I can’t remember if this is new or not from 4.1, but Deadline 5 beta 1 seems to be reporting the wrong processor architecture on our older MacPros:
They are, in fact 64 bit machines (running 10.6.6), but deadline reports them as being ‘i386’. (These are 2007 MacPros, model identify ‘MacPro1,1’).
I’m guessing you’re using uname -a to get the arch? Sadly this only half accurate on OSX. A lot of the early MacPros still run a 32bit kernel, while having 64bit userspace. So while uname is correctly saying that the kernel on those OSX boxes is ‘i386’, they are still x86_64 and run 64bit programs and libraries.
Cheers!
-Matt
Hey Matt,
Thanks for reporting this! We’re using the ‘arch’ command, but I just tested this on a relatively new 64bit Intel Mac Mini running 10.6.6 and I also get i386. So I guess we need to find a better command.
Do you happen to know one off hand? 
Cheers,
Hey Matt,
I did some reading on this, and found some useful links:
superuser.com/questions/161195/r … shows-i386
superuser.com/questions/138314/h … by-default
So unless your Macs are actually booting in 64 bit mode, the architecture will be 32 bit, so technically the data that Deadline is showing is correct. If your Macs support booting in 64 bit mode, you can enable this mode by default, and then Deadline will report x86_64 appropriately.
So now that I’m more familiar with the subject, I’m not sure it makes sense to change how Deadline reports this information. In fact, with the current method, you can see at a glance which Macs are booting in 64 bit mode. This could come in handy if an admin is trying to figure out which machines still need to be configured to boot in the correct mode.
Cheers,
Right, however OSX is a strange beast in that while if the kernel is in 32 bit, userspace can be 64 bit, so 64 bit versions of applications are still being run despite the kernel being 32 bit. So if you want Deadline to force 64 bit binaries, or show 64 bit capable machines, you’d still want those Macs to show up/be used.
Apple only very recently started shipping machines that use the 64 bit kernel by default. I can’t remember why, but I think it had to do with matching 32 and 64 bit EFI that shipped on the hardware (not certain on that)?
Cheers!
-Matt
Deadline doesn’t actually use this architecture value to force the use of 64 bit binaries (in fact, that value has no impact on any Deadline features). We use the ‘file’ command to see if it’s 64-bit capable. And because Deadline is actually showing the correct architecture (even if the machine is 64-bit capable), I’m hesitant to change it.
Cheers,
Gotcha. Hopefully 10.7 will use the 64 bit kernel as default as well, though one can never tell with Apple.
Cheers!
-Matt