10.5.2 Dock Speed

[jesstech]

I discovered something tonight related to a Leopard bug that has been bugging me (no pun intended) since its release.

Leopard's new dock is slow. It lags, drops frames, and feels sluggish overall compared to Tiger's simple dock.

...Except just now, when I discovered it can animate just as fast as Tiger's dock. Here's how I managed that:

1. Download & Install Growl 1.1.3 beta 2
   from here: http://growl.info/beta.html
2. Launch Growl's Preference pane, and change the default style under 'Display Options'
   If your system is like mine, this will cause System Preferences to beachball.
3. Enjoy your new, faster dock!

As soon as I force quit the unresponsive System Preferences, my dock returns to normal.

This is reproducible on my machine (a Mid-2007 Macbook Pro running 10.5.2 with the Graphics update released last night) even under a fresh user account, so I know it isn't a profile issue.

Can any one of you with a quick eye try the steps above and reproduce my results?

 

[AlexisV]

The dock is smooth and fast on my work white iMac and my home alumnium one.

 

[kwfl]

comparing my leopard and tiger, there is a slight delay in leopard, but if you havent pointed out to this, i would have not noticed 😀

so no need to me for third-party stuff.

 

[Icewind]

As soon as I force quit the unresponsive System Preferences, my dock returns to normal.

This is reproducible on my machine (a Mid-2007 Macbook Pro running 10.5.2 with the Graphics update released last night) even under a fresh user account, so I know it isn't a profile issue.

Can any one of you with a quick eye try the steps above and reproduce my results?

That's pretty strange. Leopard's doc has been annoying me since I upgraded 2 weeks ago. Compared to Tiger, it just seems very sluggish and choppy (I have sized it quite small and have magnification on, but only set to magnify to about maybe 2 times the non-magnified icon size).

I have Growl installed (not sure about the version but only downloaded it last weekend, so should be pretty up to date).

I'm at work right now on XP boxes, but as soon as I get home I'll try this out and report back.

Peace... Out

 

[jesstech]

@Icewind: That's what I've been doing as well; a small dock plus small magnification makes it seem less sluggish, though it's not actually any faster.

Regarding your Growl version, you'll need to install the beta I linked to as it's the only thing I have found that consistantly crashes System Preferences. I am not sure if this behavior is caused by something Growl is doing or whether anything that crashes System Preferences would cause it, but I would assume the latter is the true cause.

@AlexisV: The graphical sluggishness in Leopard only seems to affect the current-generation Mid-2007 Santa Rosa Macbook Pros.