And where's the speed?

B

bender

Registered
I've bought a new G4/800/768MB last week to replace my good old beige 233 (updated to 466). I've changed all programs to MacOSX. The new system is fine, looking good but simply too slow.

Working with the finder (open, close, resize windows and scrolling) is about 3 times slower than on my old Mac that I bought 3 years ago!!!!!

Can't we expect a significant speed bump with 10.2?
 
I suppose in the end it's all a matter of personal preference, but OS X runs just fine for me and I'm on a G3 500. It is slower than 9, but not that bad.

As for a speed gain with 10.2, I would assume that there will be some advancements, but I don't know if thats such a big priority anymore.
 
osx is way too slow. os8 runs faster on my Performa 636 (33mhz 040) than osx runs on my beige g3 266.

As I type this, I am typing ahead of the cursor. Now, on my G4, things become useable. But rebooting into os9 tells me that Apple had something going for them in those days. Yes, we now have unix. But we also have the slowest graphics I'vbe ever had.

better os = slower computer?
 
Let's all repeat after me:
Finder speed does not equal computer speed!
Yeah, the OS X Finder sucks. But for tasks like uploading and downloading files, getting the full newgroups list from a news server, transferring photos from my digital camera to my hard drive, etc., OS X makes all previous Mac OSes look sick!
:p
 
thats a very important point!

Also worth noting: My Performa couldn't encode an mp3 for its life!

let alone play it... :p


AND yes I know my performa isn't alive :)
 
This may be considered a stupid question, but its more of a comment/questino than anything. First, while I realize that "finder" speed does not equal "computer speed" the Finder tells not only us Mac users, but also users of all other platform, the "percieved" speed of the OS and the hardware we are running on. For example, if Microsoft came out with Windows XP 2 and it was based on Unix or even just supposed to be better then "everything" out there but it ran crappy in its equivalent to the "Finder" mode we would all be talking about how crappy the system was. While I'm not saying Mac OS X is crappy I do have my issues with hit, I'm using it right now however and have been since I bought my PBG4 550 a couple of weeks ago. Besides the somewhat sluggish Finder, and its odd cuz sometimes its perfecto and other times it crawls... But some apps like Mail quit out of the blue but its a working piece of art. However, to get to my question, is the current finder just a "carbon" version of the old finder, or is it built from the ground up from Coaco (is that how you spell it?) are am I just totally way off. And can we expect the Finder to improve in the shortterm, or does Apple need to do some major code writing to get it up to how many of us would like it to be? Thanks.
:rolleyes:
 
I dont understand this.
I have never had problems with comp keeping up with my typing.
even with earlier version so of OS X
I cant say that I notice any speed loss with X
 
Finder.app is a Carbon application. A fair number of folks have wished for a Cocoa Finder.
And some folks use Snax or RBrowser as their "Finder," instead of Apple's.
:p
 
Just a question, are the alternative such as Snax or the Rbrowser one cocoa apps that actually replace the finder or are they "actually" just a skin type of program to replace the look of the finder. I always assumed they were the latter. thank
 
I have to agree with Aussie John, I haven't seen any speed loss..
I am on a G4 800 with 512Megs of Ram (new Flat panel iMac), and i love how fast everything runs personally..
I have worked on everything from Windows world and on OS8,9 and OSX is the nicest OS I have ever seen.
OSX on my G4-800 runs very nice.. I even love the genie effect, no slow down...
Actually, the only lag I have ever seen is when ripping a cd and running a couple of apps and photoshop in classic, some finder lag, but thats about it..
 
It's right, many tasks on MacOS X are much faster than on Mac OS9.

But it's a matter of fact that what you mostly do is opening, resizing or scrolling windows. And that's what you see and feel at work and have to wait for being finished.

I don't care about fast ripping a movie or encoding a mp3 file. That's gonna be done in the background on a UNIX system...
 
The bottom line is that the Finder speed in OS X is a sick joke. A complete and total scam. Scrolling through ANY list of text (a good example is in an email program, or in the Finder in a folder with lots of files, like MP3 files) is multiple times slower than OS 9 or any previous version of MacOS. I really have to laugh when I see people try and claim that this slow-down isn't occuring for them. Either: (a) you're so slow that you haven't even noticed, or (b) you're deluding yourself until Apple comes out with a fix.

I realize that the "perceived" snappiness of the finder does not equal the spee of the computer, but the simple fact of the matter is that a slow finder means slower productivity when you use the computer. Moreover, though, this pathetic lack of speed simply cannot be explained by the limitations of our hardware. Any G4 is a world-class machine that should be able to scroll through a word document or keep up with the fastest typer without hesitation.

Until Apple ships an OS X that those of us who are powerusers can honestly recommend to our friends, then it's not going to be a smashing success. I honestly would be embarrased if any of my linux/PC friends sat down to use OS X right now...they would say, what the hell is with this lag???

What realllllly sucks is that if Apple just sat down and figured out a way to make things more responsive, it would have a killer OS on its hands. Apple overnight pickup another 1% marketshare. I really hope they have some clue that everyone and their mom is saying this about OS X....

Miguel
 
Dani, you make some great points. The entire thing about Macs is that you can be so much more "productive," and while we can do many things faster in OS X it really doesn't matter if we can't navigate worth crap. Its like having a brand new car that is really fast, but it takes you forever to get to 200miles per hour, your car get there but who really cares if it takes 25 minutes to inch up that high. I like Mac OS X but the percieved, (and what the hell isn't what we percieve something to be-- reality?) but the actual Finder, what we USE most to get where we want to go NEEDS to be zippy, I mean there is no reason why when I go into my pathetic collection of Mp3 files (all of like 500 files) that the Finder should decide to take a 3 or 4 minute break while displaying the rainbow beach ball, that just doesn't cut it. I mean I know I don't have the tightest system, but hell its brand new, its a PowerBook G4 550mhz, and it comes with OS X as its standard default OS, that should mean I should be able to run it FINE, but that is not the case all of the time. Anyways, just wanted to say good point Dani, and while I notice the slow down I'm also waiting for a fix, or maybe it'll be a major update... whatever it is I hope it comes soon.
 
From various reports (which I guess means beta testers violating their nondisclosure agreements) finder speed is much improved in the forthcoming 10.2. I don't know if that means it's been replaced with a cocoa finder, or if they just go the current one working better.

At any rate it shows that Apple is aware that this is a concern for many people and they are trying to do something about it.
 
I realize that improvements have been made, and am running the most recent version of Mac OS X that was released last week, and I know that Apple most likely knows about the issues. It would just be nice to know when we can expect them all to be taken care of. I like how Mac OS X runs, I just think it needs some tweaking, but then again... will any Operating System never need some "tweaking." ;-)
 
As much as I understood is that the finder has been programmed in carbon so far.

Apple propably choose carbon to finish MacOSX as soon as possible. A cocoa version might be on the way and we will see a significant speed boost in the (near) future... I hope so ...
 
in my opinion, the current finder version is a joke.
the menus are unlogical, keyboard shortcuts changed, its not multithreaded, the copy dialog looks bad, list view doesnt work right, its slooooow etc....

id rather use mac os 6's old multifinder than os x's new finder. hopefully apple will improve the current finder soon.
 
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