Will CVI support building 64 bit binaries?

[menchar]

Are there any plans to provide for building 64 bit applications with CVI?

While it seems NI has developed 64 bit drivers for the NI hardware products, is there any way to actually develop a 64 bit application in CVI?  For Win XP Pro x64 for example?

The feature attractive to us is the increased memory size ...  so if I were to run a CVI built 32 bit application in a 64 bit OS, is there access to the increased memory?

Menchar

[LuisG]

Yes, menchar, plans for this are in active consideration, at least for Vista 64 (less likely for XP 64. Note that even CVI 8.5 does not officially support XP 64. NI drivers typically also don't support XP 64).

You do need to build a native 64-bit binary in order to get access to the increased memory size.

Luis

[menchar]

Thanks, Luis. 

So the NI "64 bit" drivers are for Vista 64 only?  I guess this allows the use of NI hardware in Vista 64 even though NI doesn't offer a development environment that could build an application to use them?

Any idea of a timeframe for the Vista 64 support? 

Menchar

[LuisG]

That is correct. Most 64-bit NI drivers are only supported in Vista. See this page for a list of which are and aren't supported in XP 64.

The reason that there are native 64-bit drivers is because there Windows does not offer 64-bit emulation for kernel mode software. Drivers typically need to run in kernel mode. So while you are able to run the normal 32-bit CVI in Vista 64, you wouldn't be able to use the drivers if they were not available in native 64-bit binaries.

I'm sorry, we don't have a specific timeframe for 64-bit CVI yet.

Luis

[menchar]

Thanks Luis.

If CVI were able to build 64 bit binaries, we'd be doing that today ... we need the expanded memory, not so much the other performance improvements.

Menchar