64-bit and Snow Leopard – What 64-bit means for you

[arcticreaver]

okay, i'll trust apple. i guess it's time to upgrade

 

[arcticreaver]

another question, will snow leopard run slower for me?

 

[cwa107]

another question, will snow leopard run slower for me?

It should be about the same.

 

[arcticreaver]

will the multi-gesture thingy work for me?

 

[cwa107]

Probably not, because that particular vintage of MacBook Pro could only track two points on the trackpad, as I recall. The 3+ finger gesture support was introduced with the early 2008 models.

 

[arcticreaver]

hmm, i think i'll upgrade after the new macbook pro comes out. i might just get a whole new mac instead.

 

[cwa107]

Probably not a bad idea. That machine is still worth a good $700 too, you should sell it on eBay and pick up a Core i5 model when they're released.

Personally, I'm waiting for USB 3.0 to prolferate before I upgrade any of my machines.

 

[arcticreaver]

usb 3.0? is that coming any time soon?

i think i'll still upgrade to the snow leopard. because if the new MBP is going to be like what they were charging, the specs that i want is probably going to be way over 3 grand.

and i want to get the new magic mouse but that requires at least leopard.

 

[cwa107]

usb 3.0? is that coming any time soon?

It's already starting to trickle out. By the end of this year, you'll likely see it on some high-end systems.

 

[sackandcrack]

unless you have the macbook pro u can forget about the 64-bit kernel. its locked on regular macbooks, macbook air, and i macs. i guess that snow leopard has a base support for the 64 bit kernel extensions while running the 32 bit kernel. the problem with this is that it is not possible for a 32 bit kernel to make use of more than 3 gb of ram. the good news is that you really dont need that much ram on a laptop anyway. i am not trying to start a fight here, but microsoft has the program files devided into 32 and 64 bit programs. the 64 bit kernel can run the 32 bit stuff, but the 32 cannot run the 64 bit. Unless apple found a way to make the 32 bit kernal talk to the ram in a different way then the way things have been going on, i am on the fence about the 64 bit support of snow leopard when the 64 bit kernel is not accessible. one experiment that i would run to test apple's claim of 64 bit support with a 32 bit kernel would be if you have 4 gb of ram, turn off your swap file. If the apple can write to all 4 gb of ram, you should be fine under normal operation. but since the computer only sees 3 gb, i would think the system would crash because the amount of ram that, say, a program like istat nano sez is there might not mean that all of it is usuable, and sys info would get chunked for the webpage u have open.


but on the real, i dont know much about apple's system, and i would like to state that i love it. all i am saying is that we all are smart enough to know wether a program is compatible or not with the kernal we are running, and apple did not need to treat us like babies and tell us that there os can do something it in all likelyhood cannot.

most computers come with 64 bit os's and that seems the way its gonna go. apple should let we the public make up our own minds on weather or not to use the 64 bit kernel. and you could always make sure what u are installin is compatible with your machine. I feel that this has been taken for granted because everything is ready to go out the box, and the learning curve with computers has gone linear.
hummmm......i gues i should state that this would effect your games most of all, and then all the other programs that u try and run.
so to break it down: got a macbook? 1-3gb of ram? You are golden! 4+ gb of ram? your computer cannot use all of that unless the 64-bit kernel is loaded. you have 1 whole gig of dead ram sitting there doing nothing, and that is sad.

from what i understand of ram, the problem is not the amount of ram available, the problem is that the processor cannot comunicate with it quick enough. so even tho the 64 bit can handel more ram, whos to say that in the future, a 128-bit processor comes about and better handels memory access? Apple shoud push foward for this, not lock it out and try to explain how the programs still run blah blah blah........

sum it all up: "its my computer and i can break it how i see fit."

 

[cwa107]

unless you have the macbook pro u can forget about the 64-bit kernel. its locked on regular macbooks, macbook air, and i macs. i guess that snow leopard has a base support for the 64 bit kernel extensions while running the 32 bit kernel. the problem with this is that it is not possible for a 32 bit kernel to make use of more than 3 gb of ram.

Incorrect. The kernel does not need to run in 64-bit mode to address more than 4GB of RAM. The 3GB restriction you reference is true of Windows 32-bit machines, but not of other OSes.

 

[Chris H.]

You know, speaking of Snow Leopard 64-Bit mode, can my Mac mini run in 64-bit mode? Just curious...

 

[cwa107]

You know, speaking of Snow Leopard 64-Bit mode, can my Mac mini run in 64-bit mode? Just curious...

It's already running in 64-bit mode if it has a C2D chip. What it is not running is the 64-bit kernel, which is usually not necessary as it has ZERO tangible benefit to the end-user.

 

[sackandcrack]

does it show that i am a former windows user? thank you for the info and correction. i think ill try to know what im talking about before posting!

 

[mrlajos]

I think we are forgot Apple is preparing for 64bit with Snow Leo. They also try to involve graphics card to help for the processor if needed (but dont know it needs 64bit or not) 64 bit meens for me: using larger memory and more powerful software if written and compiled for 64bit.

 

[Chasingu]

I was thinking about booting in 64 Bit mode but I have a question. Can I still run 32 Bit applications in 64 bit mode?

 

[cwa107]

I was thinking about booting in 64 Bit mode but I have a question. Can I still run 32 Bit applications in 64 bit mode?

Yes, but why would you want to?

 

[vansmith]

I was thinking about booting in 64 Bit mode but I have a question. Can I still run 32 Bit applications in 64 bit mode?

You may not be able to boot into a 64-bit kernel either. As far as I know, support is (artificially) limited to Xserves and some MBPs and Mac Pros. The models may be wrong but not all 64-bit capable machines can run the 64-bit kernel.

 

[northrnchimp]

the 64-bit kernel, which is usually not necessary as it has ZERO tangible benefit to the end-user.

That's not entirely true - there are some advantages to the 64-bit kernel, namely increased security, and a small speed boost (roughly 5% according to macperformanceguide.com benchmarks and 9% primatelabs.ca benchmarks of 32-bit v 64-bit kernels) - due to the ability of the kernel to double-up any operations with less than 64-bits. I've been booting into 64-bit for the past month or so, and have had no problems or incompatibilities at all.