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How to know if I'm booting in 64-bit?

M

malch

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 20, 2008
466
9
Hi there,
I have a 2010 Mac Pro, which I know came out of the factory as 64-bit-enabled.
When I got it, though, I switched to 32-bit because certain apps needed that.
Now I've updated those apps, and want to run in 64-bit.
I just did a clean install of Mountain Lion, so for all I know that put me back in 64-bit, but I don't really know.
I've looked in
About This Mac/More Info/System Report/Software

... and for Boot Mode I see 'Normal'

Does that mean I'm booting in 64-bit?
thanks,
malch
 
Nermal

Nermal

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
20,632
3,987
New Zealand
You should be in 64-bit; as far as I know Mountain Lion doesn't support 32-bit anymore. The "64-bit Kernel and Extensions" entry doesn't even appear on my ML system.
 
M

malch

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 20, 2008
466
9
That's the thing, lixu: under Software, it mentions Boot Mode as 'Normal', but there's no mention of 64 or 32-bit.
And you're right, Nermel. My Mac Pro (2010) arrived as 64-bit. But I switched to 32-bit, because until recently, my main editing app wouldn't work in 64-bit.

I did a Terminal command, by the way, which may or may not have worked to either put me into, or keep me in, 64-bit. I just don't know how I can confirm, when my 'About This Mac' settings don't tell me...

Any other suggestions?
thanks,
malch
 
M

monkeybagel

macrumors 65816
Jul 24, 2011
1,141
61
United States
A few notes:
-I don't think ML supports 32-bit-only mode at all
-If you did something in the terminal before it was probably a boot-args command. This can be undone by resetting PRAM. (Power on and immediately hold Command+Option+P+R) until you hear a second bong)
-Run the terminal command above to show the kernel or boot in Verbose mode to see the kernel being loaded.

With 10.8 I'm pretty sure it will ignore any requests to boot into x86 vs x86_64 mode so you are probably fine either way.
 
M

malch

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 20, 2008
466
9
Thanks for all the comments, but a few rejoinders:
Mountain Lion does work on 32-bit machines, because I have it running three feet from my 2010 Mac Pro, on my 2008 MacBook Pro. Pretty sure that MacBook Pro is 32-bit only.
In answer to your question, Nermel—yes, I was running Snow Leopard on both machines until very recently.
Monkey—when you say "Run the terminal command above", do you mean Yarrow's suggestion?:

"uname -a"

Thanks again,
malch
 
M

monkeybagel

macrumors 65816
Jul 24, 2011
1,141
61
United States
The 2008 should be 64-bit as well. There are lots of time some confusion the way OS X uses the terms 32-bit and 64-bit. In any event, I was referring to the uname -a command.

The MacBook Pro may not "officially" support Windows x64, but if it has a Core 2 Duo processor, the processor supports 64-bit, and if the EFI supports 64 bit (which I think it probably does) it should run in 64-bit.

What application did you use the needed 32-bit? I know the Cisco IPSec client used to be that way.
 
M

malch

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 20, 2008
466
9
monkeybagel said:
What application did you use the needed 32-bit?
Click to expand...

Hi there,
Avid Media Composer, v. 5.5.3
Avid has since released a 64-bit-capable version of Media Composer (v.6), but I wanted to wait on it until they'd ironed out some bugs...
Thanks for your help,
malch
 
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