“Snow Leopard’s across-the-board leap to 64-bits, from the kernel to all of its bundled apps, will do more than just make more memory available. It will also have a significant positive impact on performance system wide, even more than the same jump to 64-bits in Windows Vista,” Prince McLean reports for AppleInsider.
“Under the 64-bit Mac OS X Leopard, 64-bit apps get a massive virtual memory allocation that breaks out of the 4GB box. This allows 64-bit apps to occupy high address spaces while the kernel uses its own low addresses. Without any shared address overlap, the TLB doesn’t need to be flushed and can therefore function as intended. That potential windfall isn’t yet fully realized because Leopard’s kernel and most Mac apps are still 32-bit (below left),” McLean reports.
“Snow Leopard will deliver both a 64-bit kernel and a full set of 64-bit bundled apps, erasing the entire TLB flush issue because the new kernel won’t have to share any address space, even when running 32-bit apps (below right). This will benefit all 64-bit Mac users with a Core 2 CPU or better, even those lacking a Santa Rosa platform-style chipset, as being able to run 64-bit code and virtual memory is not tied to the amount of addressable system RAM,” McLean reports.
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
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