# How much faster can 10.3 be??



## AppleWatcher (Nov 26, 2002)

I was wondering; 10.2 is out now a while... But compared to 9.2.2 it still is not that fast (especially on a iMac DV SE...  ).

So, what do you think? How much faster is 10.3 going to be??

Thankx,

AppleWatcher


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## fryke (Nov 26, 2002)

It'll be incredibly slow compared to 9.2.2. 

what exactly is slow in 10.2.2 for you? as mac os x - now and in the future - wants a decent graphics card for quartz extreme speed, your imac will be out of it for as long as there's mac os x. sure, 10.3 will be a bit faster here and there, maybe even much so. but what you perceive as slowness is a change in architecture that won't be 'solved' just like that.

you lost some interface speed.
you won a lot more. like real multitasking.
better threading.
and all the other UNIX stuff...


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## AppleWatcher (Nov 26, 2002)

Yes I know... But I've a 8 MB videocard, so QE won't work that well... 

*sigh* I think my next computer is a PC :$

AppleWatcher


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## hypocampers (Nov 26, 2002)

The same happens with MicroSoft OS, for each invocation, for which there are so very many, there is a perceptable slow down and hence you need to buy a faster machine.  Bill Gates knows this just fine, keeps the dosh rolling in for evermore....kind of got a sneaking admiration for the sly s*d.


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## AppleWatcher (Nov 26, 2002)

I'm sorry but I'm going to need it for my study...

AW


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## fryke (Nov 27, 2002)

Then I'd (personally) do the following: Buy a cheap-o-PC for 399$ and also a new iBook for 999$. That'll get you so much more than just a PC for maybe 3/4 of the price...


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## AppleWatcher (Nov 27, 2002)

Now I'm going to do the following:

I assume you guys all know Aldi (www.aldi.com);
they have GREAT PC's for very low prices...

And I really do need a very fast PC because I'm going to study Informatica (informatics??) at the University of Utrecht...


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## hypocampers (Nov 27, 2002)

No disrespect but why not talk about buying a PC somewhere else.  Buying  cheap PC is old hat, we know how to do it.

Utrecht is a great city, I loved it, I worked for SGI there.


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## AppleWatcher (Nov 27, 2002)

OK Back To The Topic:

How much faster can 10.3 be, actually??

AW


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## KrinkleCut (Nov 27, 2002)

Uhm, 'really', 'much', 'sorta', 'somewhat' and a whole bunch of other meaningless relative quantifiers...

Sort of a pointless question, don't you think? How would anyone know. It doesn't exist. It's like asking, "What colour would my eyes be if I was taller?"


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## chevy (Nov 27, 2002)

If you would be much (very much) taller, your eyes would look blue... just because of the oxygen of the air...


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## AppleWatcher (Nov 27, 2002)

LOL so we don't have any supersecretworkinginthemacosxdevelopmentteam-people here?? 

(what colour do your eyes have?)

AW


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## boi (Nov 27, 2002)

i'm trying to follow the logic here. 10.2 is slow on your old mac, so you're going to abandon X altogether and buy a new, fast, pc?
what about the option of buying a new, fast, mac? X.2 screams on my dual 867. $1700 + $100 to upgrade to ATI Radeon 9000. multitasking, as stated, is where X shines.
also, have you tried tweaking the OS to make it a bit faster? 
.: install a simple, sharp cornered theme
.: put minimize to scale
.: install windowshade and use that instead of minimizing
.: use chimera instead of IE ^_~
.: adding quality RAM
.: turn off dock effects (magification, hiding, etc.)
and other little tweaks you can find at resexcellence.com.
it helped my old imac quite a bit, and it's helping this G4 450 that i'm using quite a bit as well.


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## AppleWatcher (Nov 28, 2002)

Gheghe thx for the tips; but I already knew them. No, I'm not abandoning OS X because it works so slow on my iMac... I won't abandon it, but I'll need a PC for my study... And it will be much faster than my iMac DV SE with 400 MHz... 

I can't buy another Mac, simply because a Mac isn't the right computer for my study... And because I don't want to abandon OS X, my question is: is 10.3 going to be faster (like 9.2.2, for example)??

AW


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## plastic (Nov 28, 2002)

> _Originally posted by fryke _
> *you lost some interface speed.
> you won a lot more. like real multitasking.
> better threading.
> and all the other UNIX stuff... *



You just gave "win some loss some" a whole new meaning...


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## fryke (Nov 28, 2002)

yes. 

Well: Panther builds have not leaked as of yet. Mostly because the big work on it hasn't even started yet at Apple. Right now, I guess, Apple is defining Panther. There are always project groups working on several things before the compiling begins.

I guess we won't see leaked builds this year, if Apple aims at a Summer release (although Jaguar 6B11 leaked in December last year...).


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## KrinkleCut (Nov 29, 2002)

Really, it seems to me that the logic behind the assumption that 10.3 will be faster is flawed. At least with OS 6 thru 9, new system versions were never faster on the same hardware. More efficient maybe, but I never had a performance increase when upgrading my system software.

Is OS X different because there's so much optimizing left to do, or do we just need faster hardware?


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## hypocampers (Nov 29, 2002)

Most operating systems when  upgraded (especially MacOSX) have some form of performance alteration/hit, but its also likely that most of the slow down is due to emulation of the older apps using Carbon and less well written Cocoa apps due to the possible lack of exposure.  I can't say for certain but this may well be partly true.

What I do notice with other UNIX systems, that they do generally behave in a multitasking manner (strange but true) , "you don't always get what you want" at the instant you click the button.

Windows behaves poorly if you try to get it to do something alse at the same time,  of heaven forbid upgrade the simplest piece of software without having to reboot the server, crippling the company with outages during every break or lunch hour,  UNIX is always better in this area, trust me.


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## fryke (Nov 29, 2002)

Yes, real multitasking systems are generally a bit less responsive and this problem is solved by ever-updating the hardware.

However, the performance of OS X has been improved with every .x release since the Public Beta in 2000, so the assumption that Apple will further increase the performance is a 'historic assumption'. (Forget about 6-9 for OS X.)

However, people are also screaming for features all the time. My guess is that we'll see a completely new Finder by 10.5, but that this project is just taking time - and Apple has other, maybe more important, projects people can work on.


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## AppleWatcher (Nov 29, 2002)

WHAT do you say??! *10.5?!?!?!?* 
You're kiddin'!! I want it in 10.3!


AW


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## KrinkleCut (Nov 29, 2002)

> _Originally posted by fryke _
> *However, the performance of OS X has been improved with every .x release since the Public Beta in 2000, so the assumption that Apple will further increase the performance is a 'historic assumption'. (Forget about 6-9 for OS X.) *



Yes, I realize that, but to think increased performance will continue forever until X runs like a dream on my Rev.B iMac isn't very realistic. I think (an assumption of course) that 10.2 was it - from here on out it gets slower and you'll need newer hardware (1st generation g3's dropping off). Historical assumptions aren't worth a whole lot when we only have 2 years of history. 

Why do I think this? Well, it's inevitable, but mostly because of Quartz Extreme. Apple finally drew a line in the sand, and gave us an OS feature that you can only use with a minimum hardware spec.  



> _Originally posted by fryke _
> *My guess is that we'll see a completely new Finder by 10.5, but that this project is just taking time - and Apple has other, maybe more important, projects people can work on. *



Well, I hardly think this is true. What is more important than addressing the number one complaint about the OS, namely 'Finder' responsiveness? I can't think of anything. As for 10.5, now you're just making stuff up.


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## ex2bot (Nov 29, 2002)

In my (limited) understanding, the new GNU C compiler available now should yield faster apps. Also, I'd be willing to bet that Apple will find MYRIAD optimizations with a project this size. They have a big incentive to do so.

I also think performance really often translates to perception. A really fast computer with a dog slow interface will feel slow. A slower machine with a fast hard drive and graphics card will, at least superficially, feel faster than one might expect.

(My opinions and 2c will get you . . . 2c).


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## boi (Nov 30, 2002)

i think X would feel faster if they would use outlines for minimization and dragging/resizing. that's really the only thing that seems slow. they probably decided to do it this way to encourage purchase of faster computers.


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## ksv (Dec 4, 2002)

> _Originally posted by AppleWatcher _
> *LOL so we don't have any supersecretworkinginthemacosxdevelopmentteam-people here?? *



Sure, but it's all confidential. How much cash do you have?


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## mkwan (May 7, 2003)

Apple Watcher....simply put, I don't think 10.3 will be as fast as 9.2.2. but like the others said before hardware upgrades software tweaks or more powerful macs could make 10.3 faster but probably not as fast as 9.2.2

hell I abandoned OS 9 already, OS X and UNIX just rocks!


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## ebolag4 (May 7, 2003)

All this just goes to show you that everyone's experience with OS X is different. I'm running it on a G4 450 and an iMac G3 600, and it runs faster and better that ANY version of OS 9 ever did on the same machines.

I don't miss 9 one blessed bit. The only thing I think I'm out on right now is Quartz Extreme, but that's because I'm too cheap to upgrade my vid card.


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## monktus (May 7, 2003)

> _Originally posted by AppleWatcher _
> *Gheghe thx for the tips; but I already knew them. No, I'm not abandoning OS X because it works so slow on my iMac... I won't abandon it, but I'll need a PC for my study... And it will be much faster than my iMac DV SE with 400 MHz...
> 
> I can't buy another Mac, simply because a Mac isn't the right computer for my study... And because I don't want to abandon OS X, my question is: is 10.3 going to be faster (like 9.2.2, for example)??
> ...


I'm not too clear on what you mean by Informatics, but if you're going to be programming then OSX is great for coding. Project Builder lets you compile C, C++, Objective C, Java, AppleScript and you can also plug Ada into it.


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## Dusky (May 8, 2003)

> I'm not too clear on what you mean by Informatics



_Informatica_ is...  computer science.


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## AppleWatcher (May 8, 2003)

indeed, I do now remember: I'm going to study Computational Sciences


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## monktus (May 8, 2003)

Then you don't need a PC! OSX is great for programming.


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## AppleWatcher (May 8, 2003)

but not on a iMac DV SE 400 MHz 
When I have enough money, I'll buy a quad G6 with Ati Radeon 9800 Pro


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## serpicolugnut (May 8, 2003)

10.3 will be somewhat faster than Jaguar, but don't expect it to work miracles. The basic architecture of OS X demands a good graphics card and serious CPU power for all of it's window compositing. Bouncing animations and genie effects aside, just to move a window in OS X requires a ton of CPU power, due to the alpha channel that allows the OS to use transparency system wide. 

Any Mac with a 32MB of VRAM with an AGP bus should operate decently with Jaguar or higher. You iMac DV is out of luck.

But you could sell the iMac DV and get something more current like a used 800mhz iBook or iMac for not much money.

If you need a PC, but it. You should use the proper tool for the job. If what you are studying requires you to use PC software, then you should use a PC.

But you will begin to long for the niceness of you Mac in short order...


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## AppleWatcher (May 8, 2003)

> _Originally posted by serpicolugnut _
> *If what you are studying requires you to use PC software, then you should use a PC.
> But you will begin to long for the niceness of you Mac in short order... *



And that is the case, I'm afraid... I think I'll wait for 10.4 and then buy a very fast PowerMac.


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## hulkaros (May 8, 2003)

> _Originally posted by AppleWatcher _
> *indeed, I do now remember: I'm going to study Computational Sciences  *



...no problem to buy a new Mac even the low end eMac...

Most of the things you gonna need for your studies are already available for Macs and if 2-3 of them aren't available you can still run them under VPC6 or even better(!?) under RealPC which if what the company says it will even allow you run the newest 3d graphic intense apps and games!!!

If you *REALLY* want so, you can sell you current Mac and with an additional 1000 euros at the most to buy a new hottie eMac


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## moav (May 8, 2003)

buy a 400 mhz pc and run xp on it and then run a 400 mhz imac with 10.2.6 on it.  Of course if you buy a new pc it's going to be faster just as if you were to buy a new mac.


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## ex2bot (May 8, 2003)

This awakened thread was moved from Mac OS X System & Misc Software. .  .


Doug


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## Jason (May 8, 2003)

comparing a 400mhz pc to a 400mhz apple is plain stupid... no offense


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## AppleWatcher (May 9, 2003)

> _Originally posted by dktrickey _
> *This awakened thread was moved from Mac OS X System & Misc Software. .  .
> Doug *



Haha indeed, It's a long time ago I was on this forum.


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## michaelsanford (May 9, 2003)

To be blunt: does it even matter?

We can only speculate, just like we did with the Puma -> Jaguar upgrade, frivolously. We will all see when either development builds are leaked, or the final build is released. I only just got Jaguar a month ago, which was a nice long time after it was released. I wanted to see from friends and colleagues (and board members here) if it was worth my money, and it was. When Panther comes out, people will post their comments, problems, and such, and you can gague it from there. (Good shot trying to solicit insider info though )

Also, I would wait at least until 10.3.1 update comes out. I waited a while for 10.2.3 to come out before I even bothered looking at buying it to give Apple time to release big fixes and enhancements.

In *my* experience Jaguar is much faster than Puma, but that's just because of the graphics optomizations (that is, rendering the GUI on graphics card, not CPU, on supported models).

For more comparison with PCs: my father runs a Dell 2.2GHz with 2 GB of RAM and Windows XP. Yes, it screams, but so does my tweaked 10.2.5 on my iMac TFT 700MHz with 1/3 the RAM, and consumes a fraction of the electricity.

I used to be a PC user a few years back; I switched, and never looked back.

Also, my iMac is about a trillion times cooler looking than the big Dell tower


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## anerki (May 9, 2003)

You could just state: Jaguar is/will be loads faster, if and only if you have the correct hardware ... That about sums it up, right? Same with PC, ever tried to run XP on a somehwat older PC? No offense but I do want to be able to open an MP3 Player when I'm playing a movie in the background and burning a CD ...


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## ~~NeYo~~ (May 9, 2003)

Speed?! I Find Jaguar Runs very nice on my Computer ... its FAR From top spec ... but i am quite happy with it ... Windows Seems Snappier ... of course, but when u look @ windows, it looks so "old fashioned" Cheap and tacky ... and by that, you assume that it takes no where near as much power to give the snappyness!... However i think Longhorn will bring something simular to use, on X ... Eye Candy, and a such ... at a cost of speed! ... hopefully, by which time ... we'll be speeding along! 

...I've never really used OS 9, so i can't really compare speed between both Apple OS's ... but from what i did use of it, i remember it being simular to Windows ... Fast but UGLY


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## michaelsanford (May 9, 2003)

Yeah exactly.


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## infinityBBC (May 9, 2003)

i don't think OS 9.x is faster than OS X at all!  without multi tasking, you have to wait for each program to get done with its tasks before you can go on to other work.  i run OS X.2.x on my old Powerbook Pismo G3 500Mhz and i'd rather work in X than 9 ANY DAY!

however, i did purchase a hot rod PC, but i ONLY use it for gaming - mainly because my Pismo can't play my favorite game series, Unreal Tournament.  also, i got tired of waiting for Mac games to come out long after the Winblows versions.  but i'd rather have my teeth pulled than to use an Adobe product, or ANY product for that matter, on my Winblows machine!  i can get work done faster on my old Pismo by a faction of 2 or 3 fold than i could on my Winblows!  

i'm curious as to what kind of study you do that you cannot use the Mac OS for?  not that i can't imagine, but i'm just curious.


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## AppleWatcher (May 9, 2003)

the programming languages they use, are only available for Windows. And like you said, gaming is much - _MUCH_ - faster on a Windows PC than on a Mac...


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## monktus (May 9, 2003)

Which languages are they using? I noticed a thread with someone else who does comp sci who uses osx, so do I.


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## AppleWatcher (May 9, 2003)

Haskell... cough I believe that's available for OS X too... :O


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## mindbend (May 9, 2003)

My predictions:

10.3 will be teetering on the edge of noticeably faster. On my machines, that's what Jaguar was for me. I got almost nothing from Quartz Extreme. For me it was Quartz Extremely disappointed.

Fortunately, GUI is my only OS X complaint. As they refine the OS and deliver modern boxes, my last complaint will be gone. I am optimistic that by year's end, with 10.3 and a 970-based machine, OS X will be very close to OS 9 in terms of GUI speed experience.

On some level there is a built in incentive to not get too fast with the OS, since there always needs to be a reason to buy a new machine. I believe we are just now starting to see the beginning of the dropoff zone, where 90% of users (typical office users that need mail, word processing, spreadsheets, etc.) simply don't need or even want a faster machine on either platform or OS. I am not one of those people, and I assume most people on this board are not either.


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## anerki (May 9, 2003)

Is this just a stupid idea but what about loading all the menus (which are the most noticeable in speed differene if you ask me) in the RAM or Cache? Is this such a stupid or impossible idea? The CPU shouldn't have to work for a menu or the dock to pop up ... Just load it completely in the memory! Wishful thinking or just impossible? If anyone knows anything more about this, I'm interested in it anyway


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## ksv (May 9, 2003)

> _Originally posted by anerki _
> *Is this just a stupid idea but what about loading all the menus (which are the most noticeable in speed differene if you ask me) in the RAM or Cache? Is this such a stupid or impossible idea? The CPU shouldn't have to work for a menu or the dock to pop up ... Just load it completely in the memory! Wishful thinking or just impossible? If anyone knows anything more about this, I'm interested in it anyway  *



Impossible because the menus have effects like transparency and drop shadow which affects pixels also outside of and behind the menu. Would be possible in OS 9, but then again it's so fast it doesn't need it


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## anerki (May 9, 2003)

So if I turn off transparency with some kind of GUI mod, it would be possible? I don't care 'that' much for transparency in my menus, if they could be fast like OS9 or Windows, I'd trade any time ... Would it be possible then, if so, how? Some kind of subroutine or hack? Where are the Linux people who know all this?


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## ksv (May 9, 2003)

> _Originally posted by anerki _
> *So if I turn off transparency with some kind of GUI mod, it would be possible? I don't care 'that' much for transparency in my menus, if they could be fast like OS9 or Windows, I'd trade any time ... Would it be possible then, if so, how? Some kind of subroutine or hack? Where are the Linux people who know all this?  *



It would require major modifications in the way menus are handled - and that is not exactly open source. Give that project up


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## pwharff (May 9, 2003)

I'm not sure about most of you guys here, but I have a G4 466 with GeForce Ti and my menu's are very quick.  My windows machine at work is slow with menus when compared to my Mac.  This is when Windows has effects turned on and still my Mac is faster.  I'm sure if Mac OS X had an option to turn off effects like as in Windows, it would still be faster than Windows with effects turned off.  Also, I wouldn't complain very much because when was the last time you used KDE or GNOME with some linux (Red Hat, SuSE or Mandrake).  I test this every day and it's so slow (AMD hardware/software tester).  

Now I just think if my G4 was a dual 1.42 and with my GeForce Ti, HOLY CRAP that would be fast.  Bottom line, my OS X is pretty darn fast as it is in the GUI.


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## MaC hAcKeR (May 9, 2003)

I dont see why Panther will be faster. It seems so... the same as OS X we have now according to what Im reading...


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## anerki (May 10, 2003)

Well it's fast ... but fast ain't good enough. I'm sure most of the people can work faster than the menu can follow :-( It's not instantaneous :-(


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## AppleWatcher (May 10, 2003)

What about new functions in 10.3?? Piles?


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## SGX (May 10, 2003)

I just upgraded my PB pismo to 768mb ram and a 40gig hard drive, damn, it is blisteringly fast now, it feels like OS 9, can't believe the speed increase, photoshop opens in a flash, everything is nippy,. Feels like a whole new OS, can't imagine what it must be liketo have a G4.


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## fryke (May 10, 2003)

No leaked builds as of yet. So: No reports about its speed as of yet. And even if there were any: Apple starts with more debug code and removes it gradually with development. You don't know - if you get a build - how much debug code is in it. I'd wait - at least - for reports on leaked builds before making comments about its actual speed. I'm pretty sure that performance will still be one of the top tasks for improvement.



> _Originally posted by MaC hAcKeR _
> *I dont see why Panther will be faster. It seems so... the same as OS X we have now according to what Im reading... *


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## Horseteeth (May 10, 2003)

> _Originally posted by mindbend _
> * I believe we are just now starting to see the beginning of the dropoff zone, where 90% of users (typical office users that need mail, word processing, spreadsheets, etc.) simply don't need or even want a faster machine on either platform or OS. I am not one of those people, and I assume most people on this board are not either. *



NEVER make this claim. New techniques, applications and computing needs are always just around the corner. It's always attractive to make this claim, but I remember people who were saying this more than ten years ago. And just try to get your work done on a ten year old computer. I'm thoroughly convinced that it will NEVER be enough.


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## chevy (May 10, 2003)

They are still people using Mac Plus or Mac II for their every day work, or P100 for the dark side, with an old word processor and a PS laser printer.

If you don't surf the Internet, or do graphics, or games, these old machines are not bad 90% of the time. Of course they are other activities that require fst machines (data base, math, modelisation,...) but that's only a very small fraction of the use of CPU power.


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## anerki (May 10, 2003)

Hey! Nothing bad about a PS Laserprinter! I have an Apple Laserwriter PS 16/600 and it works like a charm. Aint nothing better for text, and fast!


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## chevy (May 10, 2003)

And low cost... once it's paid. You just add some $100 for each 5000 pages for the ink !


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## pds (May 10, 2003)

Maybe I just stupid, but I don't get the whole speed issue here. I have been forced into 9.2 for the past three days and it has me screaming - it is soo slow. I just have an old clamshell with 288 megs, but Jaguar seems much faster, especially with multiple programs and various documents open. 

Then about 10.3 - how can it be anything but slower on my old machine. I have no vram to speak of and as the code grows - features added - I expect that my performance will wane. To get the benefit of an up-to-date operating system, I'll need up-to-date hardware. 

But at the moment (for me), things work, so why fix them. Apple Watcher - upgrade if you need to, but on the basis of your need, not on the basis of the hope of what some future project could do. 

Seems the premise of this thread is a whine that the Mac is too expensive. Well, you get what you pay for.


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## Dak RIT (May 11, 2003)

> _Originally posted by AppleWatcher _
> *the programming languages they use, are only available for Windows. And like you said, gaming is much - _MUCH_ - faster on a Windows PC than on a Mac... *



From my experiences studying computer science and software engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology (#1 in the country for SE at the time), a Mac was far better than a PC for my studies.

The computer lab we were using at the time was using Solaris/SPARC to host everything, and OS X had just come out... I could use XDarwin/XFree86 to login remotely to the Solaris window server on one of the machines in the lab, and do all my work from my dorm room as if I was in the lab.  Except I had access to all my bookmarks and previous projects on my hard disk that I could access to facilitate in any project I was working on.  A lot of friends who were using Windows would ask to use my computer for their projects too (Linux users could of course do the samething I was).

Of course, all the compilers, etc. were available for MacOS X too, so I really could do all the compiling and debugging on my own computer as well... Windows had a few ports, but not all of them, or they didn't work very well.

I'd say as a development platform, MacOS X is considerably superior to Windows XP.  I love the development kit that comes with it for free too.  If you're into programming, stick with the Mac.

Cheers,
Dak


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## maclick (May 11, 2003)

> _Originally posted by boi _
> *i'm trying to follow the logic here. 10.2 is slow on your old mac, so you're going to abandon X altogether and buy a new, fast, pc?
> what about the option of buying a new, fast, mac? X.2 screams on my dual 867. $1700 + $100 to upgrade to ATI Radeon 9000. multitasking, as stated, is where X shines.
> also, have you tried tweaking the OS to make it a bit faster?
> ...


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