<strong>When the PPC970 comes out, we better see a 9600-like machine with at least 8 or 10 RAM slots. Huge amounts of addressable memory means that I can go into 64-bit Final Cut Pro and put my entire project into RAMdisk, rendering the most complex of transitions in realtime...
THAT is the killer app of 64-bit computing for me.</strong><hr></blockquote>
A RAMdisk? Get with the 21st century, dude. That wouldn't be a 64-bit app, for starters. A 64-bit version of Final Cut Pro would just memory map the file into its address space and start reading as you touched parts of the file (actually its more complicated than this because people typically want to be able to save / revert / undo). No RAMdisks required or desired.
Note that you still need to read the source file into RAM. If you drive is 100 MB/sec (and it probably isn't) it would take 40 seconds to fill a 32-bit address space (4 GB). Writing it back to disk would take at least as long again. If your file is 4x too big to fit in a 32-bit space then even a 64-bit machine is going to take >2.5 minutes to read (and write) the thing... dealing with this much data is still going to be somewhat painful.
A RAMdisk? Get with the 21st century, dude. That wouldn't be a 64-bit app, for starters. A 64-bit version of Final Cut Pro would just memory map the file into its address space and start reading as you touched parts of the file (actually its more complicated than this because people typically want to be able to save / revert / undo). No RAMdisks required or desired.
What if the file is a fresh capture from your camera? With a RAM disk, would it not be possible to skip the large amount of time required in pulling the file from hard drive to memory? This would also allow you to keep in RAM files that you weren't immediately dealing with. The RAM disk "metaphor" on the desktop could let allow you to keep several rendered versions of a project in RAM, even after exiting FCP. (Say, if you wanted to use the source files in After Effects for example).
RAM disks do sound old, but they work pretty well for FCP, Premiere, and even Photoshop in OS 9. (I'm a video editor, so I still spend most of my time in 9). I haven't tried messing with them in X, but I'm guessing they work pretty well there too.
What if the file is a fresh capture from your camera? With a RAM disk, would it not be possible to skip the large amount of time required in pulling the file from hard drive to memory? This would also allow you to keep in RAM files that you weren't immediately dealing with. The RAM disk "metaphor" on the desktop could let allow you to keep several rendered versions of a project in RAM, even after exiting FCP. (Say, if you wanted to use the source files in After Effects for example).
RAM disks do sound old, but they work pretty well for FCP, Premiere, and even Photoshop in OS 9. (I'm a video editor, so I still spend most of my time in 9). I haven't tried messing with them in X, but I'm guessing they work pretty well there too.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apps should be able to capture directly to memory with no need to hit the disk first. Failing to save files to disk has to be about the biggest cause of lost work in the history of computing. Any bug in the software, or any power glitch and your data is history. Rather than using a RAMdisk explicitly, its better to rely on a filesystem that is aggressive about caching data in memory -- that way it can be continuously updating the disk in the background while you work. Apps should also be able to use memory mapped files to share access to large files without having to hit the disk between accesses, but it gets a little tricky to ensure that they don't step on eachothers toes while doing it.
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<strong>When the PPC970 comes out, we better see a 9600-like machine with at least 8 or 10 RAM slots. Huge amounts of addressable memory means that I can go into 64-bit Final Cut Pro and put my entire project into RAMdisk, rendering the most complex of transitions in realtime...
THAT is the killer app of 64-bit computing for me.</strong><hr></blockquote>
A RAMdisk? Get with the 21st century, dude. That wouldn't be a 64-bit app, for starters. A 64-bit version of Final Cut Pro would just memory map the file into its address space and start reading as you touched parts of the file (actually its more complicated than this because people typically want to be able to save / revert / undo). No RAMdisks required or desired.
Note that you still need to read the source file into RAM. If you drive is 100 MB/sec (and it probably isn't) it would take 40 seconds to fill a 32-bit address space (4 GB). Writing it back to disk would take at least as long again. If your file is 4x too big to fit in a 32-bit space then even a 64-bit machine is going to take >2.5 minutes to read (and write) the thing... dealing with this much data is still going to be somewhat painful.
[QB]
A RAMdisk? Get with the 21st century, dude. That wouldn't be a 64-bit app, for starters. A 64-bit version of Final Cut Pro would just memory map the file into its address space and start reading as you touched parts of the file (actually its more complicated than this because people typically want to be able to save / revert / undo). No RAMdisks required or desired.
What if the file is a fresh capture from your camera? With a RAM disk, would it not be possible to skip the large amount of time required in pulling the file from hard drive to memory? This would also allow you to keep in RAM files that you weren't immediately dealing with. The RAM disk "metaphor" on the desktop could let allow you to keep several rendered versions of a project in RAM, even after exiting FCP. (Say, if you wanted to use the source files in After Effects for example).
RAM disks do sound old, but they work pretty well for FCP, Premiere, and even Photoshop in OS 9. (I'm a video editor, so I still spend most of my time in 9). I haven't tried messing with them in X, but I'm guessing they work pretty well there too.
<strong>
What if the file is a fresh capture from your camera? With a RAM disk, would it not be possible to skip the large amount of time required in pulling the file from hard drive to memory? This would also allow you to keep in RAM files that you weren't immediately dealing with. The RAM disk "metaphor" on the desktop could let allow you to keep several rendered versions of a project in RAM, even after exiting FCP. (Say, if you wanted to use the source files in After Effects for example).
RAM disks do sound old, but they work pretty well for FCP, Premiere, and even Photoshop in OS 9. (I'm a video editor, so I still spend most of my time in 9). I haven't tried messing with them in X, but I'm guessing they work pretty well there too.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apps should be able to capture directly to memory with no need to hit the disk first. Failing to save files to disk has to be about the biggest cause of lost work in the history of computing. Any bug in the software, or any power glitch and your data is history. Rather than using a RAMdisk explicitly, its better to rely on a filesystem that is aggressive about caching data in memory -- that way it can be continuously updating the disk in the background while you work. Apps should also be able to use memory mapped files to share access to large files without having to hit the disk between accesses, but it gets a little tricky to ensure that they don't step on eachothers toes while doing it.