ZinZam

Life with 64 bit

September 25, 2009

Being back in Maryborough means two things. Firstly back to the grind of work, but secondly I am now using my core i7 machine running RC of Windows 7 64.

While I realise that Windows 7 has reached RTM, it hasn't been released as GA yet. I am looking at getting Windows 7 professional as OEM at the end of october, and at the same time upgrading my core i7 box with an antec P180 mATX mini-tower case, and an A(md)TI HD5850 video card. I am also considering getting a Creative X-FI Titanium FATAL1TY sound card just for the awesomeness.

Being able to use the computer after it sitting in a box for 6 months is completely awesome. I am able to do things that I simply could not do on my two and a half year old laptop. Blender and Vegas movie studio run smoothy, Full HD video from my handycam is handled effortlessly, and dual display mode is a lot snappier.

Unfortunately while 64 bit allows the computer to support all 6 GiB of installed RAM, current versions of Blender and Vegas movie studio are only 32 bit which I am sure will change, it just means I can multi-task them effectively.

I am currently playing with Blender 3D to create 3D flyover titles for videos. I am picking up the basics pretty quickly which is awesome, but I don't think I'll be able to animate complex objects anytime soon. It is a fair bit different to using 3D CAD packages, but I am far more confident in working in 3D thanks to using CAD at work, so learning Blender has been a whole lot easier this time around despite it's unintuitive UI.

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