Request a version for PowerPC Macs

Started by josep

bsparks Lv 1

I find it rather silly that they don't just make a Universal Binary for people, and just alert the users that perhaps the PPC version isn't as stable? Or better yet, just put it on the Download For Mac link that it's Intel only, not just tiger only. I hate getting burned by companies and people like that, don't even bother to mention that they don't support ppc

karapcik Lv 1

Actually, several BOINC projects have similar isues. PPC architecture does not quite follow the same floating point procedures, and so projects were finding that x86 and PPC results were different when compared out several decimal places. Also compiling is a bit different. Unfortunately there is no utility that turns a PPC or Intel Mac binary into a universal binary. Both must be written and compiled, and the utilities fuse them with a wrapper that handles selecting the executable code. (Back in the old days when earlier Mac OS'es ran on different platforms, there were utiliies to "un-universalize" binaries, stripping out code that's not for your specific processor.) There is also the issue that no high quality and rigorously tested compilers for PPC architecture are free. Several projects have complained that the GNU compilers are good, but the code is bulky, sometimes inefficient, and occasionally buggy. Further, designing the program is different, as anything for a G4/G5 that is not designed for SIMD vector processing and AltiVec boost will be slower. PPC processors are designed to do lots of short steps in parallel, while x86 does less parallel work, but does more per thread in a given number of clock cycles. That's why the streaming processors in video cards have similarities to PPC architecture, and the Cell processor (PlayStation 3) uses a PPC-based core.

ClimatePrediction.net permanently dropped PPC development (partially because PPC and x86 results didn't quite match, more because of issues getting a good fortran compiler), and Docking@Home's PPC client is on hiatus until they determine if the work required to update the CHARMM engine on PPC is worth the return.

Mike

LizPf Lv 1

I would love to be able to play/help, but I need to be on my PowerBook G4 for several reasons. If there is a way to create a PPC version, please do.

ivanm Lv 1

What about releasing an unsupported PPC version? I just want a chance to play with the damn thing.

And why not make it open-source? That would seem like a perfect match for such an academic project.