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64-bit OS compatibility

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mjfrost April 17, 2009 - 13:34
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I was wondering what the latest is on 64-bit Operating System compatibility (both OS X and Windows) in Igor Pro. I want to load many large data files (sometimes each is greater than 1GB). My current experiences have only allowed up to about 1 GB worth of data in memory on an OS X machine with 4GB RAM installed. I was hoping to use all available memory now, and in the future, that would definitely exceed 4 GB, on either a Windows or an OS X machine. Any information regarding memory use in Igor Pro would be greatly appreciated.
hrodstein
 April 18, 2009 - 20:13
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I'm not sure why you can load only 1 GB. I tried this on a Mac OS X 10.5 system with 10 GB (though Igor's virtual memory is 4 GB):

Make/B/U/N=(1E9) big0   // Worked
Make/B/U/N=(1E9) big1   // Worked
Make/B/U/N=(1E9) big2   // Worked
Make/B/U/N=(1E9) big3   // Failed

This behavior is what I would expect. If you have not already done it, execute this and read the help:

  DisplayHelpTopic "Memory Management"

As to the larger question of a 64-bit Igor, this is on our to-do list with fairly high priority. However, it will be for Windows only because Apple does not support 64 bit Carbon programs. To make a 64-bit Macintosh Igor, we will have to port the entire program to a different Apple API (Cocoa). This will take a long time if we do it at all.

The 64-bit Windows port is also a big job as we have to make hundreds of source files and many libraries 64-bit clean. And that's before we get to XOPs. In other words, although a 64-bit Windows is on our list, it will take months of additional work. And we may run into a show-stopper along the way.
patarroyo September 14, 2009 - 14:00
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I am all for 64 bit Igor on Windows. I am concerned about Wavemetrics' approach to the Mac side of things. As of OS X 10.6, support for programs running under Carbon is waning. It would seem to me that if Igor is to be sustainable on the Mac, it will require a rewrite of the code to be directly compatible with the Intel processors.
jjweimer September 14, 2009 - 16:08
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patarroyo wrote:
I am all for 64 bit Igor on Windows. I am concerned about Wavemetrics' approach to the Mac side of things. As of OS X 10.6, support for programs running under Carbon is waning. It would seem to me that if Igor is to be sustainable on the Mac, it will require a rewrite of the code to be directly compatible with the Intel processors.

Carbon will still run under Rosetta, so support has not gone identically to zero at this stage. Igor will IMHO still continue to be a top choice for serious data analysis well throughout all of OS 10.6.x and perhaps even into 10.7.

--
J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
andyfaff September 14, 2009 - 16:24
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patarroyo wrote:
I am all for 64 bit Igor on Windows. I am concerned about Wavemetrics' approach to the Mac side of things. As of OS X 10.6, support for programs running under Carbon is waning. It would seem to me that if Igor is to be sustainable on the Mac, it will require a rewrite of the code to be directly compatible with the Intel processors.

Thats not strictly true. Carbon is an OS X API that was designed to give backward compatibility to Mac operating systems previous to OS X. Carbon + Igor are directly compatible with Intel processors, that's not the issue at all. Igor does not have to be run through Rosetta.

The trouble is that Apple has only got a 32 bit version of the Carbon API, all new development for 64 bit Mac applications is through the Cocoa API, which is Objective C. For IGOR to be 64 bit on Mac it would have to be rewritten to use the Cocoa API, which is an enormous task.
andyfaff September 14, 2009 - 16:32
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Also check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_%28API%29

for more info. Also see the links in the notes at the bottom of the Wiki page.
mjones September 14, 2009 - 19:05
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 Location: United States

jjweimer wrote:
Carbon will still run under Rosetta, so support has not gone identically to zero at this stage. Igor will IMHO still continue to be a top choice for serious data analysis well throughout all of OS 10.6.x and perhaps even into 10.7.

--
J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH

Does this mean that Igor will NEVER be ported from Carbon? If so, as a Mac user, I need to start looking elsewhere for an alternative analysis platform.


[ last edited September 14, 2009 - 19:07 ]
jjweimer September 15, 2009 - 07:28
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andyfaff wrote:
Thats not strictly true. Carbon is an OS X API that was designed to give backward compatibility to Mac operating systems previous to OS X. Carbon + Igor are directly compatible with Intel processors, that's not the issue at all. Igor does not have to be run through Rosetta.

The trouble is that Apple has only got a 32 bit version of the Carbon API, all new development for 64 bit Mac applications is through the Cocoa API, which is Objective C. For IGOR to be 64 bit on Mac it would have to be rewritten to use the Cocoa API, which is an enormous task.

Thanks for the clarification.

--
J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
hrodstein
 September 15, 2009 - 08:44
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As Andy said, Igor is native on Intel Macintosh.

We do plan to rewrite Macintosh Igor so that it will be able to run as a 64-bit application. That will take a long time, like a year or two.

An experimental 64-bit Windows version will be available probably in the next few months.
JimProuty
 September 15, 2009 - 09:42
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hrodstein wrote:
We do plan to rewrite Macintosh Igor so that it will be able to run as a 64-bit application. That will take a long time, like a year or two.

And to make it explicit, the rewrite would remove all the Carbon code and replace it with Cocoa-using code.

Software Engineer, WaveMetrics, Inc.
patarroyo September 16, 2009 - 10:10
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Good to know. I had no intention of abandoning Igor either way. Thank you for your informative posts.
mjones September 16, 2009 - 10:44
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 Joined: 2009-09-14
 Location: United States

Thank you for clearing that up - I'm not sure I could have found as capable a platform as an alternative!
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