Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 9th Nov 2009 23:55 UTC
Apple has finally released Mac OS X 10.6.2, the latest version of its Snow Leopard operating system, and be prepared for a massive update for your Mac: 473MB. There's a lot of stuff in here, and among other things, it includes a fix for the guest account data loss bug.
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Member since:2005-09-19
Member since:2005-07-06
Do you need to do anything to active the new driver or is it used by default?
I.e. Do we need to manually enable the 64bit kernel in order to see graphics improvements on an X3100?
Thanks
I.e. Do we need to manually enable the 64bit kernel in order to see graphics improvements on an X3100?
Thanks
You automatically use the new driver by default when you run the update - I've just had a look through the extensions and the OpenGL portion of driver has also been update which explains the huge performance improvement over the default driver and OpenGL library included with 10.6.
Maybe I was exaggerating a little on the performance improvements but the improvements are noticeable to the average end user - it is great to see that they've finally done something to improve the driver quality for the GMA X3100 GPU so that it is comparable to Windows. From what I understand it is Intel, not Apple, who write the drivers thus I guess there was no 64bit driver ready in time for shipping.
Member since:2006-08-02
So what you are saying is that the histeria over Apple arbitrarily disallowing Snow Leopard from running in 64-bit mode on consumer machines had more to do with missing driver support for the initial release than with corporate greed? Interesting.
Edited 2009-11-10 14:58 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
So what you are saying is that the histeria over Apple arbitrarily disallowing Snow Leopard from running in 64-bit mode on consumer machines had more to do with missing driver support for the initial release than with corporate greed? Interesting.
I'd say so; 10.6 was getting the 64bit ground work laid and 10.7 will mean the kernel will cross over - given how important the kernel is I'd say that Apple didn't want to risk the situation of a 64bit kernel being blamed when end users find their eyetv application doesn't work or not all the drivers are mature and up to speed.
Corporate greed? unfortunately conspiracy theorists here love the idea of this moustache twirling monopoly man sitting on the 50th floor swimming in money - devising new and more crafty ways of screwing over the proletariat. The reality is some what more benign than the clueless banter that occurs on this forum.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
I've updated my Macbook with a GMA X3100 GPU and the performance has improved out of sight - there is a new driver for the GMA X3100 which is based on the new I/O Kit introduced with Snow Leopard which means it is now 64bit. If you have a MacBook with a X3100 you can force Snow Leopard into 64bit mode if you want and everything works well. So if you're wanting performance - you'll see it.
Regarding the size of it, I have had a quick look through and a lot of components have been updated; CUPS has been updated from 1.4.1 to 1.4.2, more drivers are now 64bit (GMA 950 and GMA X3100 are both 64bit), lots of bugs regarding Safari have been fixed - haven't had a single Flash related crash - I'd sooner find my flash applet die on me than the whole browser collapse in a big screaming heap.
Funny enough I've also seen an improvement in load times for Office 2008 and iTunes. Quicktime X has been updated, alot of the extensions have been updated along with 90% of the frameworks have been touched in some way by the update. It would be fair to say that 10.6.2 is Apple's own 'Windows XP Service Pack 2' - alot of big improvements from the user perspective. It will be interesting to see from the developer perspective whether things are looking a lot better when it comes to application development.