OSX - why the heck is it so slow?

[Ben Sheehan]

I recently bought a PB 667 DVI, running OS 10.2. I decided to make a clean break from OS9, since the software I use is all available on OSX now.

Now much to my disgust, I find that my sage g3450 imac runs OS9.0.4 way faster than the 667 DVI powerbook runs OSX.2. Anyone know why OSX is still so slow? Anyone have any tips to make it run faster? I'm getting spinning beachballs when I'm saving MS word docs, it's mind numbing.

I figured apple would be moving forward speed wise with the new operating system, not backwards. Sure I like the fact I'm not having crashes using internet explorer anymore, but why does my machine have to be so sluggish?

[King Cobra]

>(Tiauguinho) When you finish instaling, boot from the Install Cd 1, and in the Instaler Menu, select Disk Utility, select repair permisions, quit the disk utility and then quit the installer.

He said this a while back. So if you have the Jaguar CD, try booting from CD 1, and repair your permissions, to see if anything speeds up.

[dricci]

Did you do an upgrade from say, 10.1? Doing an upgrade seems to slow the system down and break things.

Also, the more ram you have, the better. It *REALLY* helps to have a lot in Mac OS X.

Other than that, things shouldn't be *that* slow... I am setting up a 266 MHz iMac for a family member, and it's really not slow at all (other than at 3D stuff, but that's due to the ancient ATI chip it has)

[arn]

Originally posted by Ben Sheehan

I figured apple would be moving forward speed wise with the new operating system, not backwards. Sure I like the fact I'm not having crashes using internet explorer anymore, but why does my machine have to be so sluggish?

The best thing you can do is max out your RAM.

arn

[cubist]

Arn's right, once you get the PB to 512MB or so, most of your beachballs will be gone.

I will say that a G3-450 iMac is going to be a very fast OS 9 machine. I don't know if you're going to get that feeling of crispness on an OS X machine. But wait until you start trying to do several things at once, like read email and play music while downloading an enormous 10.2.3 update :) ... and I'll bet in a few months you start thinking about how you can add more RAM into the iMac and get it running OS X too!

[DavidFDM]

I have just done a clean install of OS X 10.2.2. After working for a couple of days, I noticed a huge slow down when waking from sleep. Restarting cured this. Also, I have noticed a difficulty booting up with my FireWire devices connected. Now, I just keep them disconnected until I need them. I am hoping maybe 10.2.3 will fix the waking from sleep slowdown problem. The FireWire issue is pretty minor but it would be nice to fix.

[bousozoku]

Virtual memory is vitally important to Mac OS X and, unlike Mac OS 9.x, you can't turn it off. If you have a slow hard drive and less than 512 MB RAM, you're probably going to have a slow system.

I have a PM G3/400 with an Ultra2 SCSI drive and an UltraATA drive. It's twice as fast at folding@home using the Ultra2 SCSI drive. Mac OS X runs quite well.

Doing a repair of disk permissions each week is a good idea.

[Ben Sheehan]

Thanks for these tips, much appreciated. I added 512 MB RAM and things seem marginally faster, though I still get the spinning beach ball when using MS word, mostly when I save. Makes typing a little slow ; ^ ) Maybe this is just the way things are with Office X?

I used Xbench this morning, and the result seems fairly decent considering the machine speed. Could probably do a lot better with a faster HD. I guess it's early days for me with OSX, and I'm still a little misty eyed for the crispyness of the old OS.

Results 77.12
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0b3
System Version 10.2
Physical RAM 768 MB
Processor PowerPC,G4@0 [667 MHz]
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
Bus Frequency 134 MHz
CPU Test 78.67
GCD Recursion 73.63 2.88 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 78.04 263.00 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 83.45 4.53 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 79.56 3.57 Mops/sec
Thread Test 71.93
Computation 43.29 348.75 Kops/sec, 4 threads
Memory Contention 125.31 396.36 MB/sec, 2 threads
Lock Contention 47.19 592.32 Klocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 100.83
System 101.20
Allocate 83.83 44.10 Kalloc/sec
Fill 167.42 960.05 MB/sec
Copy 52.35 314.07 MB/sec
Stream 100.47
Copy 99.30 397.19 MB/sec [altivec]
Scale 101.26 405.05 MB/sec [altivec]
Add 103.79 415.15 MB/sec [altivec]
Triad 97.52 390.06 MB/sec [altivec]
Quartz Graphics Test 78.05
Line 82.61 2.10 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 64.29 4.52 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 84.65 1.95 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 83.57 908.06 beziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 75.12 1.27 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 82.18
Spinning Squares 82.18 57.51 frames/sec
User Interface Test 74.29
Elements 74.29 23.77 refresh/sec
Disk Test 53.91
Sequential 64.01
Uncached Write 53.27 19.83 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 55.18 19.33 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 96.80 14.31 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 50.80 19.05 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 43.82
Uncached Write 30.87 0.52 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 47.56 9.88 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 41.85 0.45 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 54.98 10.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]

[DHagan4755]

Ben,

I don't know what to tell you.

I just finished installing OS X 10.2.3 on a co-worker's Blue and White G3. It's a 350 MHz model. It has over 800 MB of RAM (it's an odd number from the usual G4 amounts), and it's got a 6 GB HD. I installed OS 9.2.2 first. Then I installed Jaguar, applied the update (10.2.3 Combo), and ran a repair of disk permissions from the Disk Utility in the Utilities folder. Lastly, I optimized and rebooted. It runs OS X Jaguar fairly decently. Applications open fairly quickly. I was suprised given it's a G3 at 350 MHz with an ATI 16 MB video card. Word runs well. As does iTunes, iPhoto, and even Photoshop, believe it or not. She only wanted OS 9, but since I was curious, I tried OS X, and I'm going to see if she wants to stay with X after trying it for a while. OS X, didn't however, discover her CD-RW drive. But then again, it couldn't get it to work in OS 9 either.

[springscansing]

Its very simple. You need 512 RAM mininum and Jaguar. Anything else is going to suck. Jaguar is nearly twice as fast as 10.1 it seems, and around 120% the speed of OS 9. Then again, I'm on dualies.

[alex_ant]

In my experience, Office v.X was a dismal performer... Word barely being able to keep up with my 40-or-so wpm typing without lagging behind on a 550MHz G4. I went back to AppleWorks. Word is a dog, iCal is a dog, iTunes is a dog, iPhoto is a dog, Mozilla is a dog... all dogs, but all still good software that will take some getting used to coming from a snappier OS, and that are worth using (in my opinion) even though they are as dogged as they are. RAM will help if that's what's slowing things down, but in my experience, egregious CPU usage is what slows things down more (with 256MB of RAM and 2-3 apps open at once).

Some people have different ideas of what "fast" is. Some people genuinely think that OS X is "faster" than OS 9, and is a great performer on their 300MHz iMacs, and without quantitative measurements, you can't really prove that they're as full of **** as they most likely are, so, oh well. I came to the Mac from a computer that felt much faster (550MHz K6-2 with 256MB), and I was severely annoyed by the slow performance of the Mac until I got used to it. Now, a year later, I'm only mildly annoyed (more than mildly when the system bogs down).

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by Ben Sheehan
Thanks for these tips, much appreciated. I added 512 MB RAM and things seem marginally faster, though I still get the spinning beach ball when using MS word, mostly when I save. Makes typing a little slow ; ^ ) Maybe this is just the way things are with Office X?

I used Xbench this morning, and the result seems fairly decent considering the machine speed. Could probably do a lot better with a faster HD. I guess it's early days for me with OSX, and I'm still a little misty eyed for the crispyness of the old OS.

Results 77.12
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0b3
System Version 10.2
Physical RAM 768 MB
Processor PowerPC,G4@0 [667 MHz]
L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)
Bus Frequency 134 MHz
CPU Test 78.67
GCD Recursion 73.63 2.88 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 78.04 263.00 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 83.45 4.53 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 79.56 3.57 Mops/sec
...


Surprising results. I also have a dual G4/800 (in addition to the G3/400) and i was surprised at the CPU and floating point results.

Results 96.32
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0b2
System Version 10.2.2
Physical RAM 1536 MB
Processor PowerPC,G4@0 [800 MHz]
Processor PowerPC,G4@1 [800 MHz]
CPU Test 102.44
GCD Recursion 99.83 3.90 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 105.84 91.59 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 107.05 552.55 Mflop/sec
Floating Point Library 97.05 4.36 Mops/sec

Your machine seems to be quite a bit faster in floating point and AltiVec operations, but slower overall, due to clock speed. Sounds like your processor is much more efficient. :)

MS Word hasn't been quick since v4.x and that's been a long time.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by bousozoku


Surprising results. I also have a dual G4/800 (in addition to the G3/400) and i was surprised at the CPU and floating point results.

Results 96.32
System Info
Xbench Version 1.0b2
System Version 10.2.2
Physical RAM 1536 MB
Processor PowerPC,G4@0 [800 MHz]
Processor PowerPC,G4@1 [800 MHz]
CPU Test 102.44
GCD Recursion 99.83 3.90 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 105.84 91.59 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 107.05 552.55 Mflop/sec
Floating Point Library 97.05 4.36 Mops/sec

Your machine seems to be quite a bit faster in floating point and AltiVec operations, but slower overall, due to clock speed. Sounds like your processor is much more efficient. :)

MS Word hasn't been quick since v4.x and that's been a long time.

You tested with XBench 1.0B2 and Ben tested his laptop with XBench 1.0B3. It does make a difference. Also remember XBench is not really multiprocessor aware.

[jefhatfield]

the slowness of os x can be solved if apple came out with a home user os x with all the eye candy gui, and a more streamlined pro version...less pretty but faster for better productivity

that way, one can choose

right now, all os x people have to live with the ram hungry gui of aqua

[pianojoe]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
the slowness of os x can be solved if apple came out with a home user os x with all the eye candy gui, and a more streamlined pro version...less pretty but faster for better productivity

that way, one can choose

right now, all os x people have to live with the ram hungry gui of aqua

There's grillions of Aqua replacements out there taxing quartz much less.

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by MacBandit


You tested with XBench 1.0B2 and Ben tested his laptop with XBench 1.0B3. It does make a difference. Also remember XBench is not really multiprocessor aware.

I'll download the newer version and re-test but I don't think the AltiVec basic test is going to come out that much faster. Ben's is over 8 times as fast in that test...that's huge!

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by bousozoku


I'll download the newer version and re-test but I don't think the AltiVec basic test is going to come out that much faster. Ben's is over 8 times as fast in that test...that's huge!

Trust me it will. Take a look at my system tested before with 1.0b2 and after with 1.0b3.


Results 128.34

System InfoXbench Version 1.0b2
System Version 10.2.1
Physical RAM 1024 MB
ProcessorPowerPC,G4 @ 0 [1000 MHz]
ProcessorPowerPC,G4 @ 1 [1000 MHz]

CPU Test 136.33
GCD Recursion 125.06 4.88 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 137.69 119.15 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 160.57 828.86 Mflop/sec
Floating Point Library 121.99 5.48 Mops/sec


---------------------------------------------------------------


Results 134.076279

System InfoXbench Version 1.0b3
System Version 10.2.2
Physical RAM 1024 MB
ProcessorPowerPC,G4 @ 0 [1000 MHz] L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data) Bus Frequency 167 MHz
ProcessorPowerPC,G4 @ 1 [1000 MHz] L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)Bus Frequency 167 MHz

CPU Test 125.601578
GCD Recursion 125.945030 4.92 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 126.446327 426.18Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 128.196152 6.95 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 121.818771 5.47 Mops/sec

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by Ben Sheehan
Now much to my disgust, I find that my sage g3450 imac runs OS9.0.4 way faster than the 667 DVI powerbook runs OSX.2.

Ben, the truth is that Apple doesn't make a machine that can run OSX as fast as a 300mHz G3 runs OS9 (especially if they are similarily equipped). There are tips for making it run faster and its multitasking will allow you to get more things done at once, but for now we've all come to accept that OSX is just a bit sluggish- just a few too many .5 second delays in the Finder. It seems to get marginally better with every update, but I'm guessing that between Aqua's overhead and the OS's reliance on virtual memory, OSX will never achieve a seemingly instantaneous response time.

There are those that say OSX is indeed faster than OS9 on their machines, but I write that off to perception or a strange coincidental quirk that causes those machines to slow down the moment I touch them.

Use and abuse OSX's multi-tasking abilities to make up for all those lost fractions of seconds. That's what OSX does best. - j

[Tommy!]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
the slowness of os x can be solved if apple came out with a home user os x with all the eye candy gui, and a more streamlined pro version...less pretty but faster for better productivity

that way, one can choose

right now, all os x people have to live with the ram hungry gui of aqua


i couldnt agree with you more.

apple could implement the ability to choose a more pretty but more taxing or less pretty but less taxing interface as well.

its all about the choices :)

[janey]

If you think that Word v.x is slow when you're typing 40wpm, just imagine the quagmire that I'm in because I can type nearly 100wpm and Word practically crashes. You know, there are alternatives to Office, such as OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org ) and ThinkFree Office.

Get more RAM. It's the best way to speed up your Mac.

If you think Aqua is really that bad, you obviously have never seen how ram hungry Windows is. And there is an alternative to using Aqua that's on your Mac right now (assuming you have jaguar or something). Go to the login screen and type in ">console" and press enter (omit the password). Now, do you think that's ram hungry?

[mymemory]

OS 9.0.4 was the fastes version ever for some reason, if you upgrade it to 9,1 it will slow down. Or if you change it to any other clasic OS version and looks like OSX version too.

I'm telling you this because I had my pismo with OS 9.2 and a friend of mine let me his pismo with the same hardware configuration but it was significally faster and he told me it was the OS 9.0.4. I got my secund pismo later on and installed the 9.0.4 and it was fast as well. There was something in that versión that goes very fast and is very light. At list opening windows and starting up the system, the rest I can't tell you much.

[DHagan4755]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
Ben, the truth is that Apple doesn't make a machine that can run OSX as fast as a 300mHz G3 runs OS9 (especially if they are similarily equipped).My god, that's pure b.s. I would say OS X Jaguar runs as fast or better than OS 9. I use an iMac G3 500 MHz at work with OS 9. At home, I have a PowerMac G4/933 running OS X. There's no way in hell that my Power Mac G4/933 running OS X is slower than my work iMac in OS 9! Mac OS X is so much more flexible.

[Fukui]

OS X is a little slower but that is because it is loaded down with supplying support for so many frameworks (Cocoa, Carbon, Java, BSD) on top of that, there is the combination of Quartz/Quickdraw (Quickdraw being used on carbon) with qaurtz sucking up the CPU quite a bit with anti-aliasing, interpolation, per-pixel transparency, and calculating all that at 32-bit color, having the CPU do all that compositing can slow things down (quartz ex only handles the UI once it as been rendered by software first, so it still is depending on the CPU).

Carbon is also a little strange because it is basically the old mac framework (called the toolbox?) updated to run on top of mach kernel, and since it is so old, it didn't really make the transition so well, therefore your problems with Word/Office are not unique...
If you wan't to see how good Cocoa can be though you should see the Chimera web browser...very fast.

I got my system much faster by doing a completely fresh install, and only installing the langauges/drivers/apps I need, on a separate partition. I put my user folder in a another, and offloaded the Virtual Memory (swapfile) to a different partition (I hear linux does VM this way too), so all in all I have 3 paritions on my drive.

512 MB of RAM does also make a difference.
I also have seen that throwing away the Library folder (on your home folder) may help too.

You can learn how to do that on web sites like macosxhints.com and xlr8yourmac.com

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by MacBandit


Trust me it will. Take a look at my system tested before with 1.0b2 and after with 1.0b3.


Results 128.34

System InfoXbench Version 1.0b2
System Version 10.2.1
Physical RAM 1024 MB
ProcessorPowerPC,G4 @ 0 [1000 MHz]
ProcessorPowerPC,G4 @ 1 [1000 MHz]

CPU Test 136.33
GCD Recursion 125.06 4.88 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 137.69 119.15 Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 160.57 828.86 Mflop/sec
Floating Point Library 121.99 5.48 Mops/sec


---------------------------------------------------------------


Results 134.076279

System InfoXbench Version 1.0b3
System Version 10.2.2
Physical RAM 1024 MB
ProcessorPowerPC,G4 @ 0 [1000 MHz] L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data) Bus Frequency 167 MHz
ProcessorPowerPC,G4 @ 1 [1000 MHz] L1 Cache 32K (instruction), 32K (data)Bus Frequency 167 MHz

CPU Test 125.601578
GCD Recursion 125.945030 4.92 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 126.446327 426.18Mflop/sec
AltiVec Basic 128.196152 6.95 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 121.818771 5.47 Mops/sec

Okay, you've convinced me that XBench is garbage and not to be trusted.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by bousozoku


Okay, you've convinced me that XBench is garbage and not to be trusted.

It is a decent way to compare cpu to cpu. But you have to use the same version number. Also it will not tell you any accurate MB/s or GFlops/s. Just ignore that part just use the numbers it gives to compare your machine to another. Just remember it is not really dual processor aware.

[benixau]

Originally posted by bousozoku


Okay, you've convinced me that XBench is garbage and not to be trusted.

Not really, you tell me a better way to measure your system performance.

XBench is pretty good and when it becomes DP aware we will have an excellent benching program.

XBench gets more accurate with each release. Yay for XBench :D

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by benixau


Not really, you tell me a better way to measure your system performance.


Personal satisfaction with it. Is it fast enough for what you need it to do? Do you have frustrating delays?

I can see how such a tool might help with diagnosing a weakness within a machine, but it all seems like weiner-show to me. The subjective experience is far more important than the objective one. I hear people talking about how OSX feels as snappy as OS9 and I wonder what they're smoking, but truth is, if they see it that way and it makes them happy- more power to them. All the bragging about how fast your Dual 1.25gHz machines are does nothing to make them respond faster once I'm behind the keyboard.

Satisfaction is the only thing that matters. - j;)

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle


Personal satisfaction with it. Is it fast enough for what you need it to do? Do you have frustrating delays?

I can see how such a tool might help with diagnosing a weakness within a machine, but it all seems like weiner-show to me. The subjective experience is far more important than the objective one. I hear people talking about how OSX feels as snappy as OS9 and I wonder what they're smoking, but truth is, if they see it that way and it makes them happy- more power to them. All the bragging about how fast your Dual 1.25gHz machines are does nothing to make them respond faster once I'm behind the keyboard.

Satisfaction is the only thing that matters. - j;)


I think that in general the people that are complaining about speed are using outdated hardware. That is hardware that was released before 10.1. Anything after meets all the requirements for Quartz Extreme and runs OSX just fine. No in some cases it may not be as fast as OS9 but it doesn't lag. There is no way anyone on this earth could type fast enough on my Dual/GHz/DDR with 10.2 to make it lag. I type in excess of 80WPM when I get into it and I have never seen it lag.

I agree though that satisfaction is the only true measurement and if you are unhappy with 10.2 it is probably due to having older hardware and you should be using 0S9. If this is the case please quit complaining I'm sick of unfounded whinning.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
The subjective experience is far more important than the objective one.

i agree, but i think that having data to back up that subjective opinion is valuable.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by MacBandit

There is no way anyone on this earth could type fast enough on my Dual/GHz/DDR with 10.2 to make it lag. I type in excess of 80WPM when I get into it and I have never seen it lag.


in what program? MS Word?

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by zimv20


in what program? MS Word?

Any program. Even Word X feels fast on this machine.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by MacBandit


Any program. Even Word X feels fast on this machine.

a friend of mine complains endlessly about how slow his 600 MHz iBook is.

i finally played around w/ it and found that the only complaint is that, sometimes while typing in Word for X, there'll be a one to three second pause while he's typing.

i suggested he turn off all the auto stuff: spell check, caps, saving, whatever there is.

did you do these things? or is Word X so bloated that it needs a supercomputer to keep up w/ a human typing? (what a sad state of affairs _that_ would be)

[tacomancini]

Definitely get into Chimera as your main browser, although IE seems to have sped up dramatically due to the 10.2.3 update. Window resizing seems quicker too for IE. Still, if webbrowsing is a large part of you OS experience I think chimera is a godsend. Also, Ram Ram Ram, as you did do. But also a clean install of Jag on a clean disk. I also here a good disk optimize can help as jag is messy with files. But on my system things are slow.... without QE. I missed that boat on my ibook. I was checking out xp machines the other day, and yes they are pretty speedy, but they still look kind of shoddy. Window resizing and menu responsiveness still loom as the number one offenders of X's seemingly slugginess. I guess I can understand the menus, as the finder now is sharing the processor actions and playing nice with the other apps... but window resizing, if xp can do it there has to be a way..... Mail is a superdog... as is ical in that deptment. I have found that using the maximize has taken over as my way of focusing on a window, but for those times where it would be great to have ichat and mail or explorer side by side, wish those windows would wake up.

[Megaquad]

Ok, I opened a blank file in Word, it didnt lagged or anything while having iTunes+viz opened.
Then I opened some catalog and hold some key in the middle of text..it goes very slow, about 1 fps.
It is not problem with Word X, paste lots of text to any non-m$ application and I guarantee you it will be slow as hell on all oldish macs.

It takes lots of CPU power to paste text on OS X, must be because of crappy PDF GUI system.
PDF was always slowest thing on macs, and now they make whole GUI based on PDF...lol

Too much delays in interface.
We should send our prayers to Cupertino, ehh.
They want us to buy new macs..

Does anyone know how would 667 MHz DVI Ti compare to 1 GHz or 867 MHz ones? In architecture they aren't so different.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by MacBandit



I think that in general the people that are complaining about speed are using outdated hardware. That is hardware that was released before 10.1. Anything after meets all the requirements for Quartz Extreme and runs OSX just fine...I agree though that satisfaction is the only true measurement and if you are unhappy with 10.2 it is probably due to having older hardware and you should be using 0S9. If this is the case please quit complaining I'm sick of unfounded whinning.

Outdated hardware is that which was released before 10.1? Outdated for what? Running an OS? I don't think an OS should be the most resource demanding program on a machine.

Is it not possible to note the insufficiencies of OSX without it being called whining? Perhaps I like OSX and use it on "outdated hardware" and get more work done with it because of its multi-tasking abilities and stability. That doesn't mean that I have to ignore that it takes a fraction of a second longer to create a new folder, change the name of a folder or file, scroll, etc. I'm not perfect either, but my wife still loves me!:D

Those who defend OSX as being the epitome of perfection in an OS, those who refuse to acknowledge where it falls short, those who valiantly defend every accusation of mediocrity (no matter how valid)... ought to examine exactly whom they think their blinded praise is benefitting. Certainly not Apple or OSX's users who can only benefit from such criticism. Apple needs to know what needs improving- even (and especially) from fans.

OSX- nice, but there's room for improvement.

[benixau]

I used to use OS 9. Then i got OS X.

Now i am running Finder, iTunes 3, Mail, World Clock, Christmas Tree, CPU Monitor, MSN Messenger (its pop in aus) and chimera + a whole load of menu bar extras as well as having nortons crap in the background.

Try all that in 9. no way.

So X takes 1/16 sec. longer to make a folder or browse a big folder. SO!!! i can do 100 other things at the same time.

Lots of +, few -.

I know what i boot.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by benixau

So X takes 1/16 sec. longer to make a folder or browse a big folder. SO!!! i can do 100 other things at the same time.


You're missing the point. When focusing on a single creative endeavor, minute pauses interrupt one's rythem. ID2 is the worst offender, with Ill10 not far behind. PS7 is the best of the Adobe apps, but adding new layers, renaming them, adding type - ANYTHING you do in an OSX native Adobe app takes longer than it does in OS9. You could blame this on Adobe, but the same kind of pauses exist in OSX's Finder, they're just not as important to one's flow as they are when designing or illustrating.

Yes, yes, yes.... We all get the idea that you can have 500 things going on at once in OSX, but that can't excuse the lags when you need to do 1 thing well. This deficiency is not enough to send me back to OS9, but that doesn't mean I need to "drink the Kool-Aid". Repeat after me- "OSX still needs some work".

Feel better? Great! Now we can all get back to our multitasking lives...:D

[BillGates]

We have 30 new Dual 1Ghz machines, 2GB RAM. All are identical hardware but only one is running 10.2. Everyone in the department keeps asking me why the OS X box is FASTER! Weird huh? Too bad we're getting screwed by Quark or they would all be running OS X.

[Falleron]

Originally posted by BillGates
We have 30 new Dual 1Ghz machines, 2GB RAM. All are identical hardware but only one is running 10.2. Everyone in the department keeps asking me why the OS X box is FASTER! Weird huh? Too bad we're getting screwed by Quark or they would all be running OS X.
You should get those computers running folding for us :) .

Also, I have never updated my permissions in all the time that I have been using OSX (since OSX.1.2). I do get the spinning balls sometime, but not frequently. Should I bother?

[jefhatfield]

the high tech field will always move forward in a way that the software techies will make increasingly ram hungry software so that the hardware side techies will have to make more ram, better ram, better video cards, and faster processors

the consumer who hangs onto his machine over two years becomes the loser, so we are forced to buy a new desktop or laptop every 24 months to keep up if we want to effectively run the latest os and apps in a timely fashion

i could put os x on my three year old ibook, but it just would not work fast enough for me to want to go thru the experience...the machine tops out at 160 mb of ram

i would not do osx on anything less than half a gig if i had to also run photoshop or a decent game

[mnkeybsness]

the only time i feel that OS X is really lagging me behind is when i have to connect to the internet with dial-up (obviously)...but it's the only time i really see the beachball...for some reason mail and ichat don't start up as fast and then it takes forever to connect ARG...oh yah...and i would really like better AVI and DIVX support for OSX...i see the beachball when i click on a DIVX movie if i am in the directory view with previews...the previews seem to take forever to load

[Schlomo]

... is absolutely unbearable for me on a g4 500 with 192 ram. I am going to stick a 512 stick in there after xmas. I recently added a 40gb hdd, but I am using it as a secondary drive, to run OS9, and to store mp3s/photos etc. Would it be better to run OSX from this drive? it is a 7200, but I think the stock drive was as well.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Schlomo
... is absolutely unbearable for me on a g4 500 with 192 ram. I am going to stick a 512 stick in there after xmas. I recently added a 40gb hdd, but I am using it as a secondary drive, to run OS9, and to store mp3s/photos etc. Would it be better to run OSX from this drive? it is a 7200, but I think the stock drive was as well.

It is better to run OSX on a large hard drive with lots of room. Also the extra RAM should help a lot.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by zimv20


a friend of mine complains endlessly about how slow his 600 MHz iBook is.

i finally played around w/ it and found that the only complaint is that, sometimes while typing in Word for X, there'll be a one to three second pause while he's typing.

i suggested he turn off all the auto stuff: spell check, caps, saving, whatever there is.

did you do these things? or is Word X so bloated that it needs a supercomputer to keep up w/ a human typing? (what a sad state of affairs _that_ would be)

No I did not turn anything off. How much RAM does he have?

I personally avoid all Microsoft products so my personal experience for Word is somewhat old. The only time I ever used it was the Demo version.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle


Outdated hardware is that which was released before 10.1? Outdated for what? Running an OS? I don't think an OS should be the most resource demanding program on a machine.

Is it not possible to note the insufficiencies of OSX without it being called whining? Perhaps I like OSX and use it on "outdated hardware" and get more work done with it because of its multi-tasking abilities and stability. That doesn't mean that I have to ignore that it takes a fraction of a second longer to create a new folder, change the name of a folder or file, scroll, etc. I'm not perfect either, but my wife still loves me!:D

Those who defend OSX as being the epitome of perfection in an OS, those who refuse to acknowledge where it falls short, those who valiantly defend every accusation of mediocrity (no matter how valid)... ought to examine exactly whom they think their blinded praise is benefitting. Certainly not Apple or OSX's users who can only benefit from such criticism. Apple needs to know what needs improving- even (and especially) from fans.

OSX- nice, but there's room for improvement.

What I consider whinning is when someone a) is using new software system or otherwise on an old computer and they complain about how slow it is. This is not the programs fault. They want all the new features and cool stuff but they don't want to upgrade to use it. B) As in your case you're knowingly using OSX on an older machine and complaining about how slow it is. I agree that OSX has a long way to go and yes it could be a lot faster even on my machine but it is very useable on anything produced in the last 1 1/2 years. I don't feel you have anythign to complaing about if you know that you are running it on a system that really can't support it but you do anyway.

Personally I do believe there are a lot of honest complaints. For example iPhoto plain sucks for handling 10s of thousands of photos. This I feel is a big error on Apples part. The program is designed pretty much specifically for digital cameras and anyone who has a digital camera knows that it takes a very short while to have tons and tons of photos.

Also OSX does a very poor job of sharring photos and music between multiple users on the same system.

Yes there are a lot of things to complain about but if you go into it knowing you are running a system that is not really supported on your hardware I don't feel you have any grounds for complaint when you it runs slow for you.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by MacBandit

What I consider whinning is when someone a) is using new software system or otherwise on an old computer and they complain about how slow it is. This is not the programs fault. They want all the new features and cool stuff but they don't want to upgrade to use it. B) As in your case you're knowingly using OSX on an older machine and complaining about how slow it is. I agree that OSX has a long way to go and yes it could be a lot faster even on my machine but it is very useable on anything produced in the last 1 1/2 years. I don't feel you have anythign to complaing about if you know that you are running it on a system that really can't support it but you do anyway.

Yes there are a lot of things to complain about but if you go into it knowing you are running a system that is not really supported on your hardware I don't feel you have any grounds for complaint when you it runs slow for you.

Mac OS X Version 10.2 requires a Power Mac G3, G4, G4 Cube; iMac; PowerBook G3, G4; iBook; or eMac computer; at least 128MB of physical RAM and a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card. Mac OS X does not support the original PowerBook G3 or processor upgrade cards. Verify your hardware is supported from the list below.

Supported Machines (http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.html)

On a personal note:

A) Discussing shortcomings is neither complaining or whining by default. I use OSX on my home machine by choice (I like it), thereby compromising my right to complain, but not to discuss or debate.

B) You've made the assumption that my total experience is based on using my G3 at home. Not only do I have a G4 at work, but I have 2 independant Apple dealers within walking distance and an Apple store 20 mins. away. Yes, the new machines are faster, but not enough for me to buy one yet.

We all want the same thing here: Great Macs and a great OS. Merry Christmas!!

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle


Mac OS X Version 10.2 requires a Power Mac G3, G4, G4 Cube; iMac; PowerBook G3, G4; iBook; or eMac computer; at least 128MB of physical RAM and a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card. Mac OS X does not support the original PowerBook G3 or processor upgrade cards. Verify your hardware is supported from the list below.

Supported Machines (http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.html)

On a personal note:

A) Discussing shortcomings is neither complaining or whining by default. I use OSX on my home machine by choice (I like it), thereby compromising my right to complain, but not to discuss or debate.

B) You've made the assumption that my total experience is based on using my G3 at home. Not only do I have a G4 at work, but I have 2 independant Apple dealers within walking distance and an Apple store 20 mins. away. Yes, the new machines are faster, but not enough for me to buy one yet.

We all want the same thing here: Great Macs and a great OS. Merry Christmas!!

I'm not trying to fight about this but I do know what Apple states as supported hardware but then there is what we know is really supported hardware. Apple is covering there butts because of past statments and to keep the masses from hanging them.

I was not making an assumption that the only machine you had was G3 I was simply going by the information you provided me. I too do not feel it is improper to discuss any shortcomings of OSX but I do feel it is annoying for someone not necessarily you (for some reason you have taken this personal) to complain about how sluggish it is if they are running old hardware.

I guess it's one thing if someone has real complaints and another if they are just plain being stupid.

I am no way was ever pointing you out or trying to attack you personally for some reason you have treated it that way though. I was just trying to make a point with my original post that there are a lot of people whinning about speed that have no real basis in reality because the problem is not with OSX but there machine.

[janey]

Instead of whining about how 10.2 lags with various programs (such as Word) why not complain bout Quark? The only reason why I'm using classic is because Quark hasn't come out with an OS X version.

Thanks a lot Quark!

[UnixMac]

lets not confuse the speed of the OS 9 GUI and OS X GUI, with the speed of the OS.... OS X, especially on a Duel Processor machine smokes OS 9.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by UnixMac
lets not confuse the speed of the OS 9 GUI and OS X GUI, with the speed of the OS.... OS X, especially on a Duel Processor machine smokes OS 9.

I think Apple fully expected to be going to dual processor machines. In my oppinion dual processor machines make since even with higher speed processors. Since each processor can basically on take on one task at a time by adding a second processor you can in effect run two tasks simultaneously. This in some ways can show speed advantages that even a double or higher speed processor can not. I know two processors don't equal one of double speed but that mainly applies to a single task. How many people perform a single taks anymore? The answer is none. Even when you have no applications open the system is still running more then one task at a time.

[gotohamish]

You have to think about the bigger picture (until OSX is as crisp as 9)...

How long does it take me to do things and find things?

Navigation of the entire system is so good and clear and logical that it wipes OS9 off the board - sure it feels snappier, but it probably takes you longer to do the things you want.

H

[Falleron]

I agree, I have been using OSX since the beginning of the year (10.1.2 or so). Anyway, I cant stand using OS9 anymore because of all the unwanted pauses and crashes. I think that overall, OSX saves so much time.

[backspinner]

Multitasking really rocks!

I tried to crash a said problematic emac (G4, 700MHz, 640MB) by overloading it with tasks. The result? 80 applications open (all I could find on the HD), 260 threads running, 6GB swap file, and still was iTunes playing and importing CD, was VirtualPC running usable, was I playing .mac games, while using dial-in.

One drawback: the dock becomes kind of problematic with so many apps listed...