[frownyfrank]

I hope this isn't redundant:

"Panther will remain 32-bit, however, as nearly all that power is still only needed at the very highest levels of computation. Developers can still write calls that take advantage of the 64-bit architecture. And Apple has rewritten the way that 10.2 Jaguar addresses memory. Mac OS X 10.2.7 - which ships in the G5 - has no memory limit, allowing up to 4GB of RAM per processor using the DIMMs that are available today."

From this story.

Does this make a difference? Does Panther suck now?

[Adam Betts]

Most of the parts in Panther will take advantage of 64-bit.

Apple Staffs at WWDC said so.

[RevEvs]

Yeah, itll just be 32 bit, with only parts that will benefit being redone for 64bit. No point rewriting a load of code, just so they can say its 64bit.

revs

[OptimusG4]

Hey, Panther has speed increase on my G4 867 so I could care less.

[KidRed]

Originally posted by OptimusG4:
Hey, Panther has speed increase on my G4 867 so I could care less.

The scary thing is how fast a finshed Panther will be on a dual G5

[moki]

I have a question in response to the topic:

What is 64 bit? What do you think the OS would have to have in ordered to be considered "64 bit"?

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by moki:
I have a question in response to the topic:

What is 64 bit? What do you think the OS would have to have in ordered to be considered "64 bit"?

I'll have to remember this one, in case someone on another forum starts whining about how Panther isn't 64 bit. I think in this case, 64 bit would mean 'Capable of using the full address range of a 64 bit processor, and taking advantage of the ability to do fast 64 bit integer math where useful'.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man:
I'll have to remember this one, in case someone on another forum starts whining about how Panther isn't 64 bit. I think in this case, 64 bit would mean 'Capable of using the full address range of a 64 bit processor, and taking advantage of the ability to do fast 64 bit integer math where useful'.

Well, both 10.2.7 and Panther allow the G5's to have more than 4GB of memory physically installed and used. Therefore, they are not 32 bit operating systems. In addition, developers can write software to take advantage of the 64bit caabilities of the G5. If the operating systen were not 64 bit, the developers would not be able to do this.

[tooki]

1. G5s don't use "4GB per processor" -- it's one unified bank of up to 16GB (see the developer's tech note) using pairs of 2GB DIMMs. (There are computers that use separate RAM for each processor ("NUMA" - non-uniform memory access), but the G5 isn't such a beast, which isn't a bad thing, since NUMA machines have delays when one processor needs data from another processor's RAM. In the G5, all the processors use the same RAM, so no delays.)

2. Most apps don't need 64-bit addressing, and could just be recompiled with G5 optimizations turned on. Those apps that would benefit from 64-bit addressing could be altered to support it.

tooki

[Hydra]

Originally posted by tooki:
1. G5s don't use "4GB per processor"

tooki

Exactly, but I think the original poster had process confused with processor. I believe that hardware-wise these new machines handle 16GB in hardware physically (the maximum addressable is 64GB with the current architecture of the 42 bit(I think) memory address chips on the motherboard).

The OS can assign up to 4 GB per process (per program to over simplify) . I think most UNIX's have the same limit - I'm no expert on this stuff so feel free to correct me.

-Jerry C.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by frownyfrank:
I hope this isn't redundant:

This was talked about a while ago

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...=panther+might

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by Hydra:
Exactly, but I think the original poster had process confused with processor. I believe that hardware-wise these new machines handle 16GB in hardware physically (the maximum addressable is 64GB with the current architecture of the 42 bit(I think) memory address chips on the motherboard).

Yep, it's 42-bit addressing.

Those product manager/marketing guys are using the Reality Distortion Field (TM) again, except they don't know how to implement it as well as the master, Jobs.

It says 42-bit right in Apple's own docs.

[Gul Banana]

Actually, the maximum RAM addressable with the G5's 42-bit addressing is 4 terabytes, or 4096 gigabytes. Should be enough to last us a while.

[Hydra]

Originally posted by Gul Banana:
Actually, the maximum RAM addressable with the G5's 42-bit addressing is 4 terabytes, or 4096 gigabytes. Should be enough to last us a while.

Oops, you're right, the numbers didn't make sense when I typed them. Still, I could live with 16GB or 64GB until the end of the year at least My Dual G5 is on order - can't wait.

How much does 4096 GB cost anyway? I better start saving.

-Jerry C.

[Gul Banana]

From Kingston, US$1253376.00

[Stratus Fear]

If you have or are going to get more than 2GB of RAM, you either have some kind of database server, or you're a freak with too much money

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by Stratus Fear:
If you have or are going to get more than 2GB of RAM, you either have some kind of database server, or you're a freak with too much money

I wonder if > 2 GB RAM will help Sim City 4, or else if it's just a memory bandwidth issue.

[tooki]

Probably Sim City 4 will want as much RAM and memory bandwidth as possible... Sim City has probably gotten advanced enough that it lets you see every rat and worm and mosquito in the city...


Ahh, the good ol' days, when you could build a town in Sim City (the original one) with no roads at all, just using rail! Then Sim City 2000 came along, with its American-car-lover mind, that forced you to build actual roads, as no one would move in otherwise!

::thinks:: I wonder how fast Sim City 2000 will run on a G5?

tooki

[clarkgoble]

I believe the big issue on Panther and 64-bitness is in the memory manager. The issue appears to be that while OSX as a whole will address more than 4GB (and possiblly 10.2.7 as well) that there is a question about whether individual applications will be able to address more than 4GB.

I've read conflicting things on this point. One would hope that OSX isn't so limited with the hacks necessary to get around it that one finds under some x86 systems. Not that it is an issue for my workflow, but I'm sure many video folks need more than 4GB.

I'm guessing that this is the big "wait" element in Panther and that Panther *will* support bigger memory spaces.

Yeah, this isn't technically 64-bit issues, but it is somewhat related.

[DeathMan]

Originally posted by tooki:

Ahh, the good ol' days, when you could build a town in Sim City (the original one) with no roads at all, just using rail! Then Sim City 2000 came along, with its American-car-lover mind, that forced you to build actual roads, as no one would move in otherwise!

I used to do that all the time. It was the only way to fly. No road maintenance. Yeah.

[nickm]

the maximum RAM addressable with the G5's 42-bit addressing is 4 terabytes

Silly engineers. I can hear them now: "No one will ever need more than 4 terabytes of RAM...."

[nonhuman]

Of course Panther isn't 64-bit, it runs on 32-bit machines...

[Simon]

Originally posted by nonhuman:
Of course Panther isn't 64-bit, it runs on 32-bit machines...

I guess when people refer to Panther as being or not being 64bit what they mean to say is that it is or is not 64bit/32bit fat. Of course nobody expects Apple to make an OS only for hardware that isn't even being sold yet...

[Millennium]

Actually, there would be a slight advantage to goint totally 64-bit, as opposed to the hybrid 64/32 that Panther is.

However, it's not an advantage inherent to 64-bitness. Switching processor modes will always incur some slight bit of overhead; that's just the nature of processors. If everything is 64-bit, the mode-switching is taken out of the picture, and so you'll see a boost there. That boost isn't likely to be noticeable except in apps where the processor has to switch back and forth thousands of times.

But once again, that advantage is not inherent to going 64-bit. Any processor that has to switch between modes of any kind will benefit if you can reduce the number of mode switches.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Stratus Fear:
If you have or are going to get more than 2GB of RAM, you either have some kind of database server, or you're a freak with too much money

No database server here, so I guess then I must resort to being a freak, as I certainly do not have too much money.

[jessejlt]

A recent story on OSNews about Panther and the whole 64-bit OS question, the editor defined a 64-bit OS as an OS that allows applications to take advantage of the increased memory addressing. He conculuded that Panther did not allow this, and therefore can not be considered a 64-bit OS.
After looking through some of Apple's developer specifications for the PPC970 architecture ( I'm a CS student so I read this kind of stuff ), I found that via compilation flags, native 64-bit support can be enabled for any application, thereby creating G5 specific code-base.
Apple's said tech doc can be found here:
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2086.html

-mcpu=970
This allows the compiler to use instructions only available on the G5 (also known as 970) processor.

-mtune=970
This tells the compiler to tune code as optimally as it can for the G5. This flag can be safely used by itself on code that may run on processors other than the G5, because code compatibility is not changed.

-mpowerpc64
In combination with the above flags, this flag tells the compiler to enable the G5's native 64-bit long long support for greatly enhanced performance when working with long longs. At times, the -force_cpusubtype_ALL flag may also be needed.

So if the definition of a 64-bit OS is the ability for an application to take advantage of 64-bit addressing ( in reality it's 42-bit addressing ), than Panther fits the bill.

jesse ;-)

[Gul Banana]

Actually, that's not true. "Use of 64 bit long longs" is not 64-bit addressing.

Long longs are fast integer math; 64-bit addressing is the ability for any one program to use over 4 GB of RAM. Panther/10.2.7 does not yet seem to support the latter.