Are you unsure whether your FL Studio is 32 or 64 bit? It’s an important thing to understand, as it affects the virtual memory available to your software. In this tutorial, we’ll explain the difference between 32 and 64-bit applications and how it impacts your music production.
Firstly, virtual memory is the address space available to each application for storing and retrieving program data. Virtual address space is like a post box number at the post office, and computers work in binary. So, a 32-bit program can access 4 gigabytes of data, while 64-bit applications can theoretically address 16 exabytes of data, which is 16 billion gigabytes.
However, digital audio workstation software, such as FL Studio, uses memory mainly for sampled data. And no matter how much RAM or physical memory you have, this has no effect on the virtual memory available to applications for storing their data. So, if you don’t have enough RAM to store data, then the operating system uses a file on your hard drive to extend it. But the catch is that your hard disk or solid-state drive is a lot slower than RAM, so programs slow down when data spills out of RAM and onto the disk.
It’s worth emphasizing that these virtual memory limits are per program, and each application or process can have its own to four or eight thousand gigabytes of memory to play with. So, if you run out of virtual memory space, you’ll receive an error or a crash.
Now, let’s answer the question. Does it matter if you use FL Studio 32 or 64-bit? We recommend using 32-bit plugins in the 32-bit version and 64-bit plugins in the 64-bit version of FL Studio. Bridging plugins uses some CPU, so if you have a large library of 32-bit plugins, not available in 64-bit, then we recommend you stick with FL Studio 32-bit. On the other hand, if you’re working with very large sample libraries and multi-gigabytes of audio clips, then FL Studio 64-bit is the best one to use.
It’s essential to note that while you can access as much memory as a 64-bit application with FL Studio 32-bit, it’s still limited to 4 gigabytes. Therefore, out of memory errors can occur when editing very long audio files in Edison or when the memory management techniques are not used. This won’t happen with FL Studio 64-bit.
In conclusion, your RAM does not limit how many gigabytes of samples or plugins you can load. The memory bit depth of the program or plugin does. FL Studio 32-bit can use just as much memory and RAM as FL Studio 64-bit, but it needs some tricks to do so. Stick to using mostly 32-bit plugins in FL Studio 32-bit and mostly 64-bit plugins in FL Studio 64-bit.
So, there you have it. Understanding the difference between 32 and 64-bit applications can help you make an informed decision while using FL Studio. Enjoy your virtual memory!