A Perfect X: Apple's future is tied to OS X. Should yours be? (Special Report).

APPLE COMPUTER has dubbed its latest operating system, Os X, a "modern" OS. What exactly does that mean for multimedia producers and Mac users in general? To evaluate and understand OS X, users must look at a variety of issues. Does your key application run on OS X? If so, does it run any better than it did under OS 9? What are its implications for multimedia professionals in the short- and long-term future?

Migrating to a new operating system can be difficult, but the payoff is increased performance: faster preview speeds; faster rendering times for graphics, animation and video effects; and increased stability and ease of use. These are all factors to consider when evaluating any OS upgrade.

The worst experience a user can have is to go through a troublesome upgrade only to reap little or no added benefit.

The Kernel

The core of an operating system is called a kernel. The kernel for OS X is called Darwin, and it uses a version of Unix called Berkeley Software Distribution. Unix is an operating system with many variants such as Sun Solaris, SGI IRIX, Linux, AIX (from IBM) and True64 (from Compaq.) Unix runs Web servers, mainframes, supercomputers and workstations used by rocket scientists. SGI IRIX is used by 3D animators and special-effects artists.

Unix offers several features that make it powerful and stable, including protected memory pre-emptive multitasking, virtual memory and real-time support. Protected memory means that one application cannot use up all of a system's RAM and cause a crash. With OS 9 and earlier, a single application can cause the entire system to freeze and require a restart, rendering even the force-quit function useless. Thankfully, as the Mac OS has improved, it has become more stable; OS X, however, presents a new level of stability.

Pre-emptive multitasking allows the system to efficiently schedule the use of the processor for each running application and its requested task. This speeds up many processor-intensive tasks by maxing out the available processor power whenever possible and then surrendering the processor to a different task if the OS decides it is more important.

A key feature is the ability to harness the power of multiple processors. Mac 0S 9 does not offer that kind of support and, as a result, a dual-processor G4 machine running 0S 9 does almost nothing faster than a single-processor G4. With OS X, tasks such as rendering 3D objects can be spread across multiple processors--providing significantly faster render times.

Macs have had virtual memory for many years, but OS X offers advanced virtual memory. Virtual memory helps to pull files and data from storage into RAM as needed. Wouldn't it be great if the OS could do this so quickly …