10.1 performance report

G

greasypeso

Registered
I have a PowerBook (FireWire), aka Pismo, 400 MHz G3, 640 MB RAM, and a 20 GB IBM TravelStar HD. Launching System Preferences the first time takes the same amount of bounces in 10.1 as it did in 10.0.4 - four bounces. Now, I do notice a general speed improvement all around (especially in menus and the Finder), but all in all I'm not seeing the advertised 5x speed increase. Perhaps I need a Velocity Engine-equipped machine to really reap 10.1's benefits?

Jeff
 
It would definitely help. This new OS is very robust and extremely demanding on your system hardware specs(processor, bus speed, HD RPM,instruction architecture). make no mistake about it, Apple is catering this OS to the system's of tomorrow with a select few configurations of today being capable of really exploiting it well. Dual processors, 3mb b/s cache, 133mhz bus speed, max ram allowable- all these things are being implemented for OSX and it's future. The length of life in "computer years" is getting shorter all the time.
 
Everything as advertised thus far. Menu resizing is a joy now. I am burning a CD right now, and already watched a few chapters of Me, Myself and Irene on the DVD.

A few issues thus far is that the DVD Controller will not allow me to FF or Rew. I also don't like the Login screen which shows all my users, anybody know how to disable this.

P.S. Glendale Apple Store has/had 2000 CD's for distrabution, I would call first for those in SoCal, cause the line rapped around the mall for a ways.
 
Go into the Login prefs in System Prefs and click the Login Window tab at the top, then select the radio button for "Name and password entry fields" instead of the default "List of users with accounts on this computer"

I didn't like it either - this was the first thing I did once I logged into 10.1 :p
 
I'm pretty sure a G4 helps a *lot*. In my case, I have a 666MHz G4 Tower, and with 10.1 on it now, it feels like someone snuck a second processor in when I wasn't looking. Most apps launch in two bounces, windows resize & reformat several times faster, etc. etc. etc.

This camper's happy.
 
I agree that Hardware makes a big difference. Been having a discussion on another thread here about just that.

Actually, I think I was a bit hard on someone complaining about this issue. I understand Apple's tailoring this OS to a select few current machines (luckily mine's included) and future machines, but after reading a bit on the web and hearing many people complain about the update and it's lack of speed enhancements for them, I kinda feel bad...

Selfishly, I want Apple to do just what they're doing. I am able to upgrade fairly often (not more than 2 years between upgrades and oftentimes much less). I still keep most of my old machines for various reasons and uses but my main machines (portable and desktop) are currently less than 6 months old and that's par for the course for me.

But my altruistic side (what's left of it anyway) feels, like i said, bad for others who cannot keep up with that rate of replacement. Maybe apple should spend more resources towards making these systems scream too. Maybe this makes sense economically as well. Apple wants that other 95%. But, that other 95% are pretty dependant on CHEAP PC parts and being able to keep their heads just above water in the system performance area by upgrading with those CHEAP parts instead of shelling out tons of money for new hardware available only from one company and from a company that discourages this sort of tinkering on any large scale (don't want to void that warranty...).

Ahhh. I'm rambling. Just kinda bothered me and I'm trying to see the other side of this.
 
I agree that, seen from an Apple-booster/altruistic point of view, it would be very nice for G3/slower machines to perform well using X. But, I wanted to point out that even if Apple is shooting for the other 95%, they really don't have to worry about, say, Beige G3 owners. That is, even if the Windowed Masses were to start buying Macs in droves, they'd be buying them now or in the near future, in a world where a 500Mhz G3 is about as slow as you can find (and in a few months, we might not even have G3s outside of the portable arena). So, although X does favor beastly hardware, it should run just fine on the Macs that ship now and in the days soon to come. (And if you think about it, what brand new OS doesn't--does anybody remember how slow system 7 ran on 68020 macs, and 8 on the earliest generation of PowerMacs? Not pretty.)

Anyway, I do feel sorry for owners of newish but slower machines, but X is a heckuva lotta power for a desktop os, and it sure screams on fast hardware. Besides, Apple is making improvements--give them time.

As for me, even 10.0.4 does most things frighteningly fast on my DP533 (though even I can empathize with window resizing), so I'm a happily overequipped camper. I have run it on a G3 266, though, so I feel your pain.
 
dvd player does rewind and fast forward, just hold the mouse down longer and it wqill fast forward at 4x. i did that on the next track button.
 
From the Help file, I found out that Command-Right and Command-Left are keyboard shortcuts to fast-forward and rewind. Oddly, these keyboard equivalents aren't shown in the "Controls" menu!

I think it's really weird that there aren't buttons on the Controller window. Whose idea was that??

--Andy
 
Makosuke:

I was thinking in a more forward looking manner... While I feel bad for Beige G3 owners and wish that, as in a perfect world, they too could be supported, I was just worrying out loud that this quick upgrade cycle coupled with Apple's trend at concentrating on high end machines and proprietary hardware might not make getting that other 95% impossible.
 
I am pretty happy with the way 10.1 runs on my Beige G3. Sure it is not the fastest thing on my desk, but compared to the performance of 10.0.x, 10.1 screams.

Prior to 10.1, OS X really was not practicle unless you wanted to make youself crazy.

I say apple is doing all the right things. These old G3's are destined to be DHCP serversFirewalls or DNS boxes running Darwin or OS X. Dut until I can magically come up with a few extra grand for a new box, this one will have to do. This open and my PowerBook G3 400 (Firewire) that is...which also perfrom pretty well I might add.

(on an unrealted note....after installing 10.1 I had to disable apple_hfs_mod in httpd.conf to get Apache to start...apple must have fixed the case sensetivity issue?)
 
I think that ram has a lot to do with the performance

I have:

G4 400 ( gibabits ethernet model )
1 Gig of ram
20 Gig 7200 rpm HD ( OS 10.1)
20 Gig apple 5400 rpm (OS 9.21)
and only the original AGP ATI Rage 128 pro


I clean install both 10.1 and 9.21 on separate hard drive

OS X 10.1 is very fast and classic not bad also

Of course i missed a few features like my sandisk compact flash card reader, formac tv tuner and my webcam don't work yet in OS X but that's another tread.

As far as the speed, this one year old G4 is not bad at all under 10.1

IMHO

:)
 
I am running a IceBook with 256 RAM and the speed improvements in 10.1 are far better than I expected for this machine.

My G4 Tower with 576 RAM was blazing. :D

10.1 Update was worth the wait at the Apple Store for 2 hours before open.
 
yeah, 10.1 rocks. And generally speaking Apple has allowed a large number of machines play with new OSes. This is a break that is diferent. I can accept Apple trimming the fat from the OS. It hurts me as much as anybody, but I don't want old machine support at the expense of better forward looking support.

As for hfs, I think the module just broke. The case sensitivity isn't a "bug," it's just a quirk. Apache originally thought that it would be on a case sensitive HD format. hfs doesn't care. It'd break a lot of stuff, not to mention make me angry if hfs was case sensitive. So hfs will remain case insensitive, but apache might just have that security flaw again if the module. And the security flaw only exists if you have set up specific security (domains and passwords) on apache. Apache on X does not have any real security issues naturally.
 
I definitely agree with what's been said regarding how even 10.1 isn't as fast as 9 on older machines. I have a pretty heavily upgraded rev. b iMac (30 GB HD, 192 MB RAM), and it's usuable but definitely not as fast as 9.x. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'll ever boot back into 9 on this machine once Palm Desktop for X comes out...I do really like it, and there are definitely advantages that outweigh any speed hits (protected memory, how I love thee). That and I am lucky enough to also have an iBook 500 with gobs of RAM (getting ready to install it there now) and a year-old G4 500 at work, and 10.1 should be much better on those machines. But what really clinches it for me is when I think back to my old Perform 6200 CD. Even with some moderate RAM upgrades to that, it barely ran OS 8 acceptibly. That's one generation of OS revision (it shipped with some variant of 7, I think pre-7.5/7.6). My iMac has now made it 2 generations and it's still doing better than the Performa was (and I had them the same lenght of time, 3 years each). Granted there were more differences from 7 to 8 as there were from 8 to 9, but even so the jump from 8 to X is huge I would say. And even if I never upgrade the OS on this iMac again, I won't be getting rid of it any time soon like I did the Performa.

My point in all this is, yes it would be really awesome if X could work better on the oldest compatible machines (iMacs, G3 beige towers, older PowerBooks). I'm all for that. But I think those systems, with perhaps some small to moderate upgrades (RAM, RAM, RAM) are faring far better than their predecessors, all things considered.
 
I'm running a fairly heavily upgraded original beige g3 (233mhz), it's got 384MBs of RAM, a 30GB 7200 hard drive, and 10.04. Upgrading from 10.0 to 10.04 and 128MBs to 384 has done very little for my speed (although OSX is actually quite useable). Will 10.1 do much for my speed?
 
Originally posted by Catfish_Man
I'm running a fairly heavily upgraded original beige g3 (233mhz), it's got 384MBs of RAM, a 30GB 7200 hard drive, and 10.04. Upgrading from 10.0 to 10.04 and 128MBs to 384 has done very little for my speed (although OSX is actually quite useable). Will 10.1 do much for my speed?
Click to expand...

Yes it will. You'll probably still wish at times for it to be a little faster than it is, but even on a system that old (about as old as my iMac I'm guessing), with that much RAM and 10.1 you will see a significant speed increase.
 
it makes me happy to read through a thread where people understand that 10.1 is intended for the upper end of the last two releases of G4's and still go at it with their "older" systems and are happy; realizing that it cant be as fast as a new G4 DP800.
Finally, practical people with reasonable expectations getting stoked on the OS instead of complaining that they got shafted for 10.1 not making their systems on par with a new G4 DP800.
 
It runs good on 10.1...overall speed has been improved...alot of stuff launch better on it, but window resizing isn't that impressive. it's ok, ok.
The DVD player does not work on my G3. It's made for software decoding not for hardware like mine. Overall I love it. I am using it most of the time. Using OS 9.2.1 alot less.

____________________________________________________________

Blue and white G3
384 RAM, DVD
6 GB stock hard drive
OS 9.2.1, 10.1, Windows 98 in Virtual PC
firewire CDRW drive, SCSI zip drive
 
I am sick and tired ot people saying "X is for the newest hardware and the future. Get a new Mac"

over 80% Mac users with low end G3 won't get gettingf a new computer for 1-2+ years. They just can't afford it.

Apple needs to optimize X for G3, G4, and G5.

on my Beige G3 MT 266 I have upgraded ther RAM which is a cheap upgrade, and also put in USB/firewire. I think they shoudn't add support for the Rage II+/Pro. The Rage 128 should be the bare min for OpenGL.

I will be getting a Radeon at Christmas. most people can only afford to by a new computer every 4-5+ years. So apple must continue to work to optimize X for the Sub 300 mhz G3's through 2003. The best thing Apple could to, is

1. buid smart installers that look at your computer and ask you which stuff to install to optimize X for your computer
2. Have 3 kernals G3, G4, G5 so that the kernial for your CPU is compiled with the hardware on your computer for the best preformance.

+I wouldn't by a new Mac if I had the money until Quad G4 1GHZ.
 
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