This morning Simon Hayhurst from Adobe’s video group announced that the next versions of Adobe After Effects & Premiere Pro will be 64-bit native & will require a 64-bit system to run (meaning a 64-bit processor and operating system). See Simon’s post, as well as this one from AE PM Michael Coleman, for more details.
If you’re running these apps today on a Mac, you’re probably already set (as CS4 is Intel-only). The only 32-bit Intel Macs were the first-gen MacBook Pros, iMacs, and Mac minis. On the Windows side, chances are again good that you’re running on a 64-bit processor, but you’ll want to make sure to move to a 64-bit version of Vista or Windows 7 if you haven’t done so already.
Does this news mean that the next version of Photoshop will carry the same requirements? No. Photoshop.next will still support 32-bit operating systems and processors (alongside 64-bit ones). It’ll be nice to go 64-bit-only someday (just so that we can focus all our development and testing time on this setup), but Photoshop’s user base is diverse, and the time isn’t quite right. In the meantime, supporting both flavors doesn’t compromise Photoshop.
Additional resources:
- The Production Premium Suite FAQ
- White papers demonstrating 64-bit advantages in CS4
- A post from DV evangelist Dennis Radeke
- All 64-bit-related posts on this blog
For a little more information on the benefits that you can get now using After Effects CS4 on 64-bit operating systems, see this post:
“CS4 Production Premium on 64-bit operating systems”.
This post spells out exactly what to do, whereas the white paper glosses over the After Effects details.
The first-gen MacBooks (the one I’m typing on is once of them) are 32-bit as well. So it seems the only Macs that didn’t come in a 32-bit Intel variety are the Mac Pros.
Still, it’s been a few years, and I honestly don’t think you’d have a major problem going 64-bit only for Photoshop CS5. It’s going to be Intel-only anyhowways, and the customers most likely to be affected and upset are late-model PowerMac G5 buyers.
The other possible class that would be affected in a major way are EDU institutions, and even if they bought 32-bit Intel machines, they should be scheduled for replacement well before CS5 ships.
Well, what you seem to forget is that there are people in corporate environments who don’t have the choice of their operating system. Larger companies tend to restrict their users to a standardized basic software image. I have my doubts whether we as a company will ever switch to 64bit in the forseeable future.
So you will lose customers there.
Don’t get me wrong: I would switch to 64bit any minute – already did on my private machine – but a lot of people just don’t have the choice.
Regards,
Mike
ps: have you ever tried installing some of the more exotic video codecs on Vista64? Plus you would first have to get each and every codec in 64bit since you can’t mix 64bit apps with 32bit codecs.
Wtf? I’ve sheduled to buy CS5 Production Premium, but 64 Bit-only? Not the next few years. Maybee it’s better, but 32 Bit is still here, and still used.
Btw: Could we get with CS5 our window manager title bar back?
Well, I for one think it’s about time. I’ve been running out of memory on Premiere since CS3.
Who is the Larry Jordan of Premiere Pro training?