Tiger speed on a "Smurf tower"? (a PowerMac G3/350)

[Makosuke]

Speed:
9<10.2<10.3<10.4
Memory:
10.2<10.4<10.3<9

Good post, but in my experience the situation is more like:

Speed on G4: 10.2<9<10.3<10.4
Speed on G3: 10.2=10.3<9 (at least on slower G3s, haven't tried Tiger yet)
Memory: 10.4<10.3<10.2<9

9 of course runs ok with under 100MB; 10.2 needs around 256MB, 10.3 feels better with at least 384MB, and if what people are saying is true Tiger will probably run the best with at least 512MB.

It's not even worth thinking about 10.0 and 10.1--they both probably need a little less RAM than 10.2, but are dog slow on any computer.

 

[nagromme]

You also have to consider what you MEAN by speed.

Comparing 10.2, say, to 9 on my G3, 10.2 "feels slower." I was very much aware of that. But I got more done, more easily, just the same! I could run more apps and have them stay responsive, with the same RAM, than 9 could ever handle. (Even Classic apps.) So in some ways, 10.2 was faster. And once I was used to using 10.2, I could NOT tolerate OS 9. Fast resizing of windows? Nice... but not worth losing OS X.

 

[Makosuke]

Good point, nagromme--OSX feels drastically slower on an older Mac, but I'd use it any day even so. Aside from the fact that OS9 no longer supports any decent browsers (an old version of Mozilla and IE5 are about it), the lack of crashes and improved multitasking easily make it worthwhile for all but the handful of people who, say, only ever use Photoshop 4 and aren't interested in upgrading. For them, OS9 will likely be faster.

 

[James Philp]

Speed on G4: 10.2<9<10.3<10.4
Speed on G3: 10.2=10.3<9 (at least on slower G3s, haven't tried Tiger yet)
Memory: 10.4<10.3<10.2<9

9 of course runs ok with under 100MB; 10.2 needs around 256MB, 10.3 feels better with at least 384MB, and if what people are saying is true Tiger will probably run the best with at least 512MB.

I'm running tiger fine on 384. If you're photoshopping a lot go for more RAM, but 384MB and photoshopping on 10.3 was not great either.
You found 10.2/10.3 slower than 9? I was including all the time for re-starts (and the bootup took long enough) the time to play with extensions, and the constant crashing I seem to remember, not to mention multitasking impossibility!
I look back and can't see how I possibly lived with 9 now!

 

[James Philp]

OSX feels drastically slower on an older Mac, but I'd use it any day even so

Do you mean as compared to OSX on a newer Mac, or as compared to 9 on the same Mac?