Apple, Microsoft on Windows on Mac; Benchmarks

[Music_Producer]

You also contradicted yourself as wanting an Apple because you require it operating 24/7, 365 days a year, but then you said “Yes, kernel panics do occur on the mac…but the system can reboot and everything's fine.” That what’s called a CRASH!

When I said kernel panics do occur on the mac, I should have specified that they have never happened in any of the macs in our studios and facilities.. I merely acknowledged the fact that they do happen.. I have had that happen on my laptop once when I messed up an installation.. and that was it.

I'd much rather have a kernel panic, restart my mac and see everything the way it was.. than have to reformat my hard drive, and install Windows XP and all the other software.. all over again.

No system is immune to crashes or bugs, but in MY view.. because of ALL the experience I have had since quite a few years.. is that the macintosh operating system wins hands down in terms of stability.

 

[Demoman]

There are lots of people here familiar with Windows who know that all the blue-screen/virus-infested/sky-is-falling stories about Windows are due to either ignorance (such as assuming that Windows XP and Windows 3.1 are the same) or spite.

Blue-screens are very rare - unless you have a driver or hardware problem. I'll show you an Apple that kernel panics at least once a week - and you'll show me that when I replace the bad DIMM it runs fine. Windows == OSX.

Are you on the Sammamish side of Issaquah?

No, I am on South Tiger Mountain. And I agree, blue screens are rare and usually the result of a hardware issue, or a lousy written application. Those can happen in any environment. My issues with Windows are perhaps different than some other people's. For one thing, we are witnessing the predatory licensing costs that years of monopoly have brought in. As an IT Manager I am staggered by how these have escalated.

 

[Music_Producer]

The Power of the PowerBook G4

Just to show you what I can do on a 1.25 ghz Powerbook g4 with 1.25 gb of RAM:

1. 48 STEREO tracks of audio (thats stereo - so 96 effective tracks)
2. Reason 2.5 running, with sequence
3. Virtual synths
4. Photoshop open (The picture of the Taj Mahal)
5. Word was open and running (the window didnt show up in the grab pic)

All this, on the powerbook's internal 4200 RPM DRIVE

Everything was running flawlessly.. THIS is what I love about the Mac.

When I try to emulate the same scenario on my AMD Athlon 64 DESKTOP with a 7200 rpm drive, (only the audio part - no word, no photoshop, no reason, no virtual synths) the computer starts farting with 28 stereo tracks.

Push it to 48 stereo tracks, and Lol.. it plays for a few seconds.. stops.. or rather, takes a long pause, restarts .. and then freezes. And then I hit the 'reboot' switch.

Imagine what you can do with an MBP with 2gb of RAM, and a 7200 rpm drive (about to purchase one next week.. yum )

Ps - Why do I have a PC desktop? I use it for Quicken (the quicken version for mac sucks) and..er.. my wife plays Solitaire on it!!!

 

[Music_Producer]

Just wanted to say to a fellow indian, namaste !!

Namaste to you too Whistleway! Can't wait to fly back to bombay.. miss the food already!

 

[roach]

Just to show you what I can do on a 1.25 ghz Powerbook g4 with 1.25 gb of RAM:

1. 48 STEREO tracks of audio (thats stereo - so 96 effective tracks)
2. Reason 2.5 running, with sequence
3. Virtual synths
4. Photoshop open (The picture of the Taj Mahal)
5. Word was open and running (the window didnt show up in the grab pic)

All this, on the powerbook's internal 4200 RPM DRIVE

Everything was running flawlessly.. THIS is what I love about the Mac.

When I try to emulate the same scenario on my AMD Athlon 64 DESKTOP with a 7200 rpm drive, (only the audio part - no word, no photoshop, no reason, no virtual synths) the computer starts farting with 28 stereo tracks.

Push it to 48 stereo tracks, and Lol.. it plays for a few seconds.. stops.. or rather, takes a long pause, restarts .. and then freezes. And then I hit the 'reboot' switch.

Imagine what you can do with an MBP with 2gb of RAM, and a 7200 rpm drive (about to purchase one next week.. yum )

Ps - Why do I have a PC desktop? I use it for Quicken (the quicken version for mac sucks) and..er.. my wife plays Solitaire on it!!!

If you're trying to impress people with what your Mac can do...sorry, I’m not impressed. My tablet PC also with 4200HD can run Maya, Photoshop and other utilities at the same time. My system which is already 3 years old, can still do pretty intense 3D and particle FX work.

 

[Music_Producer]

If you're trying to impress people with what your Mac can do...sorry, I’m not impressed. My tablet PC also with 4200HD can run Maya, Photoshop and other utilities at the same time. My system which is already 3 years old, can still do pretty intense 3D and particle FX work.

Dude, what do you not understand? I am not trying to impress anyone. I have the same software on BOTH systems - mac and pc. What my mac can do with ease, the pc simply cannot. AND, the pc has more powerful specs than my powerbook.

Happy? Or are you going to go on with your 'my dad can beat your dad'?

Uh.. maya, photoshop, video stuff.. the pb can handle with ease. Audio apps..especially multi-tracking >32 tracks, with rewire apps, plugins and virtual synths are WAY more taxing than video/graphics stuff. I've worked with both.

The day you work with music production, then you can share your experience.

 

[plarusa]

Don't forget how old XP is. When Vista comes out I bet the tables will turn dramatically.

Fat chance. I develop system software on a daily basis for Vista, we are now at Beta 2 and I still think it is a not so good imitation of OS X. I think MSFT's decision to use .NET everywhere slows down the OS and increases its memory footprint (you now need 512MB just to install). Somehow, Apple produced a much higher quality product while still using software frameworks based on the old C programming language.

 

[Bosunsfate]

I hope AAPL doesn't buy themselves an antitrust lawsuit by doing this.

1. Tying purchase of computer to purchase of OS. (The OS X license prohibits installation on non-AAPL hardware).

2. Monopoly on multi-OS computer.

By allowing this and by disallowing use of OS X on other hardware, I hope they do not embroil themselves in an unfair competition lawsuit.

Ah... I don't think so....5% market share....unfair competition??

Dude, the only thing they have to fear is what's happening in France and that's a different thing all together.

 

[roach]

Dude, what do you not understand? I am not trying to impress anyone. I have the same software on BOTH systems - mac and pc. What my mac can do with ease, the pc simply cannot. AND, the pc has more powerful specs than my powerbook.

Happy? Or are you going to go on with your 'my dad can beat your dad'?

Uh.. maya, photoshop, video stuff.. the pb can handle with ease. Audio apps..especially multi-tracking >32 tracks, with rewire apps, plugins and virtual synths are WAY more taxing than video/graphics stuff. I've worked with both.

The day you work with music production, then you can share your experience.

I can tell you now that your 1.25 ghz Powerbook g4 with 1.25 gb of RAM can not handle Maya running fx particle...it would kill your machine. I know people who struggle working on 3D with G5 workstation let alone your wimpy 1.25 powerbook. And on top of that Apple's openGL is not very well written. Damn…I just don’t believe that an music application running multiple tracks that your 1.25 powerbook can handle, an AMD 64 can’t handle. Like I said earlier bad memory, bad hardware, bad drivers and even bad application...XP always get blame for these problems. If you don't know how to diagnose your PC...you should send it to some who can find the problem...ahhh...you probably leave it, so you have something to blame your problem on.

 

[AidenShaw]

Unless you absolutely desire to visit pr0n sites in Russia every hour and open up every e-mail attachment from the latest pictures of "insert famous star here" series.

That's a good use for a virtual machine, if you must go there.

If the VM gets hit, shut it off and copy the backup machine files.

 

[delton05]

Wintel on Mac - ain't that great!

All this talk about windows and intel ... running inside/on a 'Mac', without much Apple involvement ... who are we kidding. The Wintel dark side HAS won, and are now laughing all the way to the bank with Mac user's money as we 'update' to friggin X86!!! The Mac IS OSX, and thats itl not much Mac in a Intel computer (oh the case, whoppee!)...we're now forced to accept from SJ that Intel X86 are 2 - 3 times faster than PPC and now XP on an Intel Mac. I doubt that the developers will now bother developing for X. The Mac is just like a dual-boot X86 PeeCee now...how many s/w ports are there for Linux? so OSX will be the same.

We're resigned to argue now about the respective age of XP vs X, amount of installed ram to try and justify the less than killer comparison.

I believe this is the final battle/gamble, and people are cheering the fact that Vista is delayed a few months...we're grasping a straws if we think that will mean that Pc users will not wait and just buy a Max to switch to OSX. When Vista hits the media being pushed by the MS adds, for months after release, PC users wont care about OSX running on some 'Mac', with some wierd thing called bootcamp...that will like yesterdays OS, how could it be as 'good' as something thats just released.

Unless Apple makes the Mac less $$$, like MS does with Xbox...the 'Mac' will remain the computer for people who already have faith in Apple.

 

[Super Dave]

Ah. Now the mac community is seen as "excited about running Windows". Like, we like Os X, but we are sooooo excited to run Windows.

I'd say, there's a tiny bit of sarcasm in MS' statement...

If you wanna see sarcasm, check out Apple's Boot Camp Page.

David

 

[rayz]

Damn…you’re in your own world there. It’s well know that Apple is used professionally, but to think PC aren’t used professionally shows you’re in your little cocoon. Most of the banks, hospitals and other profession that requires stable system are run on PC. I work for a company with 1000 employees, working on intense 3D oriented games using nothing put PC and we sure don’t get hampered by computer failure the way your company seems to be affected. Maybe you should fire your tech guy. It’s funny, but most bad memory, bad hardware, bad drivers or unstable programs are always blamed on Window OS. My system’s processor is about 3 years old and it’s still going strong. In about a year, the tech guys will put a new motherboard and processor and it should be good for another 3 years…very scaleable!

It really is very simple. There are so many more PCs than Macs out there, that people are bound to see more problems.

But I'm curious. You have a three year old machine and you're going to fit a new motherboard? Is that a good choice from an economics point of view?

 

[rayz]

There are lots of people here familiar with Windows who know that all the blue-screen/virus-infested/sky-is-falling stories about Windows are due to either ignorance (such as assuming that Windows XP and Windows 3.1 are the same) or spite.

Blue-screens are very rare - unless you have a driver or hardware problem. I'll show you an Apple that kernel panics at least once a week - and you'll show me that when I replace the bad DIMM it runs fine. Windows == OSX.

I've only seen one BSOD on XP, and that was caused by a Java application that stepped out of memory (not sure how that happened, I'd always though the JVM was supposed to stop that kind of thing. Perhaps it was a native call or something).

I could repeat the trick on demand, but as it turned out it, was a security feature built into the AMD chip. If it detected an attempt to force a buffer overflow, it triggered a system exception that brought the box to a screaming halt.

I was quite impressed ....

 

[rayz]

All this talk about windows and intel ... running inside/on a 'Mac', without much Apple involvement ... who are we kidding. The Wintel dark side HAS won, and are now laughing all the way to the bank with Mac user's money as we 'update' to friggin X86!!!

I think WinTel won some time ago, didn't it? Small sections of the Mac community believe that there will be a second coming of Mac; that the unwashed masses of Windows users will suddenly see the light and race out to their nearest Apple store. Personally, I don't think this is going to happen.

The Mac IS OSX, and thats itl not much Mac in a Intel computer (oh the case, whoppee!)...we're now forced to accept from SJ that Intel X86 are 2 - 3 times faster than PPC and now XP on an Intel Mac.

Well it wasn't just the chip. Apple's overall hardware design hadn't kept pace with the PC industry.

I doubt that the developers will now bother developing for X. The Mac is just like a dual-boot X86 PeeCee now...how many s/w ports are there for Linux? so OSX will be the same.

Linux isn't really a successful desktop OS though is it? I also think that there is an expectation that software for Linux should be dirt cheap, or free. That's certainly going to keep Adobe clear of the platform.

But as for developing for MacOSX, I'm wondering if Apple and Microsoft haven't got something up their sleeve for the WWDC.

I mean I'm just thinking out loud here, but on the surface, there isn't much between the OSs. Both have scrollbars (though the buttons are arranged differently), both have three buttons in the title bar (though they're at different ends). Both have menus (though the Mac uses a single menu bar and Windows has one per application).

What if the next version of VirtualPC worked a bit like the Windows VM in OS/2 (remember that?). No Windows desktop at all (unless you optionally request it), just Windows applications that launch straight onto the desktop like regular Mac apps.
And what if it could also 'skin' the application while it runs, so that it looked like a Mac application.

Adobe could release a single app that looked like Windows when it runs under Windows, but looks like a Mac app when running on VirtualPC.

And what if Apple also released Cocoa for Windows so that Mac developers could also target the Windows platform (as compensation for the possible loss of business) ....

I believe this is the final battle/gamble, and people are cheering the fact that Vista is delayed a few months...we're grasping a straws if we think that will mean that Pc users will not wait and just buy a Max to switch to OSX. When Vista hits the media being pushed by the MS adds, for months after release, PC users wont care about OSX running on some 'Mac', with some wierd thing called bootcamp...that will like yesterdays OS, how could it be as 'good' as something thats just released.

Perhaps you're being a little overdramatic. Wait and see how it plays out. I'm pretty sure Apple management knows what they're doing.

What does amuse is how so many Mac users spend every waking breath running down Windows and its user base, and now that they see the ability to run Windows on the horizon, Mac pride goes out the window (so to speak).

We spend years claiming that the PPC trounces Intel (look Jobs did a demo that proves it!) And then Jobs switches to Intel and claims it's up to 4 times faster (look Jobs did a demo that proves it!) and the PPC is now a piece of junk.

Anyway, I'd probably be a little more careful about all the 'Windows is crap' remarks because the platforms are getting closer together with each passing year. Something unexpected may happen, and there may not be enough humble pie to go around for all of us.

 

[roach]

It really is very simple. There are so many more PCs than Macs out there, that people are bound to see more problems.

But I'm curious. You have a three year old machine and you're going to fit a new motherboard? Is that a good choice from an economics point of view?

I added a motherboard that lets me use SLI (two video cards), but still be able to use my current processor with room to grow to newer processor...dual core. Everything else is stock carried on from my previous setup...I think I had the same case for over 5 years. Of course I was FORCE into buying second video card for my SLI setup...but that is another story I can tell if anybody cares to know but it was an issue with the hardware company...not MS.

 

[Maxx Power]

We spend years claiming that the PPC trounces Intel (look Jobs did a demo that proves it!) And then Jobs switches to Intel and claims it's up to 4 times faster (look Jobs did a demo that proves it!) and the PPC is now a piece of junk.

Anyway, I'd probably be a little more careful about all the 'Windows is crap' remarks because the platforms are getting closer together with each passing year. Something unexpected may happen, and there may not be enough humble pie to go around for all of us.

Actually, it's a lot funnier than that - Job's showed us that PPC benches faster in "select applications" than a P4 at the time, and it was about 200% or so. Then, when Intel came out with the Core chips, public review sites benched it at as fast as their P4's at half the clock, which makes them twice as fast as the P4's is Job's comparison and 4 times as fast adding on a second core, supposedly. Then, when Jobs took the Core chips, he claimed it is now 4 - 5 times faster than the upper G5's which were obviously faster than the G4's he compared to the P4's with years ago. So if calculate how many times faster the new chips are, it comes out to that the Core chips are (4-5)x4x200% faster than the P4's, and per windows benchmarks, it's ONLY up to 4 times faster. So by going with the Jobs mob, you automatically gain a +(4-5)*200% factor, and I think it should be rightfully be called the Jobs Enchanted Mac Modifier.

The misused benchmarks, it would come back to bite them hard if it were not pulled as it is from the website, someone should keep an archive of all of those performance graphs and present them to us for a good laugh the next time Jobs jump ships.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, whatever happened to Jobs' philosophy that the G4 is faster because it had less stages, that it could "swiftly" execute data when compared to the P4 brothrens with 20 ? The new core duo's are 14 stages, I believe.

 

[mozmac]

It makes sense that Windows is fast on a lot of things. It is so much snappier. If I were to pick a machine that I needed just to check my email for five minutes, I would pick windows. However, if I were to choose a machine to do ALL my work on, running TONS of programs at once, I would choose OS X.

 

[billyboy]

I can tell you now that your 1.25 ghz Powerbook g4 with 1.25 gb of RAM can not handle Maya running fx particle...it would kill your machine. I know people who struggle working on 3D with G5 workstation let alone your wimpy 1.25 powerbook. And on top of that Apple's openGL is not very well written. Damn…I just don’t believe that an music application running multiple tracks that your 1.25 powerbook can handle, an AMD 64 can’t handle. Like I said earlier bad memory, bad hardware, bad drivers and even bad application...XP always get blame for these problems. If you don't know how to diagnose your PC...you should send it to some who can find the problem...ahhh...you probably leave it, so you have something to blame your problem on.

At the end of the day, if Music producer's limits have been reached and with no amount of tweaking will a PC to do what he wants, but he can do it all on a Mac, then you have to concede that no way can it can be argued that XP is all about usability and user friendliness.

But there may be hope because it sounds like with his top of the range MBP built to Apples tight specs the music man will have a very unwimpy new mac laptop able to easily run your Maya etc apps AND perhaps be able to run Windows platform music apps more easily than his current "who knows what components are in it doing what" pc will allow him to do.

I think a point that keeps coming up is Mac integration cuts out the need to be a systems admin boffin to get great results. XP is a powerful OS and PCs are good bits of kit, but you will have a good experience because your knowledge of XP and PCs clearly is beyond that of the normal plug in and hope user's. An app written for Mac installed on a Mac machine will invariably work for less than stellar computer heads and I think Jobs is convinced that XP users could probably get their new intel Mac working Mac software just fine with a bit of hit and miss experimenting at first menu level, not resorting to delving into the inner workings.

 

[AidenShaw]

myths die hard - even when faced with the facts

...top of the range MBP built to Apples tight specs the music man will have a very unwimpy new mac laptop able to easily run your Maya etc apps AND perhaps be able to run Windows platform music apps more easily than his current "who knows what components are in it doing what" pc will allow him to do...

The myth of "Apple's tight specs" is going to take a while to die - but it will, as more and more people realize that Apple is buying exactly the same parts as Dell, Asus, HP and Lenovo. (H#ll, Asus is even building the MacIntel laptops according to the stories.)

Sure the $2000 Apple will have better parts than the $700 Dell, but it will have the same parts as the $1700 Dell.
____________________________________

That isn't to say that OSX isn't a better choice for live music productions - even with identical hardware one OS can have better real-time characteristics than another.

That will be one good thing about dual-booting - these tests can be run with OSX and XP on exactly the same box.

 

[askegg]

Apple hardware is a fashion statement, a lot of people will buy Apple hardware because it looks cool, not because it is cheap. And now that we can run windows on Apple hardware people can look cool and know what they are doing as opposed to getting lost with OSX.

Consumers don't always buy the cheapest item, even if the cheaper item can do something with the same reliability as the more expensive one.

I agree - they are fashion statements. I may also argue that people who "know what they're doing" will not get lost with OSX. OSX is simplier than Windows (too simple when trying to do some things). The OS refects the hardware - its clean, uncluttered and beautiful. I think the same reasons people buy the hardware are the same reasons they would choose to run OSX.

 

[askegg]

Speak for yourself. I'm an Apple customer and I am very much excited about running XP. The fanboi's have to take their collective heads out of their butts. There are still MANY applications that only run on XP (or some other flavour of Windows). Why should I buy two computers to be able to run all the software I want. Now I can buy one computer and use ALL the software I need and want. So yes I am VERY excited about this. The scientific lab I work in is also VERY excited about this. We have many Win only apps and now we can have the best of both worlds.

Don't get me wrong - I need to run XP on my iMac, but not because I prefer it over OSX. There are applications that are not available on OSX, so I am forced.

I like OSX for the same reasons I like the hardware. Windows is not an elegant solution compared to OSX (I have been using and support Windows in corporate environments for 15 years). There are things about the mac I do not like. I think some things have been simlified too much and this impedes my productivity.

Microsoft's suggestion that Apple customers have been screaming out to run their wonderful (sic) operating system on their shiney new macs is going a little too far. I am forced to run Windows in some circumstances, but that is not the same thing.

Personally I will be using virtual machines rather than dual boot solutions. Parallels VM software is pretty good, I hope VMWare will release a port.

 

[BenRoethig]

The myth of "Apple's tight specs" is going to take a while to die - but it will, as more and more people realize that Apple is buying exactly the same parts as Dell, Asus, HP and Lenovo. (H#ll, Asus is even building the MacIntel laptops according to the stories.)

Apple has contracted out production (but not design) for a while now.

 

[Maxx Power]

Apple has contracted out production (but not design) for a while now.

AidenShaw knows that, he was making a point with that as an example.

 

[billyboy]

The myth of "Apple's tight specs" is going to take a while to die - but it will, as more and more people realize that Apple is buying exactly the same parts as Dell, Asus, HP and Lenovo. (H#ll, Asus is even building the MacIntel laptops according to the stories.)

Sure the $2000 Apple will have better parts than the $700 Dell, but it will have the same parts as the $1700 Dell.
____________________________________

I guess I meant tight specs in terms of the overall package of hardware that Apple knows works well with its inhouse software.

Apple stick with their generally high spec but limited range all built with components known to definitely operate reliably within the limits required by OS X . I wonder if the Apple integration and Apple reliability could be replicated by any PC manufacturer that took the trouble (or the risk) to produce a machine with the specs required to run XP reliably and easily match the Apple hardware/software experience?

ie Do Dell have access to the inner workings of XP and know it as well as Apple know OSX - the big difference being that dell as hardware manufacturers choose to produce cheapo hardware in their range ( so the requirements of XP arent necessarily met long term and that is where the reliability problems running XP arise)