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Why the heck does Windows run so much better than Mac OS?

I tend to just reinstall new computers as a rule. I have run into sever situations where the initial load from the factory is borked in some way. I recently reloaded a brand new 2.4 MBP for a customer when I noticed an icon that was corrupted in the system preferences. I normally give customers of mine the option, but if I can point to something specific like the icon I mentioned they normally always agree to a fresh install even straight out of the box. You just really have no way of knowing what kind of stuff that machine went through on it's way to you or the store from the factory.

Oh, after I reloaded the machine it seemed very snappy to me. I'm sure the Nvidia graphics drivers will need to be updated, but it was very snappy on normal tasks.
 
I'm better Leopard will solve this issue since it takes advantage of the 64 bit hardware mixed with the power of OS X.
 
otispunkmeyer said:
i reckon GUI lag is due to the graphics drivers...this is a new DX10 chipset and even nvidia themselves have been pretty slow with the drivers...especially mobile drivers
mine takes a good chunk of time to sleep, but i think this is due to what i have running when i sleep it...lots of stuff in the ram which has to be written to disk

it wakes up near instant though.

and when i run windows with parallels..its flipping lightning quick. not sure if thats windows, or mac because its a virtual machine isnt it
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Thats a good point, about the graphics drivers. I mean, expose and coverflow run fine for the most part, the odd slowdown but nothing major, and nothing that really bothers me.

My question to you is, since the new mbp's are using nVidia graphics chips, how are the drivers going to be handled? Will they release drivers on their site the same as they would for a windows user, or would it be just through one of the apple updates? Only reason i'm asking is because i went to the nvidia site to see if there were any drivers to download for os x and i couldnt find any, so i didnt know how distribution of mac video drivers worked, or if they even really update them at all for os x.
 
Internet browsing is much faster in XP, but multitasking sucks. OS X multitasks much better. I just don't understand why web browsing is so much faster in XP.
 
I am curious as to why many of you do not shutdown your computer, rather than putting it to sleep.

It seems to be more beneficial to me. It removes all of the memory leaks and stale pointers. The time it takes to boot a Mac is relatively short.

I am sure you have your own good reasons, and I am not suggesting there is a right way and a wrong way.
 
SMM said:
I am curious as to why many of you do not shutdown your computer, rather than putting it to sleep.

It seems to be more beneficial to me. It removes all of the memory leaks and stale pointers. The time it takes to boot a Mac is relatively short.

I am sure you have your own good reasons, and I am not suggesting there is a right way and a wrong way.
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You've got a point, however i guess its just easier for me to close the screen and walk away compared to pressing the power button and hititng shutdown, not that doing it that way is much harder or longer though.

Although i know for me, if im going to sleep, or going to work and i know i'm gonna be away from my computer for a while, ill shut it down. However if i'm just going away for a few mins, maybe an hour, ill just toss it to sleep mode.
 
I am I the only one who finds the Intel Macs to be more unstable than the old G4s? They things crash regularly and I don't anything weird. I'm talking kernal panics, which I've only previously seen on a G3 Powermac that was made up of a bunch of used parts.
 
geoffy said:
I am I the only one who finds the Intel Macs to be more unstable than the old G4s? They things crash regularly and I don't anything weird. I'm talking kernal panics, which I've only previously seen on a G3 Powermac that was made up of a bunch of used parts.
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No, I agree. I've had more problems with my MBP running 10.4 since I got it a few months ago then I've had on my G4 mini in the past 2 years (running 10.3)
 
Anyone who is experiencing a substantial delay (10+ seconds) when the machine is going to sleep does not have a 'problem'. In the cases where there is a delay the system is simply configured for 'safe-sleep' mode. If you want to change it there is an excellent article that another poster (Dafke) links to (see post #10)

Another myth was mentioned a couple of posts up and that was OSX needs to be rebooted every couple of weeks. This is just plain wrong! Unix systems are designed for very long term up-times and don't start to run 'slow' or get bogged down. Unix has some extremely efficient memory controllers and management systems built in.

Sopranino
 
Yes, rebooting every week or sooner will help with speed-

Do you save a bunch of documents to the desktop on the Mac OS? If so, that could slow you down considerably. My wife does it and her machine slows down big time.

How much memory do you have? What OS are you running?

I wonder...if you said you slimmed down the OS on the Mac side- did you maybe accidently delete something that maybe it needs- I know I used to be very very careful when I woudl clean out he system to slim it down-but I would invaribly delete or move something that shouldn';t have been and my machine would be sluggish as a result.

sleep mode should never take that long- waking up takes quite a while on my wife's ibook, but she is low on memory and the thing just runs slow anyway and it doesn't even take that long.

Have you recently noticed a slow down? If so, have you installed software around that time- did you tweak something around that time, etc.

Do you use Mac Janitor? If not, download and use it. It does the tasks that OS X needs done in the middle of the night but when you have a laptop it usually doesn't get done as they are put to sleep during the time that OSX woudl automatically do that maintenance type stuff.

Also, have you repaired permissions lately? That can slow things down too.
 
Sopranino said:
Another myth was mentioned a couple of posts up and that was OSX needs to be rebooted every couple of weeks. This is just plain wrong! Unix systems are designed for very long term up-times and don't start to run 'slow' or get bogged down. Unix has some extremely efficient memory controllers and management systems built in.

Sopranino
Click to expand...


yes, but what about when the system is not left on over night and the maintance type stuff can't run? I know that when I have problems with sluggishness with either of our Macs I reboot and most if not all go away-
so while people say it is a myth, it seems to work well for me!
 
Sopranino said:
Anyone who is experiencing a substantial delay (10+ seconds) when the machine is going to sleep does not have a 'problem'. In the cases where there is a delay the system is simply configured for 'safe-sleep' mode. If you want to change it there is an excellent article that another poster (Dafke) links to (see post #10)
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert on Intel macs, but I doubt they come configured like that out of the box. Apple doesn't sell themselves on 10 second sleep times - they advertise 'close it and it goes to sleep instantly'.

So if 'safe-sleep' has somehow been turned on, perhaps without realising the implications or making a connection with slow sleep times, thereby creating an unwanted issue then yes I can call that a 'problem'. It might have an easy solution for the knowlegeable but it's still a problem if you don't know the answer.

Sopranino said:
Another myth was mentioned a couple of posts up and that was OSX needs to be rebooted every couple of weeks. This is just plain wrong! Unix systems are designed for very long term up-times and don't start to run 'slow' or get bogged down. Unix has some extremely efficient memory controllers and management systems built in.
Click to expand...

Macs are UNIX based, but not pure UNIX. I agree a locked down server running only bulletproof software could go for decades without rebooting, but laptops aren't like that. They often run a constantly changing and unholy mix of mature, beta and newly written software, some of which is well written, some of which piddles all over the place.

You're making a false overgeneralisation. Some people's mac laptops certainly can go months without a reboot. Others find rebooting helpful.
 
I can agree with the internet thing. Firefox screams in windows....even faster than Safari i find but in Tiger the thing is dog slow. Safari whilst faster than Firefox is still nothing compared to windows. I guess Tiger hasn't been properly optimized for Intel but rather just ported over.

Yes i know steve said all OS X versions have been running on intel processors but to me that just means they've been porting them to intel. However, Leopard, which will be the first OS built from the ground up for both Intel and PowerPC with the focus being on Intel since thats the current hardware for sale...should be very well optimized for the Intel boxes with the multicore/64 bit top to bottom support.

Hopefully that means Leopard sings extremely well on Intel machines compared to Tiger. Also hoping Core Animation will enhance Quartz Extreme, Open GL, Core Image and all that....making Resizing, Expose and Coverflow more fluid. Dunno....
 
Its weird, some of us are experiencing very fast MBP performance, and some are not. I'm in the wicked-fast makes XP look like a dog camp myself.

Maybe a poll is in order... question 1, is performance good or bad, and 2, did you do a clean install? I'm a switcher, so I did a clean install.
 
I have noticed this myself.

Mine is a fresh install.

It takes close to 3-4 seconds before the glowing Apple on the lid blinks out, and close to 10 seconds before the latch LED assumes the "sleeping breathing pattern".

If I just grab the computer before then and run along with it, the motion sensor will probably interrupt the sleep process and it won't resume fine after that. It is so irritating!
 
Do you have any rogue PowerPC widgets, apps, (printer) drivers, or anything else PowerPC related running?

(predicts a quick "no" response)

Are you sure you don't?

Try going to Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor, selecting "All Processes" from the drop-down menu, expanding the window so you can see the "Kind" column, and sorting it so that any PowerPC stuff is on top (triangle pointing down):

powerpc.jpg

If you do, then that will definitely make your computer less responsive. Whenever I encounter an Intel Mac that feels slow or underresponsive, I usually check this and most of the time PowerPC stuff is the culprit.

Also, if your system is super brand new, perhaps Spotlight hasn't finished indexing your hard drive, and is still doing so. This could take a few days depending on how frequently or infrequently you use your system.

If you don't have any PowerPC stuff, keep in mind that Windows XP is pretty old compared to Mac OS X Tiger, and not nearly as resource intense. Maybe lessen your expectations for how responsive a new system should be.
 
I am actually having the same problem... sort of. I don't use XP or Windows hardly at all. I have a phone that has to use Windows for the phonebook app.

Anyway, my brand new MBP SR 2.2 was running like a champ until last night. I was going to install boot camp (for windows) and updated the security update in OS X first. After the Security Update and installing Boot Camp and Windows XP, now my Mac OS is slow as a dog.

I ran benchmarks before and after and I have lost more than 50% performance. Even the benchmarks from my PowerBook G4 1.67GHz is better than my MBP by about 25%!

I did an archive and install and it did not help. I did not have a problem with this until either I installed the Security Update (which is gone since the archive and install and still did not help) and Boot Camp/Windows XP. Is it possible that the Boot Camp and WIndows install is screwing something up with the Mac OS? I wouldn't think so. I don't think that Boot Camp installs anything on the Mac OS side and the Windows install is on a different partition.

Anyway, I don't know if my problem is the same as what is going on here, but it is very annoying. I enjoyed a super fast computer for a day and a half and now I am using a new MBP that is outperformed by my PowerBook G4 that is sitting on the floor next to my home office desk.
 
I'm with you...

.

I hate to say it, but I felt the same about my first Mac.

I bought an Early 2006 Imac, the first Intel based machines.

20", Core Duo dual 2.0 processor, 2 gigs Ram, 7200 RPM hard drive....

It was slow.

I wiped the disk clean, new installs, everything. Still slow.

I sold it to buy this new Santa Rosa era...

With all of the cool new bells and whistles, I fear that Leopard will make 4 gigs or Ram the new 2 gigs of Ram.
 
If have no problems with either OS running slowly on my SR MBP, and I suspect that the people that mentioned OSX running slowly have some manner of correctable software problem or need to repair their disk (no, not the permissions) or some such thing.

Although, admittedly, WinXP SP2 does like to spit nasty IRQL_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL BSODs at me every time I try to play BF2142 or any other game on it. Probably a driver error with the new 8600M GTs. :(
 
My bet is it's the drivers. The drivers for the 8600M GT isn't as good as the drivers for the older cards. I don't know if Apple will bother to update the drivers in Tiger, they probably will in 10.4.11, but I bet you'll see a nice performance boost in Leopard.
 
fuzzynavo said:
Funny you should mention the slow expose. I opened a bunch of windows just now, and the first few times I press F9 the animation is noticeably slower than subsequent times. It's not choppy or anything, just a little bit slower. :confused:
Click to expand...

I know this is an old thread, but this still happens on 2009 iMac. I think the problem is Nvidia PowerMizer.

Does anyone know how to disable PowerMizer so Expose is always smooth?
 
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