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Mac OS feels sluggish next to Vista?!

W

wayland1985

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
557
29
I just got home from a long weekend of studying at my buddy's place. His Sony Vaio (Base model) is running Vista.

A few times I hopped onto his computer (mine was left at home) to do some browsing, and I noticed IE was a lot snappier than Safari. Also, launching some programs was very snappy!

Weird....
 
You didn't say what Mac you had and what his PC specs were, so big deal eh?

If you find Safari a bit sluggish, reset it (from the Safari menu).
 
Schtumple said:
Just so you know, the OP (from what I can tell form another thread he started), has a MBP.
Click to expand...

Yep... Sorry... Separate issues as that other thread start (kinda).


I was just kind of shocked at how snappy things were running on his $999 Sony (Running BASIC Vista) vs how it feels on my $2800 MBP (Running OSx Leopard) :eek:

Then Again, his machine runs fairly hot! :rolleyes:
 
OS X isn't a real time OS driven by interrupts so a mouse click responds instantly.

While things may seem a bit off in OS X at times, it is still responding to user actions.

Though the ability for the OS to handle a lot of threads at once is getting better, and will improve as the developers take advantage of Leopard and Snow Leopard.
 
I recently jumped to Mac OS X from Win PC running Vista.
So far, I am VERY happy with OS X, my iMac is 2.4GHz with 4G RAM, my Win PC is AMD64 @ 2.6GHz with 3G RAM running Vista Home, I am finding the OS X just as fast and snappy as the PC, in some areas it is even better, opens up applications much faster.
Overall I am glad I switched to Mac. :)
 
I have both Vista Ultimate SP1 64-Bit and OS X Leopard 10.5.5 installed on my Early 2007 Quad Core Mac Pro (two 2 GHz Dual Core Xeons) with 8 GB RAM. Both systems are installed on Seagate Barracudas, although the disk that OS X runs on is, according to its technical specification, a tick faster than the one that hosts Vista.

Nevertheless, Vista is faster at everything than OS X Leopard - on the same computer. The important factors here are SP1 for Vista and that it is the 64-Bit version, which as a matter of fact runs circles around Vista's 32-Bit edition on the same patch level. (And I know that because it was installed on this very same computer before I freshly installed the 64-Bit version.)

The same goes for the 64-Bit version of Internet Explorer, which also performs better than its 32-Bit sibling. Especially encrypted pages are loaded much faster in IE7 (x64) than in any other 32-Bit browser.

Furthermore, I'd say that Vista has a better optimized network/TCP/IP stack than OS X; almost all network operations feel faster in Vista than in Leopard.

As for reliability, stability and robustness, there is no difference between Leopard and Vista. A fully patched Windows XP is more stable than both (no matter what you like to believe), but Vista and Leopard play on the same level here, and I can easily say because I've been using them both since they were officially released on a daily and professional basis.

Leopard's killer feature is Quick Look. It's the only thing that I miss instantaneously when I have to use a different operating system.

Vista's killer feature is the abundance of software and tools available for it. Apple's platform pales in comparison - especially when we're talking about software development products. I also don't have to sign an NDA when I want to use Microsoft's development tools, by the way.

Anyway. Short and simple: I can confirm the original poster's confirmation that Vista is faster than Leopard. Period.
 
Well, this gives the Snow Leopard fan club some 64-bit-yness to dream about... x86 does benefit more from 64-bit code than other platforms, because AMD64 has twice the registers as x86.
 
I can't wait for Snow Leopard. I would like to think it'll make this computer Scream!
 
wayland1985 said:
I just got home from a long weekend of studying at my buddy's place. His Sony Vaio (Base model) is running Vista.

A few times I hopped onto his computer (mine was left at home) to do some browsing, and I noticed IE was a lot snappier than Safari. Also, launching some programs was very snappy!

Weird....
Click to expand...

Yes, comparatively speaking (hardware wise), Vista can be faster at launching programs. This is because of "Superfetch". In Windows Vista, Superfetch automatically loads programs into RAM on boot-up based on program use history. So, any program frequently used will load faster.

I own a MacBook Pro and have always noticed that first launch of any program in OS X is slow. Fundamentally, OS X and Windows are very different in terms of RAM utilization.

In 10.5, any icon with a blue dot underneath it in the dock, signifies that it's program is loaded in RAM and ready to go. Quitting (not closing a window) a program will then unload it from RAM. So starting Safari for the first time in a session will take longer than opening a new Safari window (after the program has been loaded). In addition, quitting Safari, then re-launching it will require OS X to reload it into RAM which in return will cause a slow launch.

Windows is very different; as it automatically manages your RAM. "Superfetch" aside, Windows too can be slow when launching programs for the first time in a session. The big difference is, there is no "quit" option in Windows; only "close". So, you open Internet Explorer for the first time and it takes a couple seconds, and then you close it. Then, for the remainder of your session, assuming you have sufficient RAM, Internet Explore will open quick every time you start it. With the addition of "Superfetch" and a fast computer, your most frequently used programs should always open fast.
 
eezing said:
Yes, comparatively speaking (hardware wise), Vista can be faster at launching programs. This is because of "Superfetch". In Windows Vista, Superfetch automatically loads programs into RAM on boot-up based on program use history. So, any program frequently used will load faster.

I own a MacBook Pro and have always noticed that first launch of any program in OS X is slow. Fundamentally, OS X and Windows are very different in terms of RAM utilization.

In 10.5, any icon with a blue dot underneath it in the dock, signifies that it's program is loaded in RAM and ready to go. Quitting (not closing a window) a program will then unload it from RAM. So starting Safari for the first time in a session will take longer than opening a new Safari window (after the program has been loaded). In addition, quitting Safari, then re-launching it will require OS X to reload it into RAM which in return will cause a slow launch.

Windows is very different; as it automatically manages your RAM. "Superfetch" aside, Windows too can be slow when launching programs for the first time in a session. The big difference is, there is no "quit" option in Windows; only "close". So, you open Internet Explorer for the first time and it takes a couple seconds, and then you close it. Then, for the remainder of your session, assuming you have sufficient RAM, Internet Explore will open quick every time you start it. With the addition of "Superfetch" and a fast computer, your most frequently used programs should always open fast.
Click to expand...

Ah, this makes sense. I guess we macs have it better in the long run!
 
Winni said:
I have both Vista Ultimate SP1 64-Bit and OS X Leopard 10.5.5 installed on my Early 2007 Quad Core Mac Pro (two 2 GHz Dual Core Xeons) with 8 GB RAM. Both systems are installed on Seagate Barracudas, although the disk that OS X runs on is, according to its technical specification, a tick faster than the one that hosts Vista.

Nevertheless, Vista is faster at everything than OS X Leopard - on the same computer. The important factors here are SP1 for Vista and that it is the 64-Bit version, which as a matter of fact runs circles around Vista's 32-Bit edition on the same patch level. (And I know that because it was installed on this very same computer before I freshly installed the 64-Bit version.)

The same goes for the 64-Bit version of Internet Explorer, which also performs better than its 32-Bit sibling. Especially encrypted pages are loaded much faster in IE7 (x64) than in any other 32-Bit browser.

Furthermore, I'd say that Vista has a better optimized network/TCP/IP stack than OS X; almost all network operations feel faster in Vista than in Leopard.

As for reliability, stability and robustness, there is no difference between Leopard and Vista. A fully patched Windows XP is more stable than both (no matter what you like to believe), but Vista and Leopard play on the same level here, and I can easily say because I've been using them both since they were officially released on a daily and professional basis.

Leopard's killer feature is Quick Look. It's the only thing that I miss instantaneously when I have to use a different operating system.

Vista's killer feature is the abundance of software and tools available for it. Apple's platform pales in comparison - especially when we're talking about software development products. I also don't have to sign an NDA when I want to use Microsoft's development tools, by the way.

Anyway. Short and simple: I can confirm the original poster's confirmation that Vista is faster than Leopard. Period.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. I've got both Vista x64 SP1 and OSX 10.5.5 running on the same machine (the one in my sig) and Vista just does things faster. Vista's even using a slower HD SATA 1.5Gbs HD while OSX is using the SATA 3.0Gbs HD. I like using OSX more. I prefer the UI. However, for performance, Vista takes the cake.
 
Oooh pick me, pick me!

So I was using Vista 64-bit on my Mac, and it rocked for some task set. I didn't like... benchmark it or anything, but for some completely arbitrary group of tasks I seem to remember it owning Mac OS X! I'm also pretty sure that the TCP/IP stack is better. I didn't benchmark anything or try using it for some high-bandwidth application -- it just "feels faster". And IE 7 is waaay faster than Safari. Guess all those benchmarks that showed WebKit kicking the crap out of Trident were totally wrong!
 
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