I have a dual G5 power Mac. Running lateset version of 10.5. Is it running 32 bit or 64 bit? How can I tell ? How can I change between modes. Both on a temporary and perminate basis. I have a 32 bit PCI card installed that only has 32 bit drivers and I cannot get them to install. Same card in same machine runnig 10.4.11 worked fine.
Which exact model PCI card? It is possible support may have been removed for it in 10.5.
Message was edited by: Limnos
The G5 PPC processor is 64 bit
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Power_Mac_G5
However as you know 32 bit code can run on 64 bit processors, just uses half the registers.
You don't need to worry about switching modes, the OS handles everything.
jlefevre1 wrote:
I have a 32 bit PCI card installed that only has 32 bit drivers and I cannot get them to install. Same card in same machine runnig 10.4.11 worked fine.
The problem is you need the updated drivers to work with 10.5.
I am using the updated drivers for the Active Silicon card. They are specifically listed for OS 10.5 on a PPC machine. I am working with Active Silicon and they are the ones who specifically state that the drivers will only install when the Mac is running in 32 bit mode.
Now go back to may original question which noboby seams to read and comprehend.
How do I tell if the Mac is running in 32 or 64 bit mode and how do I force it to run in 32 bit mode. If someone has the answere to that specific question the I would find it helpful. All other theories and comments are off the table so please do not offer suggestions in any other area.
There's this old thread in this forum
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1438711?start=0&tstart=0
and somewhere in it there's a link to
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=200803020843118
Don't know if this is of any help, so I'm not guaranteeing it.
I'm thinking you can only really tell 32/64 bit on IntelMacs & that only works on IntelMacs running 10.5.8, not PPC Macs where 32/64 bit doesn't matter... did you mention PPC or G5 to them?
Does the Installer say Universal in a Get info?
Do you have a link to the Installer?
That being said, I have found that Tiger is definitely, unmistakably MUCH snappier on my Power Mac G5 Quad.
2.5 GHz Power Mac (PPC) G5-Quad; 16GB RAM; mutant, flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX, 1,700MHz 512MB VRAM; ATTO ExpressPCI UL5D LP SCSI card; Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and Leopard 10.5.8 boot drives; Spotblight, Dashboard and Time Machine permanently disabled; dual 22" CRT monitors; USB wireless 'n' available but connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet; FW flatbed scanner; 2 SCSI scanners (one tabloid-size transparency scanner and a film scanner); various internal & external HDs; FW Epson 2200 and Ethernet Samsung ML-2850ND printers; 2 X Back-UPS RS 1500 XS units.
I spent some time browsing the web on this and didn't find any mention of forcing a G5 into a mode. An Intel machine running Snow Leopard yes. The tech. support for the card may be thinking of that. I think a G5 just looks at the software and decides on that basis what mode to run in.
How do I tell if the Mac is running in 32 or 64 bit mode and how do I force it to run in 32 bit mode.
In a PPC Mac, OS X is running in 32 bit mode, period.
That is default and there is no compatible PPC 64 bit kernel for 64 bit OS X.
There are 64 bit components within the architecture, but software function is capped in the kernel at 32 bit.
You likely cannot force 64 bit in a PPC Mac in any OS that it can run, but you can try if you want
To try to boot 64 bit kernel on a Mac, find and edit this file:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist
Locate:
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string></string>and change to:
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>arch=x86_64</string>
No warranty stated or implied with the above hack.
Proceed at your own risk.
x86 in the hack refers to the x86 found on Intel CPUs. I doubt that hack will work unless you have an Intel Mac.
x86 in the hack refers to the x86 found on Intel CPUs.
I know, but the OP seems to be determined to know "for sure".
Dual G5 32 or 64 bit
