64vs32 bits, struggling with plugins and bridges? READ THIS

Tip for other users strugling witg plugins and bridges:
I am using the 32 bit version of cubase on a 64 bit operating system. This works fine, and I have no problems at all accessing my “old plugins”(!).

The idea is to use jbridge for 'big 64 bits plugins" the other way around as explained and tested in this article in “sound on sound” (read from: “bridging those bits”):

That is an excellent article :slight_smile:

I understand the pain of losing 32bit plugins, I have many favourites that don’t work terribly well if at all, but my personal take on it is to invest in the future and embrace other plugins or updates which are 64bit and run natively in my 64bit OS and my 64bit Cubase. I will suffer the pain of transition at one time or another so I might as well go for it now! And the pay-off I think is that I have a simpler system with no bridges involved (although hat’s off to Mr Fernandes for JBridge, its excellent!).

I should now add that I haven’t got that far yet, I still use 32bit plugins with VSTBridge, but I’m gradually finding 64bit replacements…

Mike.

If running 32 bit version of cubase does this mean you can still access the full memory available to the 64 bit os?

I believe yes and no!! Each 32bit plugin or 32 bit app can only access 3GB (edit - see below!) in total (MS Windows), but between them they don’t have to share the 3GB so they can use all the memory. Although I wonder if this is a total for all bridged plugins or per bridged plugin…

Mike.

No, 32 bit programs can only access 2 GB of memory, this is under a 32 bit system, some can with special setting (boot.ini) acces 3 GB. Theoratically the OS can adress 4 GB of memory but this also includes videomemory and hardware buffers, so you see many 32 bit systems wih 4GB installed only showing 3,5 till 3,2 GB available!

When using 32 bit software on a 64 bit os, the software should be able to acces 4 GB of ram, that’s it! It’s a limit of 32 bit addressing.

I suggest you read the article in the link if you have any questions…quote:

“In our tests here, it matched the performance of 64-bit Cubase and Sonar by loading all eight instruments. But taking it further, this presents an alternative to trying to bridge all those Waves and UAD plug-ins into a 64-bit host so you can use the odd 64-bit instrument: instead, you could use the 32-bit plug-ins natively in a 32-bit host, and bridge the odd 64-bit instrument instead.”

And another interesting thing( about the difference between jbridge and steinybridge):

In Sonar, the BitBridge happily managed four instruments, using 3.5GB RAM, and got stuck on the fifth. Swapping VSTBridge for jBridge in Cubase left it able to match Sonar’s performance in loading up four instruments. It’s almost as if VSTBridge is artificially restricted to the 2GB of a 32-bit OS.

So yes, there are limits, but this way of working opens new posibilities to solve compatibility and performance problems…that is why I posted this.