Vista Drivers

[Todd Welter]

Hello Folks. Before I ask my question, you have a very informative site here with a wealth of knowledge.

I'm running a VL-200 with corel X3. I just purchased a new pc with windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit. I just found out that there are no available drivers from universal for 64 bit computers. Has anyone ran into this problem and if so, is there a resolve for it? I could down grade to 32 bit, but would lose half the memory that came with the PC. Has anyone heard of a release for the 64 bit drivers? Once again, thank you for your help

[Mike Null]

Save yourself a lot of grief and exchange for a 32 bit machine.

Additonal memory is cheap.

[Dan Hintz]

Additonal memory is cheap.

Mike,

I think Todd's issue is the 32-bit OS will not recognize memory above 3GB... a 64-bit OS will recognize more memory than we could afford, so he stacked up with a few extra Gigs. If he switches OSs, he loses the use of the memory.




Sounds like we're heading back to the ol' DOS days of resident memory managers as we slowly move from 32- to 64-bit systems.

[Todd Welter]

That's it Mike, the pc came with 8 gig of memory, if I downgrade, I lose the top 4. I really don't understand how the 64 bit works, but that is where I get the additional memory. I can load the versalaser software, but it will not recognize the driver. It would be nice to utilize the memory while running several different programs. You would think that universal would come out with the driver soon with all of the 64-bit systems being sold.

[Dave Johnson29]

That's it Mike, the pc came with 8 gig of memory, if I downgrade, I lose the top 4. I really don't understand how the 64 bit works

Hi Todd,

The 32 v 64 works as 64 Bits allows a bigger number to be handled by the Operating System (OS). The largest number 32 Bits can deal with is 4,294,967,295 and 64 Bit max 18,446,744,073,709,551,615.

Each Byte in memory consists of 8 Bits and the OS has to know exactly where every Byte is so it numbers them 0 through to the max.

OK, having said that, I would doubt you will get much benefit from 64 v 32. When the OS reaches the limit of available on-board memory (your 4G in 32 Bit) it pages it out (and in) to the hard drive in a Page File (Virtual Memory). This then behaves exactly the same as the on-board memory. The cost is a little extra time because the hard drive is slower than the on-board memory.

However modern hard drives are really quick these days so that is not such big deal either.

Anyway the point is, if you are working on an image file that is bigger than 4G then the 64 Bit comes into play. There are of course caveats if you are running a lot of other programs simultaneously as they would eat into that 4G. But basically in normal use, I doubt you would ever sneak into that memory above 4G even if you had the driver.

There is a lot more to it than that but that's the basics, so my view would be to run in 32 Bit mode until there is a 64 Bit driver for the ULS. My guess is it will be a loooong time coming uinless 4+G .JPGs are the norm.

[Brad Knight]

That's it Mike, the pc came with 8 gig of memory, if I downgrade, I lose the top 4. I really don't understand how the 64 bit works, but that is where I get the additional memory.

Can't speak to the drivers, when or where...

But 'how'... Imagine your phone number. If you lived in a town of 10,000 a 5 digit phone number would be enough. 1,000,000, a 7 digit number would do. We use a 10 digit number for the entire US. So for every digit you add, the number of available numbers (think memory addresses) goes up exponentially.

Now increase isn't exactly the same between decimal and binary, but the idea is the same. 64 bits is more than just double... I think the decimal equivalent of the highest 32bit number is 4,294,967,295 and the highest 64 bit number is 18,446,744,073,709,599,999
That's a lot more phone numbers to play with.



Now if the driver isn't equipped to use a phone book that large, the OS can help out, but it has to jump through hoops to do it... and it doesn't always do it well or quickly.

**To my other geeky associates out here**
I know there is more going on, but I'm just trying to translate geek to English.

[Jim Watkins]

Anyone using an Epilog machine would need to use the Epilog 64bit beta driver. When I got my new machine, I had the same problem. Fortunately Epilog had a 64bit beta driver available.

Vista would NOT recognize the 32bit driver so it was unusuable. While on the phone with Epilog they explained that I would need to use the beta. They also said they have no plans to upgrade the 64bit driver anytime in the immediate future.

Take heed before upgrading your PC... The beta works fine, but since they are not upgrading it, it doesn't have the new functionality of the 32 bit upgrades.

[Mike Null]

64 bit systems are not new but they are also not compatible with many drivers and software. I converted files several years ago to 64 bit to increase storage as I recall.

Edit for correction--I converted 16 bit to FAT32.

Not being a pc geek I will defer to those who are but for the present it would seem like a 32 bit system makes sense.

[Scott Shepherd]

Is there no option in Vista 64 to run programs as 32 bit programs? Like using the option to run a specific file as Windows 95 or 98 Compatible in XP?

Is there no option to have it run as a 32 bit system entirely, without having to get the 32 bit version?

[Dan Hintz]

Dave, overall I agree with what you've said, re the lack of benefit of a 64-bit OS with the type of work we're doing. Even so, we are moving to a point in program complexity and data volume that 64-bit OSs will slowly become the norm... I imagine over the next 3-5 years you will see 32-bit OSs begin to look like 16-bit OSs look to us now.



Todd, Dave is right, the OS will swap out to the hard drive, so unless you're truly working with gigantic files (2GB+), there's going to be little benefit. Should you actually be working with such monstrosities, you could go with an SSD hard drive as your swap space drive. They'll have access times similar to RAM, so you'll hardly notice the difference to a system with twice the RAM. SSD prices have fallen sharply the last 6 months, and a multi-Gig unit can be had for several hundred $s. Worth the price if you're playing at the bleeding edge.



Steve, the option you mention is for executables only, not hardware-level drivers (unfortunately for us). Some 32-bit drivers will work on a 64-bit OS, but the closer the driver is to hardware the less chance it will have of working correctly. In our case, it's probably a no-go.

[Tim Bateson]

I have been testing Win7 Beta 32bit. I've reloaded the Win7 Beta with the 64bit version. Win7 32bit is far much FASTER then Vista, but Win7 64bit leaves all of the rest in the dust! With almost all machines being built now with 64bit processors, I'm not even sure Microsoft is going to release a 32bit version of Win7 when it hits the market.

Back to the subject - I can now agree that the 32bit drivers will not work on a 64bit system. Sorry, I had to prove it to myself. Even worse, Epilog's 64bit beta driver will not load to the Laser the new Firmware version just released.

I've sent my complaints to Epilog.

In today's world, 64bit will soon be indispensable & Epilog needs to get on the stick.

[Tim Bateson]

Dan, I strongly disagree. My testing with the 64bit says otherwise. On my Vista32bit, I use Photoshop and Corel every day and spend a lot of time waiting. However with Win7 64bit - same machine, these applications are lightning fast. Even PhotoGrav is very fast and runs much better then it does on Vista 32bit, without setting it to XP mode. Not only is there a big speed difference, my laptop runs around 20% cooler - although that may be partually due to Win7 vs Vista.
Once 64bit drivers are readily available the 32bit drivers will become unsupportable. I think that will happen sooner rather then later.

[Dan Hintz]

Dan, I strongly disagree. My testing with the 64bit says otherwise. On my Vista32bit, I use Photoshop and Corel every day and spend a lot of time waiting. However with Win7 64bit - same machine, these applications are lightning fast. Even PhotoGrav is very fast and runs much better then it does on Vista 32bit, without setting it to XP mode. Not only is there a big speed difference, my laptop runs around 20% cooler - although that may be partually due to Win7 vs Vista.
Once 64bit drivers are readily available the 32bit drivers will become unsupportable. I think that will happen sooner rather then later.

Not exactly an apples to apples comparison, wouldn't you say? Vista is widely known (and admitted to even by high-level execs in MicroSoft's ranks) as practically a dog compared to what it was supposed to be. Win7 was designed to fix those issues, and it is what Vista should have been if they weren't so needy to kick out anything every couple of years to keep the money filling the coffers.

You can't say a 32-bit OS (Vista) is slow compared to a newer, more-optimized 64-bit OS (Win7) with any validity. Even the 32-bit version of Win7 is significantly faster than 32-bit Vista! Yes, there will be a speed increase moving to a 64-bit system (when the OS supports it) and working on large datasets (i.e., large images), but from a laser control driver standpoint, the benefit is zero. As we move into an age where the lasers use the computer as a control device (rather than having an on-board control system), I'm leary about processing much new info while the laser is working. On that note, I do my main processing on one machine (which will eventually move to a 64-bitter) and leave the laser control to a second, less powerful system (a 32-bitter).

As always, YMMV...

[Tim Bateson]

I agree, it's sort-of an oranges to orange juice comparison, but it's the only comparisons I could make. I'd like to hear from someone that does have both 32 & 64bit either XP or that dog Vista.

Isn't it sad though that we have to give up productivity to use our tools - lasers? The less time we have to wait for our software to startup, load, spin while sending a job to the laser, the more time we can spend actually using the laser.

I use my laptop for everything & I'd prefer to use it to it's full potential if the drivers were available to do so. As that is not the case here in 1999, oh wait it's 2009... or is it? I'll have to live with Vista 32bit Grrrrrrr

[Tim Bateson]

Sorry Todd, it looks like we don't have a good solution for you.