# I need the speed!



## PoweMACuser (Jun 21, 2001)

hi, everyone
I have delete my Mac OS X for a long time, but now the version I want is out and I want to go out to Mac OS X. I need the speed. That I keep using OS 9 is because the speed of X is too slow. I am impatient, but I have to. Now it is 10.0.4, what about the speed now? anyone can give more information?

I also want to know if I upgrade my RAM for 256 to 512, do the speed increase very much? I upgraded my RAM for 64 to 128 and found that OS 9 speed increases very fast, about twice.

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PowerMac G4 400
256MB
20GB


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## ScottW (Jun 21, 2001)

Power,

Just installed 10.0.4... I like you, find it hard to run Mac OS X full-time, in fact, I am disappointed I don't (heck I run this site). I have been using Linux for 6 years now... and prefer my Mac for a workstation, but a Linux server is my favorite for a server. Having both of these combined into one is my dream machine.

The more I use OS X, the more I find myself liking the interface, and hating it at the same time. On one hand... I am totally comfortable with a TELNET session using Linux/Unix.... and on the other hand... I love the speed, and the GUI of Mac OS. For some reason, combining these together, I am very frustrated...  WHY?

The reason is simple... the GUI of Mac OS X, doesn't perform to my expectations of what a Mac should be, and the Linux side of OS X doesn't really perform to my expectations of a Unix box. I love the Mac, been a mac user for 12+ years... before that Apple II.

It isn't at full speed yet... 10.0.4 is not that great of an upgrade... although I was the one boasting of speed improvements over an install of DevTools, it still is lacking... in a big way.

I HOPE Apple is able to address these issues... but when I find it more comforting to restart into OS 9.1... and telnet into my Linux servers... there is something wrong with that picture... a problem only Apple can fix. They must gain the confidence of both die hard Mac users... and then work on the Unix folks.

Admin


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## ezra (Jun 22, 2001)

> _Originally posted by PoweMACuser _
> *hi, everyone
> I have delete my Mac OS X for a long time, but now the version I want is out and I want to go out to Mac OS X. I need the speed. That I keep using OS 9 is because the speed of X is too slow. I am impatient, but I have to. Now it is 10.0.4, what about the speed now? anyone can give more information?
> I also want to know if I upgrade my RAM for 256 to 512, do the speed increase very much? I upgraded my RAM for 64 to 128 and found that OS 9 speed increases very fast, about twice.
> ...





If you need speed, you have to make sure your system is up to spec for OsX. You have a G4, which will run better thant a G3 because of optimization on the chip for interface elements. You don't say if it is a upgrade or a built in G4 though, and upgrades can cause problems with cache, so there is a big difference in speed between the two. More RAM will speed things up a lot if you use something like Xoptimize and tell OsX to use more memory. Also you have to make sure you have a good install, and no hardware conflicts. Hadware conflicts seem to be sneaky, and work, but slow things down. Also, if your HD is slow, that will slow you down, and how you have OsX installed can also slow your down. I find installing OsX on a UFS formatted drive with only one partiician for OsX works best on my machine. Make sure you have a supported graphic card, or your redraws will be slow. You should have at least a Rage 128, or even better a Radeon. Different machines act differently. Speed wise, OsX is a pretty good contender for Os9 on my machine.


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## theed (Jun 28, 2001)

I have 2 procassors, and I feel like X runs about 75% the speed of 9 on most tasks, with the gigantic exception that I can do 2 (or more) of thene things at the same time.  I do my video capture in 9 (until ATI or Apple lets me do otherwise) but than I run back to X to do my compression and stuff.  Although classic is consumed by QT export, my machine is not, and I can do other stuff.  Since i have 1 largely free processor, I don't even feel the speed drop of a busy process.  It's actually like having 2 computers in 1.

I agree the video can be sluggish, and resizing is a whore.  But I can actually do a lot of stuff that I couldn't before without waiting.  OS X for me is different, but not worse certainly.  It's the best OS I have.  I think both the hardware and the users are so used to 9's quirks, that they are waiting on things they don't have to any more.  Much of the slowness is not the OS at all.  For me, the parallelism more than makes up for the apparent speed drop.


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## ezra (Jun 29, 2001)

> _Originally posted by theed _
> *I have 2 procassors, and I feel like X runs about 75% the speed of 9 on most tasks, with the gigantic exception that I can do 2 (or more) of thene things at the same time.  I do my video capture in 9 (until ATI or Apple lets me do otherwise) but than I run back to X to do my compression and stuff.  Although classic is consumed by QT export, my machine is not, and I can do other stuff.  Since i have 1 largely free processor, I don't even feel the speed drop of a busy process.  It's actually like having 2 computers in 1.
> 
> I agree the video can be sluggish, and resizing is a whore.  But I can actually do a lot of stuff that I couldn't before without waiting.  OS X for me is different, but not worse certainly.  It's the best OS I have.  I think both the hardware and the users are so used to 9's quirks, that they are waiting on things they don't have to any more.  Much of the slowness is not the OS at all.  For me, the parallelism more than makes up for the apparent speed drop. *



I'm curious if  both of your proccessors are actually working? From what I've read only one proccessor is supported right now, but that might just be for third party cards. My machine is every bit as fast as my Os9 setup for some reason, so I have no complaints. I just read all the forums and do everything that anyone mentions that speeds things up. My video card is not even supported and it's not that slow, seems as fast as Os9 for basic everyday use. I don't do much gaming, but I'm sure I would notice speed problems if I did.


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## phantomradio (Jun 29, 2001)

Under MacOS X dual processor machines are supported. I'm on a Dual G4-500 and processor load is divided up by the two processors. I love OS X, but will admit that the gui is slow.  I will not go back to 9, OS X is stable, and extremly usable, so the gui's speed is a small price to pay. Hopefully with the release of 10.1, there will be a big change in speed. If you can't handle the gui;s speed then wait for 10.1


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## Untitled (Jul 12, 2001)

I have heard quite a few compliants about speed with OS X however I know there are many things which people claim help. A few of of these suggestions are installing the Developer Tools and enabling the root user(which personally scares me for some reason) plus much much more. 

Perhaps a list should be setup so everyone can get OS X into top working condition?


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## PoweMACuser (Jul 14, 2001)

Other guys say that it is slow because of the finder and the kernel is carbon, not cocoa. It is not true. Others think that cocoa is running faster than carbon, but the test says that cocoa is just faster than java. How can it run faster than carbon? carbon is written in C. C is faster than C++>#C>objective-C. I think all system code must be written in assembly or C. Objective-C is supported by C.

To make it clear, I open the process viewer and found that there are two applications which will consume up to 75% of CPU time. One is the finder, one is the CFM loader. I think the Preemtive Multitask in OS X has technical problem. Even if it is not a bug, it must be an algorithm problem. Actually all the memory consumed by the application is very low, normally not up to 15%. Memory is not the problem. I think it is the multitasking switcher can't distribute the CPU time reasonably according to the type and the resources consumption of the application.

OS X speed is a PURELY TECHNICAL PROBLEM.
Am I right?


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## tismey (Jul 14, 2001)

...then for some reason I'm immune. Whilst X might not be quite as nippy as 9.1 on my TiBook, I certainly don't find it so much slower that it affects my productivity. I don't even find running Classic is THAT slow...


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## kilowatt (Jul 15, 2001)

If you are not sure if an application is cocoa or carbon, look for the presence of a 'services' sub menu of the application's app menu. If the services sub menu is there, its cocoa. If its not, then the app is carbon.

Which is faster? Cocoa. By far. Notice how iTunes takes up soooo much CPU? Or how Mozilla or Internet Exploder consume around 40% cpu when they are just sitting at a web page, doing nothing? Versus how OmniWeb  is currently using 1.4%? Its crazy. 

The way I think about it is this:
Carbon is the old way. Its the OS 9 way of development
Cocoa is the new way. Its the unix-style object-oriented way.

I could be totally wrong about all this. So someone please correct me if I am. 

BTW: the finder is carbon. I can't use my scroll mouse to scroll in carbon apps, either. Oh, and apple-clicking in background apps only works if the background app is cocoa. and the kernel is definitely not carbon.


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## PoweMACuser (Jul 16, 2001)

kilowatt,

I think you haven't read the system overview carefully. I just read it before I say the kernel is carbon. No way to adjust whether it is carbon or cocoa because carbon can call cocoa API and cocoa can call carbon API. If you have an eye on other programme like IE, you will found I am correct.

Cocoa is object-oriented. Theorically, object-oriented programming language is slow then structured language. Object-oriented language give the power of convenience of programming. New programming tech doesn't mean speed, normolly means time-saved and power of complex computing.

Classic is carbon, but now we still have to say that classic is much faster than OS X.

a lot of tests show this.

Mousewheel support means nothing at all.


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## theed (Jul 16, 2001)

Carbon and Cocoa are both API abstractions that exist because of services provided on top of the kernel.  To say the kernel is one or the other is misleading.  It provides services under both, but really serves neither exclusively.  
Finder is carbon, and it's weak carbon at that.  Cocoa is a naturally more multithreaded way to program, Carbon tends to be a single process, so it runs around like mad in a loop as though it were its own OS looking for things that need to be done.  This sometimes might feel faster, sometimes slower, but always more processor intensive.  It's the type of thing that should be left to the OS, and in Cocoa or Java, it is.  Apple needs to work to make the finder a LOT more multithreaded for it to seem responsive while it's busy, and the easiest way to do that could be to rewrite it from scratch in Cocoa.
As for speed, there's overhead in the Mach Kernel, it provides an abstraction.  A lot of the other abstraction stuff in objective-C is intended to utilize this abstraction, so the speed problem is minimized.  Program launch times have been a problem since '99 and I don't expect a major improvement anytime soon.
My biggest speed problems are on my G3 laptop, where HD (VM) is slow, RAM is a little tight, and the graphics are all done in software.  I definitely feel that.  Hell a bouncy icon takes up ~35% of the CPU.  On my dual G4, It's crazy smooth.  If the OS is slow, try different Hardware I guess.  When hardware is unsupported in X, it reverts to software solutions.  It's not as obvious with video cards now as it used to be because it's all double buffered.
I hope at least 10% of that made some sense.


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