64-bit, Apple behind the curve?
More and more music/audio software developers are offering 64-bit versions of their product for Windows but not for OSX. To the layman it would seem that Apple is a little behind, which is strange given the tech-pride the company has.
As a Mac-owner I am appropiately smug about my platform of choice, but I can't shake this nagging feeling that my self-adopted sense of superiority is no longer based on fact.
As a Mac-owner I am appropiately smug about my platform of choice, but I can't shake this nagging feeling that my self-adopted sense of superiority is no longer based on fact.
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The main implication is for hardware drivers, which would apply to the audio industry:
You buy Windows 7 and you are asked to install either the 64-bit version or 32-bit version or one of them is installed when you buy the machine.
You then buy audio software with hardware drivers. If the drivers are 32-bit (most likely) and you are on a 64-bit OS, it won't work and vice versa so they need both.
You buy a Mac with Snow leopard and buy the same type of software. The drivers will be 32-bit and they will work because Snow Leopard runs the kernel in 32-bit by default. If you choose to run the kernel in 64-bit mode, the drivers won't work but you reboot back to the 32-bit kernel and it will be just fine.
Apple made a very smart choice here because it means there's no Vista-esque incompatibility. The 64-bit kernel is installed so developers can build and test 64-bit drivers like the virtualization software developers have done and ease the transition to a 64-bit kernel by default. I read somewhere that 64-bit Snow Leopard could allow 32-bit drivers to work via some emulation too but I'm not sure if that was accurate.
Developers should still be adding support for 64-bit when they can but Apple hasn't put the pressure onto developers to do so.
For our side of the industry, the hardware is not really the problem nowadays. It is the multi-GB sample libraries that clog up all the memory. If you have a couple of instruments loaded of -say- 3GB each, things tend to slow down fairly soon. A lot of real-time streaming from disk, large swap files etc.
True 64-bit architecture would mean a much higher RAM-ceiling and that could potentially solve a lot of our problems. The Win64 guys are really having a field day on the computer-audio fora!
Do you have any examples of said 64-bit Windows software that's only 32-bit on Mac?
Sure. Cubase/Nuendo, and quite a few plug-ins: Ivory II, I think NI stuff as well. Will look it up later.
True 64-bit architecture would mean a much higher RAM-ceiling and that could potentially solve a lot of our problems. The Win64 guys are really having a field day on the computer-audio fora!
It does have a true 64-bit architecture though, there are no restrictions now from Apple's side. The only thing that stops some developers is if they built their apps using Carbon APIs rather than Cocoa, which will never move to 64-bit as they are legacy APIs and will likely be deprecated at some point in the future. This means they have to use the new APIs. This is how Adobe CS5 is 64-bit because they finally moved from Carbon to Cocoa.
A 32-bit kernel doesn't restrict the apps. It only matters when you get loads of RAM:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews...s-x-10-6.ars/5
Consider a scenario in future where our hard drives are our RAM (NVRAM). You can buy 32GB of RAM today, which is low-end SSD capacity. If one day we get 256GB of ferroelectric RAM then the 64-bit kernel will be needed. For now, a 32-bit kernel only slows down some operations but doesn't restrict memory and you are free to boot the 64-bit kernel if you want the performance boost.
More and more music/audio software developers are offering 64-bit versions of their product for Windows but not for OSX.
What does that have to do with Apple? Really yell at the developers and marketers of yhe software. Besides how do you know for sure xyz package for the Mac isn't 64 bit? The apps can be written to fairly transparently run in what ever mode the OS is running in.
To the layman it would seem that Apple is a little behind, which is strange given the tech-pride the company has.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Like wise you can lead a developer to 64 bit land but you can't make him write the software. Apple isn't the problem here at all.
As a Mac-owner I am appropiately smug about my platform of choice, but I can't shake this nagging feeling that my self-adopted sense of superiority is no longer based on fact.
I don't think your sense of superiority was ever based upon fact. For one thing you don't know unless you ask or it is advertised, the bitness of an app. Second a 64 bit app may or may not be an improvement over its 32 bit sister. There are many factors to consider, but 64 bit versions don't always come out on top.
More and more music/audio software developers are offering 64-bit versions of their product for Windows but not for OSX. To the layman it would seem that Apple is a little behind, which is strange given the tech-pride the company has.
As a Mac-owner I am appropiately smug about my platform of choice, but I can't shake this nagging feeling that my self-adopted sense of superiority is no longer based on fact.
Ill be polite about this. The superiority on an apple computer went way down when they started coming out with computers that you couldnt customize. ex: Imac, I cant take the thing apart without ruining my warranty. Alot of people (including my internet concepts teacher(Which btw its a worthless class for me)) I owned a macbook for a while till i got pissed off at it. why you ask? ill tell you in an easy to read bulletin list.
-Cant customize the UI (Easily or at all, havent had a macbook in forever)
-Cant customize my hardware after i buy it
-Cant choose who makes my motherboard
-Linux sucks on the mac(Linux is really good on pc)
-Other than games on steam the macs have really bad games.(other than myth, which has now been ported for pc)
My custom built PC is way cheaper and way more powerful than an expensive mac. here are my specs.
Video-XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1 GB DDR5 2DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card
RAM-8 gigs
CPU-AMD Phenom II X4 3.2 GHz/6 MB L3/125W Processor
Motherboard-MSI 790FX Socket AM3--140 Watt CPU--AMD 790FX CrossFire
HDD-Seagate Barracuda 7200 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 16MB Cache.
Case-Cooler Master RC ATX Mid Tower Case (Black)
Price-$1380
Imac specs
# 27-inch models, one of the following:
3.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor with 4MB level 3 cache; supports Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost
# 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; four SO-DIMM slots support up to 16GB
ATI Radeon HD 5750 with 1GB
Price-$1999
For what my computer can do compared to what this mac can do, im not only getting a better deal but a better computer
The superiority on an apple computer went way down when they started coming out with computers that you couldnt customize.
Most of what you say also applies to laptops though, which 70-80% of people are buying now. UI customisation can be done on the Mac. Linux won't have driver support for everything but hardly anyone uses Linux for a desktop. On the subject of games, if you plan to run Linux then it's an even worse problem.
Yes you can build a faster, cheaper PC than an iMac but once you add an $899 27" IPS screen, it's more expensive at $2279; it's larger, noisier, uses more electricity, has lower resale value (if any as you custom built it) and for what? 50% faster performance at best?
I don't like the lack of customisation in the iMac but it only applies to the parts it makes sense to be able to upgrade - RAM and HDD and the RAM upgrade is fine. Custom motherboards, GPUs, soundcards etc are not needed. Apple has rightly seen that people simply don't go into stores to buy off-the-shelf GPU upgrades often enough for it to be needed as an option.