All Snow Leopard lags, and glitches fixed (for me) by running in 64-bit mode

[zzfuzion]

First off, I love Snow Leopard.....Now

It did not come immediately however. After first installing 10.6 My computer crashed, glitched, and froze all over the place. I was highly disappointed. I just kept submitting the trouble reports to apple and was preparing to roll back to to 10.5. But before I did that I decided to do a little research and see if there is anything I can do about it.

Before the looking into, I did not realize that 10.6 booted into 32-bit natively, but was happy to see you can boot into full 64-bit still. I decided to try so DESPITE all of the people complaining about 10.6 not being truly 64-bit and others saying there are issues with the drivers when running straight 64-bit and that the 64-bit apps will open fine in 32-bit mode. Which, yes I understand 64-bit software can be run in a 32-bit OS, but to me, the math doesn't add up there. It would seem to me (and I could be wrong, I'm not a programmer or anything of the sort) that 64 bits inside a 32 bit area would severely weigh it down.

Anyhow, back to booting into 64-bit mode. DO IT! If you are having any issues with the straight install of Snow Leopard, try the 64-bit mode. I'm not saying it will work, and I know people are complaining about lack of 64-bit drivers. But this works wonderfully for me. Since booting into 64-bit mode I have had no issues with lagging, no crashing, every application opens perfectly with no glitches and my printer works just fine (granted I had to download the 10.6 driver from HP). Heck, my battery life is even better; I'm actually getting the 7 hour charge time advertised versus the 4 hours I was getting in 32-bit more.

So, go ahead, boot into 64 bit mode if your processor and bios allows. I can almost assure you everything will work fine. Not just fine, but better! The way that we all hoped that snow leopard would run.



Has anyone else tried this and getting similar or different results?

Can anyone tell me how to do the NVRAM edit so my system boots into 64-bit by default?

 

[electroshock]

Fire up Terminal.app and:

$ sudo nvram boot-args="arch=x86_64"

...and bob's your uncle.

 

[zzfuzion]

thanks for the quick reply.

I copy and pasted:

$ sudo nvram boot-args="arch=x86_64"

it came back with:

-bash: $: command not found

 

[electroshock]

thanks for the quick reply.

I copy and pasted:

$ sudo nvram boot-args="arch=x86_64"

it came back with:

-bash: $: command not found

Leave out the $

$ is a traditional way of referring to whatever the prompt string is.

 

[zzfuzion]

oh. got ya. thank you so much. it looks like it worked. I'm restarting now to verify.

By the way. any thoughts on what 32 VS 64 bit errors like I was experiencing?

 

[Chrysaor]

You probably have 32-bit kernel extensions with issues in SL, and since 64-bit kernel can not load them, you have less problems in 64-bit mode.
SL will get more stable and reliable over time both in 32/64 modes, once vendors start to update their drivers.

 

[macrem]

You probably have 32-bit kernel extensions with issues in SL, and since 64-bit kernel can not load them, you have less problems in 64-bit mode.
SL will get more stable and reliable over time both in 32/64 modes, once vendors start to update their drivers.

I was going to say the same thing...interesting way to work around the problem.

I did not have any problems with the 32-bit kernel & extensions but decided to be strict now. I have been booting the 64-bit kernel only since day one. Only one program I need for work was broken (tuntaposx) but I patched and recompiled the source code & got it to work.

 

[dissdnt]

I just booted in 64 bit with the 64 number solute. First boot keyboard and keypad we're dead, second boot is fine.

I'm gonna run it in here for awhile see how it goes.

I have 4 gigs of ram, so probably better im in 64bit then 32bit.

 

[MikesGravity]

I tried to run this command and I got this:
"Last login: Thu Sep 10 19:38:21 on console
Mikes-Macbook:~ Mike$ sudo nvram boot-args="arch=x86_64"

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort."

It won't let me type a password. Any help?

 

[macrem]

I tried to run this command and I got this:
"Last login: Thu Sep 10 19:38:21 on console
Mikes-Macbook:~ Mike$ sudo nvram boot-args="arch=x86_64"

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort."

It won't let me type a password. Any help?

Your user is probably not a sudoer. By default, standard users cannot sudo. Admin users can sudo.

Let's say there is an administrator account called "admin" on your machine.

First, run "su admin" to switch to admin's account. It's whatever account you use to run software update / to install software.

Then, run the sudo command

Alternatively you can make your account a sudoer if you have admin priv's. I prefer to run daily as a standard user and use an admin account to sudo.

To read more about sudo, try "man sudo"

 

[santos79]

No need to use the command line

No need to use the command line. There's a much simpler way to do it. Just update the boot.plist file as follows (from the Ars Technica review):

"For a more permanent solution, use the nvram command to add arch=x86_64 to your boot-args string, or edit the file /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist and add arch=x86_64 to the Kernel Flags string:

...
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>arch=x86_64</string>
...
To switch back to the 32-bit kernel, hold down the "3" and "2" keys during boot, or use one of the techniques above, replacing "x86_64" with "i386"."

http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/5

 

[zzfuzion]

You probably have 32-bit kernel extensions with issues in SL, and since 64-bit kernel can not load them, you have less problems in 64-bit mode.
SL will get more stable and reliable over time both in 32/64 modes, once vendors start to update their drivers.

I've checked out what apps are 64-bit and what ones are 32-bit on my system. Of the ones that I use most frequently, I'm at pretty much a 50/50 ration of 32 to 64-bit apps. And not all are apple apps either. And still, the 32-bit apps are running better in 64-bit mode than 32-bit mode.

I do remember Windows had major issues with running 32-bit apps in 64-bit mode when first pushing 64-bit hardware through, and vice versa (64 in 32-bit mode). But I also seem to remember that windows did something like emulate 64-bit in 32-bit mode (and vice versa) to get the OS to run somewhat smooth.

Is it to much to expect that apple was smart enough to do something similar to allow both 64 and 32-bit versions smoothly?

It is my understanding that apple installed 10.6 to boot into 32-bit natively to not exclude the people running lower end and exclusively 32-bit models. Not because 64-bit mode isn't ready to run yet. Granted, it does seem to me that apple could have installed an identifier to boot systems


Is there anyone out threre running 64-bit natively thats having MORE issues than when they running 32-bit natively? And if so, what are they? Was it a one time issues? Are they a consistent issue? If they are a consistent issue, have you looked for updated drivers yet? Did that fix the problem?

I'd really like to see how this plays out. So far most of what I'm reading is people's assumption that there will be problems. Not that there truly are. And of course, we can always expect flaws here and there. Every OS has them, even mac. And the only way to get past those flaws, is to put the system in users hands for real world fixes.


*thanks to user dissdnt for posting your keyboard/mouse issue. Have you had it since? Any other issues?

 

[kjohansen]

I've checked out what apps are 64-bit and what ones are 32-bit on my system. Of the ones that I use most frequently, I'm at pretty much a 50/50 ration of 32 to 64-bit apps. And not all are apple apps either. And still, the 32-bit apps are running better in 64-bit mode than 32-bit mode.

I do remember Windows had major issues with running 32-bit apps in 64-bit mode when first pushing 64-bit hardware through, and vice versa (64 in 32-bit mode). But I also seem to remember that windows did something like emulate 64-bit in 32-bit mode (and vice versa) to get the OS to run somewhat smooth.

Is it to much to expect that apple was smart enough to do something similar to allow both 64 and 32-bit versions smoothly?

It is my understanding that apple installed 10.6 to boot into 32-bit natively to not exclude the people running lower end and exclusively 32-bit models. Not because 64-bit mode isn't ready to run yet. Granted, it does seem to me that apple could have installed an identifier to boot systems


Is there anyone out threre running 64-bit natively thats having MORE issues than when they running 32-bit natively? And if so, what are they? Was it a one time issues? Are they a consistent issue? If they are a consistent issue, have you looked for updated drivers yet? Did that fix the problem?

I'd really like to see how this plays out. So far most of what I'm reading is people's assumption that there will be problems. Not that there truly are. And of course, we can always expect flaws here and there. Every OS has them, even mac. And the only way to get past those flaws, is to put the system in users hands for real world fixes.


*thanks to user dissdnt for posting your keyboard/mouse issue. Have you had it since? Any other issues?

I booted a 64-bit kernel and my Drobo dashboard software quit working, DataRobotics knows and will probably fix it sooner or later.

 

[kasakka]

It is my understanding that apple installed 10.6 to boot into 32-bit natively to not exclude the people running lower end and exclusively 32-bit models. Not because 64-bit mode isn't ready to run yet.

The problem is that at the moment many programs that use kernel extensions are still 32-bit and the kexts can't be loaded with a 64-bit kernel, so what we have is a more graceful handling of the same situation Vista 64-bit was in several years ago. Drivers, apps that hook into the system etc were not 64-bit so they simply didn't work and thus driver support was bad. Manufacturers sold computer with the 32-bit Vista but now that driver support is good they seem to be offering mainly 64-bit Vista.

Probably by the end of the year all major apps that require kexts have been ported to 64-bit. For example on my system the Microsoft Intellipoint mouse driver isn't 64-bit (update coming next month) and xGestures isn't either. Until they get a 64-bit version I can't start using the 64-bit kernel.