Availability of 64-bit LabVIEW for Mac?

[RipRock99]

Hello world,

A quick search of the forum seems to indicate that there may have been some 64-bit versions of LV for Mac produced, but I can't seem to find any recent posts, or how I might obtain a copy.  Does anyone know if there are versions available, or if NI will produce them at some point?

My primary issue is that when reading in and manipulating data files bigger than 500MB, I get out of memory errors (my machine has 8 GB RAM, and OS X has been 64-bit for some time now). Looking at the Activity Monitor reveals that LV allocates just over 2.1GB when reading binary files of this size (before manipulation and making copies, etc).  This of course is pushing up against the 32-bit limit.  Some of my files are this size or bigger, or may require making copies during data reduction/manipulation, hence the request.

Many thanks,

S-

PS:  I know, I know, I have heard the arguments for MS Windows before, I am mostly seeking an answer to the question, not an explanation of why system X is better than system Y.  FWIW, in my lab, we use Windows (less stable, more software), Macs, and Linux (more stable, less software; does correlation == causation?  Hardly ever 🙂  ).   

[BTreece]

Currently, there is not a 64-bit version of LabVIEW for the Mac platform.  Based on your application, it sounds like you do need the extra memory.  I would suggest that you look into using a Windows platform to take advantage of the 64-bit version of LabVIEW.  I would also suggest that you keep looking at www.ni.com for future updates on releases for LabVIEW 64-bit for Mac.

Brandon Treece

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

[m-s]

Non-windows LabVIEW users like you and me should be patient.

NI's focus is really on windows versions of their software. Mac / Linux are an afterthought. Less featured, longer bug fix cycles. We should be thankful we get anything at all.

Good thing for NI that LabVIEW has no competitors to speak of.

[johnsold]

Brandon,

The posting by m-s is exactly the reason why Mac users should NEVER take the approach you suggest.  If we use Windoze for such applications, NI will decide they do not need to put all the features into the Mac and Linux versions.

I sometimes think all NI sales and marketing personnel should not be allowed to use a Windows computer for a year!

Lynn 

Using LV on the Mac since version 1.2

[RipRock99]

The comment by m-s seemed to be flame bait, so I promised myself I wouldn't respond.  But now that there is another response, let me just add: Seconded!

Happy holidays,

RipRock99

[Ben_01880]

I sold my university's researchers on the grand notion of what the

NI wesite pushes. Cross platform development. I've dropped

over $10,000 believing that they could provide this.

NOT

I've apologized to my superiors for ever believing the carnie barking

crap that the NI sales force puts forward. Go sell cars !

These windoze dups still believe that Apple is about to go

out of business. I'm moving my code base to Java. It's

fast, free, multiplatform, its 64 Bit, it's not floatware,

can play a mpeg, use bluetooth, and not have to wait until

NI get's around to thinking about Mac Users.

Bye, Bye

Ben Wallace

Design Engineer

University Massauchuetts

[Verne_D]

Hi Ben,

I'm getting the feeling that something has happened which has left you frustrated with our Mac support. I'm sorry if we've caused you undue inconvenience, especially if it was due to technical inaccuracies in the documentation that is available online. We make our best effort to keep an accurate record of our products and their compatibility. That said, mistakes do happen and we do our best to fix them. If you ever come upon inaccuracies in documentation, please let us know by commenting on the page or contacting our support staff. 

As this thread was originally discussing, there is a gap between the software which is available for Mac and Windows operating systems. There are a plethora of reasons for that, and many of them are valid topics of debate. The purpose of these forum boards is to provide a space where users of all types can work through issues they encounter or get the opinions of others. We try to foster a professional, constructive environment for all our customers.

As a company, we gather large amounts of very helpful feedback from our customers. One of my favorite parts about the LabVIEW user community is the number of generous, helpful people who love the product and want to see it improved. I regularly encounter customers who go out of their way to demonstrate obscure bugs which we may have missed otherwise. Many of these bugs get fixed and improve each subsequent version of LabVIEW we release. If you have specific questions or concerns that are actionable, please post them in new threads on the topic; the more detail you can provide, the easier for us to investigate the issue. It's very common for a user to post a link with a question about something that seems unclear or misleading. 

I don't know what the goal of your post is exactly. To address the frustrations that Mac software availabilities are less than perfect, we do know that the Mac community of LabVIEW users is left wanting with our current offerings. I'm not sure what else I can contribute other than suggesting to do research to understand the tradeoffs when choosing a development platform. Every language and OS has unique pros and cons; knowing them is always a good idea.

I maintain that in all cases you should choose the language that suits your application and development cycle best. I frequently use LabVIEW because I enjoy using it and find I save tons of time. For the type of application development I do, it makes sense. If your usage of Java solves the problems you face, that's a good thing, and it would be silly of me to suggest you choose the wrong tool. It goes back to pros and cons.

To come back to the point, I'm sorry to hear you (and the other Mac users on this thread) have faced frustration. I don't think my attempt at a didactic post fixes those problems, but I care about LabVIEW and this seemed like a fitting place to remind that we need your help to fix the problems you encounter. We're not always able to get everything done, (notably there still is not a 64-bit version of LabVIEW for Mac) but don't give up on us. We're always trying to figure out the best way to help our customers pursue new goals and we've noticed there is room to grow in Mac.

[Ben_01880]

Damn Verne,

      Where did you learn to write like this.? You should move out of NI and into the state department.

Thank you for your reply. It is my humble opionion that NI has should refocus on enginnering your product

for the PC market and stop listening to marketing types who flip buzzwords about in an attempt to go

beyond a niche market product. I've gotten tired of having to explain to my customers why Labview

can't do very basic things done daily in a normal progamming language. Please don't promise what you

can't deliver, I just makes people mad.

With regerts

Ben

[Verne_D]

Ben,

Thanks for your comment, but I prefer engineering to politics any day. 🙂

I very strongly agree with your statement that promises should only be made if they can be delivered upon. I get as mad as anyone when I feel mislead by overpromising materials about any product. I always try to gather my thoughts and calm down before I call the support line; I find I get the best results when I give them actionable suggestions. Let's suffice to say I'm far more familiar with several large cable/internet providers' support structures than I'd like to be... but I digress. 

For the sake of this topic, I just wanted to make sure the approaches for reporting problems in documentation are documented publicly. There are plenty of documents that need work, but hearing from a customer about specific ones is much easier than scrubbing our ~20k KnowledgeBase entries, as I'm sure you can imagine. There are never enough hours in a day.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[RipRock99]

Hi Verne,

I am not sure where to remind NI of this, but I reported that the "pattern" filter on the File Open VI doesn't work on the Mac (it shows all files, no matter what is put in the pattern input) more than a year ago, yet it has not yet been fixed. While this is a minor problem, and can be worked around by brute force, it is a pain when you are working with large numbers of files.  It was reported under CAR 257244.  While I am not as frustrated as Ben, it's simple details like these that can really matter. Stanard file dialogs are a pretty high level item, and my guess is it would be pretty easy to fix.

Can you let me know what the status is on this item?  

Many thanks,

S-