[OS X TeX] 64 Bit Binaries for TeX Live 2009

[roberto avanzi]

On Dec 10, 2009, at 21:26 , Alan T Litchfield wrote:

> 
> On 11/12/2009, at 5:04 AM, roberto avanzi wrote:
> 
>> On Nov 23, 2009, at 18:06 , Richard Koch wrote:
>> 
>>> Folks,
>> 
>> Wow.  I firmly disagree with the words "minor speed improvement".  While TeXing the current draft german textbook on number theory the total compilation time with the 64-bit binaries halves...
> 
> So, 650 page book with tables, xypic graphics, etc., etc. takes 6 seconds on PPC G5 dual processor, 6Gb RAM. Halve that to 3 seconds. Shucks that not much :/.
> 
> 3 seconds isn't much to save if I am going to be required to upgrade this machine while it still runs perfectly fine.

Well of course.  I am not advocating upgrading at all costs only for improved TeX performance.  But since I finally decided to upgrade, after I checked that all my software was finally working under SL, and also that my hardware worked well as well, I can enjoy that.

Over all, the system seems much nimbler.  Memory consumption of several system processes and apple applications seems to have been reduced (maybe also because of the new memory management) and the laptops paginates less.

 Roberto