hehe... well, I'm still going to dream of having an "eggpig" of my own, one day! [;)] But I am curious about my "option 2" above - is a two-machine setup getting any more realistic these days, cm? Anybody?
I've checked out whatever 64bit posts I could find (I'm thinking of an XP64 slave machine, now), but they don't seem to state anything conclusive. My thinking is that I could go with an RME card in an XP64 slave, and lightpipe all the audio into a Mac Pro, running my ProFire Lightbridge (a decent little box, so far, though the driver seems a little sketchy, in typical m-audio style).
snaverave: I realize this is all a matter of one's workflow. Yes, you can work on a single machine, if you use the memory management tools, freezing, and so on. But an "all up, all online" setup on a single machine is not currently possible. Unfortunately, in the way I work, I virtually never use the memory management stuff. I'm not going to get into a big debate about workflow, but the more forum threads you read, the more you'll realize that memory allocation, and system-wide memory limits are the single biggest problem users face in running VIs. Breaking the 3.xx GB barrier will obviously reveal new problems (memory latency and bandwidth), but it's not as though that will happen at 4.1 GB, 6 GB, or even necessarily at 8 GB. And keep in mind that often it's only a matter of a few 100 MB that prevents loading that one "must have" articulation... It will be interesting to see golem's (Christian Teuscher) upcoming thread about challenges the development team is facing in providing 64bit support. That thread should generate some *serious* discussion! Looking forward to hearing the details.
J.