Windows 7 Beta

DatabaseError

Marty_J wrote: »

Well, then you'll never know if you prefer Windows or a Mac.

Kinda true, though I'm not convinced that trying it will make a difference....as I already know it won't fulfil my needs

[Deleted User]

DatabaseError wrote: »

Kinda true, though I'm not convinced that trying it will make a difference....as I already know it won't fulfil my needs

It's my thoughts with Linux really. We don't use it at work, and at least for the foreseable future we won't, so as a hobby interest it's making me question why learn it to be able to do even less than I can at the moment.

Marty_J

I've not had one installation of Vista take more than 25 minutes. Infact, It's probably around that time because I did a fresh install on a machine only a few nights ago and I got two games on CoD5 done while it was doing it, and had to leave the third midway through. Not really much of a selling point though is it, how often do you have to reinstall a modern operating system?

That may be so when you reinstall it yourself, but that's not going to be everyone's experience. I recently setup a Toshiba laptop running Vista for a friend, and it took about 20 minutes before I was able to do anything with it. Not because it had to install Vista; that was already done. But because it had to keep restarting over and over and over again in order to setup all the crap that came pre-installed on it. Not Microsoft's fault I know, but that's one of the reasons Apple like making their own hardware for their own software; they can tailor their customer experience in a way Microsoft cannot.

A decade

Oh? Which edition of Windows supports 16 TB of physical RAM?

Do you mean multiprocessing (splitting operations over the processors available), rather than multithreading, because Windows has been able to multithread since NT4?

It's not its ability to multi-thread, but it's ability to figure out how to do the multi-threading itself without the developer knowing how to write multi-threaded applications.

2+ years

Isn't this a new feature of DirectX 11, which hasn't been released yet?

How does it handle non 64bit Mac's? A compatibility mode?

I really have no idea.

Marty_J

DatabaseError wrote: »

Kinda true, though I'm not convinced that trying it will make a difference....as I already know it won't fulfil my needs

Well, that's fair enough.

Out of interest, what exactly are your needs?

[Deleted User]

Marty_J wrote: »

That may be so when you reinstall it yourself, but that's not going to be everyone's experience. I recently setup a Toshiba laptop running Vista for a friend, and it took about 20 minutes before I was able to do anything with it. Not because it had to install Vista; that was already done. But because it had to keep restarting over and over and over again in order to setup all the crap that came pre-installed on it. Not Microsoft's fault I know, but that's one of the reason aple like making their own hardware; they can tailor their customer experience in a way Microsoft cannot.

True, Apple do have that benefit. It would be idillic if OEM's didn't load up their machines with utter tripe, but the crap subsidises the price of the computer. I guess customers wouldn't be that enthralled by the price of their machine shooting up.

Oh? Which edition of Windows supports 16 TB of physical RAM?

Windows 2000 64 bit. Whether hardware was capable of accepting 16TB at the time is another matter.

It's not its ability to multi-thread, but it's ability to figure out how to do the multi-threading itself without the developer knowing how to write multi-threaded applications.

Interesting, can't see much about it so I assume Apple are keeping the lid on it. If you've got any info on it, I'd very much appreciate reading up on it

Isn't this a new feature of DirectX 11, which hasn't been released yet?

GPGPU has been around a while, infact I'm not even sure if it's platform dependant as it uses Direct3D, Directx and OpenGL, so it will be pretty safe to assume it's been available to use for longer than my 2 year estimate.

I really have no idea.

It'll be a good release for Apple to start fresh on, ditching all the previous support for PowerPC and concentrating on Intel, I don't doubt that.

DatabaseError

Marty_J wrote: »

Well, that's fair enough.

Out of interest, what exactly are your needs?

browsing (firefox ftw), folding (gpu + cpu (soon as I can get vmware to work properly on 7 ) and there are no high performance mac GPU clients), video encoding (/cough), and gaming (and there's no way I'm spending as much on a machine as I have to run games under an emulator)

so..basic needs, same as many, a couple of thing out of the ordinary, but out of my list of 4, the mac can do 2, so I'd still need a win machine, and I really cba swopping OS when I want to do something different...especially as the folding clients run alongside everything else that I do...and I want the points!

I missed the odd bit of wordprocessing/image maipulation, but as I use gimp and openoffice either OS is equal

Marty_J

anewhope wrote: »

True, Apple do have that benefit. It would be idillic if OEM's didn't load up their machines with utter tripe, but the crap subsidises the price of the computer. I guess customers wouldn't be that enthralled by the price of their machine shooting up.

I guess that could be one reason Apple computers are more expensive than some.

Then again, if you buy your computer from Dell Business and the like, it doesn't come with all that crap on it either (as far as I know).

Windows 2000 64 bit. Whether hardware was capable of accepting 16TB at the time is another matter.

According to this page, the highest amount of physical RAM any edition of Windows can address is 2 TB, and the highest amount of virtual RAM is 8 TB.

Interesting, can't see much about it so I assume Apple are keeping the lid on it. If you've got any info on it, I'd very much appreciate reading up on it

Well there's a little bit about it on Snow Leopard's product page:

"“Grand Central”, a new set of technologies built into Snow Leopard, brings unrivaled support for multicore systems to Mac OS X. More cores, not faster clock speeds, drive performance increases in today’s processors. Grand Central takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimising it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems."

There's also an interesting write up about how Microsoft need to pull something similar out of the hat here. There's nothing that drives innovation quite like competition, so I happen to agree. It was written last year, so I don't know if Microsoft have announced anything since then.

It'll be a good release for Apple to start fresh on, ditching all the previous support for PowerPC and concentrating on Intel, I don't doubt that.

I don't think Apple could introduce many of the new features without dropping support for PowerPC. Apple have never been shy about dropping support for things they have decided not to use any more, to the annoyance of many (just have a look at the new MacBooks with no FireWire ports).

Marty_J

DatabaseError wrote: »

browsing (firefox ftw), folding (gpu + cpu (soon as I can get vmware to work properly on 7 ) and there are no high performance mac GPU clients), video encoding (/cough), and gaming (and there's no way I'm spending as much on a machine as I have to run games under an emulator)

so..basic needs, same as many, a couple of thing out of the ordinary, but out of my list of 4, the mac can do 2, so I'd still need a win machine, and I really cba swopping OS when I want to do something different...especially as the folding clients run alongside everything else that I do...and I want the points!

I missed the odd bit of wordprocessing/image maipulation, but as I use gimp and openoffice either OS is equal

Folding?

Is this the protein folding distributed computing thing?

Just to point out of course, that you can run Windows on a Mac, so there's no need to run any Windows program under emulation.

DatabaseError

folding is a distributed computing project which will hopefully contribute towards a cure for some cancers...

as to running windows on a mac...erm...not sure how much I'd have to spend on a mac to have the same performance as my windows machine...I imagine lots more than my PC (quad cpu @ 3.2Ghz, gpu and 9800gtx gpu @ 800mhz+)

tweeter

As a linux newbie the folding installation instructions for my system has made me shed my last few cogwheels. I must try harder.