Slightly OT: question on new Macs

[John Camp]

I've read somewhere that there are software issues with the new Intel-based Macs (that is, that some software will have to be rewritten to accommodate both the Intel chips and OSX; or something to that effect.) I'm a bit in the market for a new Mac laptop. If I get one now, is it fully mature as a system, or will there be further hardware/software juggling that could obsolete these machines in the next year or two? In other words, was this sort of a hurry-up thing, to get over to Intel, and there'll be major changes to come fairly soon, or is it safe to go ahead and buy, and these are now the Mac mainstream?

JC

[61Dynamic]

The issues you are reading about have to do with wether an app is a Universal Binary (UB) or not. A
UB app is designed to work natively on either the old PowerPC (PPC) chips or the new Intel chips. An app that is not a UB (or at least optimized for Intel only) will have to be emulated with Apple's Rosette software.

Rosette has pluses and minuses. On the plus side, it is seamless meaning you don't have to think about it to use it. Just turn on your mac and go. It also is the quickest operating emulation software in existence. On the down side however, it is still a emulator and is noticeably slower to run an app through Rosette vs running a native UB version of that app.

Many apps have ben updated to UB and many more or in the works for the UB treatment. Some only require a couple hours of recompiling by the developer and a quick patch, others have to be completely re-written (like Photoshop).

The new mac laptops are fully mature in my opinion. Even under Rosette emulation, apps run faster than the previous generation of laptops and like I said before, it's a near-seamless experience (on a nerdy tech standpoint, the smoothness of this transition is quite friggin' remarkable). The only things you have to worry about becoming obsolete, are OS 9 apps. The newest macs do not come with OS 9 or even the OS 9 operating environment (emulator).

[61Dynamic]

I took this opportunity to run some benchmarks I've been meaning to do.

System 01:
Dual 2.3GHz G5 Tower (Two CPU version)
3.5GB Ram
ATI Radeon 9650 (256MB)
OS X 10.4.6

System 02:
MacBook 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo
1GB RAM
120GB Drive
OS X 10.4.6

XBench (versoin 1.2 - Universal Binary) was run on each system in two stages with three runs each. The first stage was under the main account and the second was done under a freshly made user account. No apps running. I killed extraneous processes via Activity Monitor so only what was needed to operate was running.

The tower scored an average of 102 overall (higher the better) with each test fluctuating little in results. The MacBook scored an average of 58.22.

The MacBook's results fluctuated more  due to the portable nature of the CPU. The CPUs being designed for energy efficiency will run at lower clock speeds initially but ramp up to full speed as load increases. Another variable is the integrated video card which has to share memory with the system (this explains why the User Interface test is all over the map).

Just for kicks, I ran XBench on the MacBook under Rossetta a couple times. It scored a steady 22.

Attached to this post is a zip file that contains all of the XBench tests ran as well as plain text versions for non-mac users. Anyone else with a Mac can run the program and compare results if the wish. Since XBench is a Universal Binary application it will run natively on any OS X mac and give you a good idea where your system stands or just browse the results Comparison Site.

Download

[David Anderson]

I just updated my laptops now that C1 Pro is out for Universal binary, and the new 2.16 15' with a couple gigs of ram are unbelievably fast...

In C1 I processed a little over 400 raws to two sizes of Jpeg in apr. three hours...
From a 1DSII raw to tiff is around twenty seconds..

Photoshop is a bit slower then on my G4 17', but not much, hopefully the UB version will be along soon.

There have been a few small glitches with softwear changing from one to the other, but nothing that caused any real grief.

I found the G4 17's to be very unreliable overall, both have had new mother boards and hard drives on more then one occasion, and Apple has not been the most helpful with these problems.

It's to early to tell how the new one will go in the long run but so far so good...

[Rokcet Scientist]

61, your "Archive.zip" opens as a webpage full of unintelligible ASCii in my Safari. It won't download as a file. Only as a HTML icon pointing towards that webpage full of unintelligible ASCii...
Can you try to post again?
I have good results with yousendit.com in FireFox (it makes Safari crash).

[61Dynamic]

That's odd. You can download it from here.

[bcf]

61, your "Archive.zip" opens as a webpage full of unintelligible ASCii in my Safari. It won't download as a file.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=67842\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Just option-click on the link.

-- Bernard

[Rokcet Scientist]

Just option-click on the link.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=67858\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yeah, did that, but didn't work either, Bernard.

[Rokcet Scientist]

That's odd. You can download it from here.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=67857\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Cheers. Got that.
Now I have 32 .txt and .xbench files...
I guess I need Xbench to read them proper, eh?

[Rokcet Scientist]

Yep, that works.
Thanks, 61.
And Xbench's got very pretty pictures. Ooh, aah! A bit too obvious window dressing for my taste, to be honest. Almost as if something needs hidin'...
But, hey, I can now read your test results formatted!