Cubase 8 32bit and RAM (will it see 8GB?)

a 32 bit binary number can represent 2 to the power 32 = 4,294,967,296 bytes. Divide by 1024 into KB and then again into MB and then again into GB and you get the result = 4GB.

My understanding of running 32 bit on a 64 bit os is that it defaults to 2GB limit however you can build it with a flag set allowing for most of the 4GB to be used, so it depends if Cubase 32 bit was built using that flag - I would hope so

Hello,

Empty GUI means graphics card is running out of memory. Not every plugin is coded to minimise RAM resources. Just close the GUI’S of the VSTI’s and other plugins to clean up some RAM of your graphics card.

Cheers,

Chris

Exactly. 32-bit pointers can only address 4GB of memory.

A 32-bit application is limited to 2GB RAM usage on Windows 32-bit. The sole exception being ‘large address space aware applications’. Cubase x86 is not LASA, if I’m not mistaken.
However, a few older 32-bit plug-ins cannot make use of any memory block past 2GB, use of these in Cubase will result in white screens and eventually crashes when such limit is reached (even if used in Cubase 32-bit on a 64-bit OS).

About x86 - x64 memory limitations: Memory Limits for Windows and Windows Server Releases - Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn

About x86 applications on x64 OS:

Thanks for responses.

Fabio just for clarities sake…this is not 32 bit Cubase on a 32 Bit OS. It is 32 bit Cubase on 64 bit OS.

“Cubase x86 is not LASA, if I’m not mistaken.” So it sees only 2GB ? If you could find out for sure that would be good to know. It does not appear to make sense though. If so why is this 32 bit Cubase project showing as 2.7 - 2.9 GB… mem usage in resource manager, it is still 2.1 GB now since I have culled the project soft synths and made them audio parts.

“The soundcard driver must be the same as the o/s rather than Cubase and as that’s already 64bit you are already running Layla 64bit drivers.” Thanks for confirming Grim. Seems counter intuitive though given PCI bus operates as 32 bit, but it must be the case.

I have an ASUS silent 5450 (1GB) here which I might try, but I did try a PCIe video card in there a few days ago .I had spare (ATI4550) and it did not make hardly any difference to the memory usage or the loss of GUIs.

Upgrade your cubase to 64 bit, m8…

Yes, 32bit applications usually access up to 2gb in 32bit hosts… Dunno if that has improved on a x64 host…

Either way, go all out 64 bit for best results… (If you have special 32 bit plugs, bridge them)

Tc:)

Shame to have to do that when you have an otherwise stable system. Then you bring in the ambiguity of every soft synth and plug in (loads of them) having bugs and/or Cubase V8.5 64bit having new bugs. Just when I thought I had a nicely running system with 32 bit 8 latest.

I will have to see where I can go with this, maybe new, probably creativity killing workflows are initially preferable. Ultimately it needs to go 64 bit throughout as you say. The chances of a hiccup free migration to 64 bit are unlikely in my own update experiences with computers. Something almost always rains on the parade.

I will finish this track and see how things go.

Fabio I would very much like to know if 32 bit Cubase is LASA as it makes no sense the Cubase project is seeing up to 2.9GB in Windows 7 resource manager unless that is not accurate.

This has been both interesting and annoying. That is one thing that never seems to change in the world of music PC’s.

Make it easy on yourself and take a morning to install Cubase 64bit. Install the plugins you have as 64bit and any that don’t have 64bit use jbridge for them. It will take maybe half a day for sorting all plugins (or if you already have the 64 bit vst’s installed only 10 minutes).
One last solution to stay on 32 bit Cubase is to find out which plugin(s) use so much ram and use Jbridge to bridge them. They then will run in their own process and will have their own ram space. I worked that way for years with cubase 4 32bit on XP64 and could use all 8gb of ram I had.

I will ask for a confirmation, but in case you have missed the announcement, Cubase 8.5 will be the last Cubase version offered in both 32- and 64-bit.

[Edit: However LASA only applies to 32-bit programs running on 32-bit systems. In your case, you are limited to 4GB, not 2GB. So, it’s down to rendering to audio or using jBridge]

Never that easy. This situation came about progressively… not wanting to lose 32 bit plugins, driver concerns, the hardware/software you have today, your goals. Some maybe born of ignorance, I hold my hands up, less time to know the full details when you want to make a track. You know… what are we doing I.T. engineering or making music ? It has always been a walk between the two in my experience. Probably less so now than in years gone past.

It opens a can of worms, it always did and does… doesn’t it? I have a small 64GB SSD with 8GB left (The machine was built 4-5 years back and was not in high usage). Not a great size. It implies a new drive is soon required (I don’t know if 64bit plug ins and I use plenty, means more C drive usage ?) It has a bare minimum of space as it is. And I often have to shuffle data about to keep it clean and free to the tune of 8GB.

The machine works, it is stable. The issue is purely 32 bit memory address space.

I want to make music now. The I.T. can wait, I am at a stage where the main concern is making music being creative and I will have to workaround. This machine is for fun, something where I can get lost in the pleasure of music making. My day job involves listening all day and then making music at night or weekends has not been on the cards for 5-6 years or more. Time is ripe for creativity.

What I know now and has been said shouts… “New Music PC build with 64bit throughout” in forthcoming years.

I want to make music now, not be engulfed in I.T. and for what ? The unreachable dream of massive performance that is never realized. I am old enough to have been there and done it and it never happens quite as you expect.

I will run this PC till it dies and make some great tunes but in a way that works for how it is set up. It is still going to be hours extra to work around and not days and months compared with studio hire in the 80’s and 90’s, even compared to programming an archaic AKAI S3000 :laughing: . I think sometimes we lose ourselves in the future and do not realize what we have today.

Making music to me right now is more important than the chore of computers, that can be fun for certain but only when the time is right and for me that is not now.

This in no way diminishes the knowledge and help that has been provided to me, many thanks for all input.

Creativity First, remember.

Info on that J Bridge way of working would be very useful I suspect. Only 2-3 soft synths seems to use mass memory.

When I de-constructed this project to a usable state it involved, bouncing parts with effects and saving the synthesis patches I had designed, dumping the softsynth free MIDI tracks/parts at the bottom of the project I had made. If I can avoid that for €15 it would be stellar. Does it run in Cubase inserts somehow and then you insert the synths into J Bridge ?

Well then I am not sure what you are asking, or just venting maybe? If you still want a solution, find the maybe 4 plugins that use the most ram (and you use a lot) Simply take that very heavy project and start unloading plugins with device manager open and see which one makes a big difference. Might be even only one. And then bridge this or these plugins with Jbridge. Will take maybe half an hour and you are fixed for good. Will take no hard disk space. Jbridge is small only few MB and bridged plugins are only a pointer and take 1kb.

Don’t take it the wrong way Vinark your advice is golden. No venting just made my decision that I am not going to rebuild a working PC or spend 2 days downloading/reinstalling, the priority is getting my tunes made and having fun.

I now understand the problem with my 32/64 system and your J Bridge solution seems good to me right now.

I am curious how it integrates into Cubase 32/ x86 and the 2-3 soft synths in question.

Once installed correctly your project will load the same. It is 100% transparent. Only installing correctly needs some understanding of how it works. Best is to move the plugins you want to bridge to a separate folder, to prevent doubles and confusing cubase with identical plugs, I called it VST Jbridge that isn’t scanned by Cubase. You then use the Jbridger tool to create the bridged plugins in your VST folder.That is all. Cubase will load them as the normal plugins. But in a separate process and window.
If you already know, which are the plugins you need to bridge?

Thanks for that. I am going to finish this track as a priority, in my culled down and working project and then investigate and install J Bridge. Thankful for the advice.

If you have any problems with it when installing, reply here. I will get a notification.
Have fun with the track and
Good luck!

Much obliged.

A small but useful discovery. I found if I reduce the size of the GUI of most soft synths that have the option available it can cut a synth RAM footprint by 20-50MB per instance (especially so for the more memory hungry ones) which is quite a surprise. I can in theory cut memory use by 250-300MB which is significant in this project. When I do so all synth GUI’s appear without issue in my problematic project. Although I will continue with my concise project for finishing the track as I think most of it is there just need to arrange it.

I am still going to employ the J Bridge route before the next track but this is handy for others to know of if they find themselves in a tricky bounce down/freeze situation which as we know reduces tweak / programming flexibility.

It would be quite cool if soft synth devs had a low res GUI version for those who need it until we know everyone is 64 bit from end to end. Just a thought.

cheers

I think that one will remain “just a thought” :mrgreen:

After a bit of head scratching and wondering why Cubase could not see the “J Bridged” .dll’s I realized I did not run the software using admin status. Now it seems to work ok and I can load up 12 of the J Bridged .dlls of my 2 worst offending memory hogging synths using about 4.5GB in total according to resource monitor and the GUI’s load fine. Pleased with that so I have just bought the full version. Thanks for the advice now I can keep on making music with less bouncing. (now just have CPU to worry about) :slight_smile:

Very cool bit of software that.

Creativity First, remember.[/quote]

Creativity can be killed quickly by bad working tools. If you have a pc that constantly acts up because of its limitations your creativity will be down the drain pretty soon. You will have to deal with both! You need creativity to make use of the tools at your disposal; on the other hand you need a good working pc to be able to use these tools so this creative flow won’t parish in frustration. :wink: