Imac issues?

R

RTeal

Registered
Hey all,
The computer I'm running is the 20" imac intel dual core, with 2 gigs of ram and a CPU speed of 2,16 gh/z.
I've noticed though, that nearly everything I try to run lags.
Terribly.
I have paralells installed to run windows programs, and I can't even run THAT in full screen without it lagging terribly. A friend of mine has the new macbook.. and it runs just fine on fullscreen on that, so I suppose its the resolution.
I have a few games (just bought BF1942, have Quake4), and know that I cant play ANY of them without horrible lag.
Its just no fun.
I have a computer that should run it, but even with 2 gigs of ram and 2.16 gh/z, it cant run a game from 2002?
Even if I lower it right down - even to 800x600 , it still doesn't run smoothly.
However when I run the same game on my old g4 ibook (1.42 gh/z , 1 gig ram), it runs fine :(

Any suggestions, or should I just give up?
 
Part of your problem with the games is related to the fact that they are running in an "Emulated" environment, namely "Rosetta".

But even that together with your mention of a slow Parallels would seem to indicate a larger problem.

Have you tried a general overall cleanup with say.. Onyx or yasu, followed by a restart?

jb
 
Never used either of those on that mac.
The thing is its a pretty new mac too, only just bought it a few months ago, whereas the ibook I used for over a year and a half now..
I use my macs about 12-16 hours a day, every day as well.

I know I tried onyx in the past (years and years ago =P) But never tried yasu..
When I go back to my macs later I'll give them a go (On my dreaded PC Now.. hah).
 
Ok, got both Onyx and Yasu, what do you suggest I run in Yasu? And Onyx?
Thanks for the help, its greatly appreciated.
 
The issue with the games is exactly what jbarley is saying. Since the games were coded for the PowerPC processor and you're trying to run them on an Intel-based Mac (completely different architecture), Mac OS X uses a compatibility layer that tricks the PowerPC software to think that it's running on a PowerPC Mac. Because of this, there's a lot of code translation being done which causes slowdowns which are VERY noticeable on system intensive applications. The performance is said to be that of a Power Mac G3 according to those who have used older PPC apps through Rosetta on their Intel Macs, which is obviously quite slow. This is why it runs slow on your Intel-based Mac and faster on your PowerPC-based Mac. Although more memory helps, it still doesn't improve performance much.

Your best bet is to found out if there are Univeral Binaries available for those games. Some companies have done this, but unfortunately not for all of their games (Warcraft III is one example). Universal Binaries are able to run on both PowerPC and Intel Macs natively since they have the necessary native code for both in them. If they do have this for the games you're interested in, then you'll notice a major speed increase on your Intel Mac.
 
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