Suggestion: OS X 64-bit Client

[willwinuk]

Hi,
I would like to just make one quick suggestion, I really think it would be great if FAH on Mac OS X was 64-bit.

[bruce]

There are a number of shortcomings for the OS-X client that need to be addressed. Enabling the client to run on as many versions of OS-X as possible is one of the goals. I'm not an OS_X guru, but I understand that we have Donors that run a wide variety of versions of MacOS and that some are 32-bit and others are 64-bit. In the case of Windows, with which I'm more familiar, the 32-bit client runs very nicely on either a 32-bit or a 64-bit version of Windows, and there's no particular reason to have a 64-bit client. I'm not sure if the same is true for MacOS or not. There's no particular reason to have a 64-bit version of the Windows client.

On the other hand, there is a good reason to have 32-bit and 64-bit FahCores since that's the part of FAH that really does all the heavy work and can benefit from having a SMP client that can access lots of RAM to make full use of hardware with lots of CPUs.

If there's something I don't understand, please explain it to me.

[willwinuk]

Ah I see, then OS X need 64-bit FahCores.

[bruce]

If your hardware and OS support 64-bit cores, then FAH can make good use of 64-bit cores. If your hardware or OS are limited to 32-bit software, then you'll want the 32-bit client and the few 32-bit cores that are available to those systems.i

[Jesse_V]

I don't know OS-X very well either, but the client should download the appropriate FahCore for you. That should be all taken care of behind the scenes.

[Joe_H]

Ah I see, then OS X need 64-bit FahCores.

No, OS X does not need 64-bit cores. It can use them, and that allows for processing larger WU's than a 32-bit core, but both 32 & 64-bit cores can run on OS X. 64-bit only improves processing if the core needs more than 2 GB of memory for their arrays, most WU's so far do not need that much yet.

[Ravage7779]

Most people think more bits equal more speed. This is simply not true unless you are manipulating more than 2GB of data at a time. Some day the cores will need to be 64 bits, and if FAH runs for many, many, years into the future, 128 bits.

Of course the computer on your desktop running the client will have 1000+ cores, not be based on silicon, have a couple quads of RAM, and have a holographic storage array capable of storing all the known information in the universe