64-bit tidbits

One guy brags about having solved a jigsaw puzzle in only six months. Another guy wonders why that's such a feat. "Well", the first guy says, "it said 3-5 years on the box".

This compares nicely to the 64-bit computer puzzle I commenced a couple of weeks back.

It's up and running, and switching to a 64-bit operating system (Windows Vista Ultimate) has brought some interesting experiences I thought I'd share.

The best thing on the plus side is the RAM extravaganza of 6 GB, allowing several 32-bit applications to run at their max memory capacity simultaneously. Photoshop is perhaps the most hungry dog in the pack, but all the applications I've set up so far seems to thrive.

Exept one. The LightZone raw converter actually runs slower on the new 'puter. Which is bad news because it was pretty slow on the old machine too. Too bad that such an innovative piece of software is bogged down by sluggish performance.

Another interesting puzzle about Vista is the way it handles colour calibration. I have the ColorVision Spyder 2 to calibrate the screen, and it dutifully loads the calibrated profile on each startup. Sometimes, however, Vista decides to discard the loaded profile after a couple of minutes and run without. A re-run of the ColorVision startup routine reinserts the profile just fine, so this looks like a fix to be included in a Service Pack from Microsoft. Or whatever. I'll try not to get too pissed while waiting...:-)

There are a couple of things I could really bitch about too, but I don't feel like bitching today. Just one little boo to Pentax for not providing a 64-bit version of the raw file plug-in for Windows Explorer.

As all boys with a new toy, I very much enjoy the step-up from a Pentium 4 to a Core2duo box. Besides the overall performance boost, the noise level has come down a couple of notches. That certainly counts for something too.