OS X slower than Windows

[bcharm]

On equivalent hardware OS X is slower than Windows. We all know this, but no one's ever explained why. What is it about OS X that's slowing it down, and what does Apple have to do it speed it up so that it's as quick and responsive as Windows?

It's not that big of a deal to me since I love the whole Mac user experience, but my sis who switched is always complaining and asking why Macs are so slow. I'm starting to wonder why too.

 

[revenuee]

Re: OS X slower than Windows

Originally posted by bcharm
On equivalent hardware OS X is slower than Windows. We all know this, but no one's ever explained why. What is it about OS X that's slowing it down, and what does Apple have to do it speed it up so that it's as quick and responsive as Windows?

It's not that big of a deal to me since I love the whole Mac user experience, but my sis who switched is always complaining and asking why Macs are so slow. I'm starting to wonder why too.

What is it about the OS this is slow?
and do you have enough Ram?

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

im not sure what you mean by equivalent hardware ? we have been stuck on G4 running less then equivalent hardware, i would dare say os x is very fast on a new dual 2gig. the sad truth is all the hardware is slow so until the hardware matches the windows world i wouldnt do a comparison( unless you have a new duallies.

 

[strider42]

I've had two brand new computers here at work running XP, and I would call them anything but quick and responsive.

What hardware are you talking about. If its older stuff that doesn't support quartz extreme, thats your answer right there.

The interface probably could be a bit snappier, and that affects perceived speed, but thats not the same as actual speed. I've read a lot that says multitasking in OS X is better than XP, and my experience in XP would back that up.

 

[joshuwa72]

I dont think OS X is "slower"...but it does have quite a few dazzling effects, such as genie and all the other animations and fades going on.

While that dosnt slow the OS down, a genied window takes longer to get down than a minimized XP window just because of what its doing.

That can make it "feel" less responisve and less "right now!" feeling...but OS X on my new mac definetly blows my pc away.

 

[leet1]

Those fancy things you see in the GUI of a mac are slowing it down probably, just turn some of them off. XP is snappier still though, but turning off some of the GUI things may speed things up for you.

 

[bousozoku]

If you're talking equivalently-priced hardware, it's somewhat understandable. A 1 GHz G4 iMac doesn't compete for speed with a 2.8 GHz P4 Windows machine.

Of course, if you're talking about the visual elements, they can be adjusted. Go into Dock preferences and change Genie effect to Scale effect. Turn off magnification and Animate opening applications. This will make the system seem faster and that usually has more to do with the speed problem than actual speed.

 

[mj_1903]

My 1ghz PowerBook running Panther is much more snappy, responsive and in some cases powerful than my friends Win XP Pro 3ghz P4.

But thats just his and my feelings, he recently switched because of them.

 

[Rower_CPU]

The single greatest thing you can do to improve XP is to turn it back to the "classic" (win2k) theme. Turn off the Fisher Price™ GUI and go back to something usable.

 

[Flickta]

It's slower. And prettier.

Yes, X is slower than XP.
But then again it has more eye-candy...
The problem is that Apple did not think about low-end users (My PB G4 800 for instance)... Or it's just NEXT style... With its early incarnations interface at least.

 

[Dippo]

Originally posted by Rower_CPU
The single greatest thing you can do to improve XP is to turn it back to the "classic" (win2k) theme. Turn off the Fisher Price™ GUI and go back to something usable.

That certianly helps things but that gray color is SO UGLY!

What would be even better is just go back to Windows 2000, it is faster than XP.

 

[Dippo]

Actually Windows 95 ran fine on my 486 running at 66Mhz, just think of how fast it would run on my 1.75Ghz Athlon!

Of course it would blue screen every 10 minutes, but that's the sacrafices we must make for speed

 

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by Dippo
That certianly helps things but that gray color is SO UGLY!

IMO, it's still an improvement.

 

[markjones05]

Panther is not slower than xp. Im running panther on my dual 1ghz g4 and it is just as snappy and responsive as a 2. whatever ghz machine with xp on it. i really have no idea what you guys are talking about.

 

[revenuee]

Re: It's slower. And prettier.

Originally posted by Flickta
Yes, X is slower than XP.
But then again it has more eye-candy...
The problem is that Apple did not think about low-end users (My PB G4 800 for instance)... Or it's just NEXT style... With its early incarnations interface at least.

Thinks *low end mac at 800?* then looks at own machine and sighs (G4 400) - i guess getting Panther will be like shooting myself in the foot ... kinda like my feeling with getting OS 10 in general

 

[BaDBoY]

really?

thats very strange... i have a G4 450 mhz. the oldest G4.. one of the first that came out. i installed panther on it... it feels like a whole brand new computer. its is MUCH faster than jaguar... and the overall speed had a boost. X may be slower than XP but everything intergrated into OSX is much better than any windows version in my perspective

 

[revenuee]

Re: really?

Originally posted by BaDBoY
thats very strange... i have a G4 450 mhz. the oldest G4.. one of the first that came out. i installed panther on it... it feels like a whole brand new computer. its is MUCH faster than jaguar... and the overall speed had a boost. X may be slower than XP but everything intergrated into OSX is much better than any windows version in my perspective

an improvement eh? maybe i will consider it after all... they have for 120 CND at my school bookstore, maybe i'll pick it up

 

[Phazer80s]

Re: Re: really?

Originally posted by revenuee
an improvement eh? maybe i will consider it after all... they have for 120 CND at my school bookstore, maybe i'll pick it up

revenuee: you should buy it. You'll probably be quite impressed.

On my 733, Panther's scrolling isn't much better than the latest release of Jaguar. Also, window resizing is still quite poor; the redraw stutter makes the windows feel like they're made of lead. *BUT* button and menu responsiveness seem to be at about 90% of their levels in OS 9. That added responsiveness really makes a world of difference. To me, the speed of Panther's GUI makes the OS X experience much more enjoyable than ever before. Buy it!

 

[x86isslow]

at our school, we have 9,2; xp; x, and x blows the other two outta the water.

well the time spent in [fruitless] navigation in winblowz kinda offsets gains from the perceived snappiness.

 

[Phazer80s]

A fitting pun

Originally posted by x86isslow
at our school, we have 9,2; xp; x, and x blows the other two outta the water.

well the time spent in [fruitless] navigation in winblowz kinda offsets gains from the perceived snappiness.

And a great point, too!

 

[bcharm]

It's not a question about hardware (my sis has her iBook's RAM maxed out). I'm comparing similarly powered mac to a PC (not MHz to MHz). Windows' UI is more responsive, no lag, and I'm not talking about the animations in OS X.

Where I noticed it the most when comparing to Windows is while surfing the web, or scrolling down a webpage. (I use Camino and Safari) But I also notice it in the Finder. So are the real problems with the applications, or are there optimizations needed in the OS itself?

 

[revenuee]

Originally posted by bcharm
It's not a question about hardware (my sis has her iBook's RAM maxed out). I'm comparing similarly powered mac to a PC (not MHz to MHz). Windows' UI is more responsive, no lag, and I'm not talking about the animations in OS X.

Where I noticed it the most when comparing to Windows is while surfing the web, or scrolling down a webpage. (I use Camino and Safari) But I also notice it in the Finder. So are the real problems with the applications, or are there optimizations needed in the OS itself?

well one thing about safari i noticed is that rather then loading the images and information as they come, it pre-loads a significant portion of the website before it displays, that made it seem slower to me.. even compared to internet explorer on the same computer.

i don't have an relative feeling toward scolling.

However, a simular powered computer... if your not comparing MHZ, and not comparing RAM, then what, bench marks? loading images in photoshop?

What applications are you talking in particualr?

iMOVIE and iPhoto?

everyone here knows there slow, there not really meant for heavy lifting, they are just kinda fun. ... i havn't touched any of the iLife apps, with the exeption of iTunes since i got the new OS... LOL

 

[jxyama]

here is some good info on this topic...

Ars Technica review of Panther (section 5)

some choice quotes:

Panther is faster than Jaguar. There are a few ways to look at this. First, there's the boring, old world of numerical performance. You know, benchmarks and all that jazz. [...] But "perceived performance" is where Mac OS X has always suffered. As far as the user experience is concerned, if it "feels slow," it is slow. Panther has improved here as well.

Here's another way to look at Panther's performance. For over three years now, Mac OS X has gotten faster with every release — and not just "faster in the experience of most end users", but faster on the same hardware. This trend is unheard of among contemporary desktop operating systems. It certainly didn't apply to classic Mac OS, where every significant new OS version was perceptibly slower than its predecessor on the same hardware. (Yes, System 7 and Mac OS 8, I'm looking at you.) The world of Windows follows a similar trend. It is usually taken for granted that a shiny new OS will not really sing until you upgrade your hardware.

Now for a sobering dose of perspective. While Panther is indeed faster than Jaguar on the same hardware, it is still not nearly fast enough in many areas. Those darned cobwebs have not been fully excised from Panther. Window manipulation in particular still sometimes pauses, stutters, and generally lags behind my mental state.

i think the last part is a very common complaint from Windows/OS 9 users...

 

[Foxer]

My office has new (within six months) Compaqs with 1.8ghz p4's running XP professional. These things are soooo slow. Both my powerbook and powermac are faster, but so was my wife's eMac, running at 1ghz.

 

[Fukui]

Originally posted by bcharm
It's not a question about hardware (my sis has her iBook's RAM maxed out). I'm comparing similarly powered mac to a PC (not MHz to MHz). Windows' UI is more responsive, no lag, and I'm not talking about the animations in OS X.

Where I noticed it the most when comparing to Windows is while surfing the web, or scrolling down a webpage. (I use Camino and Safari) But I also notice it in the Finder. So are the real problems with the applications, or are there optimizations needed in the OS itself?

Well, some of things that you are noticing are part of a few problems.

1. The compiler that they are using is not really designed/optimized for the PowerPC chip, and even after a few years of work GCC (the compiler) is still problematic in terms of optimization. Expect this to be resolved with further revisions or a switch to XLC (IBM Compiler).

2. The windowing system in OS X is very advanced technically, but it also lags. It definitely needs to be worked on.

If you look at Jaguar vs Panther, the startup time is something they obviously work a lot on, because compared to Jaguar I can start up cold (no reboot) and be loging-in in under 25 seconds (compared to minutes on Jag). So I definitly feel that a HUGE boost in UI speed is definitely possible and will hapen.

One of the things that makes XP so fast in the UI is that 1.They have a superior compiler, 2. GDI has been around for a long long time and is optimized to death. 3. They aren't really doing advanced compositing like anti-aliasing, interpolation, double-buffering, per-pixel transparency (most of which is being still done on the CPU in Jag/Panther). 4. I heard somewhere that XP uses the Graphics card to speed up text rendering.

Also remember that the BSD subsystem and Mach to an extent is very fast, its just the things that you end up seeing that are so slow. This IMO is one of the last things that Apple needs to do to finally hit every nail down that is still sticking up.

Also, if you are using MS Office, try deleting the "Microsoft Database Daemon" file in the Office folder. I found out it was on while using Office and pegged my CPU at 40%!!! Killing that things sped things up pretty well.