I have to say my Brotha' you are always nothing but positive contributions.
I well probably do this when time dictates, but I will be sure to let you know my failure/success's.
Merci Mon Frere,
Mac advantages?
Re: Mac advantages?
Jimmy, easiest thing is to find an easy to follow tutorial on insanelymac forum (genius bar tutorials section). The good tutorials link to the required kext files (drivers) etc. You do need to know what you're doing and read up a bit (sorry I actually meant a lot). It can be really easy if you're lucky, but sometimes you will have to mess around a bit on the command line and read up on arcane forum threads - if you're not up for this, maybe just score a used macbook (black or white ones with firewire) - a Core2Duo Macbook is fine for a portable Logic recording/editing rig, although it won't run an Xite (no expresscard). Ethically you should really buy your copy of the OS. Logic works fine on every hack I've seen... it's not as fast as it used to be circa v5 but then what software is as slick/unbloated as its counterpart 8 years ago? It's still pretty easy to use and now has some features that I've been wanting for years (bounce in place). For the money it costs, and the fact that it doesn't have the hassle of a dongle anymore, it's hard to beat.
Re: Mac advantages?
The stability of your hackintosh will be entirely dependant on the hardware you're using (how closely it conforms to hardware Apple has used and built in support for, or how much effort you're willing to put forth making '3rd party' kext/drivers work.)
And there are no OSX Xite drivers yet are there?
And there are no OSX Xite drivers yet are there?
Re: Mac advantages?
you certainly didn't misunderstand a thing, you're simply in the wrong centuryBifop wrote:aHem Astroman, unles I totally misunderstood the subject, I don't think things have changed to that extend. Dstd table, Efi partition or PcEfi and such are only to fake macintosh "Apple Efi". ...
I was writing about the very original MacOS developed by Apple on 68k CPUs, way back in time, when there were cavemen... troglodytes...
Back then there was no such rubbish as a firmware whatsoever interface.
(a so called 'modern' firmware takes up as much memory as the complete original Mac had for all processing, including the OS)
The 68k code was so efficient, that it ran with almost no performance loss in emulation on PowerPC CPUs.
But that is past and the multi-billion-buck-coprorations will do a f*ck to ever get anywhere close to that state again.
Or can you imagine vampires on garlic diet ?
Apple did an incredible job to make Unix userfriendly.
Below the surface it's a mess compared to what they offered 20 years ago, but most people simply don't even know about that.
I would have appreciated if the so-called open source community had picked up (at least some of) Apple's orphaned concepts as documented in the 'Inside Macintosh' series, but instead they try to fake Windoze and recently OSX.
LOL - they can only fail, because they will always be one step behind.
Apple developed only a rough multimedia concept on their original machines (though Quicktime became the prototype of all codec handling anywhre), but then left over the music segment entirely to Digidesign.
When they eventually noticed a lack of knowledge, they simply bought EMagic and split Logic into Garageband and a Pro version.
Apple today isn't the corporation of the 80s anymore
cheers, Tom
Re: Mac advantages?
Ha, you talk about this antic mac Classic I was using for typing my Namm reports back in the early 90's ?
I was dreaming about buying a Mac LC to replace the Atari for midi sequencing.. A scanner was as expensive as a little car.
I don't know much about the original Apple machines and os appart from the fact they've gone from Nubus to PCI then PCIe only, from Motorola to IBM PPC to Intel Proco/mobo. But it's interesting what you're bringing here. You seem to imply they've lost their own concept on the way. Surely Astro.
But one thing that hasn't change is the hefty price tag and the advertisement campaigns (we're different, you're different, think different etc.... bs).
I was dreaming about buying a Mac LC to replace the Atari for midi sequencing.. A scanner was as expensive as a little car.
I don't know much about the original Apple machines and os appart from the fact they've gone from Nubus to PCI then PCIe only, from Motorola to IBM PPC to Intel Proco/mobo. But it's interesting what you're bringing here. You seem to imply they've lost their own concept on the way. Surely Astro.
But one thing that hasn't change is the hefty price tag and the advertisement campaigns (we're different, you're different, think different etc.... bs).
Re: Mac advantages?
sure they lost their concept, well... actually they changed it quite deliberately...
it's hard to ignore facts represented by sales figures
as you mention the LC pizza box:
we used those for 5 to 6 years in a publishing company
then switched to PPC Cubes on duty for 3 years
then MacMini PPC for 2 years
MacMini Intel for 1 year
next year we'll go MacPro Quadcore...
(need I say more ?)
I'd still suggest a very close look into the original 68k MacOS (or rather it's documentation) for students going into OS design courses. It's a treasure chest of concepts - tho not à la mode with the big boys
cheers, Tom
it's hard to ignore facts represented by sales figures
as you mention the LC pizza box:
we used those for 5 to 6 years in a publishing company
then switched to PPC Cubes on duty for 3 years
then MacMini PPC for 2 years
MacMini Intel for 1 year
next year we'll go MacPro Quadcore...
(need I say more ?)
I'd still suggest a very close look into the original 68k MacOS (or rather it's documentation) for students going into OS design courses. It's a treasure chest of concepts - tho not à la mode with the big boys
cheers, Tom
Re: Mac advantages?
Apple's mobo's look eerily like Supermicro or Tyan. So I will look again,and thanks for the insanely Mac site.
Everyone up here drops theirs off for trade when they buy new,and never seem tohave any problems. But I did see DDR3-1066 in a Dual i7 2.93..........not the very fastest now is it.
Funny, my DDR2-8oo still runs perfectly well. I am ready for 64but too. I have the latest Kontakt, and Bidule and both are stable on a PC Slave using Windoze 7.
No more VST FX, or GVI/Gigastudio stuff. Gigastudio's sound and 64 versus 512 settings is not that noticable but the round snooth low end and unbrittle highs are sorely missed already.
Cheers.
Everyone up here drops theirs off for trade when they buy new,and never seem tohave any problems. But I did see DDR3-1066 in a Dual i7 2.93..........not the very fastest now is it.
Funny, my DDR2-8oo still runs perfectly well. I am ready for 64but too. I have the latest Kontakt, and Bidule and both are stable on a PC Slave using Windoze 7.
No more VST FX, or GVI/Gigastudio stuff. Gigastudio's sound and 64 versus 512 settings is not that noticable but the round snooth low end and unbrittle highs are sorely missed already.
Cheers.
Re: Mac advantages?
I think the last I read Foxconn was still manufacturing Apple products, and they were rumored to be doing the "iTablet" that everyone is...rumoring.
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Jah Servant
- Posts: 292
- Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2005 4:00 pm
Re: Mac advantages?
thanks for all the input guys, it's nice to see a decent discussion on this and not a war. I don't have much to contribute but I've been reading it all. What I was really curious about was if there was a real advantage regarding performance, apart from the OS that is (however you can't just totally ignore that either). I appreciate all everybody has said, there is alot to think about.
Re: Mac advantages?
It's going to be dependant entirely on what applications and usages are, as well as how much the 'user experience' for the overall OS is a part of your workflow. My take on OS X & Windows computing atm for us audio users:
Logic seems to overall perform the most favorably on OSX and now that it's Mac-only and Apple owned both Logic & Digital Performer have no counterparts to compare. Pro Tools is multiplatform has admitted legacy issues which impedes RTAS based performance in a 'pure' virtual setup (non-PT HD) compared even to other apps on the either platform, and Cubase's performance is generally worse on a Mac than PC, but that's been the historical case for a long time. However I know there are plenty of people who use Cubase5 on OS X even with the slightly lesser performance and are perfectly happy as they get the results they want anyway and are on the OS they prefer to use.
The same thing (cross platform performance imbalance) used to be the case for Ableton Live before OSX went intel only, the built in plugins were unoptimized for Motorola (though the mixing engine was fine and using 3rd party effects/VI's got around the cpu limitations back then) but now that Apple has been Intel for some time Live seems to perform based more upon your choice of plugins and audio interface (drivers) than the OS itself.
For other apps there really aren't easy direct comparisons (Soundforge & Wavelab are desired by many though, which is in contrast to what I remember 8-10 years ago where Mac had more interesting audio applications available.) In my own usage I'd have to honestly say that comparing identical Mac Pro's & Windows based Xeon machines I think that the upper tier Windows OS's (Vista-64, Win 7-64 & Server2k8) have the upper hand at the current moment when it comes to ability for the OS to manage the workload (generalized across all applications), but this is always a leapfrog thing and is really dependant on application & workload.
The lack of broad 64bit support (on OSX) and OS-level scheduling support for 3rd party apps are both being addressed with their 'new' OS X revision, Snow Leopard. There seem to be some minor issues with Hyperthreading in some applications still (present in current 'nehelem' Mac Pros) and turbo-clocking is giving performance that's inconsistent between applications (all i5/i7 & current model Mac Pro's.) These are minor things though, easily addressed in some cases or ignored in others while waiting on the improvements that application & OS updates bring.
The only real downside to Macs in recent years is the limited hardware support, though at the same time many see this as an upside. Many pro audio users don't care if Apple charges more for 12 month old hardware than PC users paid new (GTS256/GTX285/etc) and that new machines debut with last-gen hardware quite often for price:availability reasons on Apple's part (mac users don't play games! they say. or if you do there's always boot camp. and the need for apple-specific drivers for everything. etc.) Again this is unimportant to many audio users but OS X & Apple in general have often catered to the 'graphic designer professional' as much as the audio professional and there are some issues in this area that 3d guys (and CS4 users now as well) have had to learn about...
The upshot is that it is a more carefully controlled user experience, and the flipside of supporting limited hardware of course is that you can be selective about who you invite to the party. Establishing standards where Windows often just supports whatever gains enough market acceptance (ie, it's up to vendors to write drivers and gain tracktion) and working more off of the idea of 'vision' for establishing computing guidelines (which Apple still regularly breaks themselves anyway, including their UI canons) than some post-antitrust mixture of Internal committee & corporate ownership mediated by a desire to not piss off too many people. At the same time Apple has been plagued over the last few years with support 'issues' (certain models have had flaws due to issues that stem from upstream suppliers like Nvidia's bad chipsets) and Q&A issues with certain OSX updates.
In the end they're all just computers, none are perfect and the things that were true a decade or two ago (and often held as canon) may not be true now.
A hackintosh is going to take time & effort to get going, unless you stick to a 100% known-good (and probably 6-12 month old) hardware and follow a guide (or use what is known as a 'distro' that is known to work 100%). Even in its simplest form, the way things are arranged in the hackintosh 'scene' actual information is very hard to come by and you'll spend countless hours reading to try and even figure out which one of the '100% working' options actually 100% works. At the same time I know more about the OS than I did by playing with Xcode by far a few years back, and have had the time to play around with it on my machines in my spare time.
Logic seems to overall perform the most favorably on OSX and now that it's Mac-only and Apple owned both Logic & Digital Performer have no counterparts to compare. Pro Tools is multiplatform has admitted legacy issues which impedes RTAS based performance in a 'pure' virtual setup (non-PT HD) compared even to other apps on the either platform, and Cubase's performance is generally worse on a Mac than PC, but that's been the historical case for a long time. However I know there are plenty of people who use Cubase5 on OS X even with the slightly lesser performance and are perfectly happy as they get the results they want anyway and are on the OS they prefer to use.
The same thing (cross platform performance imbalance) used to be the case for Ableton Live before OSX went intel only, the built in plugins were unoptimized for Motorola (though the mixing engine was fine and using 3rd party effects/VI's got around the cpu limitations back then) but now that Apple has been Intel for some time Live seems to perform based more upon your choice of plugins and audio interface (drivers) than the OS itself.
For other apps there really aren't easy direct comparisons (Soundforge & Wavelab are desired by many though, which is in contrast to what I remember 8-10 years ago where Mac had more interesting audio applications available.) In my own usage I'd have to honestly say that comparing identical Mac Pro's & Windows based Xeon machines I think that the upper tier Windows OS's (Vista-64, Win 7-64 & Server2k8) have the upper hand at the current moment when it comes to ability for the OS to manage the workload (generalized across all applications), but this is always a leapfrog thing and is really dependant on application & workload.
The lack of broad 64bit support (on OSX) and OS-level scheduling support for 3rd party apps are both being addressed with their 'new' OS X revision, Snow Leopard. There seem to be some minor issues with Hyperthreading in some applications still (present in current 'nehelem' Mac Pros) and turbo-clocking is giving performance that's inconsistent between applications (all i5/i7 & current model Mac Pro's.) These are minor things though, easily addressed in some cases or ignored in others while waiting on the improvements that application & OS updates bring.
The only real downside to Macs in recent years is the limited hardware support, though at the same time many see this as an upside. Many pro audio users don't care if Apple charges more for 12 month old hardware than PC users paid new (GTS256/GTX285/etc) and that new machines debut with last-gen hardware quite often for price:availability reasons on Apple's part (mac users don't play games! they say. or if you do there's always boot camp. and the need for apple-specific drivers for everything. etc.) Again this is unimportant to many audio users but OS X & Apple in general have often catered to the 'graphic designer professional' as much as the audio professional and there are some issues in this area that 3d guys (and CS4 users now as well) have had to learn about...
The upshot is that it is a more carefully controlled user experience, and the flipside of supporting limited hardware of course is that you can be selective about who you invite to the party. Establishing standards where Windows often just supports whatever gains enough market acceptance (ie, it's up to vendors to write drivers and gain tracktion) and working more off of the idea of 'vision' for establishing computing guidelines (which Apple still regularly breaks themselves anyway, including their UI canons) than some post-antitrust mixture of Internal committee & corporate ownership mediated by a desire to not piss off too many people. At the same time Apple has been plagued over the last few years with support 'issues' (certain models have had flaws due to issues that stem from upstream suppliers like Nvidia's bad chipsets) and Q&A issues with certain OSX updates.
In the end they're all just computers, none are perfect and the things that were true a decade or two ago (and often held as canon) may not be true now.
A hackintosh is going to take time & effort to get going, unless you stick to a 100% known-good (and probably 6-12 month old) hardware and follow a guide (or use what is known as a 'distro' that is known to work 100%). Even in its simplest form, the way things are arranged in the hackintosh 'scene' actual information is very hard to come by and you'll spend countless hours reading to try and even figure out which one of the '100% working' options actually 100% works. At the same time I know more about the OS than I did by playing with Xcode by far a few years back, and have had the time to play around with it on my machines in my spare time.
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next to nothing
- Posts: 2521
- Joined: Mon Jul 29, 2002 4:00 pm
- Location: Bergen, Norway
Re: Mac advantages?
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Re: Mac advantages?
Hi,
I know some of the advantages of MAC as listed below.
1. Plug & Play
2. Adding Peripherals
3. Driver Management
4. Integrated User Interface
5. No 'Mystery' Files
6. More Versatile Networking
7. Flexible Monitor Support
8. Better Telephony Support
9. Easier Installation
10. Ready for year 2000
11. No Registries
12. Boot from CD-ROM
13. Dependable Aliases
14. Easier OS Management
15. No DLL Problems
I know some of the advantages of MAC as listed below.
1. Plug & Play
2. Adding Peripherals
3. Driver Management
4. Integrated User Interface
5. No 'Mystery' Files
6. More Versatile Networking
7. Flexible Monitor Support
8. Better Telephony Support
9. Easier Installation
10. Ready for year 2000
11. No Registries
12. Boot from CD-ROM
13. Dependable Aliases
14. Easier OS Management
15. No DLL Problems
Re: Mac advantages?
as written zillions of times...
Mac OSX is NOT Mac OS, only the name reads similiar
both have nothing and I really mean nothing at all in common
Mac OS as sacked a decade or so ago was the conceptually modern thing,
while OSX is the boring old unix fart in a hyper-flashy visual appearance
your list refers to MacOS which isn't among us anymore
... so you're 10 years late
cheers, Tom
(kidding)
Mac OSX is NOT Mac OS, only the name reads similiar
both have nothing and I really mean nothing at all in common
Mac OS as sacked a decade or so ago was the conceptually modern thing,
while OSX is the boring old unix fart in a hyper-flashy visual appearance
your list refers to MacOS which isn't among us anymore
... so you're 10 years late
cheers, Tom
(kidding)
-
siriusbliss
- Posts: 3118
- Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2001 4:00 pm
- Location: Cupertino, California US
- Contact:
Re: Mac advantages?
Well, the list DOES say it's ready for year 2000astroman wrote:as written zillions of times...
Mac OSX is NOT Mac OS, only the name reads similiar
both have nothing and I really mean nothing at all in common
Mac OS as sacked a decade or so ago was the conceptually modern thing,
while OSX is the boring old unix fart in a hyper-flashy visual appearance
your list refers to MacOS which isn't among us anymore
... so you're 10 years late
cheers, Tom
(kidding)
Greg
Xite rig - ADK laptop - i7 975 3.33 GHz Quad w/HT 8meg cache /MDR3-4G/1066SODIMM / VD-GGTX280M nVidia GeForce GTX 280M w/1GB DDR3
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netguyjoel
- Posts: 1228
- Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:34 am
- Location: The Land of Cheese, Beer & Fat Chicks
Re: Mac advantages?
Just a thought...phsysyar...enjoy a mac without being gouged financially....
Joel
Re: Mac advantages?
I suggest to NOT support Psystar or EFI-X type products, they all repackage existing EFI/SMC emulation attempts (SMC emu is the newer vector) that are created by the 'hackintosh' community and specifically netkas, the chameleon team & others. If you don't want to pay for Apple hardware but want to run OSX your best approach is to treat it like you would a PC, learn how to put the bits together and assemble hardware that's as compatible as possible. Ie, not an undertaking for the time-crunched.
Re: Mac advantages?
I really don't think Apple's hardware is overly expensive.
You cannot compare a readymade system to a self assembled box where you go shopping around for best parts and prices, which is a significant effort as everyone knows by experience.
Time is money.
Those who are experienced by their job (as Valis is) are probably less than 2% of the customer base.
We all benefit from his knowledge (tnx one more time), but what about anyone's position without access to such sources ?
Apple has put a significant amount of R&D into their flavour of unix.
Their GUI and the system's usability (from a 'stupid' user's point of view) is simply outstanding.
Even if I'm not a big fan of their choice to give up their very own custom OS, I can't but respect that fact.
It's kind of ridiculous to insist on the fruits of Apple's R&D departement given fo free.
You wouldn't expect that from Sonic|Core either, would you ?
cheers, Tom
You cannot compare a readymade system to a self assembled box where you go shopping around for best parts and prices, which is a significant effort as everyone knows by experience.
Time is money.
Those who are experienced by their job (as Valis is) are probably less than 2% of the customer base.
We all benefit from his knowledge (tnx one more time), but what about anyone's position without access to such sources ?
Apple has put a significant amount of R&D into their flavour of unix.
Their GUI and the system's usability (from a 'stupid' user's point of view) is simply outstanding.
Even if I'm not a big fan of their choice to give up their very own custom OS, I can't but respect that fact.
It's kind of ridiculous to insist on the fruits of Apple's R&D departement given fo free.
You wouldn't expect that from Sonic|Core either, would you ?
cheers, Tom
Re: Mac advantages?
you can't put the WAF in numbers. that's it.astroman wrote:I really don't think Apple's hardware is overly expensive.
--
I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
I'm sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
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siriusbliss
- Posts: 3118
- Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2001 4:00 pm
- Location: Cupertino, California US
- Contact:
Re: Mac advantages?
The convergence at the hardware level between Macs and PC's is nearly complete, which leaves only the quasi-Unix hybrid smoke and mirrors OS convergence down the line with OSXI and Windows 8
Meanwhile Linux and the mobile OS's (like Palm) will gain ground and expand outward to control larger environments (like running your house from your smartphone).
Someday we'll hold the power of Xites in our hands
Greg
Meanwhile Linux and the mobile OS's (like Palm) will gain ground and expand outward to control larger environments (like running your house from your smartphone).
Someday we'll hold the power of Xites in our hands
Greg
Xite rig - ADK laptop - i7 975 3.33 GHz Quad w/HT 8meg cache /MDR3-4G/1066SODIMM / VD-GGTX280M nVidia GeForce GTX 280M w/1GB DDR3
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fonorecord
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2011 3:52 pm
- Location: Near Rome
- Contact:
Re: Mac advantages?
I have had a Mac quad core G5, and now I have Mac Pro with Protools HD2 accell: this system is wonderfull, and stable; no problem; in one word: I can work (I can... does not mean I work
I have 3 Macs and 2 PC in studio; when I work on PC all is difficoult and impossible; today I play, tomorrow I switch on PC and there is a new problem... Why? There are a lot of arguments: in Wondows system the Registry is always full, a lot of services, a bad file system... When You install in PC you install a lot of files around the system: so first day you buy a PC this is fast; after 2-3 mounths this PC is slow, and you must reinstall system always. Virus? Ohhhh dear!
Mac: when you install a program there is a sort of defragmentation of hard disk, always. So the hard disk is always efficient. No big registry, so always fast. No or less viruses. You install OSX and you must reinstall after 3-4 year, always efficient! I have Office 2004 for mac; how to install? Drag and drop his folder in hard disk.
For my experience: with Mac you work 8 hours; with PC you work 6 in a day, if you calculate the total time you spend to make a good PC with all his problems.
Apple: another world!
I have 3 Macs and 2 PC in studio; when I work on PC all is difficoult and impossible; today I play, tomorrow I switch on PC and there is a new problem... Why? There are a lot of arguments: in Wondows system the Registry is always full, a lot of services, a bad file system... When You install in PC you install a lot of files around the system: so first day you buy a PC this is fast; after 2-3 mounths this PC is slow, and you must reinstall system always. Virus? Ohhhh dear!
Mac: when you install a program there is a sort of defragmentation of hard disk, always. So the hard disk is always efficient. No big registry, so always fast. No or less viruses. You install OSX and you must reinstall after 3-4 year, always efficient! I have Office 2004 for mac; how to install? Drag and drop his folder in hard disk.
For my experience: with Mac you work 8 hours; with PC you work 6 in a day, if you calculate the total time you spend to make a good PC with all his problems.
Apple: another world!
FONORECORD STUDIO, Italy