Jag + Radeon 8500 = jerky window resizing!

[karavite]

Dear Apple, if you really do read this, then this is just for you (I posted the same issue elsewhere).

Please tell me why with my just upgrading to 10.2 after installing an agp ATI Radeon 8500 (a card that supports QE) a few days earlier:

Mail, finder and IE windows (almost any window) still resizes slowly/jerky!!! I don't see any improvement over 10.1.5 and am a little bit peeved off since normal acting windows (like every other computer in the world) is all I really wanted and have spent over $300 to get (10.2 + new card your site says supports QE). However, before I jump to conclusions...

I installed the card earlier this week with 10.1.5 and it worked fine (noticed a big improvement in moving windows, but resize was still a joke). I cannot install or reinstall drivers since ATI's site says 10.2 has 8500 drivers included in 10.2. THEY DO NOT HAVE DRIVERS FOR DOWNLOAD FOR 10.2 AND HAVE NO ISSUES ON FILE.

I called ATI three times today (8/23) and they know nothing about it or ideas on what to do. The tech support person was not even sure if they were going to be writing new drivers for 10.2!!! They said a product specialist would be calling me Monday.

So what do I do?

Is there something I need to adjust/set to use Quartz Extreme? (I guess no).

Is there a conflict with the old ATI drivers for 10.1.5? I would think the 10.2 installer was smart enough to take care of that, but who knows. I will try to install OS X 10.2 on a clean drive (I have a few to play with) and see what happens - a waste of time to be sure, but what the heck.

Is a G4 450 with a a 64 MB AGP vidoe card and 1GB of RAM not enough computer to have windows resize faster/smoother than was possible in 1989?

Is running two 19" VGA monitors at a recommended/approved resolution of 1152 x 870 at 75 hertz a problem?

Do I need to fork out $3000 for a dual processor machine so I can resize windows as smoothly as a $800 Windows machine?

Do I need to install developer tools? (was going to later tonight - of course I am joking that this could be an issue).

Before anyone jumps on me for being a whiner, I have been a big Mac suporter for 10 years. I have owned ten personally and convinced friends, family and associates to by 100s of them. I love my Mac, but this window resizing crap is absurd and I am really sick of it - adding to that I was incredibly geeked up over having 10.2 arrive today only to be followed by extreme dissapointment when nothing changed (exept losing my beloved transparent dock, fruit menus and terminal colors I set up...).

 

[karavite]

Hi Apple, I'm a little more calm now.

I'm sure you have a copy of OfficeX laying around there. Take a look at it and notice how window resizing just shows an outline then draws the window when you release the mouse button. I don't mind that at all! Why can't Apple let users select this type of thing for all windows - like many Linux desktop environments do? I could live with that - in fact I would really like that. You could even add some neat little coordinates and lines like in WindowMaker.

Probably some complex reason with the architecture of OS X....

Or maybe you want us to all buy new Macs so we can resize windows smoothly?

 

[karavite]

Okay Apple, your tech support people tell me resizing is largely the job of the processor and not the video card, but that isn't what your graph at http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartzextreme.html seems to say.

That darn graph is what convinced me to by the 8500 in the first place! The middle chart "2D Graphics Performance WIndow Resize" - shows 105+ operations per second using a QE supported card to under 35 operations per second using 10.1. I guess that doesn't come out to mean very much, but it sure LOOKS impressive in the graph - "why it is like 5 times bigger. Thisis going to be great!"

Then I noticed that both graph 1 and 2 (1 being Window Move) are both in operations per second, but the scale is 400 operations per second for the first graph and 140 operations per second for the window resize graph.

By golly, I forgot day one of Statistics 101 where our teacher showed us how people like USA Today do this sort of thing to basically trick you into seeing what they want you to see vs. what is really happening.

If Apple had been statistically honest on this chart it would have looked something like this:

Tells a different story doesn't it! I guess I should have read it more carefully, but whoever made this chart was successful in getting me to see it their way. Thanks a lot - I expected more from Apple, but this is very Microsoft-ish behavior. Tisk tisk.