What type of new system for PP CS3?

[Brian Mercer]

At this point my head is hurting! I use Premiere Pro 2.0 on a P4 2G RAM XP system. Rendering is really slow. I want to upgrade the system. I want to upgrade to Premeire CS3.

What type of system is best? Vista 32-bit or 64-bit?

I don't have a lot of monetary resources. I was looking at an HP at Best Buy with Intel Core Quad Q6700 w/Vista 64-bit for around $1200.


I'm completely lost. Guidance required.

[Jordan Orberg]

From what I have heard Vista is "NO GO"

I would stick with XP for now at least until a service pack comes out. Besides, Vista takes up more resources than xp and would actually slow down your renders.

[Gary Bettan]

Check ou t our new DIY6 machine http://www.videoguys.com/DIY6.html

We used an Asus mobo and the Q6600 Quad core procesor. Article goes into more depth. running CS3 great (along with the new MAtrox RT.X2 le card)

Gary

[Pete Bauer]

CS3 applications are Vista 32 certified, and Vista SP1 is out. Sounds like it doesn't really improve system performance, whereas Win XP SP3, which is due out at the end of this month is said to significantly improve multi-core aware application performance (like CS3), so XP might be the safer bet if you can get it.

Current Adobe applications are NOT 64-bit certified. Some people are happily running them on Vista 64, and other people report problems. So at best, you're taking a gamble to go Vista 64.

To add to the question, though, I wonder if anyone is running Vista Ultimate 64-bit and using Flash CS3 successfully? I read elsewhere the other night that even if other apps function under Vista 64, Flash doesn't, but haven't read anything similar here on DVINFO. Any Vista 64 users comment?

If you use Cineform, I think they are still recommending XP but do support Vista 32...don't know about 64 for their apps.

Sorry I can't be more definitive, but haven't installed my copy of CS3 yet...also debating about whether to try a dual boot to play with Vista 64 or just leave Vista for my next editing box in 6-12 months.

[Brian Mercer]

Thanks for the feedback.

I like the DIY setup, but probably not the best route for me. I'm not sure I could get it all together. I also like the idea of at least having some sort of warranty safetynet.

I have a HP computer that's about 5 years old. Windows XP and 2GB of RAM. Its slow on renders when applying Magic Bullet effects and/or color correcting. Any suggestions on how to speed it up? Maybe I should limp along for 6 months?

[Jordan Orberg]

Originally Posted by Gary Bettan

Check ou t our new DIY6 machine http://www.videoguys.com/DIY6.html

We used an Asus mobo and the Q6600 Quad core procesor. Article goes into more depth. running CS3 great (along with the new MAtrox RT.X2 le card)

Gary

Hey Gary,
Have you guys recently built an octocore system? I was looking around on your website to see if you had any info on an updated octocore.

[Shawn McCalip]

I agree with what Pete said above about Adobe's CS3 suite running in Vista. Currently, I have a desktop with Vista Home Premium 32-bit and a laptop running Vista Ultimate 64-bit. They're both running Adobe's CS3 Production bundle flawlessly. The only problem I've run into is that there's an update for Illustrator that pops up, but always encounters an error when I've tried to install it.

Unless something has changed recently, CS3 will NOT take advantage of more than 2 processor cores.

The desktop I edit on at home is an HP Pavilion 9040n. It's a Q6600 Quad Core with 3 GB of RAM and 640 GB of HDD space. It cost me about $1300 or so back in November of last year, but this thing runs like a champ. Granted, I'd really like to get my hands on a well-equipped xw8400 workstation, but I didn't have $5k to spend. If you're looking to pinch pennies, I'd highly recommend looking at the latest HP Pavilions with Quad Core processors. If you're technically savvy enough, you can pick up a great system for about $1k, and then shop around for bigger hard drives, better video cards, and all that stuff you can install yourself.

My machine is incredibly quiet, and keeps itself quite cool. I've not had any issues with performance or reliability, and like I said, it gives an excellent bang for the buck.

My 3 cents.

[Nick Schale]

Premiere CS4 will run be 64bit from what I heard. Here is an article.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/2008...pcworld/144126

No clue on when it is to be released, but honestly, I would hold off if you can bear it.

[Nick Schale]

also side note: Mac users will have to wait a little longer than PC users for this

[Shawn McCalip]

Originally Posted by Nick Schale

Premiere CS4 will run be 64bit from what I heard. Here is an article.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/2008...pcworld/144126

From what I read, it looked like they were only implementing 64-bit capabilities in Photoshop.

Frankly, I'm not very impressed with the current capabilities of 64-bit software, but I think it's because of the limitations of the system I'm running on. I do some 3D modeling and animation on the 64-bit version of 3ds Max 9, and I haven't noticed much of an advantage over my 32-bit installation. I think the only people that are going to see a huge increase in performance are those who are working on these mega-workstations with 8GB+ of RAM. However, I'm sure things will only get better as time goes on. 64-bit still isn't in the main stream, and I wouldn't be surprised if it took another year or two before it starts to become more visible.

[Brian Mercer]

If operating systems are going the 64-bit route in order to take full advantage of the new processor technology...

AND

...Adobe is making Premiere Pro a 64-bit software.

Then should I just hang tight on purchasing anything?

But will the 64-bit Premiere Pro come in CS4 version? When? Will Adobe offer some type of free upgrade for all of those with CS3 (32-bit) in order not to upset A LOT of consumers?

[Shawn McCalip]

I still can't find anything concrete that says Premiere Pro CS4 will have a 64-bit version. The only software title Adobe is talking about is Photoshop. I can only find speculation by people on various forums, and I've learned to take things like that with a heavy grain of salt... That said, 64-bit based software, and systems that will take full advantage of it still have yet to get their time in the spotlight. Most processors and new PC systems have the capabilities, but it's going to be awhile before software companies start using it. Frankly, by the time you start seeing a dominant share of 64-bit software available, I bet you'll most likely be wanting to upgrade whatever system you're looking to purchase now!

Anyway, there are many people here that live by this philosophy: If you need something for a job right now and you can afford it, you should buy it. If you keep waiting for the next version, you'll constantly be waiting! It's the same for software, computers, cameras, and well, just about everything. There's always something bigger, better, stronger, and faster coming out every few months. So, if you need to start editing video on Premiere Pro soon, then buy a copy of Premiere Pro.

Also, I highly doubt that they will allow users to upgrade to CS4 for free. They didn't do it for CS2 users looking to upgrade to CS3. Now, if they announce a release date for CS4 and you purchase CS3 a couple weeks before that release date, they will probably give you a voucher or something to let you upgrade for free. But, if you buy it now, you'll have to spend a few hundred bucks to upgrade like the rest of us.

[Rob Wood]

Yeh I really think that if you've got XP (new service pack out at end of month) there's no reason to flip to Vista until you go 64bit. XP is an excellent OS.

~

Comments I've had from Vista64 users is that it is stable but slower. Much RAM should be given.

Regarding Premiere CS3, I think being ahead-of-the-curve (running 32app on 64bit OS) is not a good idea as I don't believe Adobe supports it yet. I'm unfamiliar with anyone using that combo... it *should* work, but...

And if there's hardware (BM/Xena/etc) involved, it gets more iffy, not less.

~

That said, Vista 64bit is where things are going PC-wise. People complained about XP after it came out with IDENTICAL comments (too slow, too much crap, blah blah blah). Win2000 was the only PC OS no-one got snarky over and that was because (imo) the precursors were Win98SE (ok, but crashed a lot) and WinME (crap).

Give it a bit of time and the dust will settle... but maybe not quite yet. :)

[Brian Mercer]

Great information. I am now more comfortable sticking with XP and the computer I currently have. I also found out my render times could be so long do to Magic Bullet effects. I hear they have long render times regardless of computer.

If I were to upgrade the graphics card (I'm now running dual monitor, one vga analog and one dvi digial), what would be a good card?

[Rob Wood]

GeForce 8800GT has been given good reviews... check here and tomshardware.... about half the price of the 8800GTX and almost identical performance.

l8r
rob