Cockos REAPER
Bridging
and VST Plug-in Run Mode
Bridging and VST Plug-in Run Mode
If you are running the 64 bit
version of REAPER and wish to use older 32 bit plug-ins you will need to use
bridging. By default, REAPER will attempt to work out for any plug-in that
you use whether this bridging is required (Options, Preferences, Plug-ins,
Compatibility). However, for any plug-in you can override this setting by
right-clicking over the plug-in in the FX browser and choosing from the
context menu Run as, and selecting one of three options which allow you to
specify just how a plug-in is to be bridged. These options are:
Separate process:
all bridged plugins for which this option is selected will be put into a
single process, external to the main Reaper process. This has the advantage
of minimising the resulting CPU load, but also carries a significant
disadvantage: if one plugin is buggy and crashes the bridge process, all the
other bridged plugins will die too.
Dedicated process:
this puts each bridged plugin into a separate bridge process of its own.
This will prevent a buggy plug-in from crashing the entire bridge, but it
has the downside of increasing the overall CPU load.
Native only:
is the default; the plug-ins are run inside the main Reaper process.
Bridging can serve another useful function. Even though it is primarily
intended for use with 32 bit plug-ins, you can if you wish also bridge (most
likely in a dedicated process) any 64 bit plug-in. This has the effect of
firewalling REAPER against any adverse effects that could potentially arise
from a buggy 64 bit plug-in.
A further choice,
Embed bridge UI,
determines whether the bridged plug-in GUI is displayed in the FX Chain
wrapper window (or as a floating window) or is displayed in a completely
separate (Windows / OSX) window. The choice is provided as some bridged
plug-ins behave better in one context than in the other. Remember! You
should not store 32 bit plug-ins in the same directory as 64-bit plug-ins.