@ct1961 said:

Was looking forward to overcoming the memory limitation with VE Pro but we now appear to be at the mercy of Apple- I'm sure they'd rather we bought a new machine. 

No waiting or mercy needed. VE Pro runs fine even under Leopard in 64-bit on any Core2Duo or more recent Intel Mac. In fact, it will run in 64-bit even on PPC, even if we don't officially support it.

Hi Martin

Thanks for the reply and a brief glimmer of hope!

Unfortunately the early Mac Pros have CoreDuo rather than Core2Duo processors and have seen it stated with some authority that they won't be able to run 64bit apps unless Apple do provide an upgrade.   [:'(]

Colin

In my comments I forgot about the early Core Duo chips. I have - what was an expensive iMac which will be gathering Internet dust sporting that chip, but I don't understand your comment about an "upgrade"... You mean that it would be possible to make a Core Duo chip work in 64 bits?

@Errikos said:

In my comments I forgot about the early Core Duo chips. I have - what was an expensive iMac which will be gathering Internet dust sporting that chip, but I don't understand your comment about an "upgrade"... You mean that it would be possible to make a Core Duo chip work in 64 bits

Yes - this has been posted in several mac forums. Apple, if they so choose, can provide an upgrade to the firmware that will allow the Core Duo based Mac Pros to run in 64bit. Here's hoping..

Colin

@ct1961 said:

Unfortunately the early Mac Pros have CoreDuo rather than Core2Duo processors and have seen it stated with some authority that they won't be able to run 64bit apps unless Apple do provide an upgrade.   [:'(]

Don't cry. All MacPro's have 64-bit capable CPU's, including the very first one (using Intel Woodcrest). The only Intel Macs apple released without 64-bit architecture were the very first Macbook Pro's.

I'll have a look for the forums and a Mac video mag that say we're out of luck. Would naturally like to think you're right Martin!

Colin

@ct1961 said:

Yes - this has been posted in several mac forums. Apple, if they so choose, can provide an upgrade to the firmware that will allow the Core Duo based Mac Pros to run in 64bit. Here's hoping..

I think you are confusing the 32-bit / 64-bit EFI question with CPU architecture. Some older Intel Macs do not have a 64-bit EFI and will not support the 64-bit kernel in SnowLeopard (which you can try out by pressing the keys '6' and '4' while booting).

As default, Snow Leopard runs a 32-bit kernel. There are however not many reasons to run a 64-bit kernel at this stage, since any user application may request and address a true 64-bit address space of its own.

Just to set things straight - we have one of the first MacPro's (Woodcrest) at the VSL office, happily running VE Pro in 64-bit mode. Don't trust magazines or forums too much.

the first macPros which came out had XEON 5100 processors - there has never been a macPro with a CoreDuo or Core2Duo, however the early macBook Pro, intel macMini and iMac had a CoreDuo

http://www.apple-history.com/?page=gallery&model=mbp

hth, christian

Thanks for the reassurance guys- when I want the truth, I know where to look for it!  [:D]

Colin

 reminds me of the first VSL teaser ... *its not reality, it is the truth*

@MS said:

Don't trust magazines or forums too much.

Apart from this forum. of course. [;)]

DG

In fact, no - there are lots of misconceptions and wrong facts flying around here as well. But in general, I would say the standard is above average [:P]

@ct1961 said:

Yes - this has been posted in several mac forums. Apple, if they so choose, can provide an upgrade to the firmware that will allow the Core Duo based Mac Pros to run in 64bit. Here's hoping..

I think you are confusing the 32-bit / 64-bit EFI question with CPU architecture. Some older Intel Macs do not have a 64-bit EFI and will not support the 64-bit kernel in SnowLeopard (which you can try out by pressing the keys '6' and '4' while booting).

As default, Snow Leopard runs a 32-bit kernel. There are however not many reasons to run a 64-bit kernel at this stage, since any user application may request and address a true 64-bit address space of its own.

Just so I can understand, bottom line, do you think there will be a way where my iMac 2GHz Intel Core Duo will be able to run Snow Leopard even in 32-kernel mode, and will be able to afford a 64-bit application that 64-bit processing power?

@Errikos said:

Just so I can understand, bottom line, do you think there will be a way where my iMac 2GHz Intel Core Duo will be able to run Snow Leopard even in 32-kernel mode, and will be able to afford a 64-bit application that 64-bit processing power?

I don't really understand what you mean. Your iMac 2GHz Intel Core Duo will run Snow Leopard today. It will not ever, no matter how hard you pray, be able to run 64-bit applications. Period.

@MS said:

I don't really understand what you mean. Your iMac 2GHz Intel Core Duo will run Snow Leopard today. It will not ever, no matter how hard you pray, be able to run 64-bit applications. Period.

Thanks for replying; I wasn't praying for anything, it's an iMac, not a €5000 Mac Pro, it's just that I wanted to ascertain its approximate value and got hopeful it would be worth a few more hundred € through Colin's 64-bit-upgrade talk; it seems now that was a misunderstanding on his part.

Hi Errikos

Sorry if I got your hopes up for nothing. I had just been referring to the early Mac Pros which I had read in a few forums would need an upgrade to run any 64bit apps. Thankfully Martin and Christian put things straight, well fortunately for me anyway.

Would your iMac be of no use to you as a Logic Node machine?

Colin

No problem Colin, I had given up on that machine anyway, but since you ask and others may also be interested, I had asked Christian (cm) that very question long time ago when I was in the market for a Mac Pro, and his reply was that I would be better off working on the one big machine exclusively rather than using the iMac as well, as a Logic node. Do you think differently? I also own a 2.16GHz Intel Core2Duo iMac if that would make a difference... Ideally I would like to put one or both into some musical use if that would mean better performance overall.

Christian knows his stuff Errikos and I've only ever had one Mac at a time, so I can't say what benefit you might get. There would certainly be no harm  in trying.

I notice in the AU Manager that both Altiverb and Vienna Suite are available though I have no idea yet whether VS would still be available if used in VE Pro ( still to download it and purchase Snow L ). The minimum requirement for a node machine I believe is a single 1Ghz processor so your 2.16 could theoretically take a fair bit of load of your main macs cpu.

Hopefully CM or one of the team can give you the "Truth"!

Colin