QE Performance - the true picture!

[karavite]

I'm sorry if I am beating this to death, but QuartzExtreme/10.2 will not give you much of a performance increase in window resizing, no matter what machine you own. Here is why:

Take a look at Apple's page on QE:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/quartzextreme.html

The pretty charts at the bottom sure seem to support the idea that QE will give great benefits (with a supported card) for Window Moving, Window Resizing and Composite Performance.

Now take a closer look - note the scale for the Window Move chart is 400 operations per second while the scale for Window Resizing is 140 operations per second. This is a less than honest trick of presenting information in way that really doesn't represent the truth. If both were to use the same scale of 400 operations per second, it would look something like this (actually QE should be a little lower, but I am sick of running Photoshop on Classic!):

Not so great anymore is it? Looks kind of pathetic when we use the same scale. I am really dissapointed that Apple presented QE in this way - it is dishonest, maybe not a huge crime, but dishonest still and more in line with something I would expect from Microsoft or Ford (regarding tire blow outs and roll overs of SUVs). I didn't read the "greyed out print" and bought a Radeon 8500 and 10.2 with the number one reason being window resizing performance. Sure, I suppose it was my fault, but I guess I was dumb enough to trust Apple in the first place.

 

[GrBear]

Originally posted by karavite
Not so great anymore is it? Looks kind of pathetic when we use the same scale.

Everyone knows the live window resizing is pathetically slow.. I wonder why more apps don't take advantage of line resizing instead of trying to live-resize. Granted it's still faster than it was before, and the window moving is nice and smooth now.

 

[karavite]

Everyone knows the live window resizing is pathetically slow..

I don't know about everyone who has yet to get their copy of 10.2, but you have to admit, Apple seemed to try to make QE look better for this than it really is.

I wonder why more apps don't take advantage of line resizing instead of trying to live-resize. Granted it's still faster than it was before, and the window moving is nice and smooth now.

I agree 100000% - the outline idea is the answer (I posted this all over the place, but didn't want to restate it here). Office X does it, so does Sound Studio. Just give it to me on IE and Mail and I will stop whining!

I posted a suggestion to Apple at: http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

If enough people do, they may listen.

 

[pigdog]

Originally posted by karavite


I agree 100000% - the outline idea is the answer (I posted this all over the place, but didn't want to restate it here). Office X does it, so does Sound Studio. Just give it to me on IE and Mail and I will stop whining!

I posted a suggestion to Apple at: http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

If enough people do, they may listen.

This is my biggest gripe with 10.X!

Bring the outlines back! I'm quite happy with my iBook and don't want to splash out on a more gutsy mac anytime soon justy so my bloody windows and can resize faster.

And how about having the same outline system when selecting a group of icons on the desktop/in a folder. Having that transparent box select them can take up %80 of CPU usasge.

Perhaps we should dedicate a thread to this? Start a petition? I know I've said this in another post, but I would pay to get rid of these options if anyone wants to release a hack for them.

 

[karavite]

I'm quite happy with my iBook and don't want to splash out on a more gutsy mac anytime soon just so my bloody windows and can resize faster.

Right on pigdog!

I mean is this really the kind of selling point Apple needs for its new hardware? I can see it some day going like this:

"MacWorld 2007, San Francisco: The newly unvield Macintosh G7 "iCray" with quadruple 24 Gigahertz processors, a 1.5 GB system bus combined with the new Time Warner/ATI Radeon Plasma Wire 15000 2 GB video card is a powerhouse in home computing and can deliver instantaneous window resizing performance at screen resolution settings of up to 800 x 600, though only on Apples sleek new 72" Drive-in Cinema holographic display (retail $7,000). Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the computer to a stunned crowd who cheered wildly when Mr. Jobs said, ' iCray. You can feel the the love!' "

 

[Dime5150]

OS X is designed to be a next-generation GRAPHICAL OS. Its obviously not going to run on a machine not capable of running graphics. I hate it when users with G3 Powerbooks complain. If you don't like the graphical nuances of OS X, you hate window resizing, well then why are you in X? OS 9 is always there and if you hate the speed of X so much then go back to 9.

Its like that on Windows. Not everyone with there 600 mhz celeron is running XP. They are stuck in 2k.

Editors Note:

I'm on a 466mhz G4 and am extremly pleased with 10.2's performance.

 

[theed]

I think the idea that the user should be in control and should have instant feedback in as accurate a manner as possible is spot on. The problem is that old mac apps don't expect this, and go through a whole lotta hassle to do the windowing in a manner that it would be done right once without going back.

Behold the shift in design. We have enough power now to respond to the user in a reasonable manner right away, then continue working while the user thinks up something new for the computer to do. The cycle should go something like this:

Respond to user, spawn thread to complete task, if user adjusts respond to user again, kill old thread, start new one. If thread finishes, apply changes accordingly.

This is hard (or at least tedious) in carbon, but it's not a terribly big deal in Cocoa. Java is starting to deal with this respones cycle pretty well too from what I've seen. The problem is old apps in new structure. It will be good, don't run away to your old jeans just because your new jeans aren't broken in yet. Patience.

All the same the Finder has some serious suck issues still, and is the poster child for many user gripes.

 

[pigdog]

Originally posted by Dime5150
OS X is designed to be a next-generation GRAPHICAL OS. Its obviously not going to run on a machine not capable of running graphics. I hate it when users with G3 Powerbooks complain. If you don't like the graphical nuances of OS X, you hate window resizing, well then why are you in X? OS 9 is always there and if you hate the speed of X so much then go back to 9.

Hey Dime5150

I like X and I'm actually quite happy with the speed and stability.

I just don't like useless overhead like re-draw while resizing. I couldn't stand it in windows either. It's not like I'm bitching and moaning about X in general.

It would just be nice to have the option to switch it off, that's all.

 

[gibbs]

This is a response to dime-

"OS X is designed to be a next-generation GRAPHICAL OS.

And other OS's dont use graphics or graphics acceleration? I suppose we should all stick to text based operating systems and just forget the 21st century.

Its obviously not going to run on a machine not capable of running graphics. I hate it when users with G3 Powerbooks complain.

Thats funny, because its slow on my 800mhz Imac and dual 1ghz powermac as well.

If you don't like the graphical nuances of OS X, you hate window resizing, well then why are you in X? OS 9 is always there and if you hate the speed of X so much then go back to 9.

Now you're really making me laugh. People having a legitimate complaint about window resizing being dog slow, and you are telling them to just not use the whole OS? Perhaps the next time BMW releases a car with a "next generation transmission" that happens to SLOW your 0-60 time by double, you will tell people to just go drive a ford and stop complaining?

Its like that on Windows. Not everyone with there 600 mhz celeron is running XP. They are stuck in 2k.

Yet again you are off base. There is little performance difference between an identical system in 2k and XP. XP is about extra features and extra drivers. There is no mammoth performance difference between 2k and XP unless something was wrong with your 2k setup. [this is not a windows rant, so i'll stop there]

Dime- you need to stop defending an obvious sore spot of the operating system from apple. I am not here to trash OS X, but when I saw your rebuttal to Karavite's well thought-out and VALID comments, I just had to respond.

 

[karavite]

Gibbs - you are my hero!

dime - I don't want to get hostile here, and though it is hard to convey this via text, I am pretty easy going. I really love my Mac and OS X. My only complaint with all of 10.2 (or 10.1.x) is window resizing. Everyone with a newer G3 or older G4 can enjoy almost every graphical feature of 10.2 except for window resizing. Since Apple still sells G3 ibooks with OS X booting up on them, it seems only fair they provide some option for window resizing. Like pigdog said - let me turn it off.

By the way, we have similar machines - I have a G4 450 with a Radeon 8500, and OS X 10.2 is very impressive even on my old clunker (even though it was once so fast you couldn't sell them to Iraq). I also run two monitors and I think this contributes to my using resizing more than most people - If I had one monitor I would just minimize windows and that is very fast with 10.2. You know, maybe another thing that would help would avoid window resizing would be a really good app for multiple desktops - I have tried them all, but am not really happy with any.

So nobody thought my MacWorld 2007 press release was funny?

 

[DMCrimson]

I have 10.1.5 on my iMac and this far it's been faster than OS 9, only OS 9-thing I miss is window-borders, and prolly a lil'less memory-hog Dock...otherwise, perfect!

 

[voice-]

Karavite - Have you tried Space.app yet? Launch it and close the main window. Now, select your desktops from the icon in the dock. Worked very well with me last time I tried. I don't need it thou, so I haven't tried in a few months.

 

[karavite]

Hi Voice - thanks, yes I have and it was my favorite of the multiple desktop apps - but I really want something more *nix like - for example, in running X on X with window maker I can switch desktops with my mouse scroll button and have the number of each desktop available in a little window in the corner of the screen - I think that is really slick. Plus I also like having the little graphical pager showing each desktop, but Space doesn't have that. An app called Virtual Desktops has the pager, but I don't really like how it shows an icon of each app in each deaktop instead of the a little image of the actual window (gee, maybe I am picky!). Seems like all the pieces are out there, but someone needs to put them all together in one app!

 

[cybergoober]

I don't want to sound like a dick here, but how often are you guys really resizing your windows? I set all my windows to open at a particular size and I'm done with it. Now I'm quite sure you're doing things which require constant resizing… it's just a foreign concept to me.

 

[karavite]

Hi cybergoober.

First, you are not being a - well you know (got to watch for those macosx admins!), but I think the greatest thing about the Mac is it is the one computer that allows all kinds of people to work they way they want to - we are all different in our needs, ways of working and no computer or OS in history has ever supported that as well as the Mac.

I guess I just developed the resizing thing as part of how I work with my computer. Like I said I have two monitors and tons of apps open all the time. With OS 9 I think I developed the habit of just dragging/resizing things out of the way, and it is hard to give up habits.

I like to keep some things open all the time (Mail and IE for example) to see what is going on right away rather than constantly maximize and minimize them (I use a PC for work, but always have my Mac up too). Mail is always up on my right monitor (2nd one) and I like to make it smaller to have a finder window or something open above or below it. If I get a message I hear the little tone and can just look at my right monitor to see who it is from. If I want to read the message then I resize Mail larger so I can more easliy read the message. IE is usually open on my main (or left) monitor and I like a big browser screen, but I need to resize it often to get to some desktop icons. Just lucky for me I guess that Mail and IE are the worst apps in resizing performance!

This may be a little off topic, but I really think OS's could use more audio and speech to inform users of things to help us avoid looking at some screen or window. For example, if Mail could speak the name of who a new message is from, I wouldn't need to keep it visible - small or large. I could minimize it and if I was interested in the new message I would maximize it and read the message (using QuicKeys, my favorite OS 7 - 9 app, but sad in OS X).

I have toyed with writing an Applescript/Quickeys combo to speak the sender of a new message, but have had little luck. QuicKeys X blows and Mail doesn't seem to offer too much Applescript support - though I am not an expert on scripting.

Until I have more options it just doesn't work for me, I shelled out the $ for two monitors and I want to be able to access things visually right away. For the way I use my computer, resizing just happens to be something I use a lot. I wish I didn't!

P.S. Have you tried "ShowDesktop" - a little app that minimizes every open app and window. I find it very useful. I think 10.2 allows you to do something like this now with a keyboard shortcut - mouse click combo, but I still like ShowDesktop. You could do the same thing in Applescript or QuicKeys though.

 

[Decado]

Lets get focused, people!
I was just thinking about the diagram-thing at the start of this thread, and i think it's pretty uninteresting how many whats-it-called per seconds it makes... the interesting thing is the relativity (is that an english word?) between the light blue and the purple indicator, (ie. how much faster it is now compared to how it was then).

Dont you think?

 

[karavite]

The interesting thing is the relativity (is that an english word?) between the light blue and the purple indicator, (ie. how much faster it is now compared to how it was then).

I'm focusing!

Yes and no maybe?

Yes - resize shows a big increase.

No - the original graphs were skewed and made it appear that window resize performance was as dramatic as window move performance. I just think it was slightly sleezy to present an A/B that was not an true A/B.

 

[Decado]

Ok, i know what you mean, but the performance-boost looks the same on both charts since the light blue rod also looked higher. You are right in that they probably used different ways of presenting it to avoid looking pathetic. Charts with low rods high in roof are seldom awe-inspiring

 

[karavite]

You are right in that they probably used different ways of presenting it to avoid looking pathetic. Charts with low rods high in roof are seldom awe-inspiring

Really what this all comes down to (for me) is that chart suckered me in to going out and buying a Radeon 8500! Really - I read that sucker and was online ordering the card in no time (I'm a little impulsive that way). It is a great card and window moving, fonts, colors... are all fantastic imporvment over my two Rage 128s it replaced, but all I wanted in my life was quicker window resizing.

 

[Captain Code]

Originally posted by karavite

Now take a closer look - note the scale for the Window Move chart is 400 operations per second while the scale for Window Resizing is 140 operations per second.

What are you talking about? Both scales go up to 400 operations per second.