Takes 4 seconds for any page except yahoo to load up
whats up with that?
Go to utilities, open java preferences, click restore defaults in both applet and application sections, then click the network tab and click delete files then de-select keep temporarty files for fast access...this made my Safari and firefox about 20x faster after the SL Update
also, clear flash cache and cookies for more speed:
Office 64-bit will appear on Windows systems a full year before an OS X version.
Which probably has been true for about every Office version.
Quote:
First tier Widows 64-bit applications probably already outnumber all first tier OS X applications.
Any examples outside of Adobe CS4?
Quote:
I no longer can afford the price premium and lack of applications available on the OS X platform
Too bad for you for no longer being able to afford Macs. Most people switching from Windows to OS X will have a handful of applications for which they do not find an absolute match. I am fully convinced that the same would be true for people switching from OS X to Windows (I could list quite a few).
The lack of certain applications might be a stopper for a groups of users but claiming that there is a general lack of applications on OS X is completely besides reality for the majority of computer users.
The Asus laptops are cheap... even compared to other (non-Apple) laptops. One has to wonder, where are they cutting corners?
Comparing to a 15" MacBook Pro with the same hard drive you save $750 with the Asus. The MacBook pro has a slightly higher resolution display, is 1 pound lighter(!), has ~50% longer battery life, and is ~0.75" thinner... and well, is better looking. The Asus has faster graphics and a blu-ray drive. Those are the highlights, full specs below.
So Apple desktops save you quite a few $$$, and laptops not so much... who knew? I'll stick with Apple...
$1799 15" MacBook Pro
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (P8700)
GeForce 9400M G (16 core) 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM (motherboard graphics)
It seems fashionable to describe Snow Leopard's new 64-bit kernel as a problem for Mac users with 32-bit EFI (the startup firmware that launches the operating system). It's true, 64-bit Core2 Duo machines prior to 2008 still run Snow Leopard's 64-bit apps using a 32-bit kernel, because Apple's 64-bit kernel requires both a 64-bit processor (a Core2 Duo or better) and 64-bit EFI.
Daniel Eran Dilger is the author of "Snow Leopard Server (Developer Reference)," a new book from Wiley available now for pre-order at a special price from Amazon.
I have a pretty extensive background with Windows and the x86 architecture, but still consider myself somewhat of a newbie when it comes to Macs. However, with Apple's switch to Intel CPUs, the basic architecture of Macs and PCS are largely the same now. Which leads me to my question. The x86 architecture was extended to 64-bit, similar to how the original 8086 was extended to 32-bit. The main point here is that to access the 32-bit features of the processor, the processor is switched to what is called "Protected Mode" to enable it. Similarly, to access the 64-bit mode of an x64 processor, it has to be switched to what is called "Long Mode." Long Mode is necessary to access the extra GPR (General Purpose Registers) and other features unique to x64. When running a 32-bit operating system, the x64 processor is switched to "Legacy Mode", which is unable to use the extra GPRs or other features of an x64 CPU. So, now on to my question.
32-bit versions of Windows have (as expected) a 32-bit kernel, and run in "Legacy Mode" on a 64-bit processor. 64-bit versions of WIndows have a 64-bit kernel, and run in "Long Mode", which allows 32-bit applications to run using a feature called "Compatibility Mode". So, does anyone here know how this applies to Snow Leopard? I mean, if you are using the 32-bit kernel in Snow Leopard, is the processor in Long Mode or is it in Legacy Mode? Does OS X boot the processor in Long Mode, but runs the kernel in Compatibility mode? That seems to be the best option, as it would allow exposure to the extra GPRs and stuff. However, I have been unable to find this information posted anywhere. Thanks!
Most home buyers switching from Windows to OS X will have a handful of applications for which they do not find an absolute match. I am fully convinced that the same would be true for people switching from OS X to Windows (I could list quite a few).
The lack of certain applications might be a stopper for a groups of users but claiming that there is a general lack of applications on OS X is completely besides reality for the majority of home users.
Not true for business users and (accredited) professional users.
But humor me, list all the non-Apple 3rd party 64-bit commercial applications that have no direct or indirect replacement on the Windows side of the fence.
The Asus laptops are cheap... even compared to other (non-Apple) laptops. One has to wonder, where are they cutting corners?
Comparing to a 15" MacBook Pro with the same hard drive you save $750 with the Asus. The MacBook pro has a slightly higher resolution display, is 1 pound lighter(!), has ~50% longer battery life, and is ~0.75" thinner... and well, is better looking. The Asus has faster graphics and a blu-ray drive. Those are the highlights, full specs below.
So Apple desktops save you quite a few $$$, and laptops not so much... who knew? I'll stick with Apple...
$1799 15" MacBook Pro
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (P8700)
GeForce 9400M G (16 core) 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM (motherboard graphics)
6 cell lithium ion: 4800 mAh (51.8 watt-hours @ 10.8V)
2.0 Mega Pixel web camera
Weight 6.49 lbs
Apple's only true desktop is the Mac Mini (and that's a big stretch), the AIO is not a desktop in the traditional sense of the word (headless computer).
The Mac Pro is certainly not a desktop.
The Asus has eSATA and HDMI, two requirements for my next laptop.
Asus laptops are well built, and comparable in price points to Acer, Compal, Quanta, etceteras, most of the HPs/Dells etceteras are just the same as these, made mostly by these same companies, and mostly just rebranded.
Apple's only true desktop is the Mac Mini (and that's a big stretch), the AIO is not a desktop in the traditional sense of the word (headless computer).
The Mac Pro is certainly not a desktop.
The Asus has eSATA and HDMI, two requirements for my next laptop.
Asus laptops are well built, and comparable in price points to Acer, Compal, Quanta, etceteras, most of the HPs/Dells etceteras are just the same as these, made mostly by these same companies, and mostly just rebranded.
Apple's AIO is cheaper than PC desktops?
Heh heh, you're easily amused... clearly I was using the word desktop in the sense you yourself defined: a headless computer. By which definition, the Mac Pro is a desktop (and clearly from my previous post, what I was referring to)... and indeed I've had towers the size of a Mac Pro on top of my desk. In any event, I was just speaking casually... we can call it something else: a workstation. Call it what you will, my point still stands.
I personally have no requirement for HDMI... if I did, and wanted a MacBook Pro, I'd probably just buy a $10 adapter (see www.monoprice.com). I also prefer Firewire 800 to eSata, so the fact that it's built-in on the MacBook Pro is a plus for me.
Anyway, we're getting pretty far off topic, that's all from me on this. See you on down the bitsstream...
I also prefer Firewire 800 to eSata, so the fact that it's built-in on the MacBook Pro is a plus for me.
I think it's quite convenient that you prefer the connector that happens to be on your chosen computer. FW800 has been surpassed in performance by eSATA, depending on the drive and equipment, eSATA can be twice as fast with mechanical hard drives. FW800 is basically a bottleneck for a decent drive.
I wish it wasn't exclusive-or. Each has its strong points, though FW800's strong points are mostly in media acquisition & creation, and cable length. You can chain it more, but each hop in the chain has a latency cost, you can run five hard drives off an eSATA port without extra link hops, drive 5 has the same connection length as drive 1. With more cables, you have more clutter, and a slight risk of drives dropping off if a connection gets loose somewhere, the farther along the chain, the risk accumulates.
...mainstream generic PCs are limited not just to 4GB of RAM, but also incur additional artificial limitations under Windows, where the operating system takes 2GB leaving only 2GB available for the running application. Mac OS X, like Linux, has always allowed applications the full 4GB available on the Intel architecture.
This is absolutely wrong. Late 2006 and Mid 2007 Macbooks with 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo processors were artificially limited to 3GB, just like "generic PCs" "under Windows". Even after upgrading my Mid 2007 Macbook to Leopard, I can only use 3GB of memory.
This is absolutely wrong. Late 2006 and Mid 2007 Macbooks with 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo processors were artificially limited to 3GB, just like "generic PCs" "under Windows". Even after upgrading my Mid 2007 Macbook to Leopard, I can only use 3GB of memory.
32-bit versions of OS X allowed more than 4GB RAM while only the 32-bit server editions of Windows allowed more than 4GB. That is an artifical limitation. What you are misconstruing is that having a 64-bit CPU means that you automaticly have 64-bit chipset capable of addressing more than 4GB of memory, which includes the System, RAM and any GPUs. It is for this reason that early C2D Macs and other PCs only had 4GB of memory addressing, or 3GB of RAM available. However, Apple did artifically limit it to 3GB as it is actually about 3.2GB, but there are reasons for the stop at 3GB.
I'm a bit in a fog after reading that article, since I'm just a lay consumer of software, not any sort of expert, so I have just one question (please forgive my ignorance): I'm about to purchase Final Cut Studio, for $1,000, and this article says Apple has yet to release a 64-bit version of it, despite that it just released a brand new version a few weeks ago. Should I wait until a 64-bit version is released, or does it really matter all that much? Would there be, ahem, a"patch" available at some point to upgrade the 32-bit version into 64-bit, or is that like saying you could buy oranges now if you want nectarines, because there might be magic nectarine seeds available later which you could implant in the oranges later to transform them into nectarines?
----
No ? Don't wait ? Go ahead now with your Final Cut Purchase...
Final Cut is already an "excellent" Video Editing application.
While a 64-Bit Version of Final Cut would be even better. (even faster)
(Though most Final Cut operations are already faster then real-time.)
The full 64 bit version of Final Cut won't be available for some time.
This is because Final Cut Makes (very) extensive use of QuickTime. And QuickTime is 32-Bit.
The new QuickTimeX ? which is 64 Bit, at present has far more limited functionality then the older QuickTime, and will take a while before it's fully replaceable.
? At least until OS X 10.7 I should think.
Apple still has a lot of work to do - to fully enable QuickTimeX.
Until they do Final Cut must still use the older version of QuickTime.
There's a good "Technical Review" of Snow Leopard at:
"This is just the start of a long journey for QuickTime X, and seemingly not a very auspicious one, at that. A QuickTime engine with no editing support? No plug-ins? It seems ridiculous to release it at all. But this has been Apple's way in recent years: steady, deliberate progress. Apple aims to ship no features before their time.
As anxious as developers may be for a full-featured, 64-bit successor to the QuickTime 7 engine, Apple itself is sitting on top of one of the largest QuickTime-riddled (and Carbon-addled, to boot) code bases in the industry: Final Cut Studio. Thus far, It remains stuck in 32-bit. To say that Apple is "highly motivated" to extend the capabilities of QuickTime X would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, don't expect Apple to rush forward foolishly. Duplicating the functionality of a continually developed, 18-year-old API will not happen overnight. It will take years, and it will be even longer before every important Mac OS X application is updated to use QTKit exclusively."
End Quote.
? So don't wait ? go ahead now?
? The future is still yet to arrive?
So I would expect it to be at least a year, if not more before Final Cut is able to move to 64 Bit.
? In the mean time, it's still an exceptionally good Video Editor.
It's just that later versions will become even better...
Meanwhile I am sure that this is already in the works ? and will emerge at some future point.
Actually, ability to address more than 4 GB of RAM is NOT the only benefit of 64 bit kernel. Apple themselves are saying that 64 bit kernel is 250% faster than 32 bit kernel in making system calls, and 170% faster in mapping user address space to kernel space.
There are technical reasons for this. While windows, linux and BSD do 2/2 split of the 4 GB address space between the kernel and user apps (meaning kernel gets 2 GB of address space and 2 GB of address space for applications, with ability to do 1/3 split on windows with the 3G startup switch), in OS X the split is 4/4. This means kernel can address 4 GB of RAM, and user applications can also address 4 GB of RAM.
The benefit of this is that applications get more RAM, but the draw back is that each time user application makes a system call into the kernel, user data has to be copied into the kernel address space, and user data possibly paged out (since the kernel also wants those same 4 GB of RAM).
This makes system calls with 32 bit OS X kernel slow (much slower than in Linux, Windows or BSD).
64 bit kernel has no such limitations. It is also much more efficient managing larger amounts of memory (and this does not mean just more than 32 GB of RAM), it's better if you have more than 4 GB of RAM.
You mentioned address space randomization benefit as well.
So, yes 64 bit kernel is better for almost everyone (expect on hardware that can't physically address more than 4 GB of RAM anyway).
The ONLY reason 64 kernel is not the default is because of the driver problem. Third parties have not written 64 bit drivers and it remains to be seen how fast will printer, scanner and other peripherals manufacturers start making 64 bit drivers. My bet is that they will NOT, since no one uses the 64 bit kernel. The only time they will have to do this is when 64 bit kernel becomes the default. Which leads me to believe OS X will be stuck with 32 bit kernel for a long while, until more than 32 GB laptops become common things. Which is probably not for another 10 years.
And yet isn't it fantastic that an Octo-Core 3GHz MacPro2,1 with 13GB 667MHz RAM and 2.5TB of storage and NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 GPU is completely unable to run the 64bit kernel? The speed improvements won't be accessible to me at all. Seems the EFI chip can't handle 64bit so one little tiny chip is what's obsoleting this MacPro. Fantastic. Hope you 64bit folks enjoy that 250% speed increase.
I don't suppose there's a way that Apple could give us an update that would make the EFI chip convert to 64bit is there? I know it's optimistic thinking, but it's just annoying that one little chip could prevent 64bit kernel use. Looks like there'll be another $5k dropped on a new MacPro when they refresh. It hurts to think of an 8-Core 3GHz machine as being a has-been.
Then why did they write 64 bit drivers for Windows and Linux? Hell, why do they write drivers for Linux at all? Those platforms didn't have a lot of 64 bit adopters at the beginning.
I'm sure Adobe and MS thought Carbon would be around for a while too. How did that work out? I'd be very surprised if 10.7 didn't boot into 64 bit kernel by default. It may not even have a 32 bit kernel option.
Carbon was mainly introduced to keep Adobe on side. They for some reason didn't like the idea of transitioning to OS X by recoding all their apps from the ground up. I'm not sure how pleased they were when Codewarrior disappeared as an OS X development option on the Intel switch because as I recall they were heavily committed to that too.
At least with Apple's current tool chain, the underlying engine is based on the free GCC so it's possible to isolate out machine dependencies with careful design and not tie yourself to Xcode. The lesson? Free software is the safest bet where it is applicable. While I quite liked CodeWarrior and was an early adopter, I'm pleased I was not dependent on it for making an income. Luckily Apple has mostly gone the route of looking similar to Linux and FreeBSD in most areas outside its proprietary interface so you can develop fairly tool-agnostic code.
I don't suppose there's a way that Apple could give us an update that would make the EFI chip convert to 64bit is there? I know it's optimistic thinking, but it's just annoying that one little chip could prevent 64bit kernel use. Looks like there'll be another $5k dropped on a new MacPro when they refresh. It hurts to think of an 8-Core 3GHz machine as being a has-been.
It seems reasonable that they should be working on this (as hinted at by Ars Technica; if hackintoshes can get this right, Apple should not be far behind though maybe they require a higher standard of testing).
If enough people tell Apple directly via their feedback form, there's more chance this will be done.
It seems reasonable that they should be working on this (as hinted at by Ars Technica; if hackintoshes can get this right, Apple should not be far behind though maybe they require a higher standard of testing).
If enough people tell Apple directly via their feedback form, there's more chance this will be done.
And thanks to you, I have done precisely that. I've seen EFI updates in the past, and can only hope that they are able to convert the 32-bit EFI chip to 64-bits. It's ridiculous that one little chip is the only reason my Mac Pro can't go to 64-bit and use the additional memory. Thanks for pointing me in that direction. Now, hopefully, Apple won't let those of us with these systems down.
Comments
64 bit???? Please
Safari is super slow
Takes 4 seconds for any page except yahoo to load up
whats up with that?
Go to utilities, open java preferences, click restore defaults in both applet and application sections, then click the network tab and click delete files then de-select keep temporarty files for fast access...this made my Safari and firefox about 20x faster after the SL Update
also, clear flash cache and cookies for more speed:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/do...07.html#117717
click delete all sites
Office 64-bit will appear on Windows systems a full year before an OS X version.
Which probably has been true for about every Office version.
First tier Widows 64-bit applications probably already outnumber all first tier OS X applications.
Any examples outside of Adobe CS4?
I no longer can afford the price premium and lack of applications available on the OS X platform
Too bad for you for no longer being able to afford Macs. Most people switching from Windows to OS X will have a handful of applications for which they do not find an absolute match. I am fully convinced that the same would be true for people switching from OS X to Windows (I could list quite a few).
The lack of certain applications might be a stopper for a groups of users but claiming that there is a general lack of applications on OS X is completely besides reality for the majority of computer users.
Asus Core 2 Duo Laptops (26 models to choose from, $999 < 13 Models < $1299)
My favorite? The N51 series.
ASUS N51 Series N51Vn-X1A P8700(2.53GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 320GB HDD 7200rpm NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M ($1049, no 7% MS sales tax either)
1 GB GPU (48 stream processors), HDMI, eSATA
[...]
The Asus laptops are cheap... even compared to other (non-Apple) laptops. One has to wonder, where are they cutting corners?
Comparing to a 15" MacBook Pro with the same hard drive you save $750 with the Asus. The MacBook pro has a slightly higher resolution display, is 1 pound lighter(!), has ~50% longer battery life, and is ~0.75" thinner... and well, is better looking. The Asus has faster graphics and a blu-ray drive. Those are the highlights, full specs below.
So Apple desktops save you quite a few $$$, and laptops not so much... who knew? I'll stick with Apple...
$1799 15" MacBook Pro
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (P8700)
GeForce 9400M G (16 core) 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM (motherboard graphics)
15.4" 1440 x 900 display with LED backlighting
4GB 1066MHz PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM
320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
2 USB ports
Firewire 800/400
Express card slot
802.11n Wireless LAN
73 watt-hour battery
1.3 megapixel iSight camera
Weight 5.5 pounds
$1049.99 Asus N51Vn-X1A
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (P8700)
GeForce GT 240M (48 core) Video Memory 1GB DDR3 VRAM (dedicated card)
15.6" 1366 x 768 display LED backlight
4GB 1066MHz PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM
320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
DVD/Blu-ray Super Multi
3 USB ports
Firewire 400
eSATA
Express card slot
HDMI port
802.11n Wireless LAN
6 cell lithium ion: 4800 mAh (51.8 watt-hours @ 10.8V)
2.0 Mega Pixel web camera
Weight\t6.49 lbs
The 64-bit Kernel
It seems fashionable to describe Snow Leopard's new 64-bit kernel as a problem for Mac users with 32-bit EFI (the startup firmware that launches the operating system). It's true, 64-bit Core2 Duo machines prior to 2008 still run Snow Leopard's 64-bit apps using a 32-bit kernel, because Apple's 64-bit kernel requires both a 64-bit processor (a Core2 Duo or better) and 64-bit EFI.
Daniel Eran Dilger is the author of "Snow Leopard Server (Developer Reference)," a new book from Wiley available now for pre-order at a special price from Amazon.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
I have a pretty extensive background with Windows and the x86 architecture, but still consider myself somewhat of a newbie when it comes to Macs. However, with Apple's switch to Intel CPUs, the basic architecture of Macs and PCS are largely the same now. Which leads me to my question. The x86 architecture was extended to 64-bit, similar to how the original 8086 was extended to 32-bit. The main point here is that to access the 32-bit features of the processor, the processor is switched to what is called "Protected Mode" to enable it. Similarly, to access the 64-bit mode of an x64 processor, it has to be switched to what is called "Long Mode." Long Mode is necessary to access the extra GPR (General Purpose Registers) and other features unique to x64. When running a 32-bit operating system, the x64 processor is switched to "Legacy Mode", which is unable to use the extra GPRs or other features of an x64 CPU. So, now on to my question.
32-bit versions of Windows have (as expected) a 32-bit kernel, and run in "Legacy Mode" on a 64-bit processor. 64-bit versions of WIndows have a 64-bit kernel, and run in "Long Mode", which allows 32-bit applications to run using a feature called "Compatibility Mode". So, does anyone here know how this applies to Snow Leopard? I mean, if you are using the 32-bit kernel in Snow Leopard, is the processor in Long Mode or is it in Legacy Mode? Does OS X boot the processor in Long Mode, but runs the kernel in Compatibility mode? That seems to be the best option, as it would allow exposure to the extra GPRs and stuff. However, I have been unable to find this information posted anywhere. Thanks!
Most home buyers switching from Windows to OS X will have a handful of applications for which they do not find an absolute match. I am fully convinced that the same would be true for people switching from OS X to Windows (I could list quite a few).
The lack of certain applications might be a stopper for a groups of users but claiming that there is a general lack of applications on OS X is completely besides reality for the majority of home users.
Not true for business users and (accredited) professional users.
But humor me, list all the non-Apple 3rd party 64-bit commercial applications that have no direct or indirect replacement on the Windows side of the fence.
The Asus laptops are cheap... even compared to other (non-Apple) laptops. One has to wonder, where are they cutting corners?
Comparing to a 15" MacBook Pro with the same hard drive you save $750 with the Asus. The MacBook pro has a slightly higher resolution display, is 1 pound lighter(!), has ~50% longer battery life, and is ~0.75" thinner... and well, is better looking. The Asus has faster graphics and a blu-ray drive. Those are the highlights, full specs below.
So Apple desktops save you quite a few $$$, and laptops not so much... who knew? I'll stick with Apple...
$1799 15" MacBook Pro
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (P8700)
GeForce 9400M G (16 core) 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM (motherboard graphics)
15.4" 1440 x 900 display with LED backlighting
4GB 1066MHz PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM
320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
2 USB ports
Firewire 800/400
Express card slot
802.11n Wireless LAN
73 watt-hour battery
1.3 megapixel iSight camera
Weight 5.5 pounds
$1049.99 Asus N51Vn-X1A
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (P8700)
GeForce GT 240M (48 core) Video Memory 1GB DDR3 VRAM (dedicated card)
15.6" 1366 x 768 display LED backlight
4GB 1066MHz PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM
320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
DVD/Blu-ray Super Multi
3 USB ports
Firewire 400
eSATA
Express card slot
HDMI port
802.11n Wireless LAN
6 cell lithium ion: 4800 mAh (51.8 watt-hours @ 10.8V)
2.0 Mega Pixel web camera
Weight 6.49 lbs
Apple's only true desktop is the Mac Mini (and that's a big stretch), the AIO is not a desktop in the traditional sense of the word (headless computer).
The Mac Pro is certainly not a desktop.
The Asus has eSATA and HDMI, two requirements for my next laptop.
Asus laptops are well built, and comparable in price points to Acer, Compal, Quanta, etceteras, most of the HPs/Dells etceteras are just the same as these, made mostly by these same companies, and mostly just rebranded.
Apple's AIO is cheaper than PC desktops?
Apple's only true desktop is the Mac Mini (and that's a big stretch), the AIO is not a desktop in the traditional sense of the word (headless computer).
The Mac Pro is certainly not a desktop.
The Asus has eSATA and HDMI, two requirements for my next laptop.
Asus laptops are well built, and comparable in price points to Acer, Compal, Quanta, etceteras, most of the HPs/Dells etceteras are just the same as these, made mostly by these same companies, and mostly just rebranded.
Apple's AIO is cheaper than PC desktops?
Heh heh, you're easily amused... clearly I was using the word desktop in the sense you yourself defined: a headless computer. By which definition, the Mac Pro is a desktop (and clearly from my previous post, what I was referring to)... and indeed I've had towers the size of a Mac Pro on top of my desk. In any event, I was just speaking casually... we can call it something else: a workstation. Call it what you will, my point still stands.
I personally have no requirement for HDMI... if I did, and wanted a MacBook Pro, I'd probably just buy a $10 adapter (see www.monoprice.com). I also prefer Firewire 800 to eSata, so the fact that it's built-in on the MacBook Pro is a plus for me.
Anyway, we're getting pretty far off topic, that's all from me on this. See you on down the bitsstream...
I also prefer Firewire 800 to eSata, so the fact that it's built-in on the MacBook Pro is a plus for me.
I think it's quite convenient that you prefer the connector that happens to be on your chosen computer. FW800 has been surpassed in performance by eSATA, depending on the drive and equipment, eSATA can be twice as fast with mechanical hard drives. FW800 is basically a bottleneck for a decent drive.
I wish it wasn't exclusive-or. Each has its strong points, though FW800's strong points are mostly in media acquisition & creation, and cable length. You can chain it more, but each hop in the chain has a latency cost, you can run five hard drives off an eSATA port without extra link hops, drive 5 has the same connection length as drive 1. With more cables, you have more clutter, and a slight risk of drives dropping off if a connection gets loose somewhere, the farther along the chain, the risk accumulates.
64 bit???? Please
Safari is super slow
Takes 4 seconds for any page except yahoo to load up
whats up with that?
Why didn't you do a clean install?
...mainstream generic PCs are limited not just to 4GB of RAM, but also incur additional artificial limitations under Windows, where the operating system takes 2GB leaving only 2GB available for the running application. Mac OS X, like Linux, has always allowed applications the full 4GB available on the Intel architecture.
This is absolutely wrong. Late 2006 and Mid 2007 Macbooks with 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo processors were artificially limited to 3GB, just like "generic PCs" "under Windows". Even after upgrading my Mid 2007 Macbook to Leopard, I can only use 3GB of memory.
This is absolutely wrong. Late 2006 and Mid 2007 Macbooks with 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo processors were artificially limited to 3GB, just like "generic PCs" "under Windows". Even after upgrading my Mid 2007 Macbook to Leopard, I can only use 3GB of memory.
32-bit versions of OS X allowed more than 4GB RAM while only the 32-bit server editions of Windows allowed more than 4GB. That is an artifical limitation. What you are misconstruing is that having a 64-bit CPU means that you automaticly have 64-bit chipset capable of addressing more than 4GB of memory, which includes the System, RAM and any GPUs. It is for this reason that early C2D Macs and other PCs only had 4GB of memory addressing, or 3GB of RAM available. However, Apple did artifically limit it to 3GB as it is actually about 3.2GB, but there are reasons for the stop at 3GB.
I'm a bit in a fog after reading that article, since I'm just a lay consumer of software, not any sort of expert, so I have just one question (please forgive my ignorance): I'm about to purchase Final Cut Studio, for $1,000, and this article says Apple has yet to release a 64-bit version of it, despite that it just released a brand new version a few weeks ago. Should I wait until a 64-bit version is released, or does it really matter all that much? Would there be, ahem, a"patch" available at some point to upgrade the 32-bit version into 64-bit, or is that like saying you could buy oranges now if you want nectarines, because there might be magic nectarine seeds available later which you could implant in the oranges later to transform them into nectarines?
----
No ? Don't wait ? Go ahead now with your Final Cut Purchase...
Final Cut is already an "excellent" Video Editing application.
While a 64-Bit Version of Final Cut would be even better. (even faster)
(Though most Final Cut operations are already faster then real-time.)
The full 64 bit version of Final Cut won't be available for some time.
This is because Final Cut Makes (very) extensive use of QuickTime. And QuickTime is 32-Bit.
The new QuickTimeX ? which is 64 Bit, at present has far more limited functionality then the older QuickTime, and will take a while before it's fully replaceable.
? At least until OS X 10.7 I should think.
Apple still has a lot of work to do - to fully enable QuickTimeX.
Until they do Final Cut must still use the older version of QuickTime.
There's a good "Technical Review" of Snow Leopard at:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews...-os-x-10-6.ars
Page 6, Has quite a bit to say about QuickTimeX.
The final few paragraphs of that say:
Quote:
"This is just the start of a long journey for QuickTime X, and seemingly not a very auspicious one, at that. A QuickTime engine with no editing support? No plug-ins? It seems ridiculous to release it at all. But this has been Apple's way in recent years: steady, deliberate progress. Apple aims to ship no features before their time.
As anxious as developers may be for a full-featured, 64-bit successor to the QuickTime 7 engine, Apple itself is sitting on top of one of the largest QuickTime-riddled (and Carbon-addled, to boot) code bases in the industry: Final Cut Studio. Thus far, It remains stuck in 32-bit. To say that Apple is "highly motivated" to extend the capabilities of QuickTime X would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, don't expect Apple to rush forward foolishly. Duplicating the functionality of a continually developed, 18-year-old API will not happen overnight. It will take years, and it will be even longer before every important Mac OS X application is updated to use QTKit exclusively."
End Quote.
? So don't wait ? go ahead now?
? The future is still yet to arrive?
So I would expect it to be at least a year, if not more before Final Cut is able to move to 64 Bit.
? In the mean time, it's still an exceptionally good Video Editor.
It's just that later versions will become even better...
Meanwhile I am sure that this is already in the works ? and will emerge at some future point.
? Perhaps in time for OSX 10.7 ?
Actually, ability to address more than 4 GB of RAM is NOT the only benefit of 64 bit kernel. Apple themselves are saying that 64 bit kernel is 250% faster than 32 bit kernel in making system calls, and 170% faster in mapping user address space to kernel space.
There are technical reasons for this. While windows, linux and BSD do 2/2 split of the 4 GB address space between the kernel and user apps (meaning kernel gets 2 GB of address space and 2 GB of address space for applications, with ability to do 1/3 split on windows with the 3G startup switch), in OS X the split is 4/4. This means kernel can address 4 GB of RAM, and user applications can also address 4 GB of RAM.
The benefit of this is that applications get more RAM, but the draw back is that each time user application makes a system call into the kernel, user data has to be copied into the kernel address space, and user data possibly paged out (since the kernel also wants those same 4 GB of RAM).
This makes system calls with 32 bit OS X kernel slow (much slower than in Linux, Windows or BSD).
64 bit kernel has no such limitations. It is also much more efficient managing larger amounts of memory (and this does not mean just more than 32 GB of RAM), it's better if you have more than 4 GB of RAM.
You mentioned address space randomization benefit as well.
So, yes 64 bit kernel is better for almost everyone (expect on hardware that can't physically address more than 4 GB of RAM anyway).
The ONLY reason 64 kernel is not the default is because of the driver problem. Third parties have not written 64 bit drivers and it remains to be seen how fast will printer, scanner and other peripherals manufacturers start making 64 bit drivers. My bet is that they will NOT, since no one uses the 64 bit kernel. The only time they will have to do this is when 64 bit kernel becomes the default. Which leads me to believe OS X will be stuck with 32 bit kernel for a long while, until more than 32 GB laptops become common things. Which is probably not for another 10 years.
And yet isn't it fantastic that an Octo-Core 3GHz MacPro2,1 with 13GB 667MHz RAM and 2.5TB of storage and NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 GPU is completely unable to run the 64bit kernel? The speed improvements won't be accessible to me at all. Seems the EFI chip can't handle 64bit so one little tiny chip is what's obsoleting this MacPro. Fantastic. Hope you 64bit folks enjoy that 250% speed increase.
I don't suppose there's a way that Apple could give us an update that would make the EFI chip convert to 64bit is there? I know it's optimistic thinking, but it's just annoying that one little chip could prevent 64bit kernel use. Looks like there'll be another $5k dropped on a new MacPro when they refresh. It hurts to think of an 8-Core 3GHz machine as being a has-been.
Then why did they write 64 bit drivers for Windows and Linux? Hell, why do they write drivers for Linux at all? Those platforms didn't have a lot of 64 bit adopters at the beginning.
I'm sure Adobe and MS thought Carbon would be around for a while too. How did that work out? I'd be very surprised if 10.7 didn't boot into 64 bit kernel by default. It may not even have a 32 bit kernel option.
Carbon was mainly introduced to keep Adobe on side. They for some reason didn't like the idea of transitioning to OS X by recoding all their apps from the ground up. I'm not sure how pleased they were when Codewarrior disappeared as an OS X development option on the Intel switch because as I recall they were heavily committed to that too.
At least with Apple's current tool chain, the underlying engine is based on the free GCC so it's possible to isolate out machine dependencies with careful design and not tie yourself to Xcode. The lesson? Free software is the safest bet where it is applicable. While I quite liked CodeWarrior and was an early adopter, I'm pleased I was not dependent on it for making an income. Luckily Apple has mostly gone the route of looking similar to Linux and FreeBSD in most areas outside its proprietary interface so you can develop fairly tool-agnostic code.
I don't suppose there's a way that Apple could give us an update that would make the EFI chip convert to 64bit is there? I know it's optimistic thinking, but it's just annoying that one little chip could prevent 64bit kernel use. Looks like there'll be another $5k dropped on a new MacPro when they refresh. It hurts to think of an 8-Core 3GHz machine as being a has-been.
It seems reasonable that they should be working on this (as hinted at by Ars Technica; if hackintoshes can get this right, Apple should not be far behind though maybe they require a higher standard of testing).
If enough people tell Apple directly via their feedback form, there's more chance this will be done.
It seems reasonable that they should be working on this (as hinted at by Ars Technica; if hackintoshes can get this right, Apple should not be far behind though maybe they require a higher standard of testing).
If enough people tell Apple directly via their feedback form, there's more chance this will be done.
And thanks to you, I have done precisely that. I've seen EFI updates in the past, and can only hope that they are able to convert the 32-bit EFI chip to 64-bits. It's ridiculous that one little chip is the only reason my Mac Pro can't go to 64-bit and use the additional memory. Thanks for pointing me in that direction. Now, hopefully, Apple won't let those of us with these systems down.