OS X vs. OS 9 Speed

[Matrix Agent]

How does OS X generally run compared to OS 9 on your machine?
IF you could, post what kind of computer you are using, as well as how much RAM you have.

 

[VGZ]

X is significantly faster on my computer. Probably because I'm running the new version and it takes advantage of the second processor.

 

[strobe]

Disk I/O seems faster, even in Classic.

It's not fair comparing QuickDraw speed to Quartz since no graphics cards yet exist which can render PDF. Unaccelerated QuickDraw is the same in Classic and MacOS 9 for me which is amazing when you think about it.

The major speed problem in OS X is launching apps because the apps are bloated with links to bloated libs. prebinding helps a LOT.

 

[BMarsh]

Overall I currently rate it about equal speed

some things are amazingly fast (solid window dragging even with transparancy) switching between programs even when the CPU is under very heavy load

other things like certain functions of the finder can really make the system feel sluggish though
and some of the included programs still need a bit of work, in a similar way to some of the initially released software (both carbon & cocoa)

what a person does with the operating system and also how they work can make a big difference on how they percieve the speed of the system to be.

 

[iamnoel]

The #1 issue I've got in osX is opening things (OmniWeb is a very good example of this; but I'll get irritated opening a new Finder window, too). I'm only on an iMac, but 9.1 is very fast on it.

I've got a '98 G3 WallStreet, 300MHz/192MB. I've got 9.1 installed on it, & it's faster than osX is on the iMac, too...

OS 9.1 is faster, overall, for me.

Noel

 

[kenny]

I find MacOSX to be generally much slower than MacOS9.x. I especially find scroll speeds in finder to be glacial; it can take 2-3 seconds to scroll a step when clicking in the scrollbar (not on the arrows or the thumb) to scroll 'quickly' on very populated (>100 items) folders.

My system is no slouch, but it's really bugging me that it takes so long to do this. And don't even get me started on window re-sizing. Ugh. My system:

MacOSX 10.0.1, Build 4L13 (The official one )
G4/500 (uniprocessor)
2x25GB HD's
512MB Ram
Stock ATI AGP (16MB) video

With the performance issues, and the lack of MacOSX-specific software, I'm seriously tempted to put Linux on it and call it a day. If Apple really wants to take the world by storm with OSX, they're gonna have to do better than this.

 

[strobe]

Although I suspect your specific issue is with the Finder specifically which is clearly not polished, OS X could have much improved scrolling in general.

In MacOS when scrolling you can shift the on-screen gworld and copy what wasn't visible. In OS X it's not doing that. This is clear then using QuartzDebug (turn off flash delays or else you may lose control over your UI, then turn on flashing). When scrolling on an accelerated screen like a Rage 128 AGP the entire scrolled area is being updated. In Cocoa this would be the NSClipView. Clearly this can reside in video memory without being updated.

I think Apple has a looong way to go before OS X is as snappy as MacOS. However Quartz is a lot more useful than QuickDraw and Apple is trying to put that excess CPU to productive use.

No sign of a GPU that can render anti-aliased bezier curves. Maybe not in years, they seem more interested in making faster 3D cards and ignoring 2D.