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Tiger vs Leopard Performance Leap

Dronecatcher

Dronecatcher

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jun 17, 2014
5,290
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Lincolnshire, UK
Having run into problems with the Leopard install on my 17" DLSD, I've just reinstalled Tiger - as I'm going to be using this machine largely for music apps, I knew installing Tiger would squeeze out a little more CPU.
However, I was amazed to see the Geekbench score shift from 877 under Leopard to 987 in Tiger - and yes, it is the same Geekbench version I always use.
Has anyone experienced any similar jumps like this?

Tiger.jpg
 
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Could you try to bench it with leopard & following settings again:
Code: 
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver Compositor -dict deferredUpdates 0
Code: 
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver QuartzGLEnabled -boolean YES

Reboot after change these :)

Revert to stock:
Replace -dict deferredUpdates 0 with -dict deferredUpdates 1
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver QuartzGLEnabled -boolean NO
 
Traace said:
Could you try to bench it with leopard & following settings again:
Code: 
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver Compositor -dict deferredUpdates 0
Code: 
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver QuartzGLEnabled -boolean YES

Reboot after change these :)

Revert to stock:
Replace -dict deferredUpdates 0 with -dict deferredUpdates 1
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver QuartzGLEnabled -boolean NO
Click to expand...

I've tried those many times before on different systems and never caught any discernable difference.
 
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This is the main reason I run Tiger over Leopard. Tiger can run a lot of the same or similar software and is a lot less bloated. RAM use is another big difference. I can get by fine with between 512MB and 1GB RAM on Tiger, but Leopard seems to need at least 1.5 to 2GB to achieve near the same smoothness.

Even on my Intel Macs back when Tiger was current I never ran Leopard much. I went from Tiger to Snow Leopard in 2009.

I would go as far as saying that Tiger is by far the best PowerPC Mac OS ever.
 
timidpimpin said:
I would go as far as saying that Tiger is by far the best PowerPC Mac OS ever.
Click to expand...

Although these particular benchmarks suggest otherwise, in practice the Powerbook doesn't feel any faster and I found this on other machines too - although I always throw every optimisation going at Leopard on a G4.
Leopard is far more demanding - you only have to look at the leap in system requirements but when it is on appropriate hardware I find it hard to detect realworld differences.
 
Dronecatcher said:
Although these particular benchmarks suggest otherwise, in practice the Powerbook doesn't feel any faster and I found this on other machines too - although I always throw every optimisation going at Leopard on a G4.
Leopard is far more demanding - you only have to look at the leap in system requirements but when it is on appropriate hardware I find it hard to detect realworld differences.
Click to expand...

I agree that real world performance isn't that different, but Leopard seems to mess with overhead crap a lot more. Back when I installed Leopard for the first time around 2008 I found it was messing with the CPU a lot more even when everything was idle.

But I do find that Tiger does indeed feel faster for me. Maybe 10%.
 
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timidpimpin said:
But I do find that Tiger does indeed feel faster for me. Maybe 10%.
Click to expand...

I think sometimes there's a magical balance achieved between OS and particular hardware - again, despite the Geekbench difference, Leopard felt amazing on the 17" DLSD - I suspect because of the awesome GPU.
 
timidpimpin said:
This is the main reason I run Tiger over Leopard. Tiger can run a lot of the same or similar software and is a lot less bloated. RAM use is another big difference. I can get by fine with between 512MB and 1GB RAM on Tiger, but Leopard seems to need at least 1.5 to 2GB to achieve near the same smoothness.

Even on my Intel Macs back when Tiger was current I never ran Leopard much. I went from Tiger to Snow Leopard in 2009.

I would go as far as saying that Tiger is by far the best PowerPC Mac OS ever.
Click to expand...
Of course not everyone agrees. :)

Tiger sucks in a networked Windows/Mac environment. If you want to deal with a Windows server you have to shut off just about every level of security on the server so that a Tiger machine can actually connect and use a share. Print server on Tiger sucks balls.

Finder is unstable in this environment to the point where you should not make more than two copy or delete requests at once. Otherwise you get the beachball.

If a share disconnects, look out because Tiger will beachball. Leopard at least asks if you want to stay connected to the no longer available share.

Tiger is also not capable of running Adobe CS4. You need Leopard. You can run QuarkXPress 6 on Tiger but not XPress 8 (or 7 for that matter).

We all use a different OS according to our own purposes and preferences. I am willing to sacrifice some small speed or reaction time hits in order to get a smoother and more compatible experience.

But if we really must have a favorite, then my vote is for Snow Leopard. It's the finished product Leopard should have been.
 
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SL doesn't run on PPC hardware though. I meant Tiger is the best PPC OS.

Best overall OS for me would be Snow Leopard also, with El Capitan in 2nd.
 
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timidpimpin said:
SL doesn't run on PPC hardware though. I meant Tiger is the best PPC OS.
Click to expand...
OK. It certainly is for you I guess.

Tiger is NOT the best PowerPC OS for me though. That's Leopard.

I do run Tiger on certain Macs, but only because they can't run Leopard without CPU upgrades.
 
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