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How does an emac stack up, for me?

Oh crap...I just realized when you said custom that this is not really my "idea" so to speak; while I did take out a few here and there, the credit really goes to the man, Black Viper.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Without a doubt, this guy has helped thousands, if not millions of gamers out there with his custom registry tweaks. I am truly sorry i did not give the credit to him earlier (hehe hope he does not read MR). Seriously, alot of stuff explained at his website that MSoft fails to explain (the same way XP does NOT include an excellent Registry clean up program like JV16 PowerTools natively....grrrr).
 
Originally posted by Mav451

Turning off useless services, indexing services, etc. is a ONE CLICK PROCESS (custom registry entry)

The windows registry can be scary even if it is one click.


ALL of the necessary tweaking is done at the VERY beginning, yet many MR members continue to avoid or ignore this point I try to make.
Click to expand...

Even if a PC outperforms a mac, the mac just works. If you have all day to sit around and tweek you computer thats great. I am sorry if I am out of place here, but i just can not stand windows. Each version is slower, takes more memory and more CPU time. If i had all day to sit and tweek an operating system it wouldn't be window.
 
csubear: You like a Mac fine. The point i was making is that if this was done with all the PCs out there, you wouldn't be having as many of the "typical" or stereotypical problems that the Dell/HP customers will usually face, b/c the tweak will reduce alot of this.

If it were that way, csubear, you wouldn't even notice.

*Yes you are right in some aspects. I don't understand why Windows doesn't have an option at the beginning (minimal services, moderate, max) or something like this to reduce the bloat.

*csubear, you again are furthering the stereotype that the "tweakin" takes all day. Didn't I just say that it only takes a SINGLE registry entry to reduce the bloat and that it is/should be done at the time of OS installation? Are you even READING my posts? If you aren't going to contribute to the argument, do not employ blanket statements as your proof.
 
I read you post.

I understand what you are saying. I used to have views quite similar to yours. I was a big windows 'tweaker'. Bought all the right peices for my computer, set all the right jumppers tweaked my bios for the quickest memory timmings. Had the news coolest copy of windows. (I hated macs, i still hate classic)

Then i saw the light. I was forced to use a mac at work, and discovered a computer that works. No more tweaks.

I don't care who you when you first look at the windows registry its scary. (btw most good cs people will agree that the windows registry is a pile poo)

Not only do i not like windows any more, i have given up on the intel/AMD. The x86 ISA is old, and needs replaced(i like AMD move to a new 64 ISA for its 64 bit stuff, and i even like the Itanic, but it priced its self out of the market).

My 900 MHz G3 has a 5 stage pipeline. The newer G4 have somthing like 10-14 not sure. I am not sure how long AMD pipeline is but i know P4 is some where around 20 stages. So... 900 Mhz/5 ~
1/(180*10^6) s to excute an instruction, and a P4 @ 3.0 GHz takes 1/(150 * 10^6) to excute an instruction. While we all know that my 900Mhz G3 is not as fast as an 3.0 GHz P4(there are other factors, cache,FSB...) i would like to stress that the power design is far better than intel (to bad we couldn't get a fast FSB, that is what is killing the G4,G3)
 
Csubear, I actually have been trying 10.3.2 on the 2.0G5's in the lab at my school. The one thing that still strikes me is that all the Mac really misses is "pure performance". But that gets me to thinking of the Toyota Camry vs. Camaro argument. Or pretty much any import vs. Camaro argument. The Camaro has massive power, but i would never trust that over the reliability of Toyota/Honda.

The problem is, however, that i have had

a) Photoshop KP once on a computer (once out of the 4 times I've been trying them out, 1-2 hour sessions usually), and that was only my 2nd time on the G5!

b) Safari stalling numerous times (bringing iChat with it I might add, lagging or almost completely stopping my conversations)..beachball ugh.

Not good first impressions i might add, but hopefully these have easy solutions guys? Additionally i have heard the "Apple" sound on NUMEROUS occasions--which indicates someone has just restarted the computer, again. The stereotype of Apple computers as all-conquering, never-crashing machines (oh and "never requiring the standard PC world restart" begins to seem pretty fallible. That impression is one that many MacRumors members hear love to push onto the few PC members, like myself and it is not surprising that their claims were not true. Heck, I hear this more than the times i hear the "Windows 2000" sound the Dells make in our lab.

*of course a response to this might be-oh, old software needs to updated, etc.

I thought it went w/o saying that Apple computers "Don't need IT" or "Don't need tech support?" I don't know enough to fix it, but the person who arranged their purchase hopefully we be able to help.
 
You don't think the G5 is not pure performance! I think you need to take a closer look. 1Ghz hypertransport FSB, 400 Mhz DDR, Serial ATA?

http://www.barefeats.com/g5op.html

Have you ever used altivec? Its have wrote serval apps that utlized it, the speed up on typical floating poing problems was 4x. It is trully an amazing SIMD unit.

Not sure what why the G5 your G5's are restarting. Ya Safari has problems sometime, but i have never had any major issues. It still needs another year of development, writing a modren web browers is not easy. But still you guys most be doing something very strange to have an OS X machine needing to restart. My ibook has had uptimes of months. On a latop. My server also has had uptime of months. I only need to restart on updates or new drivers.

btw, not all camaro's have massive power.
 
Hehe sorry i forgot to say--i had meant to say "HAS been missing up to this point...". Up to the G5, there wasn't the "pure performance" perspective that the G5's now command today. I had enough of my Apple friends shove that into my head throughout July, thank you very much :)

And the mention of Camaro's? A lot of white guys at my high school told me all the time how Hondas were "inferior" in performance and that American muscle was all conquering and "unbeatable".

I dunno if you have gotten in a car argument before but it will ALWAYS go to American vs. Imports.
 
Part of the argument, in the Street Racing world, is that Camaro's were extremely cheap compared to similar Import offerings.

The Spec V; RSX Type S (as import examples) etc. cost nearly twice as say a used Camaro with 300hp. I now see the similar I can buy a high powered PC for 500 bucks, build my own PC kind of argument arising from this...interesting.

Funny that just by typing it out I am just starting to see this.
 
Yes pre 1981 or late 90's Z-28s are sweet. I wished i could find one that wasn't a rust bucket(ohio :( ). Or a 70's trans-am with a 450. I had a 68 skylard with a big block 350, that thing had so much power. but also got 12 mpg.

America forgot how to make cars for about 20 years, and i think things are just turning back around now. We are seeing a new muscle car era.

The new grand-prix is about the only american car i would buy. Japan has produced some great sports cars that not only go fast, they get more than 12 mpg. For example the WRX, or the 3000GT-VR4, Supra just to name a few.

But i think that i am getting away from the point of the thread. I think some one wanted to know how an emac would work out for them. Emacs are great, put as much memory as you can. A lot of people bash OS X b/c it eats memory, but unlike windows it is not the OS eating all the memroy. When OS X load a program something call a nib gets loaded in to memory. A nib is your user interface and all its widgets. When the program is closed the OS caches that nib in RAM. This allows you to open the program much faster the next time, and after a while you'll notice that you computer runs faster the longer it is on:)
 
I actually have almost the same .reg file. I decided that it would be worth the time to learn about all of the services and stuff. So I went to blkviper, just as you did, and started with the "Gaming" reg file.

After messing around with that, I started to customize it. I liked having Windows Time automatically set itself, so I turned that back on. I do like Auto Updates, so I turned that back on by default. There were a few more...

Then I noticed that my browser couldn't remember passwords anymore :-( So I had to figure out what I screwed up. I found it, and fixed it, and fixed my reg file.

Then I noticed I couldn't share my folders/printers anymore :-( So I found the problems, and fixed it.

Then I noticed that Norton AV wouldn't auto update anymore :-( So I found the problems, and fixed it.

There were several more steps in there too. That's not including all the time it took me to learn the best settings as far as system cache (not able to set with a reg file), the best programs to optimize my computer, the random tweaks that I like. But I've learned them all now. From a clean start, I can have my computer secure and just the way I want it in less than 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, 20 minutes is not how long it took to learn all of that stuff. It took months of messing around with everything. And unfortunately, there's not a "one size fits all" registry file that will work for everyone.

So I go back to the original post -- this person is not asking about advice on a G5 vs. Alienware computer. If that were the case, then it would be different. But he's asking about an eMac. IMHO, Macs are better at staying up to date, staying secure, staying fast, etc. PCs have their place -- raw performance, software variety, compatibility with everything (though Macs are starting to catch up). But you do have to configure more and do more maintenance on a PC than you do on a Mac. I'm still a PC power user, but I just like my mac better.

On a side note -- I noticed that all the Macs in my university's Mac lab crash too. I think they're running Jaguar, but it could be older. The Dells in our labs almost never crash. I know this is funny coming after what I just said, but it's what I've noticed. Who knows? There is a little truth behind the myth that Macs never crash though -- mine doesn't. I usually reset it every week just for the fun of it.
 
Mav451: I think you may be the one who's missing the point here. I'm sure it's not difficult to do what you have done, but the point is that a normal user shouldn't have to know some friend who know the right tricks to keep her computer from getting bogged down from normal use. (And yes many normal user will often install and uninstall all kinds of stuff that they get across (why do you think these e-mail viruses work so well ;) ))

I use computers for a living, heck, I'm even a full time programmer, but I still don't mess around in the registry. A normal user doesn't know what the registry is, and she shouldn't have to.
 
Mav451-

I was pretty sure you were talking about Black Viper's stuff. ;)

So, a 3rd party went through the registry and did the grunt work of exploring all those keys to find the teaks that add functionality to Windows that it should have had to begin with and/or improve the system performance.

Rather than a strength inherent in the OS, I'd call it the luck of having someone who's done the heavy lifting for you. Plus, the general computer user is in no way going to be familiar with, nor usually capable of modifying the registry. That's the realm of IT folks and hardcore tweakers.

Point is, with this and the other things you listed, it's not an "out of the box" system state - and I think that's what most people have been getting at.

Anyway, as others have pointed out, this is all veering far from the original poster's questions. Let's try to get back to that, shall we? :)
 
Digressions and tangents

haha I'm sure you guys enjoyed the tangent. There is one thing I realized, and it is kind of funny. Every single thing I have named is a 3rd party/open source alternative, none of them are native to XP.

Firefox? Open source alternative.
Thunderbird? Open source again.
Registry tweak? A guy named Black Viper worked his butt off on stuff Microsoft fails to explain about
SpyBot: S&D? 3rd party S/W
JV16 PowerTools? 3rd party AGAIN.

Microsoft? Didn't help at all :(

Safari is native to OSX so i think once it is rock solid (probably around 1.3 - 1.4); then OSX by default already has a superior browser. Actually it has one without saying (IE 6 is ridiculously insecure by default). I have "switched" to so many "safer" alternatives, and yet I still resist the "overall" switch...the irony.
 
Re: Digressions and tangents

Originally posted by Mav451
I have "switched" to so many "safer" alternatives, and yet I still resist the "overall" switch...the irony.
Click to expand...

Haha -- I was the same way. I even tried switching Word Processors because I hated Microsoft, but yet I continued to use Windows!

I'm a relatively new switcher, and I think the only reason I did switch was because the 12" PowerBook laptop was everything I wanted at the time. Mainly portability. Now I'm extremely happy with OSX. I still don't know if I would buy a Desktop, just because I always associate Desktop with Power. Yes, the G5 is very powerful in hardware, but the software is still lacking. I'm testing out a new video codec on my PC, for example, and my Mac cannot play it :-( Plus, I do like "tweaking" computers -- I've always built my own PC. Windows invites its users to tweak. I'm sure OSX does too, I just don't know where to look yet. That's the other reason I switched -- just something new.
 
Re: Re: Digressions and tangents

Originally posted by MictXP
That's the other reason I switched -- just something new.
Click to expand...

I know what you mean. I knew almost nothing about mac's (OS X) when I plugged in my eMac. But, I've had a blast figuring it all out. I still use pc's on a daily basis, but I find myself secretly wishing they were all mac's.

Granted, the pc's I use are fast Dell's (generally good pc's), but I just like the mac platform better. I personally don't care if the mac isn't as processor fast. I don't strain my computer.

To answer the original post....
Every computer made is pretty quick in terms of speed. Buy the one with the OS you like most. You might check out linux before you buy, as I've heard it's a decent OS.
 
I just have to say, all the macs at my old school crashed and froze all the time too, I don't know what these schools do to their macs, but they just don't act like other macs I've used.
 
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