Faster OS X?

[Newborn77]

Chimera

You should really try Chimera. It's the FASTEST browser I've used to this date.
Mind you, it does not yet support plugins and other stuff but at version 0.2.2 it's pretty damn fast and stable to be considered a promising replacement for M$ IE as the "standard" browser for OS X (unless you have already replaced it of course )

Go to http://chimera.mozdev.org and check it out now!!!

 

[gopher]

Unfortunately chimera lacks

plugin and Java support. But for basic browsing it can be good. Mozilla at least has most of the plugin and Java support you would need, though it isn't quite there when it comes to Java in all instances. Some places Mozilla is quite happy with Java, others it just has a spinning wheel. Chimera though is a nice start.

 

[Newborn77]

Re: Unfortunately chimera lacks

Originally posted by gopher
plugin and Java support. But for basic browsing it can be good. Mozilla at least has most of the plugin and Java support you would need, though it isn't quite there when it comes to Java in all instances. Some places Mozilla is quite happy with Java, others it just has a spinning wheel. Chimera though is a nice start.

You are right. Chimera is just starting and still lacks a lot of the needed features to make it a mainstream browser.
But the fact that it's just starting is what makes me think this browser is so amazing. It's so fast and stable (at least after 48 hours of testing it) that I can't believe it's a 0.x.x (prerelease) product.
I've used Mozilla and other "alternative" browsers but they all suffer the same lack of speed of IE (except perhaps for iCab).
I'm looking forward to the inclusion of the missing features!
This is going to be big! (I guess )

 

[gopher]

Are you using a dual processor Mac?

Mozilla only seems to lack speed on dual processor Macs because they still don't know how to take advantage of dual processors. If you are using a G4/800 iMac it flies. Turning off popup ads really speeds up Mozilla as well.

 

[Baseline]

Opera

From what I've heard, the current version of Opera for OS X is relatively slow.

All I have to say, is give them a chance. Once they get it running native, I guarantee it will be blazing.

I use Opera as my default browser under both Windows and Linux. In Windows, Opera BLOWS away IE in terms of speed. Startup, and page rendering.

Even better, my Opera speed in Linux is even faster that when I run it in Windows!

(Note: This is all on an old PII 450 with 128 megs RAM, and it's still incredibly fast)

What does this prove? It proves that the Opera people KNOW how to write fast code for *nix systems, and once a version is out that runs natively under OS X (I'm talking Cocoa, not Carbon), it should please everybody.

 

[AmbitiousLemon]

all these people calling people who mention speed whiners are completely kidding themselves. even apple understands that osx has serious performance problems so i think you apple zealots can stop pretending it doesnt exist.

my general advice to anyone thinking of switching to osx is "only use osx if it came installed on your machine as the startup disk" if it didnt then chances are apple knew it wouldnt be acceptable to the general public on that machine. the hardware has finally reached a point where osx is acceptable (though not good) on all amchines currently shipping. but if you think osx is good on a g3 (even a new ibook) then take a look at the speed tests of an ibook versus a powerbook (both at ~600mhz) at barefeats. OSX is a lame duck on a g3... but still i find the benefits of osx to be so great that i still run it on my lombard (while gritting teeth in agony if i need to resize a window).

even with a new iMac or new Powermac (dual g4) try resizing a browser window (any browser)... pretty disgusting huh? Even the cocoa browsers dont do it well. when i talk about slowness of OSX im not talking real speed (render speeds, frame rates, application launches) im talking GUI responsiveness. Many people refer to it as snappieness, and it is a problem with all machine not just machines that are a year or two old. This has never been a problem in the past.

If it was still 1999 none of us would be complaining about speed when os9 came out. this has never been an issue in the past. now im not saying os9 didnt run slow on old machiens but im saying it was always reasonable. if you machine was a few years old then yes the enw os could tax your ssytem but the new os was always good on a semi-modern os and certainly perfectly responsive and "snappy" on a new machine.

OSX had so many problems apple didnt even load it on machines for a good long while, and even after they started installing it on new machines they didnt have it selected as the default startup system.

Dont you find it odd that with every new update the first question peopel ask is "is it faster?" the first thing i do when updating osx is resize a window and open a folder with more than 50 items in it, just to test perfromance. I do the same thing when i visit a osx machine in a store or at work. OS9 when it came out was so responsive you couldnt tell the difference between system responsiveness between the lowliest iMac and most tweaked out powermac, and no one even noticed enough to ever ask "how fast is it?"

and a note about IE. dont use it as a comparison. ie is by far THE WORST app created for osx. it has never even been updated (besides a security update or two). ms is completely ignoring ie and it shows. the fact that it is slower than omniweb is a joke. omniweb is a joke of a browser and the fact that it is faster than msie is hilarious. my only use for ie is to download mozilla (mach-o or otherwise), after that its into the trash. download omniweb, icab, opera, mozilla, navigator, netscape, ANYTHING just dont keep using ie and dont use ie as a speed test of osx! there is no reason anyone should use ie on a mac more than once (to download another browser). every single other browser works better than ie, so just make your whole life a tiny bit better and get rid of the darn thing. the fact taht this article uses ie as its gauge for osx "speed" is an embarassment and apple should take that as a cue to drop ie and put a functional browser installed as default. we dont need microsoft support anymore so forget this ridiculous alliance. and in teh article where ms blames osx as the speed problem with their browser i just ask why is it that navigator a browser that has been in development for two months can beat ie in speed in every single test by at least 5 times the speed (and more like 7-10 times in most tests)? the problem with browsing in ie lies solely with ms NOT with osx.

[end of rant]

 

[cleo]

Re: the key to speed

Originally posted by gopher

1. Update Prebinding
2. Keep your partitions within the range of RAM+1.5 GB free and 25 GB
3. Run Macjanitor.

Macjanitor only is supposed to take the place of the built-in optimization stuff built in to OS X, right? OK, here's my question: if you put your Mac to sleep every night, but it's still technically turned on, do those built-in tools run? Or should one then use Macjanitor?

 

[gopher]

sleeping, I don't believe the utilities run

As the hard disk isn't spinning when it is asleep. Though if you put a black screen saver up, it will run. So you could do a screen saver by night, and energy saver by day!
Or much easier, run Macjanitor while you watch TV at night or when you take your daily shower, and then let it sleep when you aren't using it.

 

[bollman]

I think I have been misunderstood

I didn´t say OS X is slow. I just said that it´s not so bad that it makes you puke. OS X on Lombard, sure, that is s l o w. I know I had one. But I think the Lombards where a big mistake. The design of that computer is far from optimal. And yes, it still is slow on a faster machine, although on my G4 867 with 1,1GB RAM OS X is one of snappiest!
Alright IE isn´t "speed demon" but I don´t think it´s _that_ slow
As I was saying in previous posts: MacOS 2 wasn´t fast on a Plus either! I think we have to wait a little bit more to get the right feeling for OS X.
I don´t think there has been such a great technology switch in any platform today. When NT was released, not many people used it because of it´s horrendous computer demands (like 486-33, 16MB RAM and a lot of patience) to run at least bearable. Today, XP is a direct descendant from that 1993 O/S!

 

[bollman]

Oopsie

The first sentence should read: I didn´t say OS X wasn´t slow, but


//sorry

 

[Xapplimatic]

Another key to speed..

On the subject of minimizing beach balling, driver chatter, and sluggishness in application loading or window content caching. . . and one that isn't really talked about by Apple. In addition to prebinding the apps, one should also optimize the drive layout. The blocks stored on the drive should be optimized. A fragmented drive definitely slows down OS X, yet there is little talk on this subject. No gui tools come with OS X to defrag the drives, and I can't be sure, but I don't think there is a shell command to defrag the drive either. OS 9 disk utilities will work to defrag a drive formatted under 10 as long as the drive was formatted HFS+ and not under the unix formatting..
Norton works, Tech Tools Pro works.. and you do get quite a reduction in the beach ball nonsense when you scroll icon windows having done it..

 

[gopher]

I would not use Norton

Norton Disk Doctor is Norton Kevorkian. Speed Tools may also crash your Mac. It has been a problem since Mac OS 8.1 since Norton can't understand blocks of the hard drive assigned to working with Extended Filing System (HFS+). Do use Disk Warrior 2.1.1 if you want to optimize or simply just reformat your hard drive after backing everything up. At least now Retrospect is available, and if you want to spend less you can get FWB Backup (which is also Tri-Edre backup).

 

[OSXconvert]

AOL OSX Beta actually is snappy

In terms of an application that runs better in OSX than in OS9, my vote would have to go with AOL's beta. Normally I don't think much of AOL, but I have to give them credit for really making an incredibly fast port of their software. The embedded browser is as fast as OmniWeb on my PBG4 667 (using DSL) and just a little slower than the latest Mozilla. The non-browser part of AOL's beta really flies, with every click gratifingly responsive. The only other application ported from OS9 which is this responsive for me is BBEdit and maybe Interarchy. Photoshop 7 is pretty good though, given the addition of features, but not snappy. WordX is terrible. If AOL's beta can be so responsive, it makes me believe that Apple is only partly to blame for lousy speed. Though I hope there are dramatic speedups with 10.2.

 

[j763]

OK, a couple of things:

1. Don't use Carbon apps as 'speed tests'. Carbon is a joke (mostly apple's fault, partly developers fault for not using cocoa although i can understand as a developer why they don't)... IE is carbon, Chimera Nav is Cocoa. Go figure.

2. I know I am going to get flamed for my opinion on this, but -- Mac OS 9 and below are ABSOLUTE CRAP excuses for an OS (as a ex-linux user -- yep, i converted to X my favorite part of using os 9 or classic is that you can only do one thing at once and you have to reboot every 5 minutes...).

3. Don't bag Mac OS X -- It's GUI speed is admittedly pretty crap, but it's by far the best OS i've seen (thankfully we don't have any win2k users here, i hate getting into some huge argument about m$ crappy bloatware). Assuming you're using OS X now, you've got the world's best OS at your fingertips and you're bitching about it.

4. Don't bitch about it, fix it... http://www.opensource.apple.com

5. OS 10.2 will probably have some speed improvements, but don't EXPECT it...

6. If you were using XP, you wouldn't get free updates (10.2 for instance), you only get security updates with win os's...


7. G3's are completely acceptable for every day consumer use... hey, if you want to use ps, buy a tibook already!!!


8. You can run those scheduled maintenece tasks by using this little applescript i made... or just go into terminal and type in "sudo sh /etc/daily;sudo sh /etc/monthly;sudo sh /etc/weekly"

 

[Foocha]

Well said j763 - you're making a lot of sense.

 

[TechLarry]

Originally posted by Foocha
IE for Windows XP is faster than IE on either OS 9 or OS X. Whilst I'm sure that OS X could be faster, (and will be in the future,) I suspect that this has a lot to do with the fact that substantially more time and effort has gone into optimising the code of Windows IE - naturally it's a much higher priority for Microsoft than the Mac version.

If OmniWeb had the resources invested into it the IE for XP does - who knows what it might be capable of.

It's worth noting that whilst OS 9 is in some respects faster than OS X, it's substantially less responsive. Try holding down the mouse button in OS 9, and see how the whole system freezes until you release the button. This is hardly adequate performance.

It's a similar situation for Windows users - Windows 2000 is slower than Windows 95, but who wants to stick with DOS?

People who want to stick with OS 9 should also stick with steam trains, prop planes and coal fires.

I agree. MSIE is much, much faster on the PC than on MacOS X.

But we have to remember something here. A major portion of MSIE is loaded as part of the Operating System in Windows (especially Win2K and XP). I would _expect_ it to run more efficiently.

This is why I've never been one to complain about MS integrating IE into the system. It's a benifit whether some want to admit it or not.

I haven't tried it on my LCD iMac (SuperDrive) yet, but I'm going to try OmniWeb eventually since I understand Cocoa apps are inherently faster than Carbonized apps in MacOS X.

TL

 

[Foocha]

The problem with Microsoft's integration of IE & Windows is more in the way Microsoft did it - it could have been done in a modular, open form so that it could be removed without breaking the OS, and so that other developers like Netscape could integrated against the APIs. This way Windows OEMs could have the option of shipping with another browser.

The legal issue is one of commingling rather than integrating.

A bit more integration would be a good thing in OS X I think - integrating iPhoto & IE with the Finder... but that's a discussion for another thread.

 

[Mike Ball]

I can only describe it as a laid back OS at the moment. I'm no tecky so Iwas interested by the description of beach ball pauses. Absolutely. They are so annoying. Time for tea moments. But it doesn't crash and it does so many things at once. I can print and surf and open a word document. This is a revelation after years of waiting for things to print. I'm still impressed by the look of it. I am beginning to discover the delights of using the finder window to navigate and customising it with folders. The hard drive icons have finally disappeared from my desk top. The dock is in hideaway mode and all is clear!
My main gripe at the moment is even with the intellimouse drivers installed the dialogue boxes don't always respond to the scroll wheel. On this subject I do wish apple would make a decent mouse with a scroll wheel.
Seventh heaven at the moment.

 

[mcrain]

G4Scott, isn't McAllen located on the very bottom of texas, just a hop, skip and a jump from Mexico?

Moving to Texas this fall, and I'm beginning to get a feel for my new country, I mean state.

 

[drastik]

slow x

I have IE running 5.1.4 on boht my g3 firewire with 384 and my G4/400 with 512. IE (as well as X in general, is much faster on the G4, but that's to be expected. I can't say i really notice much difference on the machines seperately since updating. So I think I too have a once high-end machine that is lowend with two firewire ports. As far as this goes, does anyone know of a processor upgradde for the G3 Firewire? I wrote off to powerlogix, and they said it would take reimaging at the factory and they don't do that.

I would love to keep the Firebook and update it to even just a mid level G4, does anyone know if its possible?

 

[drastik]

I have to agree with j763...

PhotoShop is a pro app. Don't expect it run circles on a consumer machine. Onething Apple is doing by expanding into the pro market is setting the Machines apart.

Most of the time, discussion on this board is elegant and intelligent, but I have to take issue with complaining about non-pro performance on non-pro machines. If you want the best performance, you have to shell for the dual gig. I know its pricey, but so is Photoshop or Quark (or goLive or ProTools or Final Cut or etc.) If your complaint inperformance, spend money on the machine as well as the software, then you've got your set up.

Apple is going to come out with bigger and better products every few months (iHope), so those of us who have older G3 (like me) experience some bumbs in the road. But we can't really expect apple to try to keep current stas on a machine it hasn't made in years.

Do wish upgrades were more accessable, though

 

[eric_n_dfw]

IE's not that slow - Quicken is!!!

Talk about an app' that needs work - Quicken 2002 is so slow, that I often wonder if the thing is about to crash!
They also lag well far behind the features of the Windows version.