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;CPU Processor Addressing - 32-bit | 64-bit
64-bit CPUs offer a significant leap over 32-bit CPUs. The main advantage is that 32-bit CPUs can only address 4GB of memory, whereas 64-bit CPUs can address 16 Exabytes of memory (far more than is physically possible in a modern PC). However, this is not the only advantage. Often overlooked is the fact that 64-bit CPUs have a more modern design, with a modern CPU instruction set. They can often perform the same tasks faster and more efficiently than 32-bit CPUs.
Macs first transitioned to use 64-bit CPUs with the PPC G5. There was no compatibility issues at the time, because the G5 had 32-bit backwards compatibility built-in. But IBM and Motorola (who designed and produced the PPC chips) had lost interest in further developing desktop or laptop CPUs, so Apple had little choice but to transition to using x86 processors. The Intel Core Duo processors were much more power-efficient in terms of performance-per-watt, but they were just 32-bit. So when Apple introduced Core Duo Macs, they sacrificed the advantages of 64-bit. This only lasted a couple of years, as the next generation of Macs shipped with Core 2 Duo CPUs, which were 64-bit. The next major event for Mac compatibility was the dropping of support for 32-bit x86 software in macOS 10.15 Catalina. Even though Macs had 64-bit support for a very long time, most 3rd-party developers did not update their games or apps to be 64-bit compatible. So a large number of apps and games would cease to work on Catalina.
It pains me to delete this section, but I have to admit that it is not relevant...
Apple also introduced Universal Binaries that bundle software for different architectures into a single app bundle. For example, Universal 2 app bundles contain x64 and Arm versions of software in one app. This is very useful for portability, or for people who don't know or care about their Mac's specs. If you know what CPU your Mac has, the advantage of getting the specific version for your CPU is that it will have a smaller file size than the universal binary. However the size difference is usually tiny, so just using the universal binary is usually the way to go.
;Graphical Backend - OpenGL | MoltenVK | Metal
