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My new G4/800 and MacOS X ...

A

abe

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 8, 2002
60
0
So I've reinstalled MacOS 9 and X on my new G4/800 (2 prtitions now) and made the first experience with MacOS X:

Pros:
- Great OS
- Networking (with Dave) rocks
- Overall handling is great (some minor changes might be great...)
- Apple did an amazing job

Cons:
- Scrolling, especially in MS IE is terribly slow
- Resizing windows is terribly slow

Any ideas how to speed up Mac OS X in generall (no, not buying any new hardware)? I'm using carbonized software only.
 
I've got 768MB ... should be enough shouldn't it?
 
Re: My new G4/800 and MacOS X ...

Originally posted by abe
So I've reinstalled MacOS 9 and X on my new G4/800 (2 prtitions now) and made the first experience with MacOS X:

Pros:
- Great OS
- Networking (with Dave) rocks
- Overall handling is great (some minor changes might be great...)
- Apple did an amazing job

Cons:
- Scrolling, especially in MS IE is terribly slow
- Resizing windows is terribly slow

Any ideas how to speed up Mac OS X in generall (no, not buying any new hardware)? I'm using carbonized software only.
Click to expand...

I totally agree. I have the 1Ghz DP with 512Mb Ram and the Scrolling and window re-sizing is too slow. Apart from that I love the system!!
 
Limitations of Quartz.

I think you seeing some of the limitations of quartz. These actaully aren't limitations as much as they are problems with hardware not being capable enough. Quartz does some amazing things and is probably the most advanced graphics engine available right now. In order to accomplish all of the cool things it does, it needs processing power. Processors (and more specifically graphics cards) need to play catch up and start handling some of the advanced operations that Quartz now handles in software.

In a year or so we'll see hardware more capable of doing the things that quartz requires. Also, it could be that more of Quartz' functionality could be written to fit existing hardware. We just need to give Apple and hardware vendors more time.

This is really a case of trading off speed for functionality. I think this trade off is worth it. I have a G4 400MHz machine and I find scrolling and window resizing acceptable.

Matthew
 
CL2 RAM

I have the same machine and I bought 512MB CL2 RAM from
Crucial and replaced the CL3 that comes in the G4 800mhz and
I know I gain at least 15% boost.

Cost from Crucial was: $132

ooartist
 
I have a TiBook with 512 of CL2 and everything is good. Scrolling with the Macally ioptinet is good, window resizing works fast enough.

One thing, don't bother with the two partitions, it is no longer needed (was only for the Beta release). I have set up both of my home systems and work G4 with both 9.2.2 and 10.1.2 on the same partition and OS X works beautifully. My work system has the least amount of RAM too (512 PC133 since it is a G4 733, pre-Quicksilver).

I am heading out to get new RAM for my TiBook in a few. Going from the 512 to 1GB :D. I will let you know how that performs.
 
ABE: Speeding up X

If you want to speed up your windows in OS X, this is what you do. First , turn OFF Genie Effect, it really bites. Get RAM, and that is it!
 
I still have my two partitions left over from the DP days, I've just been too lazy to backup and reformat. :rolleyes:

I'll just start from scratch when I buy a new computer (which won't be until I see RapidIO implemented or the G5, whichever comes first. :D
 
1 gig in a powerbook

Originally posted by AlphaTech
I have a TiBook with 512 of CL2 and everything is good. Scrolling with the Macally ioptinet is good, window resizing works fast enough..

I am heading out to get new RAM for my TiBook in a few. Going from the 512 to 1GB :D. I will let you know how that performs.
Click to expand...

Don't go for 1 gig in the tibook. It will slow it down and the power consumption is a little too high for the added boost. the you should go for is 768. trust me on this one.
 
Try killing the shadows, makes it slightly uglier but really makes it faster!

Search for Shadow Killer on versiontracker.com
 
Re: 1 gig in a powerbook

Originally posted by Onyxx


Don't go for 1 gig in the tibook. It will slow it down and the power consumption is a little too high for the added boost. the you should go for is 768. trust me on this one.
Click to expand...

Too late...

I have the 1GB installed and it is screamin'.... Power consumption isn't too much of a deal for me, since I rarely use it off of the battery alone.
 
oh well...
enjoy it then . try making a scratch disk for photoshop or any other app that uses a scratch disk out of ram;.aka ramdisk. forget ultra scsi raid arrays, ram partitions rule, and now you have enough to do just that. have fun.
 
Re: 1 gig in a powerbook

Originally posted by Onyxx


Don't go for 1 gig in the tibook. It will slow it down and the power consumption is a little too high for the added boost. the you should go for is 768. trust me on this one.
Click to expand...

I'm very curious how adding RAM to an OS X machine would slow it down.. can you elaborate?
 
The only way that I can think of would be if the memory was different spec. (333 and 222 or something of that nature). With all the same speed (222 in my case), I have not had any speed drop, if anything it is faster.

I will be installing some classic software tomorrow. I will probably boot into 9 to do the installs, since I prefer not to use classic under OS X for that (personal choice).

The next, and hopefully last, hardware upgrade that I have planned for my TiBook is to replace the hard drive with a 60GB from IBM.
 
Originally posted by AlphaTech
I have a TiBook with 512 of CL2 and everything is good. Scrolling with the Macally ioptinet is good, window resizing works fast enough.

One thing, don't bother with the two partitions, it is no longer needed (was only for the Beta release). I have set up both of my home systems and work G4 with both 9.2.2 and 10.1.2 on the same partition and OS X works beautifully. My work system has the least amount of RAM too (512 PC133 since it is a G4 733, pre-Quicksilver).

I am heading out to get new RAM for my TiBook in a few. Going from the 512 to 1GB :D. I will let you know how that performs.
Click to expand...

AlphaTech: ive come to trust what you say around here. you seem to be one of the few guys who knows his sh*t. but i totally disagree about the partition thing. but i think we are talking about two different things. i believe (just guessing here) that you are referring to people not wanting to run osx and their classic os9 off the same partition. i never had problems with that even back in the dp4 days so ill trust you when you say this has been resolved.

i think the main reason people are partitioning their drives for osx is because they want separate OS9 and OS9classic systems. This is my main reason for having partitions. One partition i use for booting up in OS9 so this drive has the basic os9 set of extensions and no classic compatability files that get installed when you first boot up classic in osx. then one another partition i have osx and the os9 that i only use from within osx (via classic). this os9 is a totally stripped down system. no internet, usb, firewire, cd, dvd, quicktime, graphics card, etc extensions. this makes classic os9 boot veryy fast and remain very stable. having all the extensions that you need when actually booted in os9 in classic just makes it slower and most of the extensions cant be used by classic. this is the single most effective way of improving classic speed and stability (ie tossing unnecesary extensions, contecual menus, control panels etc). this is also nice if you want to wipe just os9 or just osx. and of course this also means you can run all of your norton utilities on your boot os9 without screwing up osx. (does anyone know if norton is even working on a osx utility? drive10 is ok but ive been forced to simply wipe osx and reinstall every few months to prevent system slow down, if you think this sound insane all i can say is try running osx on a clean install... its so much faster isnt it?)

im pretty sure having two partitions for the purpose i described isnt what you were referring to but i thought it important to say something because i think this setup is the one most people refer to when they say they want to partition their drive for osx.
 
AmbitiousLemon

I am able to boot between OS 9 and OS X just fine with a single partition (not classic from within X). There are two system folders on my drive and I can just use the Startup Disk control panel to select which one to boot from (from within X or 9).

Apple shipped my G4 733 (pre-Quicksilver) at work with one partition, but both OS's installed. I don't remember which one booted up first when I first powered it up, but I believe at the time it was 9. All systems that have shipped to us there with both OS's have come on a single partition. That leads me to believe that Apple has that as the preferred scheme.

I need to use a fully functional OS 9 at work, since there is at least one extension, and then program, that will not work from within classic mode. That is an essential application to me at work (Apple Network Assistant). With that, we are able to perform remote installs, copy down items to people's systems in the background (virus definition updates since we can't go out with NAV7 to get the updates on the net). We do have Timbuktu (latest version), but I have not yet tried it. It would also be a bit of a pain to install that on all 250 some odd systems.

At home, I prefer to boot into 9 when I need to, otherwise I boot into X, but I still have the single partition. While it might be easier, or more desirable, for some people to use two partitions, I prefer just one. At one point, I did have two partitions (back in the pb version I believe), but I have long since gone down to one.

Peace
 
what vertion are you running?

what vertion of OS X are you running? make sure its the latest and for windows resising animations you should turn off scaleing and turn on "geni" or however you spell it! i makes OS X run a little bit faster, also what resolution are you in? hopefully your highest or at least 1024 * 768! so as to why you thing OS X is running SLOW on a dual 800 G4 is beyond me! im running OS X on a 500MHz G3 with 256 ram and it works fine for me. nothing unberable!

if you still experian "slowness" on you new computer then i would take it iin to a dealer and have them look at it its still under warenty, and all "checkups" should be free!
 
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