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Will the release of Leopard be followed by a 64bit version of Maxwell any time soon? There is currently so much wasted performance in the 8 core mac. any news would be grateful

Hi Chris,

Performance problem in 8 core macs is solved for the next free update in all versions of OSX. About the 64 bits is not an easy task with Leopard as some of the announced features to developers in WWDC 2006 were changed in WWDC 2007, I cannot say more until Leopard is launched. But don't expect to see many 64 bit 3D applications with a fully fledged GUI.

Anyway we are working on it.

nachob

Any idea roughly when this update is being released ?

Matt

The update will be the general update for all platforms and new features that will be released soon.

nachob

zoetropeuk wrote:Any idea roughly when this update is being released ?

Matt

Today, maybe?

Ciao, Gio

Nacho:

Can you elaborate more on this? please!!!, simply curiosity:

"But don't expect to see many 64 bit 3D applications with a fully fledged GUI."

thanks.

Hi, Mr. Gong

I believe that Apple dropped the plan to update some(many?) of Carbon APIs to 64 bit (including GUI related APIs).
So there are basically 3 options for software developers using C/C++ to develop 64 bit apps:

1. Rewrite with Cocoa (Pure Objective-C)
2. Rewrite GUI codes with Cocoa (Objective-C++)
3. Separate C/C++ core and Cocoa-based GUI (C/C++ core app + Objective-C front end app)

All of above options require a significant amount of work, and these approaches are not really practical for cross-platform apps built on a single code base (usually C++).

I think this is why Nacho said, "But don't expect to see many 64 bit 3D applications with a fully fledged GUI," and I myself think this will force many developers to stick with 32 bit architecture...

I am just hoping that Apple will change their policy about Carbon (just like they changed their policy on 3rd party apps on iPhone/iPod...)

Hi Mr. Gog,

I think kingpin post says it all.

nachob

In the 1.6 version there is a Technology Preview of Maxwell running in 64 bits for OSX Leopard. It has no user interface and must be controlled from the terminal using command line options as referred in the manual.

nachob

Thanks for the answer, nachob and kingpin.

Are there step-by-step instructions somewhere about how to use the 64-bit Technology Preview? I have very little experience with either the command line or network rendering.

To the get the command line rendering to work, just start up the terminal, and type the following:

/(directory where mxcl64 is located) -mxs:/(location where mxs file you want to render is located) -th:0 -d -o:(directory then name of the image file you want saved - like .../sculpture64bit.tif)

Here, show the error using mxcl64:

Start Rendering
Thu Dec 6 17:10:19 imac-al-20s-imac.local mxcl64[26379] <Error>: CGImageDestinationCreate type doesn't support writing\n
IMAGE "/Users/alexleonardo/Desktop/teste.tga" not saved.
SL of 0.89. Benchmark of 135.259. Time: 4s
Thu Dec 6 17:10:24 imac-al-20s-imac.local mxcl64[26379] <Error>: CGImageDestinationCreate type doesn't support writing\n
IMAGE "/Users/alexleonardo/Desktop/teste.tga" not saved.
SL of 2.00. Benchmark of 160.106. Time: 9s
Thu Dec 6 17:10:31 imac-al-20s-imac.local mxcl64[26379] <Error>: CGImageDestinationCreate type doesn't support writing\n
IMAGE "/Users/alexleonardo/Desktop/teste.tga" not saved.
SL of 3.00. Benchmark of 173.918. Time: 16s
Thu Dec 6 17:10:41 imac-al-20s-imac.local mxcl64[26379] <Error>: CGImageDestinationCreate type doesn't support writing\n
IMAGE "/Users/alexleonardo/Desktop/teste.tga" not saved.
SL of 4.00. Benchmark of 186.026. Time: 26s


what's this?

Thanks

Tyrone Marshall wrote:To the get the command line rendering to work, just start up the terminal, and type the following:

/(directory where mxcl64 is located) -mxs:/(location where mxs file you want to render is located) -th:0 -d -o:(directory then name of the image file you want saved - like .../sculpture64bit.tif)

Hi Tyrone,

Terminal do not understand anything
I would like to exploit the 64-bit technology on osx

You could tell the complete line of command through an example

Paste the following text in the terminal, but does not work!


/Applications/Maxwell/64 Bits Technology Preview/mxcl64 -mxs:/Users/valerio/Documents/benchwell_scene_07.03.08_mac/sculpture.mxs -th:0 -d -o:/Users/valerio/Documents/benchwell_scene_07.03.08_mac/sculpture64bit.tif