View Single Post
 
Old 04-23-2008, 06:39 PM
R0GUE's Avatar
R0GUE R0GUE is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 581
Quote:
Originally Posted by naquaada
It is / would it be possible to run 64bit programs on OSx86? This includes the question: Do we need it? Which programs make use of the 64bit bus width?
To be perfectly honest I think the majority of us have no real need for 64-bit ... well, not just yet.

Do you remember last years WWDC keynote? Steve Jobs had a 32 and 64-bit version of a demo app that he was showing off. Both were simultaneously loading in a 4GB photo of the Congress library. The 32-bit version had to swap out to disk and was getting bogged down; the 64-bit version didn't even blink. It did a filter in 28 seconds that took 84 seconds with the 32-bit version. This is a really good example of how 64-bit can help us, but to be honest, how many of us are going to be throwing around 4GB image files in the foreseeable future? For now, casual users aren't really hitting the limits of 32-bit, but in a couple of years I'm sure the landscape will change and we'll be doing just that, but for now 64-bit is really a requirement for the Pro-App/Scientific industry.

This is not to say that I don't want or need 64-bit right now -- I do :-)

MacBook Pro 15" | Mac OS X 10.6 2 GHz Intel Core Duo 2 GB DDR2-667 ATI Radeon Mobility X1600 128 MB 100 GB Serial-ATA
Hackintosh | Mac OS X 10.5.6 3 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ MSI K9N AM2 2 GB DDR2-667 NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB ALC888 Audio 300 GB Serial-ATA
iPhone 3G 8 GB

Last edited by R0GUE; 09-08-2008 at 08:17 AM. Reason: cleaned up quotation
Reply With Quote