So now that we're a few days into the SL ERA, can those of you that have MP 1.1s ('06-'07) share your experiences with SL? I have a 1.1 with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, and while $29 is not a whole lot of money, I still wonder if I should bother upgrading to SL, since it appears (If I interpret some of the recent topics on this forum correctly) that neither the processor nor the video card I have can take advantage of the 64 bit thingee (sorry, I'm not up on the lingo). If I can't get even a modest speed boost (say 20%), the other subtle changes to the OS are not worth the few hours that I'd have to spend migrating my stuff to a new drive with the new OS.
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Snow Leopard and MP 1.1
- Thread starter akadmon
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Running a mac pro 1,1 here... just installed today. All is well. The little improvements are nice. I installed on an extra drive and used the migration assistant with no ill effects. Smooth seamless transition, more reliable than running an upgrade install. Also allows me to revert back to 10.5.8 if i have any problems.
You ARE able to run 64 bit applications, don't forget that. You are also able to be compatible with future 3rd party software software that is 'snow leopard only'
You ARE able to run 64 bit applications, don't forget that. You are also able to be compatible with future 3rd party software software that is 'snow leopard only'
What are the improvements you have noticed (other than the obvious differences from Leopard that I can read about on apple.com)?
uMBP is running K64 and K32. MP1,1 is running K32 only. Both systems updated easy without pain and Windows went on Bootcamp3.0 drivers. Install time for SL on the SSD RAID0 in MacPro1,1 was 8 min.
Running here with a MP 1,1 a 4870 I just upgraded from a silent 3870....
If you are doing anything with h.264 video.. Such as .MP4 files, performance is through the roof! Quicktime X was completely rewritten. It's a 64-bit app and it ROCKS on the 3870 and 4870 video cards!!!! Can't wait for the upgrades to iLife....
Everyone is all pissy about poor performance on Open CL. Today - name one app that relies on it? LOL. I'm a power user and can't think of one beyond some poorly written benchmark apps!!!!
You have a MP. What's $29 VS your current investment? LOL!! If your unhappy with your MP, sell it on Craigslist and get a new one for a small upgrade price!
just .02!
Thx!
HHG
If you are doing anything with h.264 video.. Such as .MP4 files, performance is through the roof! Quicktime X was completely rewritten. It's a 64-bit app and it ROCKS on the 3870 and 4870 video cards!!!! Can't wait for the upgrades to iLife....
Everyone is all pissy about poor performance on Open CL. Today - name one app that relies on it? LOL. I'm a power user and can't think of one beyond some poorly written benchmark apps!!!!
You have a MP. What's $29 VS your current investment? LOL!! If your unhappy with your MP, sell it on Craigslist and get a new one for a small upgrade price!
just .02!
Thx!
HHG
I've got a Mac Pro 1,1 and an ATI 3870. I thought the ATIs werent supported for OpenCL or is Quicktime X independent of OpenCL when encoding videos?
I have a 1,1 and a 3870, and there are definitely plusses which outweigh the minuses (for now). I say "for now" because the minuses are things which will be fixed soon, I think.
Plus: Much faster app launches, better mail performance, Safari just screams, Dock Expose is nice, you CAN run 64-bit applications - just not the 64-bit kernel (but who cares unless you have > 32GB of RAM), OpenCL WILL use your CPU as working units if your video card isn't supported (yours and mine both aren't), and Snow Leopard is the future: multithreading via Grand Central will eventually make your system faster than it is now.
Minuses: OpenCL / general video performance isn't as smooth on the 3870 as I would like, but that's just a driver issue. A handful of apps aren't YET compatible.
I'd say do it - really, you'll want to eventually. It's the cheapest OS upgrade we've had yet.
JP
Plus: Much faster app launches, better mail performance, Safari just screams, Dock Expose is nice, you CAN run 64-bit applications - just not the 64-bit kernel (but who cares unless you have > 32GB of RAM), OpenCL WILL use your CPU as working units if your video card isn't supported (yours and mine both aren't), and Snow Leopard is the future: multithreading via Grand Central will eventually make your system faster than it is now.
Minuses: OpenCL / general video performance isn't as smooth on the 3870 as I would like, but that's just a driver issue. A handful of apps aren't YET compatible.
I'd say do it - really, you'll want to eventually. It's the cheapest OS upgrade we've had yet.
JP
Thanks for the feedback. I'll give SL a go. I plan to dual boot for a while (SL will be on a clean 1TB drive I'm getting), which will give me a chance to run some real world benchmarks. Can you guys suggest a few practical tests? I've been spending most of my time tweaking photos in Lightroom lately, so I may start with that, although I can't think of anything I do in LR that really pushes my machine. I don't imagine disk intensive processes (e.g., copying files from an SD card to the internal HD) benefit much from SL, right?
Uuh,what are you talking about?
Import big batches of pics (with preview) and you get close to 400% proc useage.
Take a batch of pics and export them to scaled down jpgs and you hit the 400%.
Heck,LR is that well optimized that whatever you do utilizes cores close to the max.
But what I am intrested at is if there is a big power boost between Leo and SL,say,in the batch importing and exporting.
Saving 30% in 30 min import is 10 minutes,so I would take that gladly!!!
OK then, I'll do something like a 4-5 GB RAW import off an SD card into/jpg export from a new LR library in both Leopard and SL. Honestly, though, I don't see how speed improvements in those areas can have a significant impact on anybody's LR workflow, since LR already allows you to work on other things while import/export is going on in the background.
Installed SL on a new internal hd tonight. Here are my Lightroom (2.4) benchmarks.
Import 88 RAW files from an SD card (1.87 GB)
Export the same 88 RAW files from a LR library as 100% quality jpgs
EDIT:
Expose (reveal desktop) seems very choppy under SL (it's very smooth under 10.5).
Password icon not showing up in Safari (I've tried all the fixes I could find on the developer's web site).
So far SL seems like a waste of $29 (and time).
Import 88 RAW files from an SD card (1.87 GB)
Leopard:2 min 55 sec
Snow Leopard: 2 min 49 sec
Export the same 88 RAW files from a LR library as 100% quality jpgs
Leopard: 5 min 32 sec
Snow Leopard:6 min 00 sec
EDIT:
Expose (reveal desktop) seems very choppy under SL (it's very smooth under 10.5).
Password icon not showing up in Safari (I've tried all the fixes I could find on the developer's web site).
So far SL seems like a waste of $29 (and time).
It might not be much for you,but for many (of us) are working with 50-100Gb shoots,so it starts to be way,way bigger runs and thus the processing times runs in dozens of minutes.
And during that time,you dont do that much but read mails as the LR runs all 4 cores.
You dont do fcp,you dont run ps,you dont run compressor.
So every minute saved = More money.
And thanks for the test runs!!!
Did you do several runs and count the average or what?
Single run tests are very suspectible to varables and usually you need at least 3-5 runs to get some kind of remotely reliable averages.
But it seems that I will skip the SL update as well for some time...
I have not seen a single goddam proap (relevant to me) that has benefited speedwise from SL.