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  4. VE Mac 64 bit?
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC

    well, this slipped through ... we currently don't have a macPro with 16 GB RAM to prove, but i received 2 requests mentioning that vslserver *vanishes* at 8 GB (which i do not understand at all ... if it passes the 4GB limit, why should it start troubling at 8?)

     

    so we have to get the sticks and run some tests, possibly with debug versions (both for OS and VE) to see what's going on in detail. if it turns up to be reproducable we will try to fix it from our side if possible. means i can't comment clearly at the current state.

    christian

    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • S
    S
    CM..... I'm sorry. You are working for vienna. It slipped my mind. However the fact that you guys don't have a MacPro with 16 gig just shows how little Vienna cares about the mac community. With all the money you guys make.....I silly McPro with 16 gig of RAM? Should be doable...... I know it's not you. You are in programming... SvK
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC

    steven, it is ridiculous to assume VSL would not care about the *apple side of life* it has simply not been neccessary so far to run a mac with 16 GB RAM.

    in fact we do care much more about apple, OS X, logic ect as we would like to have to - based on the immanent lack of information we are regulary surprised with new features, releases, behaviour and bugs.

     

    an example (my favorite one btw): imagine windows or application updates would regulary screw up permissions on your system - a worldwide outcry would be the consequence and computer magazines would be full of sneering articles about it.

    opposed to this scenario mac users write to VSL support and post in the forum complaining about something *not working*.

    now we _do_ care and provide a plethora of information and support how to overcome several issues which would in fact be far outside of our responsibility.

     

    the background is IMO just a perceptional one: whereas the apple credo was and is that you don't need to care about your computer if it is a mac, this might be true and valid for the home user writing emails, purchasing music in iTunes or cutting holiday videos with iMovie, it is not true (and never has been) for the advanced user running highly complex setups on the edge of the technical possibilities.

    whereas for windows systems it is considered to be *normal* one has to configure and maintain them carefully this is not so widely accepted for macs ... but it should ...

     

    last point: looking back at the past years i'm estimating we spent twice the money on macs for half the number of machines and a significant part of them are no longer useable (most G4s, the aluminium powerbooks, the earlier imacs, actually the earlier G5s and the first macboook pro) whereas a 5 years old 1,9 GHz PC still runs fairly well and does what it is intended to do: compute ... of course this machines do no word-processing, emailing, surfing, and similar office-tasks ...

     

    so please don't insist we would not care about macs, i just wish everybody else would too ...

    christian

    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • J
    J
    I'm happy to hear this, cm. I also appreciate all you've said previously about 64-bit development. I had no idea that developers have yet to be seeded with API specs five months after the big announcement. Further, I hope that Apple cares about VSL as much as VSL cares about Apple. Why do I get the impression that 2008 will be a year of extraordinary patience?
  • J
    J
    "A significant part of them are no longer useable (most G4s, the aluminium powerbooks, the earlier imacs, actually the earlier G5s and the first macboook pro)"

    Not sure what that's supposed to mean. Please explain?

    Thanks,
    Jerome
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC

    - 2000 dual G4 450 1.5GB .. leopard does not install on computers with less than 800 MHz (is off)

    - 2001 powerbook G4 667 1GB ... discarded to office, will also never go leopard

    - 2002 mirrored door G4 1,25 2GB ... _very_ little above the specs

    - 2003 powerbook 1,0 2GB ... minimum specs, but not really fun

    - 2004 imac G5 1,8 2GB ... sosolala usable, but better homed for office tasks

    - 2005 macmini 1.4 1GB .. discarded due to little RAM

    - 2005 powerMac G5 2.3 2GB RAM ... does not make sense to upgrade RAM

    - 2006 macbook pro 2,0 core duo 2GB .. nobody likes it since the core2duos arrived

    - 2006 imac 1.8 core2duo usable for testing and light arrangements

    - 2006 macPro ... fortunately apoggee released a PCIe soundcard ...

    (examples out of my mind, not a complete list)

    all PCs from 2002 and later still running their originally assigned tasks

    (the older ones for editing, the slightly newer ones for sampling)

     

    private inconvenience:

    1998 imac G3 233 - couldn't be upgraded to 10.2 in 2002, means not even safari, resides in cellar since then.

    the PC from that time still run BSD, my SGI VW320 video tasks and for 3 years it wasn't needed to upgrade any other.

     

    so it is supposed to mean: i consider macs to be not future proof and a short-term investment.

    hopefully we will see OS X officially for *ordinary* intel computers soon, so i know i could re-use them later.

    but i think i will not use it in private at all unless the permission issue is fixed ... too much trouble for me.

     

    understand my point? christian

    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • S
    S

     I think it means that these computers fall below the minimum requirements of Leopard or do not have 64 bit processors (e.g. the first MacBook Pro andiMac had Core Duo processors not Core 2 Duo processors. Core Duo processors are 32 bit.) I use Macs and I like Macs, but, if you ask around in the developer community, you are likely to hear that Apple is notoriously cavalier in its attitude towards developers. For example, as Christian noted in an earlier post, a 64 bit version of Carbon was promised at the WWDC in 2006, but was cancelled making life quite difficult for developers who'd put faith in the original announcement. I'd guess that VSL cares a great deal about the Mac market if for no other reason than that Macs dominate the music industry in the U.S. I think Christian is also making the point that Mac users may expect their computers simply to work without much in the way of maintenance, an assumption that Windows users cannot make. In other words, if one does not repair permissions after installing new software, does not regularly rebuild disk directories with a utility like Alsoft's DiskWarrior, etc., one is likely to have problems if one is pushing the technological edge.

    Speaking of the technological edge right now I am, for example, working on a Logic 8 file that is playing several instruments instantiated in the standalone of VE, VI instantiated in several audio instruments (instantiating VE as a plugin within Logic 8 in this setup did not work causing some kind of feedback problem) and EWQLSO strings running as a standalone under OS 10.5.1. (Logic 8 will not validate EWQLSO under OS 10.5.1 - - although it sucessfully validates it under OS 10.4.11 and Logic 7.2.3 validates it under either OS 10.4.11 or 10.5.1) and routing the audio from the standalones back into Logic aux channels  via an aggregate device composed of a MOTU 2408 and 16 channels of SoundFlower. It seems fairly amazing to me that this setup works. 

    Stephen 

    Dual 2.5 GHz G5

    7GB RAM

    OS 10.5.1 (or 10.4.11 depending on what I have to do)

    MOTU 2408 mk. 3 (latest drivers)

    SoundFlower (made by Cycling 74) 
  • J
    J
    This is completely ridiculous.

    So, according to you, a computer is unusable if:
    1/ it's a little above the specs
    2/ it's "not fun"
    3/ it's "sosolala usable"
    4/ it "does not make sense to upgrade ram"
    5/ "nobody likes it"
    6/ "it's only usable for light arrangements"
    7/ a PCI-e soundcard exists (?!?)

    Half of those arguments seems debatable, and the other half are completely subjective (and another one is *not* an argument).

    Also interesting that when you mention PCs, you talk about "all PCs from 2002" even though your Mac list goes back to 2000. Talk about subjectivity.

    Saying that a Mac from 2002 does not run the tasks it was originally assigned to is ridiculous. There are still recording studios running ProTools under OS 9. AFAIK, nobody forces you to upgrade to Leopard (try installing Vista on a PC from 2002 without upgrading it, you'll have fun).

    Finally, considering "macs to be not future proof and a short-term investment" is going against most reviews and articles out there who talk about and demonstrate (with objective arguments) that the life expectancy of a Mac is on average far greater than the life expectancy of a PC. And I won't even mention the fact that Macs have a much higher resale value than their PC equivalent.

    I'd love if your post was simply a troll (as it certainly could be) but unfortunately it doesn't seem so. I find it amazing that this kind of absolutely ludicrous anti-Mac arguments could come from a company that IS doing business with Mac owners.

    Why doesn't VSL only develop for Windows, like Steinberg, Tascam or Sony do? Sometimes that's really beyond me. They too develop great products and plenty of people buy them. Doesn't sound like a risky way to do business to me...

    Anyway, I guess I (we) can thank you for your honesty. I always like to learn when my assumptions turn out to be true.

    Jerome
  • D
    D
    [quote=willross_22294]

    Since when has Steinberg only developed for Windows?
  • J
    J
    I meant Cakewalk.
  • M
    M
    But will that old PC run vista with VSL "well enough?" I think it's fair to say that Tiger was the competition for Vista to over come and they only marginally matched it in some features, such as eye candy but not much else "under the hood' tiger is still superior. Tiger runs on machines as old as a G3 500 I believe. Asking Tiger or even 10.2 to run on a 233mhz G3 is like asking vista to run on a 500mhz or so Pentium... It's apples and oranges. windows 98 runs on a 2ghz pentium, and Mac OS 9 runs on a G3 233mhz pretty well. The fact is that OS X is a far superior operating system par for par compared to any flavour of windows. I've been running leopard on all my business and music machines since the day it came out, and had no major issues except had to reinstall a midi device driver. Apart from repairing permissions and keeping regular backups, I rarely have to tinker with my Mac machines, and I am ALWAYS having to fiddle and fix up windows Xp pro that we use here in the office, it's a major deplorable pain in the backside, and I hate it! I've tried upgrading to vista, - it was much worse although it looks nicer, but hey I can dip a big piece of cr** in gold and make it shiny, but it's still going to be a big piece of cr** I respect the fact that you have spent more money maintaining the mac side of things but I venture to say that this is in fact because it is windows that is running legacy elements not the mac, that's how it seems to me. Anyway I have always found that even with all these behind the scenes difficulties and political wars going on, VSL has always supported Mac users very well, and I have never felt that there is a preference there against Macs. But, we Mac users don't care about windows at all, (sorry). In fact, for the most part we positively find windows distasteful and from my perspective it is windows way of doing things that is holding up mac development, but it's completely a perspective issue and I think you are just as right to have your point of view. Hey, I still think windows stole their interface from the mac and only were allowed to keep it because of legal mistakes and follys of the legal system, I think they "got away with it"... so I'm biased big time. (hey this part is not intended to "start" (no pun intended) anything, just what I think, and I don't really want to argue about it either way we're allowed our opinions :) ) Bottom line, Macs especially those 8 core machines with 16Gb ram or more, VSL should run on them natively in 64bit, even it requires more work now, it will pay off later in the years to come. OSX is a beautiful system to run and work with, personally I think there is no comparison to any flavour of windows or anything else commercial available (just me). Cocoa is here to stay at least for the next 5 to 10 years and I think you should develop for it, it is clear that it is Apples preferred API for their modern era and that has been the case for some time. It's true it was unexpected and unfortunate they chose not to develop carbon to 64bit as promised, I also dislike it very much when they do things like that (like not including the star wars effect in ichat - or do we blame george lucas for that?) Leopard is not just a new incarnation of OSX or an update, it is a major overhaul of a very modern operating system, and a significant amount of design and engineering has gone into it, even though on the surface it appears similar to tiger, of course it is not without it's imperfections but lets face it, compared to vista, well there is not comparison for me really. Leopard will run on the machines it is currently spec'ed for, which is machines up to four years old (not bad and try doing that with vista) and it will run on todays machines, and all the machines for the next 5 to 10 years, I don't think you can ask for much more than that in terms of future proofing, and as far as cocoa is concerned, it would be madness for apple to not implement cocoa compatibility IF they released a major operating system overhaul in less than 10 years, which in my mind gives that api at least 10 years of life, if not 15, and possibly 20, which is a long time in the computer industry. Windows only seems like it is not legacy because it is mainstream but the fact is that when you look at it on an engineering level, windows is very much a legacy item, and I think that will show much more in the next two years. I run a small business, for my part, I know what it's like when you have to "bite the bullet" and do the necessary infrastructural changes that are costly but future proofing your business, it's hard decision to take but when you look at the situation long term, it makes sense. I think if you write VSL for cocoa now, you will be able to stick with that for the next 10 years at least as the mac platform. Of course, I'm largely ignorant of the practical engineering aspects, just the conceptual ones I do understand well, but sometimes these areas intertwine and what can make sense conceptually is also in fact not convenient practically, and I understand that, just sharing an opinion, but full respect to the VSL team and please don't take this post as any kind of complaint, just sharing some thoughts. Regards, Miklos.
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC

    jerome, yes - half of the arguments are debatable. do you really think this forum is full with requests from mac users because everything is fine and works flawlessly? unfortunately i'm noticing more issues which have been supposed to be overcome since the late nineties.

     

    of course you can look at my post as a troll, but don't you think this amount of little inconveniences which sum up to big problems would be worth to be solved - just for the sake of doing some work instead of fixing issues?

     

     i know there are a lot of PPCs, actually some running OS9 out there running PT, but there is a reason which has nothing to do with macs as such - no?

     

    just as much: those machines from 2002 will be replaced by 64bit computers soon and i'll enjoy to setup vista on one just for fun - this are 1,8 GHz rambus machines with SCSI drives and they are far within the specs of vista ... a rough estimate would be i can run a sequencer + 5-7 instances of VI on them.

     

    btw: i have since ever recommended here to _not_ upgrade to vista currently, as i do not recommend to upgrade to leopard so far ... it is simply too early to estimate all side-effects, though overall it seems to run even smoother than tiger. well, no risk - no fun.

     

    but this topic turned into an off-topic, and among other reasons it's my fault. lets discuss the different parts of the overall problem in a seperate topic resp. how to overcome them. technically. i can provide a very long list of things not working as they should.

     

    logic is a great application and it runs only on macs. users make their choice which software fits their needs best and we cannot ignore this fact and have to provide versions for this platform - be it troublesome or not. but it _is_ troublesome ...

    christian

    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • S
    S

     Ah, we are moving towards the religious argument of PC vs. Mac - - out of which littlele enlightenment ever comes. I, for one, am very,very glad that VSL continues to develop for the Mac. There are obviously good business reasons for them to do so.

    In terms of obsolesence, the argument can be made in either direction. For example, in 2002, I purchased a supposedly high end PC dedicated to the use of Gigastudio 2.5. When Gigastudio 3 was released in 2004, I purchased the upgrade only to find that the minimum specs required exceeded those of my PC, so I never attempted to install the upgrade. Even with Gigastudio 2.5, 1 out 10 times I open the VSL Performance Tool, the computer crashes ("blue screen of death") requiring reinstallation of the Performance Tool software. In contrast, My G5, purchased in 2004, continues to run everything I through at it and is mighty speedy running OS 10.5.1 - - and with some tactical thinking can run far more than 2.5 GB of samples. (I might add that the "spaces" feature in Leopard is almost like having 4 monitors, but much less expensive.) Also in contrast to my PC, my G5 has crashed or experienced a kernel panic only about three times since 2004. (Never have had a problem with the Performance Tool either.)

    Everyone, I suspect, prefers the OS they are most familiar with and with which they have had the most positive experience. 

  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    last edited
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    @mpower88 said:

    Asking Tiger or even 10.2 to run on a 233mhz G3 is like asking vista to run on a 500mhz or so Pentium...

    just on this i cannot agree - at those days i purchased the fastest and newest mac available. then i had to find out 10.0 isn't working as promised (significant features missing - eg. AFP), 10.1 was a step into the right direction and 10.2 ... couldn't even be installed.

    sorry, but i'm expecting to use a computer for what is has be announced to be usable. at least with a working browser.

    christian

    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • J
    J
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    @stevesong said:

     Ah, we are moving towards the religious argument of PC vs. Mac - -

    No-- please, please let's not waste our time with another "vs" thread. It's really useless.

    The point for me is not to look to older systems to justify what we think "shoud" work now. As I see it, Apple have only partially delivered what they've been using as a teaser for almost a decade now. That they've changed the rules and have yet to fully seed the specs for frameworks under Cocoa for 64-bit threading is more to the point than shooting the messenger who at least delivers the current facts.

    We can argue all day long about the whys and why nots. In the meantime, apps are already going to 64 on the PC where the same development on the Mac is now at a veritble standstill as countless loose ends have yet to be reconciled.
  • S
    S

     For an alternate view of the programming considerations involved, may I recommend reading the following:

    http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/6 
  • J
    J
    I agree we've moved to the (unnecessary) debate PC vs. Mac.

    I haven't been into Windows-bashing in about 10 years and I'm not about to do so. I usually don't reply to Mac-bashing either but on a forum like this it seemed appropriate : I don't see what value there is from someone at VSL to give subjective arguments against the Mac platform, and, by extension, Mac owners. Especially knowing Mac owners probably represent a good sum of VSL clients!

    On a more general note, when I visit this board, I do not expect to hear from VSL "it's Apple's fault if our product doesn't work". You have chosen to develop an app on a platform, then bear with its advantages and disadvantages. Don't put the fault on someone else's shoulder. Others companies don't and quickly work it out (MOTU and Digidesign are a good example of this).

    If you can't bear the Mac platform, because Apple is stupid (and it sometimes *really* is, I am the first to admit it), then don't develop for the Mac. It, to me, is a little hypocritical to try to get Mac users to buy your software when you really seem to hate Apple and the Mac platform. That's all I'm saying. Heck, AFAIK most of VSL guys don't use them... and you don't even have the top-of-the-line computer (8-core Mac Pro with 16GB) to test your software on. Knowing that Apple basically comes out with a new, top-of-the-line computer every year or so, I find this disturbing. Come on, it's not like I it would be a huge spending. Right now, your users have to make the test for you.

    Listen - I'm not asking VSL to get a Leopard version as soon as the new OS is available. I frankly couldn't care less... All I wanted to know was what was the timeframe for a 64-bit version of VE. Other plug-ins manufacturers are also going 64-bit (EastWest being one of them) and having an idea into where you guys were going with that is interesting to plan new purchases. Your answer was - basically - we don't know because it depends on another company's software, which - in turns - blame Apple for "lying" about Carbon. Well, everybody's happy, it's Apple fault! woohoo!
    Makes my day... :)

    J.
  • J
    J
    last edited
    last edited
    Dude-- you make some great points while still missing some of the important subtleties. If Apple hasn't given the green light to developers, there's nothing for anyone to do but wait.

    @Another User said:

    Listen - I'm not asking VSL to get a Leopard version as soon as the new OS is available. I frankly couldn't care less... All I wanted to know was what was the timeframe for a 64-bit version of VE. Other plug-ins manufacturers are also going 64-bit (EastWest being one of them) and having an idea into where you guys were going with that is interesting to plan new purchases. Your answer was - basically - we don't know because it depends on another company's software, which - in turns - blame Apple for "lying" about Carbon. Well, everybody's happy, it's Apple fault! woohoo!
    Makes my day... 😊

    J.
    And it appears that you might the "happiest" of us all? Look, it is indeed bittersweet all around. A time frame is hard to predict when there's nothing to work with at the moment. Their announcement in June came as surprise and a setback for all. I don't know how the facts might have been rephrased to make them easier to bear, but I do know that only people who really care will tell you the truth, even if the truth is not necessarily good news.

    As for East West, they are in the same boat right now. Their announcement about the PLAY engine going to 64-bit on the Mac back in the spring was innocently premature. They, like so many other companies, are indeed *going* to 64-bit but got broadsided by the same announcement that 64-bit Carbon frameworks would not be supported. It's not as if EW has a 64-bit version of its plugins in Leopard now. In fact, Apple doesn't have anything running at full 64 bit yet!

    But even patience will require additional patience. To be honest, I'm not expecting for all the apps and plugins I need to make it for another year, after which time it may take another 6-12 for all components to mature into some semblance of stability. If it happens sooner, all the better.
  • M
    M
    Thanks for your post, interesting. Just to add: I don't think (personally speaking) it is as much about the OS as it is about good engineering and design. CM: May I venture once again to suggest that it is windows that is the legacy platform for which you are having to compensate for, not the mac, and it merely comes to your mind that the Mac is the "troublesome" platform to develop for simply because you have to develop for windows. If windows didn't exist, there wouldn't be a problem right? Generally speaking I mean. So, it is a matter of perspective, which can be driven politically, or in your case, perhaps simply because windows is the "staple" [as opposed to stable - a different word!! and I say sta_p_le, though not for good reasons or reasons of superior design or engineering). Naturally you have to stick with whatever is the dominant market force. Mac users would be lost without your mac developments! I really understand what you say about the technical issues being faced, but from my point of view it is *windows* that is the legacy product here... yes it's religious statement, but I don't pretend about that. :) There is an interesting article by the way I think on slash dot about Leopard being 85% market share of OS only sales in Japan for October, and windows flavours were down to around 4.5% something like that anyway. Could this be a hopeful sign for the mac faithful!? Miklos.
  • J
    J
    The thing is, VSL develop cross-platform products so that work for Windows - and then! they make sure it works for Mac. If possible. Meaning, if Apple didn't "screw up" somewhere. If they did, well then, too bad, no 64-bit support for you guys until... well... until... hmmm... who knows?

    Why don't they do the contrary? Develop for Mac first. And screw Windows. MOTU does that and they're doing a great job at it :)

    It's not only about 64-bit (although that topic started on that). Should I remind you that VE for Mac didn't come out *at the same time* than the Windows version came out? Oh, sure - it did only a few days later - but when it actually came out it was a *beta*! Weirdly, it's never the other way around (Mac first and then three days later a Windows beta). But they're probably going to tell us it's Apple's fault if the program was buggy... :)

    Anyway, I don't believe Apple is going to make using 64-bit Carbon any easier. That's the Apple way - they force you to move ahead. It's not always good, but overall it's been working pretty well in my opinion (I don't regret throwing out my floppy disks 4 years ago.)

    J.