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Catfish_Man

macrumors 68030
Sep 13, 2001
2,579
2
Portland, OR
The stuff in the 10.2 video...

...looked like a 10.1.x update, not a 10.x update. It just isn't big enough, compared to the 10.1 update. I think that was much more likely to be 10.1.3.
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
Speed enhancements?

Yawn, yawn - yeah. I'll say it again. Any speed enhancements in this release? The slowest current mac is an iBook at 500mhz on a 66mhz bus. Word for X crawls on a 500mhz iMac, so it'll be slower still on the iBook. This is unnacceptable. On a Windows 95 Pentium I there's no lag when just typing in word!

OS X isn't hugely snappy on a 733 Quicksilver. This is why I'm not buying a machine right now. I can't believe I need to buy a dual 1ghz Mac just to get some of the snappiness you get on a cheap iMac running OS 9.

Freehand for X is dementedly slow
VPC is much slower
Illustrator isn't great and Canvas is - whoo hoo - ok!
Filemaker 5.5 is great on X
 
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Edge100

Guest
Word X doesnt crawl on my 500MHz iBook. Sure, its not as speedy as Word 2001 in 9.2.1, but its certainly acceptable. I'm willing to put up with the slight lag to gain the features of X. That said, I'd love a speed bump.
 

trinitishwar

macrumors member
Nov 13, 2001
46
0
Gainesville, Fl
Need for speed

I have office v.X on an 400Mhz iMac and have not noticed any particular lag when typing. Even when the documents are several hundred pages long. But a speed increase would be nice for system functions.
 
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Edge100

Guest
One other thing, you cant expect that todays equipment, whatever the machine is, will run OSX at the same speeds as 9. OS 9 is built on almost 20 years of optimization. Think about how slow 9 would run on, say, a circa 1997 mid-range PowerMac. Sure, it would be acceptable, but not really snappy. Just like OSX. In fact, I would say that in relative terms, were getting quite good performance out of X, given that the thing is less than 1 year old. Again, 9.2.1 flies on my iMac 600, but X is more than acceptable. Even running Illustrator X, its not unacceptable. Satisfactory is the best description.
 

Falleron

macrumors 68000
Nov 22, 2001
1,609
0
UK
Its a simple question! Do you want an outdated system (OS9), or do you want a more advanced system (OSX) that has the potential that OS9 could never have?? It will get quicker as its optimised and functions are added.
 

mmcneil

macrumors regular
Sep 4, 2001
222
62
Indianapolis, IN
Office Slow on 500 MHz iBook??

What part is slow? I am using a 400 Mhz BK and for most tasks Word runs just fine, either in Classic or the Test Drive. How much memory do you have? The 128M recommendation is way toooooo small, you end up with LOTS of swap space files, which could explain the slowness. I am currently running with 320M and I still occaisionally get 2-3 Swap files in normal use. VPC drives the machine to the limit of my current swap space (500M) easily.

I have configured my machine with a separate swap partition and it makes a difference - no fragmentation and no searching by the OS for its swap files. I have the instructions if you are interested, it really isn't hard.

You may need to do a little grooming of your machine. Consider using Speed Disk, Disk Warrior, and TechTool to optimize the disk, directories, and desktop.

I actually find that Word start up as fast or faster in Classic as it does in 9.
 

sparkleytone

macrumors 68020
Oct 28, 2001
2,307
0
Greensboro, NC
all i REALLY want, as flamed as it may get me...is different color appearances. We have all seen the green apple logos and the red apple logos, etc. I just want more of those "themes".

you know? in the systemprefs/general tab.
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
On my iBook 466SE Word v.X is only acceptable fast in larger documents if i turn off processorconsuming features like on-the-fly spell checking, word count, etc... So it really feels like a downgrade running X... Also, the the font smoothing in X is horrible with the low screen resolution (800x600) of these "old" (1year) ibooks..
 

edenwaith

macrumors 6502a
Aug 7, 2001
689
90
When I tried the Word X Test Drive, now THAT was pretty slow. It got bad enough that I just didn't even bother with it, and translated the Word documents I received as e-mails to AppleWorks.

OS X certainly isn't as fast as OS 9, and my guess is because of the drawing processes. I would agree that more speed improvements would be nice. What I'd optimially like to see is the hardware and software getting far enough apart that the OS can be started up in less than 30 seconds. When I started up my old Mac SE with System 6, it started up from the time I flipped the power to being completely loaded in 25 seconds. Now if System 6 could be loaded onto a new Mac, think how fast it possibly could start!

I also agree that more Themes under OS X would be great. The one area where Windows has the Mac beat is in the ability to customize the look of the interface. And then there is Linux, which has tons of different looks, where even the widgets get a different look, not just the background and a few sounds.
 

mmcneil

macrumors regular
Sep 4, 2001
222
62
Indianapolis, IN
Office Test Drive vs Word Test Drive

I also didn't like the Word Test Drive, but the Office Test Drive is very responsive, I have been using for about a week. Now I have to convince someone to buy me a copy :).
 

Jookbox

macrumors 6502
Jan 19, 2002
395
0
i'm using OSX on a G3. aside from the slow window resizing, and extra time needed to boot up with 'classic' running in the backgrond, i'm happy with it.

who said you needed a dual 1GHz? that's just crazy talk.
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
Why blame OS for slow applications?

Why does Mac OS X get blamed for the fact that Word doesn't perform? From what I've learnt about
computers, its usually the applications fault if it runs slowly. And on a Unix system, it is most of
the time quite simple to find out whether the OS is slow or the application.

This doesn't mean all the applications included in Mac OS X are fully optimized. And it doesn't mean
that there is no potential for improvement in the OS kernel and libraries either. But my overall
impression is that the system itself isn't as bad as some people would like it to be. I guess the
problem is that not many programmers have learnt to write really good code for the new OS yet.
The system is different from most other systems, it needs to be programmed differently.

And maybe some users need to learn how to set up a performing Unix system. Don't be surprised if
these requirements turn out to be different from what worked for Mac OS 9.

Ok, I admit that Classic and Carbon are totally irrelevant for me, I'm only interested in Cocoa
applications, and don't run anything else. And I would like Apple to fix some known bugs:
Unix process priorities and two-way services to name just two.

The whole discussion reminds me of the Rolls Royce salesman who replied to a customer curious about
how fast the car would be: "As fast as you please, Sir." Is speed really that important? What do you
prefer: a sound design like the Mac OS X or the shabby foundation of the Windows family (or Mac
OS 9, for that matter)? I certainly prefer the Rolls Royce over the VW Golf GTI!
 
U

Unregistered

Guest
Re: Why blame OS for slow applications?

Originally posted by Unregistered
Why does Mac OS X get blamed for the fact that Word doesn't perform? From what I've learnt about
computers, its usually the applications fault if it runs slowly. And on a Unix system, it is most of
the time quite simple to find out whether the OS is slow or the application.

Well, Aqua is a big part of the slowdown. There's simply more calculations to make if you're constantly alpha channel transitions and "eye candy" like that.


This doesn't mean all the applications included in Mac OS X are fully optimized. And it doesn't mean
that there is no potential for improvement in the OS kernel and libraries either. But my overall
impression is that the system itself isn't as bad as some people would like it to be. I guess the
problem is that not many programmers have learnt to write really good code for the new OS yet.
The system is different from most other systems, it needs to be programmed differently.

Well Apple should get going on optimizing the Finder! Finder is where you'll usually find me cursing Apple! They need to optimize the folder refreshing: opening a folder with 200 items can bring Finder to a halt for a minute! And they need to take advantage of multithreading for godsake! Accessing a network drive means I can't access the local drives.

From the looks of the Jaguar (10.2) videos, Apple's starting to address this. Did anybody notice the combined pointer/rainbow cursor in the finder_preview.mov file? I'd guess that should signify "I'm working but you can still click" to the user. Kinda like Windows' combined pointer/hourglass.


And maybe some users need to learn how to set up a performing Unix system. Don't be surprised if
these requirements turn out to be different from what worked for Mac OS 9.

Ok, I admit that Classic and Carbon are totally irrelevant for me, I'm only interested in Cocoa
applications, and don't run anything else. And I would like Apple to fix some known bugs:
Unix process priorities and two-way services to name just two.

The whole discussion reminds me of the Rolls Royce salesman who replied to a customer curious about
how fast the car would be: "As fast as you please, Sir." Is speed really that important? What do you
prefer: a sound design like the Mac OS X or the shabby foundation of the Windows family (or Mac
OS 9, for that matter)? I certainly prefer the Rolls Royce over the VW Golf GTI!

While there's something to be said for good design, if it takes you longer to do your work, it takes longer to do your work! Period! At this point, OS X on my machines (450MHz G4, 500 MHz iBook, 400 MHz Lombard) is this -> <- close to being able to keep up with me. There are quite a few times that I outpace OS X and have to wait for it. This is particularly true in Finder and viewing PDFs.

I've experimented with using OS X as my primary work OS but while it's been successful in proving to me that OS X has all the functionality I need to do my work, it's also shown me I still get things done faster in OS 9. And I'm not talking about just Finder speed too, I'm talking about the running of Applescripts on dozens or hundreds of network files and things like that.

Perhaps the most frustrating point in all this is that Apple's hardware hasn't been getting much faster the past year or two. I want an 800MHz iBook with a 100MHz system bus, just like this $900 Compaq laptop I ended up buying. The MHz myth may be a myth when you're comparing 733MHz G4 against 733MHz (or even 1GHz) P4. But the argument holds less weight when you compare a 867MHz G4 against a 2.2 GHz P4.
 
O

OSXSceptic

Guest
It's all pereception, I guess. I don't OS X 1 terrible in terms of speed, but it's not as snappy as OS 9, and when you have to wait for things that you never had to wait for in OS 9, then you start to get annoyed. Although I'm looking forward to Quark and Pshop under the new OS, I'm wondering what I'm going to do if there's even a modest performance hit. In publishing with a heavy workload, any moment spent twiddling your thumbs waiting for the machine to do it's thing is a frustrating one. Yeah, I know OS X allows you to start up other functions while you wait, but if all you want is for that one process to complete that's no comfort.

Plus, I just don't like Aqua as much. The 'display poscript' idea is idiotic. Why the hell waste all that processor time drawing postscript when it's only going to be rasterised for screen display anyway? It also means the 2D functions of your graphic card are limited - it can't compensate for the extra load placed on the OS. Quartz is cool, but it should be there in the background for useful stuff like pdf manipulation and so forth. For drawing the desktop it's the biggest overkill since someone cracked a sledgehammer with a nut.

In publishing we keep our work machines as vanilla as possible, run disk utilities regularly, and keep background utils to a minumum. The reality is an OS 9 machine is pretty stable most of the time.
 

Wash!!

macrumors 6502
Jan 8, 2002
389
0
here, there, who knows
You people make me sick!!!
OS X still a work in progress as well as all Mac OS's that came before it. The speed improment will come. Apple still teaking the kernel and the other parts of the OS. If fact OS X runs better than OS 9.1 did ever for me and fix all the problems my G4 400 had.
Its been runing non stop for months wihtout a crash.:D
 

StealthRider

macrumors 65816
Jan 23, 2002
1,065
16
Here and there!
Originally posted by Edge100
One other thing, you cant expect that todays equipment, whatever the machine is, will run OSX at the same speeds as 9. OS 9 is built on almost 20 years of optimization. Think about how slow 9 would run on, say, a circa 1997 mid-range PowerMac. Sure, it would be acceptable, but not really snappy. Just like OSX. In fact, I would say that in relative terms, were getting quite good performance out of X, given that the thing is less than 1 year old. Again, 9.2.1 flies on my iMac 600, but X is more than acceptable. Even running Illustrator X, its not unacceptable. Satisfactory is the best description.

AT MY SCHOOL, we have several dozen 5400/5500 powermacs running Mac OS 9.2.2 just fine.OS 10.1.2 runs slowly, but otherwise just fine......
 

Xapplimatic

macrumors 6502
Oct 23, 2001
417
0
California
Come on anonymous iBook user.. I'm running Word X on my 466 SE iBook just fine, no lags, no problems.. In all likelihood, you simply don't have enough memory or you need to stop running too may programs at once. You probably have the standard 64 MB which would put you below the recommended minimum for OS X. I have 320 MB (64+256) in my iBook and no other hacks or tweaks and it runs just fine.

Another satisfied G3 user on X.
 

dantec

macrumors 6502a
Nov 6, 2001
605
0
California
M$ office wasn't optimized for OS X... Blaming that on Apple is crazy!!! you can flame apple for slow window resizing, but on M$ BS???

Anyway... M$ is gonna launch a service pack to fix all those bugs they didn't check when they released the software! I just can't believe they launched a product full of bugs and ultra slow! I've even thought of using Appleworks again! URgh!
 
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paulwhannel

Guest
classic

you know what I wanna see? I realize it's a bit late for it now, since the transition from 9 to X is moving along well, but why can't X save 9's RAM state for instant startup? Same thing VirtualPC does... It could just write the contents of RAM to the hard drive in an invisible file, and then use that next time. I hate having to start up 9 every time I want to use a classic app, since I never make changes (eg, new extensions or anything)...

just a thought... again, I realize it's too late for this to be implimented (by the time it was finished, only a handful of people would still even _remember_ classic)...

paul
 

dantec

macrumors 6502a
Nov 6, 2001
605
0
California
Re: classic

Originally posted by paulwhannel
you know what I wanna see? I realize it's a bit late for it now, since the transition from 9 to X is moving along well, but why can't X save 9's RAM state for instant startup? Same thing VirtualPC does... It could just write the contents of RAM to the hard drive in an invisible file, and then use that next time. I hate having to start up 9 every time I want to use a classic app, since I never make changes (eg, new extensions or anything)...

just a thought... again, I realize it's too late for this to be implimented (by the time it was finished, only a handful of people would still even _remember_ classic)...

paul

Windoze laptops have had that for ages... its called hibernation, what a great feature. I too also would like this feature, and am wondering when (if ever) if it will be implemented. It probably hasn't yet because, Apple laptops have such great sleeping capability (can sleep up to 4 weeks) and with OS 10 which wakes up in 1/2 a second, there might have been the thought that this feature didn't need to be implemented. The problem is however, if you have a gig of ram, your Mac is gonna spend quite some time saving that 1 gig of ram to the disk! I don't need to speak about reloading it!
 

DakotaGuy

macrumors 601
Jan 14, 2002
4,226
3,791
South Dakota, USA
Originally posted by StealthRider


AT MY SCHOOL, we have several dozen 5400/5500 powermacs running Mac OS 9.2.2 just fine.OS 10.1.2 runs slowly, but otherwise just fine......

10.1.2 will run on a 5400/5500 series powermac???
 
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