These statements, based on a pre-release copy of Snow Leopard, seem accurate to me. But the implication that the story leaves readers with—that you can’t “go 64 bit” or “boot into the 64-bit version of Snow Leopard” if your Mac isn’t booting into a 64-bit kernel—is completely wrong.
Mac OS 9 improved wireless networking support, and introduced Remote Networking, on-the-fly file encryption, and an early version of multi-user support. Mac OS 9 ended the era of “classic” Mac OS, passing features along to Mac OS X (X being the Roman numeral for 10), and the modern macOS.
When Apple talks about Snow Leopard being thoroughly 64-bit savvy, what the company means is that almost every application included in Snow Leopard has been recompiled to run in 64-bit mode. There are two reasons this is a good thing. The first is simple: 64-bit computing is necessary if you want one of the programs on your computer to have access to more than 4GB of RAM. Second, there are some speed boosts associated with running in 64-bit mode. The Intel processors that power Macs have built-in math routines that operate more efficiently in 64-bit mode, processing tasks in fewer steps. That means that certain math-intensive tasks will see a speed boost under Snow Leopard’s 64-bit applications.
If you’re running a Mac powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor or an Intel Xeon processor, your Mac is 64-bit capable. And Snow Leopard runs 64-bit-capable applications in 64-bit mode regardless of whether it’s booting into a 64-bit or 32-bit kernel. In fact, the only big advantage of booting into a 64-bit kernel would be the ability to use more than 32 gigabytes of RAM. There aren’t any Macs that can do that now, anyway, due to hardware limitations.
- MacOS X was Apple's replacement for their classic MacOS. MacOS X is based on NeXTSTEP, a Unix-based OS. The first consumer release also featured a new user interface appearance called 'Aqua'. Available releases.
- Which Intel Macs have 64-bit processors? Which have a 64-bit EFI? Which are capable of booting MacOS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard' in 64-bit mode? With the exception of the 'Mid-2010' Mac Pro models, Intel Macs boot Snow Leopard in 32-bit mode by default, and it's a bit complicated to sort out which Macs really are capable of booting MacOS X 10.6 'Snow Leopard' in 64-bit mode.
- Currently, Mac OS X Leopard hosts both 32-bit and 64-bit apps on top of a 32-bit kernel (below). Using PAE, the 32-bit kernel can address 32GB of RAM in the Mac Pro and Xserve; Apple's consumer.
- MacOS 10.14 Mojave, the version of the Mac operating system before the new macOS Catalina, is the last version that supports 32-bit software.With Catalina, only 64-bit software will be supported.
Mac Os 64 Bit Versions
Applications running in Snow Leopard will have access to a full 16 exabyte virtual address space, just the same as if they were running in a 64-bit kernel. As a result, there’s very little difference between booting into the 64-bit kernel and the 32-bit kernel in current Mac systems. (This is not to say that there won’t be a bigger difference in the future, as RAM sizes continue to grow. But presumably new high-end Mac systems will boot into the 64-bit kernel when the need arises.)
So, bottom line: If you’ve got a Core 2 Duo or Xeon based Mac — any Intel Mac not running a Core Duo or Core Solo processor — you’ll be able to run applications in 64-bit mode, which will in turn be able to take advantage of faster 64-bit registers and math routines as well as access massive amounts of memory.
Mac Os 64-bit Or 32-bit
Mac Os 64 Bit Download
Now all we have to do is wait for Snow Leopard to arrive so we can try out those 64-bit applications for ourselves.