It's really hard to tell what's going on. Snow Leopard will have a 64-bit kernel, but many have cited that this doesn't mean it will be 64-bit only. To the extent that Universal Binary means 32 + 64 bit threading, as opposed to just PPC + Intel usability, the current concept of what Universal Binary as most people understand it could be changing.MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Well, my concerns are whether or not updates to apps like DP, VIs, FInale and everything else will require Snow Leopard. That would mean an upgrade from my G5 which is quite adequate for my work. It would also mean spending about $5k after I update the RAM and everything else (software, etc.) I am bound and determined to stay on my current system for at least another few years. Same goes for my truck!
For this reason, I'm anticipating that what Universal Binary might mean will be a point of further confusion to a lot of people after Snow Leopard is released.
Here's another slight point of confusion:
NOTE: the article is about a year old, but sums up a lot of lingering questions even if it doesn't answer them:
The Myths of Snow Leopard
Understood..The advantages of moving to 64-bit apps apply mainly to those that need to access large memory spaces, such as apps working with large files or data sets.
And why is it that some apps benefit and others don't? Isn't OSX already memory-savvy enough to help parse how much memory is needed no matter how large or small a memory space is called for?For some apps, moving to a 64-bit binary actually causes them to run slower, because they have more memory to manage.
Does this mean that this would happen under Tiger/Leopard with a 64-bit app? Or do they mean under Snow Leopard?
So, this "overall... performance gain" seems to address the issue from another angle-- the system itself and not the individual application.... if I'm connecting the dots properly.Overall however, Apple found that moving the entire OS to 64-bits created an system wide performance gain of 15%....
But the article also cites:
Thus, it remains to be seen which apps will benefit and which won't.... all system apps in Snow Leopard will be 32+64 Universal Binaries, unlocking more of the latent performance available in modern 64-bit Macs....
That means [under 10.6] developers will need to deliver 32+64 bit versions of all their kernel extensions and device drivers. All plugins will also need to provide 64-bit support as well, including printer drivers.
With that out of the way, just knowing that Snow Leopard will be 32+64 UB (as opposed to PPC+Intel UB) could be strong evidence that what we use now *should* work, pending the usual expected maintenance fixes from one developer to another.
I'm still going to watch and wait before moving to 10.6. There was enough to worry about going from one version of OSX to another, however small. I just don't have enough info to take the next step with any real confidence.
I do know this: we must hear from MOTU about what's going with DP first before we can do anything at all, no matter what's going on with Logic 9.
