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I don't know about anyone else, but when I make popcorn I use more than 64 bits of kernel!

= REALLY snappy

Very corny, Sanders! Aw shucks!

Does this mean I would need to upgrade to 4GB of RAM in order to get the full effects of 64 bit?

Here comes the driver issues.

Sep 04, 08 - 01:03 pm Comment from: Mr. Reeee

Rocky, it's Mac OS X not Windows.
32-bit and 64-bit apps run seamlessly. Kind of the way it works NOW in Leopard.
Apple does it right.

It's stunning just how far behind Windows falls with each passing day!

I liked the bit in the earlier one that shows just how criminal M$ and Dell are...

But that's just me..

It's stunning just how far behind Windows falls with each passing day!

When you're trying to stretch 28 years of very poorly engineered CRAP legacy into the future, it's going to hurt you.

MS still has a reasonably long life remaining in the form of entrenchment, but they're no longer a growth business. They have textbook "old company disease".

Sep 04, 08 - 01:53 pm Comment from: MacintoshSoftwareList.com

Why do they tell us the next OSX will have 64 bit every time they come out with a new OSX? Just remember this when OS 10.7 comes out. It will once again be said that it introduces true 64bit.

Great for marketing spin and for server applications. Irrelevant for the rest of us

Unless we're using PhotoShop.
Or are doing scientific modeling.
Or are working with video.
Or are laying an OS foundation for beyond 2010.

Apple is smart to be negotiating the curve now.

How long before 64 gigs of memory are common on desktop systems?

"Irrelevant for the rest of us."

How many are there of you?

Never mind. The answer is probably disturbing.

Sep 04, 08 - 02:41 pm Comment from: Kai Ahnung

"How long before 64 gigs of memory are common on desktop systems?"

Hmm, let's see. We have 2GB standard now, Moore's law says it doubles every 18 months...OK, that makes it 7.5 years!
We'll have 64GB of RAM standard in laptops by 2015.

Lets hope this does not make the developers lazy. I still want as light as an app as possible. Just because you can use a bazillion GB of RAM or virtual memory does not mean u have to.

AND what does this mean for any 32bit applications? Windows 64 has tons of issues with drivers and applications not made for it. Are we going to be forced to use our 64bit snow mac with our ilife and iwork, and nothing else, or be fored to pay for all new 64 bit software.....I'm all for better performance but the rest of this stuff is just as important.....

Clearly Reality Check buys into the myth that size doesn't matter. Used to the automobile was looked at as a substitute for the male crank. Now I guess it's the computer OS. And all the rationalizations that go along it... The more things change the more they stay the same.

Running 4 GB of RAM on my newish Macbook, I can tell you that 8 GB of RAM would be welcome, if only . . .

Try loading up a full-tilt VMWare hosted Windows XP while running Mac OSX Leopard in all its glory -- you WILL bounce off of the 4 GB RAM limit occasionally, as the machine slow to a crawl while paging memory back and forth from the hard disk -- even with 4 GB of RAM onboard (well, actually 3.2 GB of RAM -- the rest is sucked up by the integrated video subsystem).

small and light -- to answer your question about the possibility of driver issues as Apple moves to full 64-bit addressing -- it will not matter to OSX if a driver is only 32-bit compatible -- or only 64-bit compatible -- OSX can handle BOTH simultaneously, without a hiccup -- 'tis the way Apple designed OSX to Just Work™, in the first place -- the OSX architecture was built to handle this issue transparently, with no user intervention needed.


Niffy

The bigger question is what this means to people who own Core Solo and Core Duo macs, since these intel macs aren't 64bit.

Sep 04, 08 - 08:30 pm Comment from: iDon't

Will 64 bits improve watching porn?

>Will 64 bits improve watching porn?

Definitely, for the first time you will be able to watch "lesbian bitches" and "anal delight" in full 1080p HD simultaneously on two monitors.

It will also allow you to attach iBlowJob™ to your Mac though an 800 Mbps FireWire port for a full 64-bit sensual experience.

Does this mean that 32 bit intel chips won't be supported?

Sep 05, 08 - 03:20 am Comment from: MacSheikh

64-bit chips? I dunno...personally i prefer my chips bbq flavoured and extra spicy! Mmmm...

'Reality Check' read the article but didn't understand a word of it, obviously.

By investing an entire major operating system release to plumbing, including full and true 64 bit support, Apple is making a bit bet that the transition to 64 bit computing will indeed bring benefits, if indirectly, to ordinary users. The jury is out on that one.

Q Real, I'm not Reality Check, but I did read the article, and I am quite familiar with TLBs, MMUs, Mach virtual memory, etc.

We all agree that, for a subset of market segments (scientific computing, graphics and media, enterprise server deployments, etc), 64 bit address space will have direct benefits. We should all know that by now.

However, where ordinary users are concerned, I agree with Reality Check that this move to 64 bit support in Snow Leopard will have minimal direct benefit to the vast majority of ordinary users, at least in the 1-2 year timeframe after Snow Leopard is released.

That's because for most users, factors such as network speed and screen real estate and application functionality have a much greater impact on their productivity, than raw CPU speed or virtual memory address space.

So if there are few direct benefits of 64 bit to ordinary users, at least in the 1-2 year timeframe, what about indirect benefits?

That is a crapshoot currently, because we simply don't know right now how 64 bit virtual address space can be leveraged by third party app developers and server infrastructure providers to benefit ordinary users.

Will developers use the 64 bit address space to create innovative new services that can be sold and accessed online? Will server infrastructure, e.g. virtualization, make it more economical and usable to deliver these innovative new services to ordinary users?

We don't know. There are precious few data points available, at this early stage. The little data that currently exist are primarily within closed computing environments, e.g. enterprise or departmental-level deployments, which is hardly representative of ordinary users.

Conclusion: With past history being a guide, in the most optimistic scenario, it will probably take at least one additional major release cycle beyond Snow Leopard for ordinary users to accrue measurable and verifiable improvements to their productivity.

@ Another reality Check, You have huffed & puffed your way through a lengthy monologue that concludes nothing new!

What is new is that for those who actually need the performance, Apple inc. will be the first to deliver it.

Who needs this performance? Adobe does, and so does Electronic Arts, Cisco, the media industry i.e music, film, broadcasting, google, microsoft & thus indirectly we the end users.

The Olympics were delivered to China & the rest of the World via Macs, how do reckon they got those fantastic slow motion replays?

Sep 05, 08 - 10:09 am Comment from: Lurker_PC

Hmm... with a PowerMac G5 and a 1st Gen Macbook (32 bit processor), I guess Leopard is going to be the last Apple OS on my machines.

Peace.

@Crabapple, I agree that I'm not saying anything particularly new, i.e. that hasn't already been covered by other experts, about the lack of 64 bit computing's relevance to ordinary users.

But "Q Real" and other commenters seemed to (incorrectly) believe otherwise, so I thought it was worth setting the record straight.