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Detailed Technical Look at Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

CaptSaltyJack said:
Whatever. Too long, did not read.

Press and hold '6' and '4' on the keyboard during boot-up to boot into 64-bit mode. Only works on "newer machines," whatever that means.
Click to expand...
Means machines with 64bit EFIs. You can check whether your EFI is 32 or 64 with the command ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi
alent1234 said:
you can use more than 4GB of RAM on x86 Windows, but the application has to be coded for it and there are limitations.
Click to expand...
I was talking about "desktop" Windows versions (XP, Vista, 7). And on these, you can't. You simply can't. I'm going to ignore the rest of your post (about servers) as it's not relevant to my point.

Furthremore, as far as applications go yes you can use more than 4GB of VMEM the same way you can on 32b OSX: use multiple processes, or manually page mmaps. That's a hack and it doesn't work in every case (you still can't mmap a DVD image). And I clearly specified processes in my post, not applicatins, for specifically this reason.
AidenShaw said:
Windows Server x86 systems have full PAE support, and 32-bit operating systems can see and manage the full 64 GiB that's available. (As you say, each process only sees 4 GiB of VM.)
Click to expand...
I was talking about desktops, sorry if that wasn't clear.
AidenShaw said:
Windows desktop systems don't have PAE support. They run the CPU with PAE enabled so that 64-bit VM structures are used (the NX feature is only available when PAE is enabled in the CPU).
Click to expand...
Ergo they do have PAE enabled.
AidenShaw said:
Desktop Windows doesn't have the rest of the extended address support, so have the same 4 GiB (really 3.something GiB) RAM visibility.
Click to expand...
Actually it does (the NX bit requires enabling PAE period, so if you have the NX bit, you have PAE. And even before that, the Windows 2000 desktop editions also had PAE enabled, even though they didn't use the NX bit), the memory code paths are exactly the same between server and desktop Windows editions. The difference lies in a license check which verifies how much physical RAM your OS is allowed to see and reconfigures the memory mapping subsystem accordingly.

On desktop x86 windows, it's 4GB (and that's also why not all Server versions can use the same amount of physical RAM) (that's also how Starter editions are limited to 512MB or 1GB)
Bjohnson33 said:
Pretty funny that Ars Technica never got around to reviewing Windows Vista, but spent 23 pages review Snow Leopard!
Click to expand...
It's about writer/section really. Infinite Loop/Siracusa have always released sprawling OSX reviews, since the very first preversions. That habit just doesn't exist on OMW.
 
a bit confused by Quicktime X ...

okay .. so i'm confused by what he was saying in the article in regard to plugins for Quicktime X

i installed SL the other day WITHOUT quicktime 7
i proceeded to install perian and FlipWMV
after that i was able get quicktime x to play avi's (xvid/divx) and wmv files
 
GQB said:
If you approach the Apple suite as a whole, then iWeb is actually very simple, as the tools are pretty much the same across the iWork apps.
Click to expand...

It is a nice, simple app., but it is far more focused on posting pictures and blogs for family connectivity. The HTML and resources it spits out are crippling, though. They try to be too fancy too often.

I agree that it is impractical to fudge with using your own HTML. During my experiences, it seems almost impossible to dance within the framework they provide. Customization is difficult.

If you run a very simple business, it's ok. If you run something beyond a few stray products for sale it becomes limited, so it leaves a lot to be desired when you expand need beyond their simple templates. I wish it was easier to play with all the graphic pieces of their sites, positioning, and linking, for starters.
 
edmundo said:
Means machines with 64bit EFIs. You can check whether your EFI is 32 or 64 with the command ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi

I was talking about "desktop" Windows versions (XP, Vista, 7). And on these, you can't. You simply can't. I'm going to ignore the rest of your post (about servers) as it's not relevant to my point.

Furthremore, as far as applications go yes you can use more than 4GB of VMEM the same way you can on 32b OSX: use multiple processes, or manually page mmaps. That's a hack and it doesn't work in every case (you still can't mmap a DVD image). And I clearly specified processes in my post, not applicatins, for specifically this reason.

I was talking about desktops, sorry if that wasn't clear.

Ergo they do have PAE enabled.

Actually it does (the NX bit requires enabling PAE period, so if you have the NX bit, you have PAE. And even before that, the Windows 2000 desktop editions also had PAE enabled, even though they didn't use the NX bit), the memory code paths are exactly the same between server and desktop Windows editions. The difference lies in a license check which verifies how much physical RAM your OS is allowed to see and reconfigures the memory mapping subsystem accordingly.

On desktop x86 windows, it's 4GB (and that's also why not all Server versions can use the same amount of physical RAM) (that's also how Starter editions are limited to 512MB or 1GB)

It's about writer/section really. Infinite Loop/Siracusa have always released sprawling OSX reviews, since the very first preversions. That habit just doesn't exist on OMW.
Click to expand...

i think i read that with Windows XP and later people enabled it on the desktop. it wasn't officially supported, but it worked. you just had to find hardware in those days that supported more than 4GB on a desktop system.

with windows 7 it's just a license for maximum RAM since it's the same kernel as Windows Server
 
I can't wait until 10.6.1 is released to fix some of the minor issues.

Also, I'm rather disappointed that OpenCL doesn't support more graphics chipsets. The ATI x1600 in my MBP no slouch, and is plenty capable for playing WoW or UT2004 even on max settings. Hopefully x1600 will be supported in an upcoming OS patch? My MBP is less than 3 years old.
 
pletopia said:
okay .. so i'm confused by what he was saying in the article in regard to plugins for Quicktime X

i installed SL the other day WITHOUT quicktime 7
i proceeded to install perian and FlipWMV
after that i was able get quicktime x to play avi's (xvid/divx) and wmv files
Click to expand...
It's very simple, but there's the same issue as with QT7 of olden days: every single time, the word "Quicktime" designates both a framework (set of APIs & stuff) and a Player. In the following text, I'll disambiguate by talking about QT-F (for the framework) and QT-P (for the player).

Regarding Quicktime plugins, QT7-F supports plugins but QTX-F doesn't. So at the API level, it's not possible to create QTX-F plugins.

However at the application plugin QTX-P is a frontend not for QTX-F but for the QTKit API, which sits on top of both QTX-F and QT7-F.

As a result, depending on what you need, QTX-P is going to call either into QTX-F or into QT7-F. Thus your plugins work perfectly with QTX-P.

At the review level, page 6 is solely about QTX-F, the Quicktime X framework/API while page 16 is solely about QTX-P, the Quicktime X Player. Thouh both bear the name "QuickTime", you need to treat them as completely separate entities. Because they are.
alent1234 said:
i think i read that with Windows XP and later people enabled it on the desktop. it wasn't officially supported, but it worked.
Click to expand...
It's possible but you have to hack the kernel to ignore the license check (need to perform binary patching) and then run it in test mode (because your hacked kernel is self-signed, out of test mode it has to be MS-signed). That's pretty involved and of course totally unsupported. It generally works, but not always (some drivers just can't bear with you having more than 4GB physical RAM, usually because they're very, very badly coded)
alent1234 said:
with windows 7 it's just a license for maximum RAM since it's the same kernel as Windows Server
Click to expand...
Apart from the license check, Vista and XP kernels are also the same as the corresponding Server kernels.

7 has exactly the same hardcoded license limitation, and for the same reasons: unofficially to separate desktop from server, officially because there are still drivers bursting into pieces when they see more than 4GB physical RAM on the machine.

There's a difference though (I think it comes from a Vista SP, not sure): it does report all of your physical memory now. Just doesn't use it. The Memory Limits for Microsoft Windows don't have 7 yet, but I have absolutely no doubt that it'll look very similar to the current Vista table.
 
Small White Car said:
Actually, the main difference is that Apple is slowly moving all of their users to 64-bit.

Microsoft quickly moved some of their users to 64-bit.

As they are both currently in transition it's kind of hard to compare those 2 strategies right now. They both have pros and cons at the moment. But in 2 years I think that Microsoft's way is going to seem like a mistake when they're still trying to juggle 2 different systems and forcing the user to decide which one to get.

Right now no average users are really thinking about 64 bit on either platform. In 2011 I predict that Apple users still won't be thinking about it (the transition will go unnoticed by most) but your average Window user will finallyl be thinking about it, but in a confused way, not in a good way.
Click to expand...

if you go configure a Dell or HP now than unless you ask for it, you are going to get 64 bit Windows Vista with a free Win 7 upgrade coupon. OEM's have shipped x64 versions of Windows as the default choice for at least a year or two or at the very least they gave you the x64 version DVD included.

i've been running x64 Vista and Windows 7 for at least a year and i can only think of 2 applications that don't work with 7. The Vista version of Symantec AV and the VMWare client app. otherwise everything works and is very stable. some drivers are still 32 bit and IE8 x64 is useless but x86 firefox, opera, chrome and safari works very well. itunes is still 32bit and works. even the SQL 2005/2008 tools and Visual Studio are still 32 bit but work under x64
 
edmundo said:
It's very simple, but there's the same issue as with QT7 of olden days: every single time, the word "Quicktime" designates both a framework (set of APIs & stuff) and a Player. In the following text, I'll disambiguate by talking about QT-F (for the framework) and QT-P (for the player).

Regarding Quicktime plugins, QT7-F supports plugins but QTX-F doesn't. So at the API level, it's not possible to create QTX-F plugins.

However at the application plugin QTX-P is a frontend not for QTX-F but for the QTKit API, which sits on top of both QTX-F and QT7-F.

As a result, depending on what you need, QTX-P is going to call either into QTX-F or into QT7-F. Thus your plugins work perfectly with QTX-P.

At the review level, page 6 is solely about QTX-F, the Quicktime X framework/API while page 16 is solely about QTX-P, the Quicktime X Player. Thouh both bear the name "QuickTime", you need to treat them as completely separate entities. Because they are.

It's possible but you have to hack the kernel to ignore the license check (need to perform binary patching) and then run it in test mode (because your hacked kernel is self-signed, out of test mode it has to be MS-signed). That's pretty involved and of course totally unsupported. It generally works, but not always (some drivers just can't bear with you having more than 4GB physical RAM, usually because they're very, very badly coded)

Apart from the license check, Vista and XP kernels are also the same as the corresponding Server kernels.

7 has exactly the same hardcoded license limitation, and for the same reasons: unofficially to separate desktop from server, officially because there are still drivers bursting into pieces when they see more than 4GB physical RAM on the machine.
Click to expand...

i thought Vista SP1 was the first to share the server kernel? with Vista SP2 it's the same download for Vista as for Windows Server 2008 SP2
 
I understood about 90% of that but it was worth reading--the future for Mac apps looks very bright!

Imagine a 64-bit Photoshop--or a true competitor--based on Core Image and Grand Central Dispatch. (Even harder to imagine: me buying another Photoshop that DOESN'T go that route. But I know it's no easy task, and am willing to wait.)

Also... sortable column view! :D Goodbye List view. 1984 has ended for me at last.
 
signature_SmileyFace.jpg
Windows xp - Good Windows vista- awful Windows 7- mediocre

Mac OSX 10.4 - awesome 10.5 - AWESOME 10.6 ARGHHH ITS SO AWESOME
 
alent1234 said:
i thought Vista SP1 was the first to share the server kernel? with Vista SP2 it's the same download for Vista as for Windows Server 2008 SP2
Click to expand...
Well yes and no, for all intents and purposes the XP and 2003 kernels are the same, but the limits were hardcoded in the kernel itself (I think), so the shipped kernels couldn't be the same image (as they had different hardcoded values). That changed with vista, the licensing data was externalized so they could ship exactly the same kernel between the server and the desktop version.

Anyway if you want the actual, low-level tech on the subject, see http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm&bm=Ftn_1 is a pretty damn nice article on the subject.
 
Wotan31 said:
I can't wait until 10.6.1 is released to fix some of the minor issues.

Also, I'm rather disappointed that OpenCL doesn't support more graphics chipsets. The ATI x1600 in my MBP no slouch, and is plenty capable for playing WoW or UT2004 even on max settings. Hopefully x1600 will be supported in an upcoming OS patch? My MBP is less than 3 years old.
Click to expand...

i have the HD 2600 GPU in my HP laptop and ATI/AMD even has an updated Windows 7 driver for it on their website where before they told you to go to HP for the latest driver.
 
Read the whole article, I hope many other macrumors readers do the same, it will save us a lot of "why is this not 64 bit?" and "Everything cocoa = world peace" threads
 
Holding down the '64' on boot up only affects the kernel. 64-bit applications etc will still run as 64-bit whether you hold it down or not. And for most non-power users this won't make much of a difference - unless you're using massive amounts of memory.

This is a smart move on Apple's behalf. The people who really want a 64-bit kernel (and thus understand the issues involved with it at present) can easily make their Mac kernel boot into 64-bit mode. A later update can change the default behavior when most developers have updated kexts etc.


( As for Windows having 64-bit years ago their strategy was different. 64-bit Windows only ran 32-bit apps in compatibility mode rather than natively - thus they were slower [only in the early days it seems - see posts below]. So if a consumer went out and installed 64-bit Windows, then their 32-bit apps, essentially all of them, would run slower, and that's not to mention driver problems etc. 32-bit Windows wouldn't run 64-bit apps at all. Hardly a choice for the majority of consumers: run 64-bit but essentially slower, or 32-bit. Apple didn't roll out a total 64-bit system but it had the capability to run either 32-bit or 64-bit apps as soon as they appeared. )
 
edmundo said:
Ergo they do have PAE enabled.

Actually it does (the NX bit requires enabling PAE period), so if you have the NX bit, you have PAE.
Click to expand...

There's a difference between having the CPU option for PAE enabled, and the full memory management support for extended addressing.

As I said, PAE is enabled at the CPU level, but the client OS does not have full extended addressing support that is found in the server OS.


macgruder said:
As for Windows having 64-bit years ago their strategy was different. 64-bit Windows only ran 32-bit apps in compatibility mode rather than natively - thus they were slower.
Click to expand...

Please back up this claim of "x86 apps are slower with the x64 kernel".

The "compatibility" mode of an x64 CPU is full native execution, there is no emulation or overhead for running 32-bit instructions.

There's minor overhead for switching between modes, and minor overhead for thunking 32-bit system calls to 64-bit calls - but on the other hand the x64 kernel can be faster because of the extra registers, memory management, etc of x64.

I don't think that you'll be able to find much evidence that on average the x86 apps are significantly slower when run with the x64 kernel compared to the x86 kernel. For example, this Bare Feats test shows very little difference - sometimes the x86 app is slightly faster with the Windows x64 kernel, sometimes slightly slower.
 
edmundo said:
If you're ok with Leopard and you don't really want SHINYYYYY new SL, I recommend that you wait for 10.6.1.

I'm fairly happy with SL so far, but the software breakage annoys me (a lot of macports ports don't build anymore) and I've had pretty severe stability issues with Mail during the weekend (no data loss, but…).

Apple apps stability will probably be fixed with 10.6.1, and third-party app compatibility is resolving itself slowly (MenuMeters is already back)
Click to expand...

Macports is all kinds of broke. I'm halfway tempted to uninstall it and install all my source software manually. Aside from that and a weird visual glitch (every once in a while the top half of my screen will flicker black for like 1/4 of a second--not enough to be a real distraction but enough that I've noticed it) SL has been running just fine.

I noticed a bit of a speed boost (nothing dramatic on my MacBook Pro, but my mom's Mini sure saw a noticeable speed increase) which is nice. Funny you mention Mail being problematic because this is the most stable Mail has ever been for me. I'm way happy about that. Did you import all your data? I read in at least two places people had issues when upgrading so I just set up all my Mail accounts like they were new (they're all IMAP) and then just manually imported all the mail I have saved locally. You might want to consider a "clean" install of mail.

It has some quirks, which is normal for a .0 release but they haven't interfered with my work.
 
macgruder said:
Holding down the '64' on boot up only affects the kernel. 64-bit applications etc will still run as 64-bit whether you hold it down or not. And for most non-power users this won't make much of a difference - unless you're using massive amounts of memory.

This is a smart move on Apple's behalf. The people who really want a 64-bit kernel (and thus understand the issues involved with it at present) can easily make their Mac kernel boot into 64-bit mode. A later update can change the default behavior when most developers have updated kexts etc.

As for Windows having 64-bit years ago their strategy was different. 64-bit Windows only ran 32-bit apps in compatibility mode rather than natively - thus they were slower. So if a consumer went out and installed 64-bit Windows, then their 32-bit apps, essentially all of them, would run slower, and that's not to mention driver problems etc. 32-bit Windows wouldn't run 64-bit apps at all. Hardly a choice for the majority of consumers: run 64-bit but essentially slower, or 32-bit. Apple didn't roll out a total 64-bit system but it had the capability to run either 32-bit or 64-bit apps as soon as they appeared.
Click to expand...

almost everyone has a 64bit Windows driver out for hardware made in the last 3 years

i have to upgrade my desktop from x86 Windows 7 RTM and i'm thinking x64 Windows 7. It's a home build and the hardware dates back to 2005 and 2006. i checked last night and there are x64 compatible drivers for it. i just have to check if the hardware supports virtualization for the virtual XP mode. my 2 year old HP laptop does
 
screen capture

it may seem silly to some...one of my favorite new features is the way snow names the screen captures. trivial I know...must have been one of Steve's pet peeves for someone to put the effort into changing something that had worked for years.
 
AidenShaw said:
I don't think that you'll be able to find much evidence that on average the x86 apps are significantly slower when run with the x64 kernel compared to the x86 kernel.
Click to expand...

Yes, you are right. I'd got the impression that there was generally a speed hit - perhaps that was in the early days and for graphics heavy work, and there were compatibility issues.
 
RTiii320 said:
Wow Snow Leopard was just released and they are already talking about how this is a prelude to the next mac-os .. It never ends, that's what's makes Apple who they are.
Click to expand...

Yep. They've got your money.. What are they going to make you buy next?

After one release of a no-news OS, the faithful now explain it away by saying that every other Mac OS is going to be nothingness. Yeah, and I hear Vista II is coming out next year, and then Windows 8 is going to fix it!

mr.steevo said:
If 64 Bit is still on the horizon then why were the long ago G5's touted as being 64 Bit? Was it a marketing thing on IBM/Apple's part?
Click to expand...
Well, customers bought it, didn't they? Then they bought Tiger for 64-bit. And then they bought Leopard for 64-bit. And now they're buying Intels for 64-bit..(Oops!) And now they're buying Snow Leopard for 64-bit.

64-bit has been a major success for Apple for six years now!

tabasco70 said:
Wonder what kind of racial new features they might pack into 10.7.
I know that's a long way into the future, but I remember reading in several places about a year ago that Apple was planning on completely redesigning the User Interface and how we use computers.
Click to expand...
Well, they will need to upgrade the iPhoto facial recognition features, add voice recognition, and then maybe they can add racial features. But do people really want racially themed desktop GUIs?
 
edmundo said:
And dropping which hardware to start with? 10.7 might kill 32bit altogether (though I doubt it, that'll probably be for 10.8 around 2011-2012) which corresponds to the first 6 months of Intel-based macs, but then what are you going to drop? Everything since is EMT64…
Click to expand...
Don't worry, Apple will find a way.. They've got to keep making your purchase lose value, so you'll buy buy again.
  • 32-bit Windows processes can only have 2 to 3 GB of virtual memory due to the kernel sharing the address space with the process. OSX 32bit processes get 4GB.
  • While PAE is enabled on Windows 32b, the maximum "visible" memory is still limited to 4GB (so having 6 or 8GB of RAM in a 32b windows machine wastes them). In OSX, PAE is enabled with no limitation so you get (and use) up to 32GB of RAM (note: processes and kernel are still limited to 4GB of VMEM)
Click to expand...
There is no way an OSX can process can use 4GB. The kernel has to use some of the address space. Linux can be compiled to use only 256MB, so I'd figure OS X can't beat that. I actually think the maximum in OSX is the same as Windows default: 2GB. If you can point to documentation that says otherwise, point away.

Windows has API called AWE that allows access to >4GB for one process through memory bank switching. OSX does not seem to, but if you know otherwise, point away.

smallwhitecar said:
Yeah, it was twice over the last 30 years.

But I guess that SEEMS like a lot to some people!
Click to expand...
Four times, actually. OS 9 to OSX is an architecture change, and so is this current 'silent transition,' from x86 to AMD64.
 
Wow! Amazing article. I wanted the PDF to keep and print out, but that link is dead. This should pretty much be required reading before posting any Snow Leopard related questions. :p

I love the insight as to why QuickTime 7 is still around and why we'll probably be living with a limited Quicktime X for a few more years.

Good stuff all around.
 
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