OS X slower than Windows

[Striderdm1]

Re: OS X slower than Windows

Originally posted by bcharm
On equivalent hardware OS X is slower than Windows. We all know this, but no one's ever explained why. What is it about OS X that's slowing it down, and what does Apple have to do it speed it up so that it's as quick and responsive as Windows?

It's not that big of a deal to me since I love the whole Mac user experience, but my sis who switched is always complaining and asking why Macs are so slow. I'm starting to wonder why too.

maybe on your mac, but NOT here.. ! MacOSX runs as i'd expect and Panther is better than anything i've used previously.

have u enough ram? 512mb is the bare min imho, i'd always recomend 1gig min. I have 1.5gig here

Wot s/w are you trying to run?

 

[TheFish]

ive upgraded to panther on an 800mhz 17" imac and panther dosnt seem any more responsive to me, widnows cant even keep up with the mouse when you are reisizing them heres an example http://www.xvsxp.com/general/#responsiveness

 

[Striderdm1]

Originally posted by TheFish
ive upgraded to panther on an 800mhz 17" imac and panther dosnt seem any more responsive to me, widnows cant even keep up with the mouse when you are reisizing them heres an example http://www.xvsxp.com/general/#responsiveness

Wow !

that is bad - our iBook running at 700mhz G3 isn't like this. Sure, it's nothing compared to my dual G5 - but it is also nothing like them examples from the link!

There is something way wrong with any mac > than this iBook here and that includes your iMac that should feel twice as good imho.

Use Activity Monitor to see if there's anything grabbing all the cpu speed or if there's just something running that shouldn't be. Is the gfx card drivers upto date? How's your ram? What 3rd party software is loaded - i had norton DD, anti virus and personal firewall3 enabled and these SLOWED my G5 down.

I've removed all norton stuff and got a speed boost! I now use virex and Netbarrier..

Seriously, there is something really wrong there - in every respect your iMac is superior to this iBook. But this iBook does NOT perform anywhere near any of those examples in the link! Straight up.

A re-install AND a CLEAN install of Panther? Do a system check too - on the G5 i reboot with the OPTION key held down. I dunno if it's the same for the iMac..?

HTH? But i hope u get sorted - you shouldn't have any Mac that's better than this iBook performing worse iyswim

Good luck!

 

[Fukui]

Originally posted by TheFish
ive upgraded to panther on an 800mhz 17" imac and panther dosnt seem any more responsive to me, widnows cant even keep up with the mouse when you are reisizing them heres an example http://www.xvsxp.com/general/#responsiveness

If you read my post above, you would see why. The guy though, didn't really go into why its slow (the visual effects that are being proccessed on OSX etc.), but yea, that article basically reflects the state of things right now, in terms of UI speed.

 

[~Shard~]

Originally posted by joshuwa72
I dont think OS X is "slower"...but it does have quite a few dazzling effects, such as genie and all the other animations and fades going on.

While that dosnt slow the OS down, a genied window takes longer to get down than a minimized XP window just because of what its doing.

That can make it "feel" less responisve and less "right now!" feeling...but OS X on my new mac definetly blows my pc away.

I agree - I think lots of the time it's people's PERCEPTION of speed, due to how certain tasks appear or are animated in the OS. OSX does a few more flashy things, which does indeed lead to a perceived slower response than Windows in some cases. But when it comes down to what's important, i.e. execution time, multitasking, etc., I believe OSX will outperform Windows from a performance point of view pretty much every time. If I'm incorrect, by all means, correct me.

 

[Striderdm1]

Originally posted by ~Shard~
I agree - I think lots of the time it's people's PERCEPTION of speed, due to how certain tasks appear or are animated in the OS. OSX does a few more flashy things, which does indeed lead to a perceived slower response than Windows in some cases. But when it comes down to what's important, i.e. execution time, multitasking, etc., I believe OSX will outperform Windows from a performance point of view pretty much every time. If I'm incorrect, by all means, correct me.

I use both systems, and osx is far far far superior - we just have less games!

 

[leet1]

Originally posted by Striderdm1
I use both systems, and osx is far far far superior - we just have less games!

osx will be far far far superior when

1. its user base equals that of windows
2. cost go down on the machines it is on or its able to be installed on more than just apples machines
3. it has just as many games as windows

 

[~Shard~]

Originally posted by leet1
osx will be far far far superior when

1. its user base equals that of windows
2. cost go down on the machines it is on or its able to be installed on more than just apples machines
3. it has just as many games as windows

I will reply to this as if you were serious, even though I know you weren't. It'll reinforce what you said, and will be more fun that way....

Ahem, begin sarcasm...

So, let me get this straight. For an Operating System to be superior to another Operating System, the stability, ease of use, kernel, amount of code (i.e. if it's bloatware or not) and overall architecture don't matter at all. Okay, gotcha.

And conversely, a good Operating System has nothing to do with the operating system itself but how many people decide to use it, if companies decide to make games for it, and the cost of the machines they run on (let's not get into the whole Apple cost vs. PC cost debate again!), which essentially means superior SOFTWARE (the OS) is dependant on the cost of the HARDWARE. Okay, that makes total sense.

So I guess this means Windows is the best OS in the world then. It has lots of games, (which is the most important factor when selecting an OS!), the hardware it runs on is cheap (in more ways than one - you get what you pay for) and it has a lot of people using it. Yah, nevermind that new Windows version require more and more system requiremenets, get bigger and bigger and slower and slower. That's much better than an OS like OSX that gets more efficient than it's previous versions and make old systems run faster.

Kay, thanks for letting me get all the sarcasm out of my system for the next week - I really enjoyed that.

 

[Striderdm1]

Originally posted by leet1
osx will be far far far superior when

1. its user base equals that of windows
2. cost go down on the machines it is on or its able to be installed on more than just apples machines
3. it has just as many games as windows

I think ~Shard~ gives a far far far better reply than i ever could!

 

[zellin]

MAC OS X WAY FASTER

I'm sorry, but anyone who says that Windows is faster than OS X has no idea what he/she is talking about. Maybe "Comparable" doesn't mean what it used to mean...

 

[daveL]

Fast vs Efficient

Regardless of how long it takes to redraw a window or display a menu, I find it always takes several more steps to do anything in XP, compared to OS X. So OS X always "works" faster, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm on a "slow" 1GHz TiBook (my wife has a 1.8 GHz XP box).

Then there's the issue of running multiple apps, which is seriously better on OS X.

All in all, I see no contest: OS X wins hands down.

 

[~Shard~]

Re: Fast vs Efficient

Originally posted by daveL
Regardless of how long it takes to redraw a window or display a menu, I find it always takes several more steps to do anything in XP, compared to OS X. So OS X always "works" faster, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm on a "slow" 1GHz TiBook (my wife has a 1.8 GHz XP box).

Yes, I agree, I think this is a huge factor as well. Not only does OSX technically perform faster from a sheer performance point of view, but the ease of use allows users to complete tasks faster and "work" faster, thereby effectively increasing the speed and efficiency of the OS as well. Hmm, what a novel concept for an OS!