OK, VERY basic computer question

1.) Quite probably a silly question, but from a programming standpoint is there a difference between coding for a dual core chip and coding for the previous generation of multiple cpu (e.g. dual xeon) machines?

2.) are the great majority of osx applications fully multithreaded to fully utilize dual core cpus? It still frustrates me how many windows applications are only partially multithreaded frequently leaving me waiting for operations that are running on only 1 cpu with the rest of the physical/virtual cpu's essentially idle.

 

As I understand it there is no difference, the programmer just writes for multiple threads where appropriate and the OS and hardware arbitrate how those threads will get executed. Note that writing apps with multiple threads is not simple when the function being performed is required to be executed synchronously.

I don't know about OSX, but I agree that Windows is atrocious at multitasking and multithreading, I seem to spend half my life waiting for applications such as Outlook and Excel to do something while some trivial background task dominates the CPU. With luck it will improve as multi-core architectures become the norm.

 

Not sure if I'd say the "great majority" of OS-X kit is fully optimized for the Core Duo... but high end Macs have been dual processor for many years and the developers who work with them are getting very good at making the most of the architecture. I gotta agree with you guys about Windows though.... it's amazing just how much useless bloat it runs in the background, bogging everything down all the time.

 

Is the useless bloat you observe from windows itself or off-the-shelf computers that load them down? Have you tried a clean install with just windows yourself? I was a bit shocked to see how bogged down and slow a brand new dell notebook was yesterday as a year ago dell was delivering very clean machines compared to the ugly compaq and hp installs I've had to clean out. I don't mean that as an insult, just don't want microsoft programmers to get the blame for VAR's loading down computers with bad third party apps (extremely bloated security suites come to mind beginning with both N and M now )

 

I remember the halcyon days when you could get yacht design software on a Mac and being reassured by Andrew at a MacSurf users conference that it would always be the case. On the strength of that I invested heavily in a lot of high end Mac gear and persuaded a couple of boat yards to go computerised with Macs.

Ironically, neither myself nor either of these yards regrets the decision. All are still Mac based for all the quoting / admin / email / web and brochure production, plus I have a PC purely to run Maxsurf. Keeping the PC free of any other software and not connnected to the internet has had its advantages. We only use 2D and have stuck with Ashlar Vellum/Graphite which followed ClarisCAD sometime in the distant past.

We were also early adopters of Acrobat as a way of communicating with 'the great unwashed' and have found it a key component of our comunication and workflow.

Perhaps the dual boot Macs will prove Andrew's prediction right, even if there has been a little hick-up along the way.

 

'Tis a heavily cleaned up and tweaked 2004 toshiba, Jeff... with a 3-month-old fresh load of XP. It truly is amazing just how much crap can be turned off in msconfig, and how much speed that gains ya.
I second the remark about the security suites... we recently installed a well-known one on a three-year-old XP machine, and it promptly took up 65% CPU at idle, cutting response times on darn near everything by an order of magnitude.
< / rant > .....

 

Dual booting seems too clunky to interest me except maybe when traveling with a portable, but if Paralells is problem free and can run windows as fast as a windows system for only say $500 more than an equally fast pc box, that is very exciting to me. Just saw this in late July but didn't see any heavy lifting to compare side by side. Speaking of which, is there a parallel paralells program that can run osx on slightly more economical pc hardware?

 

Windows Tips

Hi

I know very little about Mac, and not necessarly a whole lot useful about Windows, but I will suggest a few things.

Check the front side bus speed on your processor. You can have a high speed processor and a large amount of RAM but a low front side bus speed will severely limit your speed.

If you get a Windows PC, no matter what it is, find your local computer geek guy, and get him to set up your computer properly. Proper setup of your computer will make huge differences.

If possible, use your existing computer for internet access, and don't connect your new PC to the internet. The reason is viruses, spyware, etc. Viruses and spyware will ruin your computer's performace, and an anti-virus that actually does anything will also slow your computer down significantly. Example, Norton complete takes over your computer, eventually making it completely infunctional. I had to reinstall Windows to get rid of Norton.

I can run Adobe Photoshop CS and several other programs at once (such as Winamp, Firefox, MSN Messenger) without causing any problems for my computer (a 2 year old totally worn out computer: 2.4ghz, 512 RAM). If my computer can handle it, pretty much any new one will too.

Hope I have been of help.

Tim Plett

 

We continued to sell and support Maxsurf on the Mac until last year, and it is now possible to run Maxsurf on Mac hardware, but using the Windows OS. So my prediction has come true, just not in the way I expected it.

Apple still makes excellent products and the OS makes Windows look like a primary school project, but unfortunately Apple all but abandoned the engineering/technical market years ago to focus on media and education. It's highly likely my next laptop will be a Mac just because the hardware is so well designed, but unfortunately I'll be running Windows on it.

Andrew

 

It's been a while since I answered so I apologoze for the bump but I wanted to thank everyone for their input, I'll let you all know what I buy in (hopefully) a couple weeks!

-Cleet

 

Marshmat et.al.

Does anyone know if software dongles (and their software) like used by GHS, AutoShip, Hydrocomp etc.etc. work on an intel mac running Parallels or Bootcamp? I'm getting tired of running around with two computers too.

 

The USB dongles used by Maxsurf will work fine on an Intel Mac under Bootcamp, this is probably true of other vendors USB dongles as well. Serial or parallel port dongles may or may not work, but few vendors use these anymore.

Maxsurf users with parallel port dongles can upgrade to a USB dongle for a small fee.

 

To date I have yet to encounter a dongle that works on one architecture but not the other. I have, however, encountered a great many that are a royal pain in the behind on both systems; in general I'm not a fan of hardware locks as I've had very poor luck with them. One parallel port dongle even screwed up the printer that was plugged in through it. And they don't get along too well with laptops that are carried around all the time; it gets really easy to lose the dongle that way.

 

TouchCAD HASP USB dongles are certainly cross platform and TouchCAD for Windows runs fine under Paralells / XP on a Mac. Unless you prefer running the Mac version on the Mac ;-).

 

my $.02

Having been a Mac user since 1986, and currently a user of a Mac Mini dual core, i have used a beta version of Crossover to run Windows programs without having Windows installed.

If you think you won't have a steep learning curve trying to keep your Windows OS functional, most users will tell you that that's a mistake. I wouldn't want to have to learn a new operating system and keep up with my studies at the same time. As a student, you can get a good deal on a Mac, and concentrate on learning naval architecture and not computer architecture.