I know this should probably go in a different forum but I have seen bits & pieces of this discussion among the NC folks so I thought I'd just ask (plus this is by far the most active forum).

If we set up a 64 bit workstation & create CATIA models & CATProcess' on it, will people with 32 bit machines be able to open/use the models?

That's all I got.

Thanks,

Larry

Thanks Dave

Do you know if there is any Dassault/IBM documentation that supports this? The reason I ask is our Eng. Support guys say just the opposite. That has led to a mindset that we can't start moving to 64 bit until we can migrate entire program groups. If it truelly has seamless interoperability, then they can move people that need 64 bit as required & let the rest of the folks get upgraded when leases expire.

Larry

When I was at Contour Aerospace I was the only one with a 64bit machine and the rest of the programming dept was on 32bit machines, because I was evaluating it for Vericut and CATIA. I was working on a project that 3 other programmers and 2 tool designers were working on and we all shared CATProducts, CATParts and CATProcesses without any problem.

But now I am at Synchronous Aerospace with a 64bit machine and we had some kind of a problem opening up 32bit modles on my machine. The IT dept here couldn't find out why we were having problems and they just uninstalled 64bit CATIA-R18 and installed 32bit CATIA-R18. I never did find out what the problem was??????? 

I've been on 64bit for a month, other 4 programmers on 32bit - no problems reading my models/NC processes whatsoever, as it should be. The only difference is my processing speed is faster than theirs. The biggest difference I've seen is the Control Points function in Freestyle Optimizer (FSO) which we use with our cloud of points models. HUGE difference in speed there.

Richard

I've worked at a couple of places that used both 32 and 64 bit. Never had a problem with interoperabilty.

Get someone to send you a '64 bit' model and show your support guy.

Cheers.

I have jumped back and forth many times with no problems.

32 bit is pre historic.  Unless you are working on simple tiny parts, you are wasting valuable time using 32 bit.

Even my old discontinued Dell M90 laptop is running 64 bit.

Everything you are saying is correct, a few comments however.  CATIA on 64bit is no faster, it just uses memory more effectively, mind you it also needs more memory to run, 8GB is a realistic minimum.  It is not entirely correct that you can interchange files between 32bit and 64bit CATIA, they are binary compatible but you can create a CATPart, CATProduct or CATProcess on 64bit which will be of such a size that it is unreadable on 32bit CATIA.

As an Engineering administrator we want to ensure complete compatability between users, that is probably the reason LCRANO's administrator wants to migrate entire groups of users.  You may also have a restriction from your vendor that does not allow you to use 64bit.

"Back in our day..."

I remember going from 16bit to 32bit and how it solved some of our APT processing problems and life was good.

Here at our site the parts and NC programs are relatively small so when I went to 64bit it wasn't overwhelming but I sure don't want to go back to 32bit. I will say that the function I descibed earlier is WAY faster on 64bit - makes my co-workers jealous.

Haven't tried more than 4GB of RAM but that's next.

Richard

"WAY faster on 64bit" is correct IF you are working with a memory contrained CATPart/Product/Process.  If it is not memory constrained you will see no or very marginal difference.  You will reach the same point with 4GB and 64bit once the model becomes large, then going to 8GB will make is 'faster' again. 

Go with 64bit and 8GB if you are dealing with large models but just be aware of the incomplatabilities.  We support 64bit in NC only as it is usually the 'end of the road' for the model.  You then have to ensure your supply base can deal it.  From my perspective it is hard enough to ensure suppliers are on the exact same CATIA level.

Great info Gary, thanks.

Larry, good you posted here to get an MFG perspective.

Oh yeah, one and only one thing bad so far about going 64bit at our facility is our time card and tracking system are 32bit only. I have to use Virtual PC which is exactly like turning on your computer, visual and time wise. That takes a long time so I often go to the shop computer instead. One thing that was really cool when I installed 64bit was I could take the time card icon sitting on the 64bit desktop and drag and drop it into the Virtual PC window and that was it.

Thanks everyone for your informative replies.I traded in my NC hat for several other hats a few years ago and right now I have to look at this through the IT sun glasses. We have a couple hundred engineers here working on design, analysis & even a few NC programmers. Right now it is the analysis guys who are screaming loudest for 64 bit and they even got a couple test machines. However, I think that the migration of program specific groups of people is probably what is going to have to be done. We do create some large structures and if we have a designer create something that nobody else can use, we're pretty much hosed.

I'm usre as time goes by, we will start bringing in 64 bit but I think it will be driven more by the software maturity than the designers/programmers requests. We'll just look to you privateers with your "quadzilla" machines and shed a tear of envy...