Laggy scrolling in internet browsers

J

Johndoemanny34362

Registered
All browsers on the mac have a hard time scrolling down a long web page smoothly. When you click the scroll bar and drag it, it is choppy and unresponsive a lot of the time. This is not only on slow macs but on dual-core G5's at my school. In IE for a windows computer connected to the same network is perfectly smooth. What is wrong?
 
your a hater.
and you lie!
My mac is very smooth, and its a G3 Powerbook, Lombard. 400 Mhz. 384 MB of RAM...
Maybe you just think your special...
 
How come it seems as htough you're the only one with these problems?

My iMac G5 2GHz scrolls just fine using Camino and Firefox. I'm running 10.4.3.

Before making remarks like that, make sure that you consider the following on those school Macs of yours.:

1. SO many people use it that it's probably mucked up by so many other users.
2. The operating system probably has not been updated or tended to as most school techs stay away from the Macs since they have no idea how to use one. Personally I don't consider a tech person a true tech if he/she doesn't have working knowledge of the major operating systems out there.
3. These Macs aren't the latest and greatest around...still based on the old G4, don't have enough memory, and are probably using the stock video card that came with them. In other words, they probably don't support Quartz Extreme or other OS X features that newer cards would. The same thing can be said of a video card that supports only up to DirectX 7 or 8 and then you wonder why it doesn't perform as well with the offerings of DirectX 9.0c.
4. Internet Explorer for the Mac hasn't been updated by Microsoft for 3 years now, and even then it was slow as molasses. Consider something like Camino or Safari that's optimized for the Mac.

Making blanket remarks like that only makes you come off as trying to start an argument. Do the research before you make a faulty assessment like that.

My two cents.
 
Errrr......why are you jumping down the guy's throat? He asked a question (to quote, "What is wrong?"). Instead of blasting him for making a false statement (which he wasn't, really; he was asking about his own experience), let's try to suggest solutions. He also said it happened on G5s, not just G4s.

And I hate to say it, but Macs DON'T scroll as smoothly as PCs. This has always been the case. However, I never find it a problem when dragging the scroll thumb UNLESS something really is wrong.

So what might be wrong? Well, the last time it happened to me, I found that the cause was a background app I installed that did something ever 2 seconds. And every time it did, it made my scrolling stutter. That background app went straight to the trash.

Open Activity Monitor (located in /Applications/Utilities/) and see if any process's CPU usage spikes every few seconds. If it does, that might the problem.

Hope this helps.
 
Mikuro said:
Errrr......why are you jumping down the guy's throat? He asked a question (to quote, "What is wrong?"). Instead of blasting him for making a false statement (which he wasn't, really; he was asking about his own experience), let's try to suggest solutions. He also said it happened on G5s, not just G4s.

And I hate to say it, but Macs DON'T scroll as smoothly as PCs. This has always been the case. However, I never find it a problem when dragging the scroll thumb UNLESS something really is wrong.

So what might be wrong? Well, the last time it happened to me, I found that the cause was a background app I installed that did something ever 2 seconds. And every time it did, it made my scrolling stutter. That background app went straight to the trash.

Open Activity Monitor (located in /Applications/Utilities/) and see if any process's CPU usage spikes every few seconds. If it does, that might the problem.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Because he sounded like he was generalizing based on his experience with one specific type of Apple machine. And this hasn't been the only time. Had it been a few times, I would have overlooked and moved on. However, the posts are usually the same type of arguments you get from Windows users that want to "stir the pot."

Fine, so he mentioned that they were dual-core G5s as well as the slow Macs. Scratch that one off my list. But consider the scenario. These are classroom machines that have been (ab)used by everyone and there mother, especially people that probably are novices or even beginnners to the Mac and Mac OS X. And in my experience (since I am a computer tech for my county's school district), many of the school technicians don't know or even CARE to know about Apple machines. They usually let them die a slow death since they barely touch them. He also didn't mention how much memory, hard drive or RAM, was available for systems.

I'm sure if this had been his own personal Apple system the issue wouldn't have ever come up, since I don't experience these on my iMac at all. Instead, he's using systems that have been tampered with in ways he probably isn't aware of and basing his decisions on that. Maybe if he had phrased his post differently by saying that it was the Macs in his classroom (instead of making it sound like a statement about all browsers on all Macs), the outcome would have been different.

If we ask for users to identify certain things in their posts like OS version, system type, and so on when they are looking for answers in earnest, wouldn't the same thing be expected here? Again, this isn't the first time the off-the-cuff generalizations have been posted, hence my response which I am sticking to. And considering that he has the type of computer that he has, one would hope that he would have applied the detailed troublshooting techniques he would have used on a Windows PC to assess what was causing the slowdowns on the Mac in the first place before posting those remarks.
 
Thank you Mikaro for giving me some help like i wanted and not cutting straight to conclusions about it like the rest of the posters. I will try those things when i get back to my school on Monday.

The tech guy in my music lab is a Mac freak and doesn't touch Windows. He updates the computers every week, i watch him sometimes. He knows very much about the macs and won't let them "die." However we have separate tech guys for the library and computer labs who only work with windows.

This is what they look like:
http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/B0002ZKG66.09.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

The G5's are not even a year old. They have 2ghz dual core processors and 512 mb of ram. they have a geforce 5200 fx video card, and integrated sound. Yet still just scrolling down a long web page is laggy and the scroll bar (sadly, i'm stuck with the single buttoned, no scroll mouses there) doesn't keep up with the cursor. I thought this was somethign to do with the browser, but it happens on G3 400mhz (very bad) all the way up to the 2ghz dual cores at my school music lab with all browsers except Firefox. Try these links and tell me what happens with you:

http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/gameboy/index-classic.html

http://www.evilwillalwaystriumph.com/script.htm

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/

If it is smooth, the scroll bar will always remain under the cursor in the same place and will follow the cursor no matter how fast you move it. It should move smoothly up and down no matter what speed.
 
Again, ST, had you phrased your question differently, this would have never happened. But it sounded like you were using your experience to make a decision about all Macs. Specifics are important when posting, especially when it's just text and it can be read out of context. This is also a reason as to why the admins request that you be DETAILED in your postings about problems...not just about OS version and whatnot, but also about scenarios.

Obviously, I wasn't the only one who misinterpreted what you said, which is why you got the repsonses you received.

I have the iMac G5 that was released early this year....2 GHz and all (which btw aren't dual core..only the new Power Macs that were just released are dual-core). And I don't have this problem. I'm using Camino 1.0b1 as well as the latest RC2 of Firefox. I went to the links you mentioned and I don't have any problems scrolling through. About the only lag I notice is a SLIGHT lag in the scroll button. BIG DEAL! So far, the scrolling is still smooth on my iMac that it's a non-issue, and I'm not being biased here. It truly doesn't matter that much. I just even tested it on the PC laptop I have (HP nx9010 laptop) and it's not that much of a difference.

As for the older Macs, try using a PC of similar configuration running Windows XP SP2 with the stock video card it comes with. I assure you that you will see lag as well. Oh, and make sure that you enable all the eye candy in the System Properties, Advanced tab, and Performance button. Make sure that it says it's adjusted for best appearance and you'll see how poorly Windows XP on a comparable PC will scroll. Also consider that windows isn't using the graphics enhancements that OS X uses. If you think this is bad, wait until Vista comes out and then try THAT on a comparable PC.

Seriously....the scrolling isn't even that big a concern. Talk to me about benchmarks and other actual performance markers and then we'll discuss some real issues. :rolleyes:
 
He's not wrong. It depends on the website.

Firefox scrolls fine on any site; Safari is the opposite.

On my iMac if you go to a website that has a lot of animated gifs they hardly even animate, yet in Firefox they all run at full speed. Also, websites that have a lot of content on a static background scroll slowly too.

Now I alleviated this problem somewhat by turning off Apple's smooth scrolling. Now it doesn't seem as bad, but still, there's a lot more room for improvement.
 
I have all my settings on high and for performance and it makes no difference. The G5's are running Geforce 5200 FX cards which are much better than stock video. In fact, i have a 5200FX card and i popped it in, and the scrolling is perfectly smooth still.

On my friend's sad PC (he can't afford a new one) which has a 700 mhz Pentium cpu, 256 mb pc100 ram, and 4 mb of video ram, web scrolling is also perfectly smooth. I think it has to do with the OS and not the hardware.
 
Well, as far as performance is concerned (and not necessarily scrolling, since the slowdowns have happened to me on a PC running XP...P4 and all...when the page is littered with flash and other performance consuming web stuff), remember that Mac OS X was taken from OPENSTEP, which was released after NeXTSTEP.

OPENSTEP was made to run on Pentium CPUs. Of course, when Apple bought NeXT and started work on Rhapsody (which would eventually become OS X), they had to rewrite a lot of code to be native for PPC. Of course, initially there were two versions of Rhapsody known to users during this early development phase: the PPC version and the x86 version. However, the x86 version was said to have been dropped in favor of producing the final PPC version. Of course, now we know the truth that Jobs had the x86 version (all iterations before the name OS X) being worked on all along. Of course, there were also tips to this since Darwin (the open source UNIX portion of OS X) has been available for both hardware platforms since the development began on OS X.

From what I've read lately, the x86 version of OS X is spanking the PPC version. The reason for this is because initially OS X was optimized for x86 CPUs (when it was OPENSTEP). Because of this, it was easier to switch CPUs than it was to yield the most optimal performance as possible on the PPC side by rewriting the entire OS. For all we know, this was Jobs' plan all along since he got back to Apple: to finally bring NeXT technology using a vehicle that had brand name recognition (Apple). Remember that his laptop before he went back to Apple was a Pentium laptop running OPENSTEP. I'm sure this is what he's wanted all along. ;)

So yeah, it kind of makes you think that the performance on the PPC side is slower, but because it was probably never intended to be used optimally on the PPC. The PPC was probably just a holdover until the x86 version of OS X was ready for prime time.

If you're talking about Linux on the PPC, it definitely performs better than OS X (AnandTech did a comparison of OS X and PPC Linux and noted that OS X took significant performance hits when put against Linux/ppc). The only problem is module support from video card manufacturers which is why desktop Linux on the PPC isn't that great. However, PPC Linux development looks to be blowing up soon enough especially with this OIN alliance on patent sharing and the recent announcement of a GPL-ed PPC hardware design from Genesi, the makers of the Pegasos PPC machines.

As for OS X, we'll have to see for ourselves just how much of a performance increase we will see on the Intel side. From what I hear, OSx86 screams compared to OS X running on the PPC. Again, I don't blame the PPC platform for this....Apple has been known to purposely cripple great CPU designs in favor of their own agenda (Mac LC and LCII, Mac IIvx, PowerPC 603/603e based PowerMacs like the 52xx/62xx series, and now PPCs running OS X).
 
SuperTyphoon said:
God i can't wait for that move to intel... PPC's are slow and way too expensive.
Click to expand...

Have you used Linux on PPC? I think it takes a lot of advantage of the PPC's prowess. The only thing killing it is support for hardware acceleration in X Windows. That blame lands on the video card manufacturers for not providing proper support for Linux. I have Debian for PowerPC running on an old PowerPC 604e Mac clone running at 160 MHz. It's got 128 MB and it's using a 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 card and it runs quite well for internet tasks.

Again, the PPC isn't at fault here...as I mentioned, AnandTech has tested PPC running Linux and OS X and they found out that Linux actually beat OS X in some server tasks. And Apple's history of crippling capable PPC CPUs hasn't helped much either.

Here's the link...you'll notice that even the author of the article states that it's not so much the CPU at fault as it is the operating system for the lag when they ran performance tests.

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2520

The devil is in the details, as they say...
 
But consider that maybe Jobs' plan all along was to move away from the PPC. Not necessarily because of it being slower, but because it was more work to move the code for OPENSTEP over from x86 to the PPC. It would be much easier to take whatever was left of the OPENSTEP code running on Pentiums and transform that over to an x86 architecture for which it's optimized for as Mac OS X. This is the only explanation to the reason for two versions of Darwin and early x86 version of Rhapsody. The only reason to keep it on PPC was due to the deals and alliances Apple had made with IBM and Moto which was still quite in effect and the fact that the transition from 68K to PPC had just been completed (and that was a hard one too...this transition will be much easier than we think it will be).

Bottom line: there's more to this than Jobs is letting us know about. Call it conspiracy theory or whatever, but I doubt that the PPC architecture was the issue at all. PPC will still have Linux and other UNIX OSes, and that's definitely due to thrive especially in the server room. As for the desktop, it looks like those who prefer the Mac will benefit even more than they have in the past.
 
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