of memory. They also didn't go on about whether it has a 64 bit processor or how lare the storage system is. Although in that respect I do know they use a large raid array for stock and archiviing. The one item cited as being the of biggest impact? Having 2 monitors which greatly improved workflow and productivity. Similar to what most everyone else in several kinds of workplaces have found. Having the latest and greatest was nice but didn't have the bottomline impact that they found having more screen space added. Funny in that one would think 64 bit was the end all and be all by some comments.

Quote:
Having the latest and greatest was nice but didn't have the bottomline impact that they found having more screen space added. Funny in that one would think 64 bit was the end all and be all by some comments.

It is lovely having a very fast machine, but Photoshop is quite user-intensive and users work at analogue speeds. Most of the time spent working in Photoshop is user input. The speed becomes a very positive factor when doing batch processing, but for me and I suspect most users, that is something that just happens occasionally.

Where speed really makes a difference is in CPU intensive programs like 3-D rendering. I woke up to see an image that began rendering early yesterday evening and finished just minutes before I awakened. Total render time was just under 12 hours.

The same machine is a dream when using Photoshop. Tools and filters - even when working on 8MP images shot RAW - don't give one the time for a sip of coffee. As a 3-D scene becomes more complex with lights, objects and textures, reflections and transparency, test-renders become glacial, and final renders almost always take place while I sleep.

Quote:
Agreed Luca. The problem is, at this point, there is no major move to support 64 bit from the regular desktop user's perspective.

Microsoft says their next version of Windows ("Vienna", formerly known as Blackcomb) will be 64 bit only.

Windows running at 64-bit on the processor may be some advantage to numbers crunchers, but digital imaging is not a processor intensive function, it is I/O intensive. Bus speed and bandwidth are the real keys to faster image processing.

64 bit processors will require Intel and Via to come up with wider busses. Southbridge will have to be updated and be more capable which will result in a direct advantage to image editing. Without counting the fact that programs will be optimized for shorter instruction cycles.

Microsoft to drop 32 bit booting completely after Vista.

For once I applaud Microsoft.

The fact is that Vista even is languishing and is not being adopted even by some large PC vendors, as well as the fact that again Microsoft dropped the ball on providing promised support for graphics with a "new" CMS which few manufacturers in the graphics and CM realm have embraced enthusiastically.

Adobe CS3 has just been released, and without even a word about 64-bit processing, and it'll be at least a couple of years until another upgrade can be expected. And, there is really no one in the wings except Apple that is likely to influence the coarse of development in graphics software.

The fact is Microsoft has a diminishing importance and motivation to high-end graphics. The fortunes of Corel being a good indicator.

The practical considerations cited by many others who have contributed to this thread previously are on point, as well as the fact that independently I/O speed and bandwidth have progressed and expanded virtually with little consideration of what Intel and AMD have been doing.

Quote:
On top of that, the major image processing software, Photoshop, isn't a 64 bit app and likely won't be for many years if at all. In addition, if you looked at the specs for XP64 you'd see that it has the flexibility to run 32 bit apps as well as 64 bit so you don't need new 64 bit drivers or software.

Bob,
This isn't quite true. While it is true that Photoshop isn't a 64-bit app, it will still benefit from running on a 64-bit OS. There are a couple of reasons for this that are related to the amount of memory a 64-bit OS can use. First, on 32-bit Windows, you can have a Maximum of 4GB of RAM. this 4GB is shared by the OS and all the other running apps on the system. On a 64-bit OS, with say 8GB of RAM, the Photoshop process itself can have more RAM assigned to it which leads to less disk paging - Photoshop is a very RAM intensive process.
Second, since a 64-bit OS can have a lot more RAM, the OS has more RAM available for disk caching - this makes IO operations proceed much faster.
Finally, and this is speculation on my part, but as a software developer myself in charge of a 64-bit port, I would bet that Photoshop will be ported to 64-bit windows sooner than you might think. This is because 1) porting from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit windows is a MUCH easier job than porting from 16-bit windows to 32-bit was. Indeed, if the 32-bit app was written correctly it can be as simple as a re-compile. 2) As a memory intensive application, Photoshop is in fact a very good candidate for a 64-bit port. 3) I'm sure the marketing people at Adobe would love to put x64 on the box.
I would estimate that either the next version or the one after that will have a 64-bit version.

One more thing - while it is true that x64 windows runs 32-bit apps, you absolutely can not use 32-bit device drivers on 64-bit windows.

Quote:
In a recent phone call with Canon customer service I was told that can and will not be updating any of the drivers for their older digital cameras allowing them to operate on Windows 64 bit edition's. It seems to me that Canon would want all their equipment to operate on all operating systems. I feel that 64 bit operating systems, software and compatible hardware are the future. I have a 20 D. that I was searching Canon's website for updated drivers and noticed there were no drivers listed with 64-bit compatibility or Windows.
So,
Dear Canon representatives
if any of you decide to read this, please update your drivers to include 64-bit support.
Thank you

I'm a little unsure as to why you need a device driver. If the 20D has a standard USB port, you should be able to simply plug it in and have it recognized as an external hard drive. If this doesn't work, then you can get a card reader and plug use that to copy your image files to your hard drive.
If there is some reason it really does need device drivers, then I'd say your SOL. AFIK, the 20D is a discontinued product. As such there is no reason for Canon to update the driver software. After all, they've already sold all the 20D's they going to, updating the drivers represents a cost that has no profit benefit for Canon. I don't know of any computer hardware manufacturer that produces new drivers for discontinued products.

Quote:
Windows running at 64-bit on the processor may be some advantage to numbers crunchers, but digital imaging is not a processor intensive function, it is I/O intensive. Bus speed and bandwidth are the real keys to faster image processing.

I/O intensive applications benefit greatly from having more available RAM for disk caching. I can tell you that my compiler, a 32-bit app, runs much much faster on my x64 box with 8GB or RAM than it does on my Win32 box with 4GB - other than the RAM and OS, these are 2 identical computers.

Quote:
Agreed Luca. The problem is, at this point, there is no major move to support 64 bit from the regular desktop user's perspective. The support for 64 bit is in applications that really chew on processor capacity like server applications or large database apps. As I indicated, Adobe has no plans announced to bring out a 64 bit version of PS. That seems rather telling.

I just built a new computer and it has an AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor so it is capable of using 64 bit apps but there aren't any available and won't be for some time, I don't believe.

Sorry Bob,
I have to disagree with you here. I am currently in charge of a 64-bit port of a desktop design product at the company where I work. we expect to ship this product in 6 months or so.
As for Adobe not announcing plans to port, I wouldn't read too much into this. It is SOP at most software companies to not make announcements like that until the product is very close to completion. The reason for this is until you get very near the end of the development cycle, you are not sure that some problem won't crop up that prevents you shipping on time making you look bad and causing your stock price to take a hit.