# Speed?!



## Alex (Mar 26, 2001)

Hey everyone-

How is the speed on your machine w/ OS X? 

I am running MacOSX on an Indigo iMac DV 400Mgz 192MB... This thing is fast... 

I was hearing of Cubes being slow.. Anyone care to post their machines and how slow/fast they are? 

Thanks!


----------



## zerorex (Mar 26, 2001)

im running on a iBook SE 466 with 192meg of ram, and OS X is very fast.  The gui is responsive and classic runs great.  The only problem ive had at all is when I tryed to run Dioblo II in OSX through classic(didnt really expect that to go well).  However, the Sims works great in classic.

Final thoughts?
OS X KICKS ASS!!!!


----------



## sburrious (Mar 26, 2001)

On my beige G3 (300 MHz, 192 MB RAM, original video card, OS X installed on reformatted drive, same partition as OS 9.1), I'm getting mixed results.

Excellent:  Audio playback kicks serious heiny.   I played a CD in iTunes while doing a ton of other tasks, and the player never missed a beat.  

Good:  QuickTime playback is much improved over the PB and seems comparable to OS9.  I never noticed a problem with menu display in the PB, and I don't with the final either.

Not so good:  Window resizing is still slow, even in apps that have transparent resizing, like iTunes.  The animations in iTunes and the screen saver are agonzingly slow, but fortunately those are not high priorities for me. 

I'm considering upgrading the video card, so I'd be interested in hearing about the experience of other beige G3 owners who have done so.  I'd probably go with the latest ATI card, since I'm more interested in 2D than 3D.


----------



## Alex (Mar 27, 2001)

Im really, *cough* not sure if I truly like it... Its really cool looking, but- Im not sure if I should of bought it when, still not as many programs in carbon...

I use dreamweaver/fireworks/photoshop mostly all the time when I am on my computer... So Its really slow running on OSX.. So I normaly just use OS9.. 

I wish Apple allowed the old programs to run on osx a little better.. This poor iMac is running more than it has ever had too...

Its still pretty fast, OSX wise.... 

Okay now that I have lost what I was trying to say, Bye!

-Alex


----------



## DJ_XTC (Mar 27, 2001)

I'm running a G3 B7W 300 (overclocked to 350), with 128 meg of RAM, ATI Rage128 Video Card Adaptec 2940 Dual Channel SCSI card and an additioal Ultra2Wide LVD Cheatah Drive (9gig).  Quartz could be faster, window resize dosen't keep up with the mouse.  that's my only complaint so far.  Classic SCREAMS!  it's faster than booting into 9.1.  The only thing that classic is lacking is better Multimedia support... Divx and such sometimes just pause, the keep going once OSX gives it some more processing cycles.


Well that's it in a nutshell.


DJ XTC


----------



## billbaloney (Mar 27, 2001)

I've been running different versions starting with PB on a PowerBook G3 400 MHz with 192 MB RAM, and performance has been so-so...Classic runs well, starts up about the same speed as a straight OS 9.1 boot (not that I've actually timed it), but the OS X Finder seems really sluggish to me.  Window resizing is pretty lame.  Something as essential as the System prefs should come up really fast, I feel, but it takes a while.

So far, I'm much happier with the BSD underpinnings than I am with the Finder, uh, overpinnings.


----------



## riven (Mar 28, 2001)

I have a PowerBook Pismo and Mac OS X is really running fast. I love the sleep funktion in Mac OS X. 3 sec. to the system wakes up. Lovely...

I have 192 MB ram and i can run Classic, and tons of other apps without slowing down the system.

Thanks Apple for a great product!

- riven


----------



## Batmensch (Mar 31, 2001)

Pretty slow; feels quite a bit slower than OS9, actually.  I guess the Rage Pro 64 LT cards are not accelerated; glad to hear the Pismo's 128 works better, I am thinking of buying one!
Can't play Oni under X with no OpenGL support.  Wavelan card doesn't work.  Image capture doesn't seem to like my Casio CV digital camera over USB, and it won't mount the compact flash cards in pcmcia adaptors as drives like MacOS9 and Linux will.
Actually, there's not much reason to use it at the moment, since MacOS is more compatible with my hardware and LinuxPPC is much faster.  Just exploring.


----------



## PoweMACuser (Apr 1, 2001)

I am running under PowerMac G4/400/20GB/256MB/Gigabit

I can't shutdown and restart, and it runs very slow.

I only see my friend's computer running os x very well. But they are ibook or iMac or G3.

Is os x optimized for PowerMac G4?


----------



## binHex (Apr 2, 2001)

Classic environment leave the memorymanagement to X. Does this means that the memory settings for a classic app is
meaningless, or should you increase the min/max memorysettings to, let's say 100MB per app.


----------



## twitchg3 (Apr 2, 2001)

I have a Beige DT G3 300 w/128mb ram, 6 gig stock HD and secondary 36 gig Western Digital HD. Got OSX installed. Ran the PB first, and it was slow, but I was told that was because of all the debug code and stuff. So, I dealt with it. But when I got the final, and it as slow as it is, im upset. This thing needs to be AS FAST or FASTER than Windows. Windows basic user interface is faster than OS 9 in most respects.. just more responsive. (Though opening a folder of any kind with any content in OS 9 is so much faster than on Windows). However, I use Windows at work, and HATE WINDOWS SO BADLY.. but im using Win2k on an 800mhz PIII w/512mb ram and its pretty quick. My problem with OSX is just the interface speed. I need to be able to zip along and do what I want and get there quickly without having to wait for a stupid window to load. I mean, come on, when the selection box on the desktop (you know, when you click and hold and drag and it makes a selection box) is so fricken slow when it gets over like 200x200 pixels, there is a serious speed problem. Dragging windows around works pretty good, but window resizing is horrible. I dont even want to resize windows because it lags so bad. If Win2k were on a 300mhz PC, im sure it would run faster than OSX on my 300mhz G3. And we all know that a 300mhz G3 is about as fast as a PII 450. Either way, Great OS.. but im still using OS9 until things get faster. Apple BETTER NOT expect me to get a new computer to make things faster. Theres my rant. Peace


----------



## VGZ (Apr 2, 2001)

OS X screams on my system even when dnetc (running in the terminal) is using 150%-180% (Most likely the only way to say its using both processors ) of the processor.


----------



## fmalloy (Apr 2, 2001)

I'm finding it hard to believe that OS X "screams" on any system, including dual G4s. Everything I've heard seems to say the contrary.

For sure, on my beige G3/300 and iBook, most everything is dog slow, particularly:

- Application launches can take up to 15 secs, compared with 3 secs in Classic. Even launching System Preferences is slow, and these are just control panels.

- Dynamic window resizing. Abysmal. If they can't speed it up, dump it or give me an option to go back to outline resizing.

- Live scrolling. Slow. The scroll bar cannot keep up with the cursor when dragging it.

- Traversing menus and dropping menus down. There is a distinct delay and a lag to keep up with the mouse. Menus should *always* be snappy.

Basically, any software that has a GUI interface takes a big hit.

Classic apps run blindingly fast in comparison. Rebooting back to OS 9 is like gaining 250MHz in speed, easily.

Of course I expect better when my G4Ti comes tomorrow 

I hope Apple spends a lot of timing on performance tuning or the 'ol "Macs are slower than PCs" argument is going to return with a vengeance, especially when Windoze XP comes out...


----------



## twitchg3 (Apr 2, 2001)

I just grabbed the 10.0.1 updated.. what is it.. 4l5? or something like that. Will be installing it when I get home. I heard it can give up to a 20% boost in speed on G3's however it doesnt do too much on G4's. I sure hope so though cause I cant stand a lagging GUI.


----------



## PoweMACuser (Apr 2, 2001)

I think we can't get the real united opion. I have found that even we are using the same model of mac, the speed of os x differs vastly. I think maybe the RAM we have added or the Harddisk we have installed has compatability with os x. This is the imaginary reason. I haven't test. Anyone can try.


----------



## turbine (Apr 3, 2001)

I have basically the same setup as VGZ, and  I would have to agree that things are pretty zippy on a G4 450 MP.  Slightly slower than OS9 (and that's just nit picking).  Genie FX run fast, screen resize nice and smooth.  Definately pleased overall.


----------



## monty (Apr 3, 2001)

Does it really scream on a g3?! On our G4 450 it runs slower than the public beta! What happened to all those altivec optimisations we were promised? For the time being, until we all get Quad 1.2 Ghz machines, would apple please let us go back to outline resizing and non-live scrolling, just until our machines catch up. Classic is much better though.

Hopefully apple is just concentrating on getting stuff like DVD working and then they'll work on some serious optimisations. Please.

Peter


----------



## VGZ (Apr 3, 2001)

Keep in mind I'm running build 4L5.  It is a major improvement in speed over 4K78 on my system.


----------



## Tigger (Apr 3, 2001)

> _Originally posted by twitchg3 _
> *If Win2k were on a 300mhz PC, im sure it would run faster than OSX on my 300mhz G3.*


No, it doesn't. I am running Win2k at work on a 400MHz PII, and it is slower than X. Less responsive.


----------



## plaidpjs (Apr 3, 2001)

I am running OS X on three different machines. Below from slowest to fastest is the rundown. Overall I find OS X exhilerating to use, in fact, I can't stand having to reboot into 9.1 to use certain Apps and try and get out of them as quickly as possible to come back to X.

*G3/266, 192MB RAM, 20GB ATA HDD* (this is an add in drive to replace the 6GB that came with the system - it is an ATA 100 running at ATA 33 off the system board)*, and stock ATI video:* This machine is by rights the slowest i have running OS X. It is also at the very bottom of Apple's support list. All-inall, for what i have running on the system it is not bad. The window dragging and Finder are indeed fairly slow, but not unusable. According to macosxrumors.com, however, the upcoming update will enhance the performance of the OS on G3 systems more than G4s. As well, I am going to patiently wait for a revamp of Quartz so that it takes advantage of the GPU instead of the CPU as it does now. I am not using any non-native Apps on this machine (e.g., no Classic)

*G3/400 B&W, 256MB RAM, 20GB ATA 100 HDD* (running off the system board at 33 or 66 not sure)*, and stock ATI video:* No ifs, ands, or buts, about it. This system is highly usable and fairly fast. I currently run several Classic apps, including Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, all of which run faster in classic then they do booted into 9.1 (I have done speed tests that verify this, including batch processing using PhotoShop actions). There is still some need to go down to 9.1, but nothing excessive. And, the multitasking capabilities are awesome.

*G3/400 PowerBook, 192MB RAM, 10GB HDD, and stock ATI video:* Almost as fast as it's desktop sibling. The biggest hassles are window resizing and the Finder in list view (column view is pretty fluid). No Classic Apps for this set-up. It is basically my test bed for new software that has been ported over, that I have never had the opportunity to use before (i.e., MySQL, Python, PHP, etc.). I wait for the first upgrade with baited breath to see if I get any real speed bumps on this machine.

*G4/500 Dual Processor, 768MB RAM, 40GB HDD, ATI Rdeaon 32MB OEM video, Apple Cinema Display:* Can we jst say... SCREAMS!!! Yes, it is that fast. A little sluggish on window resizing and  in the Finder, but still faster than the P3/800 and Win2k box that I use for Firewall maintenance. i run a lot of Classsic apps on this box (i.e., PhotoShop, Illustrator, Flash, Director, GoLive, Office 2001, Peak, and more). I do need to reboot in 9.1 to use GoLive efficiently, but everything else leaves scorch marks on anything I've done in 9.1 or earlier. The system is also fast in native OS X. Quartz being completely CPU driven just gives me a fun reason to watch the CPU Monitor and see my second processor get used. I've also spent more time tweaking this machine from the command line, and getting it to do what I want from a workflow perspective. Biggest benefit to this system is that running OS X allows me to use tools I never thought I could run on a MAc system, once I test them on the PowerBook I move them over to this machine andjust have a blast. I'm even thinking about investing in Lightwave 6.5 when it is released, it should be nice to set a reder to process in the background while I listenm to MP3s on iTunes, scrub the dock looking for like three different browsers, play a game of Down&Out and run a few FTP downloads at the same time.

All-in-all I can say this, OS X is not your mama's Mac. it never will be... hopefully. But, if you give it time and actually try and get used to all the new features and ways of doing things, you'll probably end up loving it. And, i have faith  that we will see a consistent stream of optimization updates from Apple, as well as continually being notified of more and more commercial apps going native. Not to mention the string of announcements about previously unheard of applications running on our Macs.


----------

