Simon,

I never thought that this issue would be so complicated!
So if I understand well, I should try both and see which one is better for my 
use. Am I right?

But as I said, except for a few specific tasks, speed should not be a problem 
for me.

Thanks again for your detailed answers.
Ivan


Le 13 mars 2010 à 18:37, Simon Urbanek a écrit :

> Ivan,
> 
> On Mar 13, 2010, at 7:04 AM, Ivan Calandra wrote:
> 
>> Dear Mac Users,
>> 
>> New on R Mac (MacOS X 10.6), I've used up to now R.app [R.app GUI 1.31 
>> (5537) i386-apple-darwin9.8.0]. 
>> But I've tried R64 [R.app GUI 1.31 (5537) x86_64-apple-darwin9.8.0] and it 
>> also works.
>> 
>> If both work, which one should I use? Is there any difference in terms of 
>> speed for example (which would not be really critical for me since I don't 
>> really handle large datasets) or anything else.
>> 
> 
> There is no clear answer to that. In general, using 32-bit R is a bit safer 
> because not all packages support 64-bit. The main advantage of 64-bit is that 
> you can use more memory (>4GB). Historically, 64-bit R was used only on 
> machines a lot of RAM. As of speed, on the one hand 64-bit instruction set is 
> faster as it can take advantage of new features, but on the other hand it 
> uses twice as much memory for pointers which is slows it down. I have posted 
> some info on the list here a while ago
> http://www.mail-archive.com/r-sig-mac@stat.math.ethz.ch/msg04244.html
> there is no clear winner - there are tasks where one is faster than the other 
> either way.
> 
> In OS X 10.6 all applications are now by default 64-bit so in fact the 
> command line R is 64-bit so Apple's suggestion is to use the R64.app in Snow 
> Leopard -- but it's more about technology than real benefits I think...
> 
> Cheers,
> Simon
> 
> 



--
Ivan CALANDRA
PhD Student
University of Hamburg
Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Institut und Museum
Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3
D-20146 Hamburg, GERMANY
+49(0)40 42838 6231
ivan.calan...@uni-hamburg.de

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