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2006 Mac Pro and Snow Leopard

I believe all MBP models prior to the 2,16 GHz Core 2 Duo of late 2006 were 32 bit Core Duo. There were also MB, Mac Mini and iMacs based on Core Duo.

Mac Pros all had Xeon 64-Bit processors. So it really is a question what 64 Bit support means. Ideally Apple should upgrade the 32Bit EFI of the MacPro1,1 to 64Bit EFI. I have my doubts that this will actually happen.

Apple also keeps old Firmware on the C2D MBPs. They have not issued a firmware update on those models avoiding the multiple image booting issue.
 
Syonidism said:
Okay good news...



wait what?.. Bad news.

Conflicting arguments both seems like valid. I'd be pretty bummed if my mac was 32-bit...

V---My mac---V
Click to expand...

Your Mac is 64bit. He was saying that the only Intel Macs that weren't 64bit were the Core Duo Macs with the exception of the original Mac Pro. You have nothing to worry about.

Here's further evidence from the internet archives of 2006: http://web.archive.org/web/20060821224815/http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html

It says under Processing: 64-bit data paths and registers (which is the same wording Apple uses on the current http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html page)
 
gugucom said:
Mac Pros all had Xeon 64-Bit processors. So it really is a question what 64 Bit support means. Ideally Apple should upgrade the 32Bit EFI of the MacPro1,1 to 64Bit EFI. I have my doubts that this will actually happen.
Click to expand...

Any idea on how the 32-Bit EFI could effect running Snow Leopard with a 64-bit kernel?

-Kevin
 
People are assigning waaaaay too much importance to the 64 bit kernel. 64 bit apps and libraries are the important part, and that works fine. If you don't have a graphics card with 2GB+ of vram, you probably don't need the 64 bit kernel (nor would it have any noticeable benefits for the vast majority of things).

If you're doing kext development though, yeah, get a new machine. I'd hope people writing kexts are adequately funded. ;)
 
64-bit userspace (apps, libs, etc) will work on every mac with intel cpu( except code duo/solo machines)

64-bit kernel is another story, but there is still a ways to run it on any intel 64-bit cpu ;)
 
netkas said:
64-bit userspace (apps, libs, etc) will work on every mac with intel cpu( except code duo/solo machines)

64-bit kernel is another story, but there is still a ways to run it on any intel 64-bit cpu ;)
Click to expand...

So we don't really NEED a 64-bit kernel? What is the difference between a 32-bit kernel and 64-bit kernel? RAM? Video RAM? I've only got 512MB of VRAM and 5GB of RAM... will my Mac Pro be any different on a 64-bit kernel?
 
Catfish_Man said:
People are assigning waaaaay too much importance to the 64 bit kernel. 64 bit apps and libraries are the important part, and that works fine. If you don't have a graphics card with 2GB+ of vram, you probably don't need the 64 bit kernel (nor would it have any noticeable benefits for the vast majority of things).

If you're doing kext development though, yeah, get a new machine. I'd hope people writing kexts are adequately funded. ;)
Click to expand...

netkas said:
64-bit userspace (apps, libs, etc) will work on every mac with intel cpu( except code duo/solo machines)

64-bit kernel is another story, but there is still a ways to run it on any intel 64-bit cpu ;)
Click to expand...


Thanks for the insight. As you can tell I'm not a developer. Just curious about this stuff.

So even if the Mac is running the 32-bit kernel of Snow Leopard, all the Apple built in apps (Mail, Finder, etc) that have been updated to 64-bit....will run in 64-bit? Whether this matters or not I have no clue :p

-Kevin
 
Catfish_Man said:
People are assigning waaaaay too much importance to the 64 bit kernel. 64 bit apps and libraries are the important part, and that works fine. If you don't have a graphics card with 2GB+ of vram, you probably don't need the 64 bit kernel (nor would it have any noticeable benefits for the vast majority of things).

If you're doing kext development though, yeah, get a new machine. I'd hope people writing kexts are adequately funded. ;)
Click to expand...

Ok, so I think I'm understand a little better. To followup what TheSpaz said, what are the main benefits of a 64-bit kernel.

As I understand it today, Leopard still has a 32-bit kernel. However, Leopard has 64-bit application support. The built in Chess.app being an example of a 64-bit app in Leopard. This means that in Leopard today, single applications can access beyond the 4GB memory limit correct?

So clearly if Chess.app can run 64-bit on Leopard today, then all the 64-bit apps in Snow Leopard should be able to run.

So what does a 64-bit kernel get us?

-Kevin
 
side-effects of owning a 64 bit mac may include; smugness, snobbishness, delirium and being broke :p

side-effects of owning a 64 bit windows include; confusion leads to frustration leads to fear leads to anger leads to hate leads to suffering... also you will die.

:apple::apple::apple:ftw:apple::apple:
 
kbmb said:
So what does a 64-bit kernel get us?

-Kevin
Click to expand...

It means the kernel itself can use more than 4GB of address space. For example: the vram on the graphics card is mapped into the kernel's address space, so if you had a 4GB-of-vram graphics card, then the kernel would not actually be able to use any memory at all (and of course your computer would not work as a result).

Similar issues apply with other structures in the kernel that grow as we get more hardware.

I'm slightly hesitant about what I can say here, since I do have NDA'd information on this. I think everything in this post is generally true of all OSs though. There are a few additional improvements, but they're mostly the sort of thing that you wouldn't notice unless you have a really weird app or go looking for them with microbenchmarks.
 
Catfish_Man said:
It means the kernel itself can use more than 4GB of address space. For example: the vram on the graphics card is mapped into the kernel's address space, so if you had a 4GB-of-vram graphics card, then the kernel would not actually be able to use any memory at all (and of course your computer would not work as a result).

Similar issues apply with other structures in the kernel that grow as we get more hardware.

I'm slightly hesitant about what I can say here, since I do have NDA'd information on this. I think everything in this post is generally true of all OSs though. There are a few additional improvements, but they're mostly the sort of thing that you wouldn't notice unless you have a really weird app or go looking for them with microbenchmarks.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the post.

So basically for now, like you said before, more important to users is 64-bit apps and userspace addressing.

-Kevin
 
kbmb said:
So clearly if Chess.app can run 64-bit on Leopard today, then all the 64-bit apps in Snow Leopard should be able to run.
Click to expand...

I have many apps that run in 64bit currently. Lightwave3D not least among them. These are carbon apps I guess.

As I understand it tho SL will be offering an additional 64bit framework. Coco or Cocoa, or Cocopuffs, or whatever it's called. The kernel is not what Apple is hyping for SL AFAIK. The new framework will supply a rich base for 64-bit application development. Adobe for one will be taking advantage of this and skipped creating a 64-bit carbon version in the interim as we're all so well aware.
 
64 bit Cocoa works in Leopard, but a) with all the included apps being 32 bit, making an app 64 bit means loading the 64 bit versions of those libraries (slows down launch time, uses more memory), and b) I don't really trust 64 bit Cocoa in Leopard. If memory serves, every .5.x release has fixed broken bits of it, but with almost no Apple apps using it, it's not getting the kind of testing coverage necessary to make me* comfortable.

So for most apps (those that don't need 4+ GB of ram or performance at any cost), I don't think it makes sense to go 64 bit until SL.



* I'd like to believe all Cocoa developers are at least as paranoid as I am, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. ymmv ;)
 
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