Inside Mac OS X Snow Leopard: 64-bits

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  • Reply 41 of 117
    lafelafe Posts: 252member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by caliminius View Post


    Dear Applensider, please remove Dilger as an author.



    Wow. Pretty harsh.



    The article had its drawbacks, but I enjoyed it. I guess my vote cancels yours.
  • Reply 42 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mario View Post


    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.





    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.
  • Reply 43 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by backtomac View Post


    '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.



    It better! Or there'll be a lot of early Intel adopters stuck with 32-bit EFI and 32-bit CPUs that will be hopping mad. Myself among them.



    I'd expect 32-bit support for at least another 3-5 years.



    - Jasen.
  • Reply 44 of 117
    mariomario Posts: 348member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wiggin View Post


    Interesting. I had not heard that before. But just to make sure I understand correctly... my early 08 MBP is limited to 4 GB RAM. Does that mean that I wouldn't get the increased speed boost from the 64-bit kernel? That only applies if I have more than 4 GB of RAM?



    You would get the speed benefit, but not the memory benefit. Also, both 64 bit kernel and 64 bit apps would get huge virtual address space, with only 4 GB of actual physical RAM given to both of them, leading them to perhaps page more of their address space to disk under load when apps want to use close to 4 GB of RAM.



    But under less load it should be faster in this case as well.
  • Reply 45 of 117
    djrumpydjrumpy Posts: 1,116member
    Actually when I upgraded my Macs to Snow Leopard, it upgraded the EFI automatically to 64 bit. Did everyone else experience this (the warning that your screen would go black after rebooting and then a small progress bar on a white screen)?



    If you have 32 bit software, it will run just fine on a 64 bit mac. If you have a 32 bit EFI, your 64 bit software will also run just fine as it does before you upgrade to Snow Leopard.
  • Reply 46 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mazda 3s View Post


    OK, I'm a little confused here. If running OS X with a 32-bit kernel doesn't give you access to accessing more than 4GB, then what's the added benefit from running the apps as 64-bit?



    Through PAE (which all modern OS -- including Windows though it has other limitations -- enable), a 32bit kernel is able to address and provide more than 4GB of physical RAM to its processes. Furthermore even if you don't have more than 4GB of physical RAM, 64bit processes can still use more than 4GB of virtual memory, which allows nice things like mmapping a whole DVD ISO (or other huge files) and letting the OS handle the memory paging instead of having to implement it yourself in-app.



    This, in turn, simplifies applications and makes them more reliable.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    If one has all the required drivers they really should be running the 64 bit kernel. The extra features may not sound like much but some are security related and that is always a consideration.



    As far as I know, apart from the security stuff there's no extra feature when running a 64b kernel vs running a 32b kernel at the moment (unless you're doing things which make the kernel get above its own 4GB VMEM limit, which is pretty rare in desktop land)

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BenRoethig View Post


    Most likely uses 32-bit firmware.



    If it's an early to mid-2007 iMac, it probably is a Core CPU (rather than Core 2), which means it's a 32b CPU not 32/64.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by backtomac View Post


    Notice how in SL that if you're missing a printer driver and connected to the internet that SL will reach out and get it? When OSX has 64 bit kernel enabled, 10.7 I suspect, I expect that if you are missing a 64 bit driver it'll go and get it for you. The user experience isn't sacrificed for 64 bit computing this way.



    That doesn't help much when the 64bit drivers don't exist in the first place. The fetcher isn't going to invent them.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by VeixES View Post


    So when i buy brand new Macbook Pro 13" with 8GB and SL installed, it's running 32bit kernel ? Should not the drivers be no problem because they are already installed and provided by Apple ?



    It's not just hardware drivers, it's also things like kexts.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by VeixES View Post


    If i dont care about printer drivers(dont print at all), could i force it to use 64bit Kernel, because using that 6-4 keyboard combination every time it boots up, is quite dumb.



    Yeah you can, you have to change a boot plist somewhere, the internet should be able to tell you which one.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mario View Post


    So, yes, 32 bit kernel has hacks



    No it doesn't. PAE is not a hack.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Wiggin View Post


    Does that mean that I wouldn't get the increased speed boost from the 64-bit kernel? That only applies if I have more than 4 GB of RAM?



    The kernel speed boosts applies to everybody. It's about context switches, not physical RAM.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Sabon View Post


    Any chance that Apple is going to release an update so people like me will get EFI 64?



    None whatsoever.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jasenj1 View Post


    I believe FCS uses a bunch of 32-bit Quicktime stuff and until there are 64-bit replacements for those in the newest Quicktime FCS will be 32-bit. So you'll be waiting for system updates AND software updates. That could be a while.



    - Jasen.



    More problematically, I'm pretty sure that -- much like Office and Adobe's CS, FCP is a Carbon application. Which means all of the UI has to be ported to Cocoa before it can be compiled as a 64bit app?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jasenj1 View Post


    That sound about right?



    Yep, with the very small caveat that running 32b and 64b applications side by side wastes a bit of RAM (as OSX has to load both the 32bit and 64bit frameworks for e.g. Cocoa, eating twice the RAM for those) and probably generates a tiny performance hit as well.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by LE Studios View Post


    I got 64-bit EFI I see in Activity Monitor 64-bit on all that and this is the 2009 Mac mini with 4GB DDR3 320GB Hard Drive!



    Activity monitor only tells you about applications running in 64b mode. It doesn't say anything about the kernel.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jasenj1 View Post


    It better! Or there'll be a lot of early Intel adopters stuck with 32-bit EFI and 32-bit CPUs that will be hopping mad. Myself among them.



    I'd expect 32-bit support for at least another 3-5 years.



    - Jasen.



    I think by 10.8.0 the transition to 64bit will be complete.



    The way I see it:
    • 10.7.0 finishes the app-level transition to 64bit, 32bit frameworks are removed, early to mid 2007 macs aren't supported anymore

    • 10.8.0, 32bit kernel is removed, the whole OS mandates 64bit, 32bit EFI machines aren't supported anymore

  • Reply 47 of 117
    Wow... This was an incredible article. Clear and informative. THANK YOU!



    I have a 64-bit EFI and most of my apps are running in 64-bit, however, i cannot get my macbook to boot into a 64-bit kernel. I tried holding down 6-4 on start up, and some other tricks. It's a late 2008 Alum. Macbook.
  • Reply 48 of 117
    One of the worst AI articles I've ever seen written.



    There are whole areas where software will almost certainly never be written for 64-bit OS X, engineering, science, business, not to mention games.



    XP SP3 64-bit, Vista SP2 64-bit, and Windows 7 64-bit. The latter two (Ultimate) I already have on my Asus 64-bit laptop with 8GM RAM.



    64-bit nVidia graphics drivers for Vista/7 updated frequently.



    Photoshop CS4 64-bit yesterday, today, tomorrow.



    Office 64-bit will appear on Windows systems a full year before an OS X version.



    First tier Widows 64-bit applications probably already outnumber all first tier OS X applications.



    The installed Windows 64-bit OS user base probably already outnumbers the entire OS X user base.



    Signed,

    I no longer can afford the price premium and lack of applications available on the OS X platform
  • Reply 49 of 117
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DJRumpy View Post


    Actually when I upgraded my Macs to Snow Leopard, it upgraded the EFI automatically to 64 bit. Did everyone else experience this (the warning that your screen would go black after rebooting and then a small progress bar on a white screen)?



    If you have 32 bit software, it will run just fine on a 64 bit mac. If you have a 32 bit EFI, your 64 bit software will also run just fine as it does before you upgrade to Snow Leopard.





    While upgrading to Snow Leopard I skipped doing ANY printer driver installations, as I don't print from either of my Macs. The first thing that I did after upgrading was a "Repair Disk Permissions" using the Disk Utility. There was, and still is when I do it, only one permission repair that appears- "System/Library/...../ARDAgent", and it tells me that it has been modified and will not be repaired.



    Before I upgraded whenever I ran Repair Disk Permissions I would get pages of repairs done (as well as taking quite a bit longer). Running a second time right after would give the same result. I don't know how much of the improvement in system response is due to that improvement alone.



    After upgrading, and using the Terminal command "ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi" on my late 2007 MacBookPro3,1 indicated an EFI64, as it also did on my recent iMac9,1.



    After using the two-fingered 6 and 4 while booting (which seemed to take a little longer than normal) I went to the Activity Monitor. There were two instances of the "cvmsComp_x86_64" process name- one for my user name and one for _cvmsroot. After some time (minutes) the instance of the process associated with my user name goes away. Then after another minute or so the instance associated with _cvmsroot goes away as well. Any ideas what's going on with this behavior? Thanks!
  • Reply 50 of 117
    djrumpydjrumpy Posts: 1,116member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by franksargent View Post


    One of the worst AI articles I've ever seen written.



    There are whole areas where software will almost certainly never be written for 64-bit OS X, engineering, science, business, not to mention games.



    XP SP3 64-bit, Vista SP2 64-bit, and Windows 7 64-bit. The latter two (Ultimate) I already have on my Asus 64-bit laptop with 8GM RAM.



    64-bit nVidia graphics drivers for Vista/7 updated frequently.



    Photoshop CS4 64-bit yesterday, today, tomorrow.



    Office 64-bit will appear on Windows systems a full year before an OS X version.



    First tier Widows 64-bit applications probably already outnumber all first tier OS X applications.



    The installed Windows 64-bit OS user base probably already outnumbers the entire OS X user base.



    Signed,

    I no longer can afford the price premium and lack of applications available on the OS X platform



    Spoken like a true youngster. The same arguments were spit out for the transition from 16 to 32 bit, yet here we are. Saying something will never happen is rather foolish. You need only look at the last transition from 16 to 32 bits.



    The installed user base is irrelevant. It is platform dependent. If the platform no longer supports 32 bit then that pretty much forces 100% compliance. These things tend to take care of themselves as technology dictates. If there is a need, then it will happen.



    Your signature on the other hand, says something entirely different. There is no price difference between Windows PC manufacturers and Apple. That is a standard 'Windows' line that is patently not true. They cost the same for comparable hardware for any manufacturer like Dell, Apple, HP, Lenovo, Sony, etc. If you're happy buying parts piece mail and putting together your own mac at a much cheaper price, then more power to you but don't pretend there is some huge price difference when there isn't. The only thing you'll get with a Manufacturer's Windows PC is a ton of shovelware that has to be removed once you buy it, and the need to maintain malware for the rest of the PC's life.
  • Reply 51 of 117
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by franksargent View Post


    There are whole areas where software will almost certainly never be written for 64-bit OS X, engineering, science, business, not to mention games.



    XP SP3 64-bit, Vista SP2 64-bit, and Windows 7 64-bit. The latter two (Ultimate) I already have on my Asus 64-bit laptop with 8GM RAM.



    64-bit nVidia graphics drivers for Vista/7 updated frequently.



    Photoshop CS4 64-bit yesterday, today, tomorrow.



    Office 64-bit will appear on Windows systems a full year before an OS X version.



    I can see some PS users benefiting from 64 bit, but Office? What kind of documents are you dealing with?



    Why do you think that there will be so many apps that can benefit from 64 bit but will never be?
  • Reply 52 of 117
    mazda 3smazda 3s Posts: 1,613member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DJRumpy View Post


    Spoken like a true youngster. The same arguments were spit out for the transition from 16 to 32 bit, yet here we are. Saying something will never happen is rather foolish. You need only look at the last transition from 16 to 32 bits.



    The installed user base is irrelevant. It is platform dependent. If the platform no longer supports 32 bit then that pretty much forces 100% compliance. These things tend to take care of themselves as technology dictates. If there is a need, then it will happen.



    Your signature on the other hand, says something entirely different. There is no price difference between Windows PC manufacturers and Apple. That is a standard 'Windows' line that is patently not true. They cost the same for comparable hardware for any manufacturer like Dell, Apple, HP, Lenovo, Sony, etc. If you're happy buying parts piece mail and putting together your own mac at a much cheaper price, then more power to you but don't pretend there is some huge price difference when there isn't. The only thing you'll get with a Manufacturer's Windows PC is a ton of shovelware that has to be removed once you buy it, and the need to maintain malware for the rest of the PC's life.



    Not to be a dick, but he has been around AI for 5 years and appears to have contributed quite a bit to the community. I wouldn't start off with your first sentence insulting him...
  • Reply 53 of 117
    mazda 3smazda 3s Posts: 1,613member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    I can see some PS users benefiting from 64 bit, but Office? What kind of documents are you dealing with?



    Why do you think that there will be so many apps that can benefit from 64 bit but will never be?



    Microsoft Access and Excel come to mind.
  • Reply 54 of 117
    djrumpydjrumpy Posts: 1,116member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mazda 3s View Post


    Not to be a dick, but he has been around AI for 5 years and appears to have contributed quite a bit to the community. I wouldn't start off with your first sentence insulting him...



    Considering the switch from 16 to 32 happened 10 years ago, no I don't think it's wrong to state as much. I also didn't insult him. "spoken like a true youngster" is hardly some slap to the face. I have seen far worse online. I would consider that a very mild poke rather than a 'flame'.
  • Reply 55 of 117
    mariomario Posts: 348member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by masklinn View Post




    No it doesn't. PAE is not a hack.




    No, Physical Address Extensions (PAE) is not a hack, however, 32 bit kernel is, well 32 bit. It means its pointers are 32 bit. So for 32 bit kernel to take advantage of PAE, it actually must have 64 bit parts. That's a bit of a hack. As a matter of fact, OS X's 32 bit kernel is not entirely 32 bit to begin with.
  • Reply 56 of 117
    "jingle-pundits" I like that. Even Leo Laporte, called Snow Loepard a "Snow Job" and then proceeded to pretend to not know anything about what changes were made. And he acted like Apple forced him to buy it. Hey Leo, stop trying to prove to the haters your not a fanboy, it's not working. Screw them!
  • Reply 57 of 117
    sabonsabon Posts: 134member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jasenj1 View Post


    It better! Or there'll be a lot of early Intel adopters stuck with 32-bit EFI and 32-bit CPUs that will be hopping mad. Myself among them.



    I'd expect 32-bit support for at least another 3-5 years.



    - Jasen.



    Getting support for something (updates to the current veresion of the OS you have) and being able to buy and install future version of the OS are very different things.



    Personally, and my iMac has 32 bit EFI, I WANT apple to have 10.7 be 64 bit only.
  • Reply 58 of 117
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mazda 3s View Post


    Microsoft Access and Excel come to mind.



    Who is making multi-gigabyte Excel documents?



    Access is an exercise in self-flagellation, even many of the Microsoft proponents admit as much.
  • Reply 59 of 117
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mario View Post


    No, Physical Address Extensions (PAE) is not a hack, however, 32 bit kernel is, well 32 bit. It means its pointers are 32 bit. So for 32 bit kernel to take advantage of PAE, it actually must have 64 bit parts. That's a bit of a hack. As a matter of fact, OS X's 32 bit kernel is not entirely 32 bit to begin with.



    PAE was a bit of a stopgap treatment. Its utility is a bit limited compared to making a regular 64 bit instruction set, a quick fix that kicked the can down the road.



    Maybe it was a good thing that Intel didn't make the x86-64 instruction set anyway. They wasted so much time trying to push people to Itanium that a lot of work and many months were lost on what's now known as a dead end.
  • Reply 60 of 117
    sabonsabon Posts: 134member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by masklinn View Post


    If it's an early to mid-2007 iMac, it probably is a Core CPU (rather than Core 2), which means it's a 32b CPU not 32/64.



    Ok ... so if my Nov '06 CPU is a Core 2 Duo (it says it is on the outside of the box and in the paper work) and at least before I install snow leopard it said EFI is 32 bit.



    Since it IS a Core 2 Duo, it's possible I will eventually get (or did with Snow Leopard as one person claimed) 64 bit EFI.
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