Switcher Switched Back - Too Slow They Say

ScottW

ScottW

Founder
Staff member
Well, I "Switched" to family members to Mac OS X two weeks ago. One has a brand new 17" iMac, the other got a G4 Cube.

Both gave me the same immediate complaint... "It's SLOW". How in the hell do you respond to that? Cause side by side... when using things that these people use every day like IE, it's freak'n slow. My response is scrapping the barrel.. "OS X has move overhead, a better platform, might seem a bit slower than your Windows box, but in raw power, its much faster." "It can wiz by and complete photoshop scripts in half the time as your Windows box." ----- BIG DEAL to people who don't run Photoshop scripts.

Honestly folks... Apple doesn't have a product thats worth switching for... when it comes to internet surfing and the price factor.

So, one family member, the G4 Cube owner is going back to her PII-450mhz which in her opinion was TWICE as fast as the G4/450mhz system, with more than 3 times the amount of ram as her Windows box.

The 17" iMac member... still likes the look of it... the design and attractiveness of the interface outweighed the slowness - thus far.

Anyone want to buy a G4 Cube?

Admin
 
1 Ghz AMD Athlon running Windows XP here at the office... No speed difference vs my Mac at home (dual 533mhz 10.2 Jaguar) and the Server at the office (Dual 1Ghz OS X 10.2 Server) kicks everyone's butt (refering to my computers only).

And this is without even running Photoshop!

I don't understand why people keep saying it's Slow!!!???

I'll take the Cube - you did say it was free, right? ;) :D
 
maybe they meant that windows is more snappy than osx. the windows just open faster. other than that, what's the difference? i say let them go, your family sucks!
:D
 
Also, the graphics card in the cube does not support Quartz Extreme (unless it was upgraded) so Jaguar may be sluggish. I have noticed that while some things are faster on mine, others seem slower or less responsive (more beachball curser action than the rainbow circle ever saw in 10.1). I will post more on this when I havetime, and in a more appropriate forum if there is one.
 
It is slow. I am using Jaguar on an eMac with 128 mb of ram .. and it's workable, but nothing to be proud of. Compaired to a comprable Windows machine (with only 128 mb) it out-right sucks.
 
ok I will submit a more thoughtful comment: My girlfriend's compaq has a faster UI than my dual g4, and even sometimes faster web browsing. BUT, if the g4 slows down, the system just feels like a foot has been taken off the gas. When her pc slows down, it feels like the petal is to the metal, but we aint goin nowhere because they packed the miata full of 80 lb bags of sandbox sand.

Also (OT) one thing I love about OSX is the process viewer app in the utilities folder. This will show everything running, including stuff that's not in the dock. You can see how much ram something's using, as well as the CPU usage. This is awesome - after installing jaguar, one of my menu apps was causing a huge slowdown to the system. It felt like the public beta or something. I opened process viewer and found that that little app was causing the whole thing. i made the offender quit, then relaunched it and all was fine. These are the things that make macs great.
 
there is nothing you can reply.

Macs are slow compared to PCs, even Photoshop has been lost, current AMDs and Pentiums outperform the Dual 1 Ghz PowerMac.

Everybody who still believes what Apple is telling them is a victim of Apples clever marketing strategies.

The question is: does it matter if it is slower? If my browsers takes one second longer to render a webpage, but due to a more intuitive OS I can find files 30 seconds faster than in windows, doesn't it balance it out? If I don't have to reboot my computer three times a day cause two of my third-party PCI cards can't seem to like each other, isn't that worth anything?

Do NOT try to compare Macs and PCs by pure speed, at least not at the moment, no Mac will win to a similar priced PC. Even the xServe has been beaten by Dell PowerEdges and HP Proliants over and over again in any benchmark I have seen, but when it comes to desktop machines, speed isn't everything. I guess if you add up the seconds a PC user has to spend due to lacking drag and drop abilities between some apps, you get the difference back in which an AMD outperforms a Mac in Photoshop at the moment. I'd even say in many circumstances, you can get work done in the same time as on a PC, even though the PC actually runs faster. Not in every case, but in many.

Sadly but truly, I am getting deeper and deeper into the 3D bussiness, and so I spent more time every day on my PC and on my SGI, the Mac is just too slow for similar work.
 
I have to be honest. I see all these new systems coming out and I'm all sad and unhappy that I have this OLD 1999 G4/500 system. With dual monitors and 768meg of RAM, it should be nothing to cry about. But I did cry, until I started playing around with 10.2 or "newer faster" Macs. And in all honesty, I don't feel like my system is almost 3 years old.

No one on this board can argue that the GUI of Windows is faster. And I am sure the GUI of OS 9 rocks major butt on the newer Mac's. However, for the lay internet user, who has experience using Windows... the first impression they have is "it's slower" and yes it is slower. Sure, the GUI is awesome, and having a UNIX foundation rocks my world, and a few seconds here and a few seconds there comparison might come out in Mac's favor, but all that said, when it comes to first impressions, other than being sexy, it leaves much to be desired.

How many of you have ever eyed a very sexy, attractive woman... only to talk to her for 5 minutes. That is exactly whats happening... Mac OS X is sexy, the cases are sexy... and overall, it has so much to offer if you look behind the slowness of the GUI.

I get mad each time I load a page in Windows using IE in a web browser, cause it rocks, even on a old PIII650mhz. And that system is worth what, $100 if that. I can by a 2.4mhz Dell desktop system shipped with mega memory and anything I could ask for (except firewire, itunes, imovie, bla bla bla) for around $500 or less. No joke.

But as one person said, you can't compare the two. It's true. But it sure makes it hard to "SWITCH" someone when the first 5 minutes of the conversation doesn't do the rest of her justice.

Admin
 
I don't think the sexy woman thing is a good analogy. MacOS X is slow, there is no excusing it. It is super stable, and wakes up from sleep freaking fast, but it's fricking slow as balls. I hope Apple wakes up from sleep soon.
 
At work on my PC I reboot 3-4 x day (8 hour day).

On my OS X (jag) Mac at home I don't reboot hardly ever.

"Fast"? Try waking up from sleep on your PC. Try rebooting your PC (which is enevitable).

Plus...OS X is just more "enjoyable". Media Player v9 vs. iTunes. No comparison.
 
<b>Admin</b> (and others) I might be a bit jaded, because where I work (one of the top 5 banks in the US) we use OS2Warp. Not X, 2...IBM's old OS. This thing bites so hard that when I get home to my mac, it's like comparing DOS to OS 9. Or Win3.1 to Win XP, or my old 89 toyota corolla to the old guy's lincoln navigator.
Again it comes down to what you are used to vs what people say is better.

-Dave

(yes we know OSX is better and LUCKILY.....we are moving to XP by next year.
....)

I hope they get the service pack!
 
If you like the speed of scrolling and loading web pages THAT much and you say that OS X.2 is slow, do the following:

-Use Mac OS 9.x 'cause no-one forces you for now (Apple will do just that later on) to use X.2
-Load Classic and under it run IE 5.1.4 or Mozilla 1.1 (YES it can be done and works fast too!)
-Use Chimera for X.2
-Run Windows under Virtual PC

As for the TRUE speed what most of you say is a HUGE lie... Web pages when using Chimera 0.5, IE 5.2 or Mozilla 1.1 under X.2 with an iMac G3/400 with 128 MB Ram, compared to a P4/2GHz with 1GB Ram, load on average 10-15 secs slower at the most... And guess what? On some pages the Mac loads faster (with Chimera)!!! Now, the speed of iMac when you scroll those pages is a whole new matter! THEY ARE DEAD SLOW :( even when compared to a P2/350 :eek:

However, I am comparing an iMac G3/400 with 128 MB Ram and this occur ONLY under X.2... When you load Classic and its browsers or OS 9 things change A LOT and the iMac seems to perform almost like the P4...

Now, if your thing is to load Flash content or complicated web pages or pages SPECIFICALLY made for IE on the PC side I don't know but I tried the above things with the following sites:
www.macosx.com, www.apple.com, www.mactopia.com, www.microsoft.com/mac/, www.zdnet.com/news/, www.amdzone.com, www.extremetech.com, www.osopinion.com, www.aspyr.com, filmforce.ign.com, www.helmug.gr, www.hotmail.com, www.yahoo.com, www.google.com, www.opuscc.com, www.versiontracker.com/windows/, www.versiontracker.com/macosx/, www.joecartoon.com, www.downloads.com

And many-many other pages but you can see what I'm talking about...

Sorry, fellas but I cannot experience the slow speed that you are ranting about other than the scrolling-part that is :(

As for the slow part of Aqua/Quartz in general methinks that this is only for a year or year and a half old machines cause in anything above G3/500 with 256MB Ram everything feels fast. Not as fast as Wintel platform but fast... And keep in mind that Windows GUI is like OS 9: OLD but GOLD (in speed feeling that is). I can't wait for the new OS from Redmond which will look and feel like in X.2 in 2004... For now, I will enjoy the slow speed of X.2, thank you very much :cool:
 
Originally posted by cwoody222
At work on my PC I reboot 3-4 x day (8 hour day).

On my OS X (jag) Mac at home I don't reboot hardly ever.

"Fast"? Try waking up from sleep on your PC. Try rebooting your PC (which is enevitable).

Plus...OS X is just more "enjoyable". Media Player v9 vs. iTunes. No comparison.
Click to expand...

Yes. It's for the overall experience that I use OS X. When I go over to Win2k on my PC at home (KVM switch), it is, as others have said, much snappier. P3-500. But I still prefer to go back to my Mac.

As far as having to reboot your PC a few times a day, I have no idea what your problem is. What, are you running WinME? I haven't rebooted my PC at home in months, and it's running as fast as it always does. Same for work. I have rebooted a few times in the past few months, but only because system updates or driver installs require it.
 
If your family members do nothing but surfing the web, writing the occasional E-Mail and maybe some word processing, a Windows machine is the way to go. Simple.

If they don't want viruses in their E-Mails (or at least don't want to care about them), if they have a sense for style, they should switch to the Mac.

But really, a Mac is too expensive a machine for the average "I don't really work on my computer, I just browse and mail" guy. Give them a Walmart noname PC.

The iMac/iBook/eMac, although it claims to be, is not intended for the consumer. It's intended for the CREATIVE consumer. That's where it shines.

And PowerBooks/PowerMacs are intended for graphics professionals, not graphics hobbyists.

Yes, my thinking is elitary and I'm a dumbass. Now go back playing Solitaire with that multiple GHz machine of yours. ;)
 
Originally posted by fryke
Yes, my thinking is elitary and I'm a dumbass. Now go back playing Solitaire with that multiple GHz machine of yours. ;)
Click to expand...

Hey. give credit where credit's due. Minesweeper!
 
Originally posted by hazmat


Hey. give credit where credit's due. Minesweeper!
Click to expand...

No way!
My office workstation running Windows XP, 1Ghz AMD Athelon with a brand new nVidia GeForce 4 Ti card has NEVER played Pinball so well! :eek: :rolleyes:

I want a PowerBook so bad!
 
Read somewhere earlier in this thread:
Also, the graphics card in the cube does not support Quartz Extreme (unless it was upgraded) so Jaguar may be sluggish.
Click to expand...

That's making me mad against Apple. I'll need QE to like Jaguar, that's it ? #### off ! I won't buy this cr#p.

Can't we just get 75% of PC speed ? Please Steve, please ! We're VERY far from 50% of it !

Just one example:
I can see the startup screen in Chimera on X.1.5 and I have G3/500.
I can't see Explorer's splash screen at launch on XP. That's true on a friend's 400 Mhz Pentium…

MAD I AM !!! MAD !!! Too bad. I'm a patient guy, a bit rude but patient. I'll wait for Chimera to open. Wait… wait… w…
 
Originally posted by toast


That's making me mad against Apple. I'll need QE to like Jaguar, that's it ? #### off ! I won't buy this cr#p.

Can't we just get 75% of PC speed ? Please Steve, please ! We're VERY far from 50% of it !

Just one example:
I can see the startup screen in Chimera on X.1.5 and I have G3/500.
I can't see Explorer's splash screen at launch on XP. That's true on a friend's 400 Mhz Pentium…

MAD I AM !!! MAD !!! Too bad. I'm a patient guy, a bit rude but patient. I'll wait for Chimera to open. Wait… wait… w…
Click to expand...

Um... there is no splash screen on XP's Internet Exploder... :p

I don't think there's ever been a splash screen for Internet Explorer on any Windws version.
 
BTW,
You need a newer video card in Windows XP as well... I was having some major problems witn XP until I replaced my old 3DFX VooDoo2 3000 AGP card for a new nVidia GeForce 4 Ti.

I'm still having other problems which I'll have to build myself a new computer alltogether.

People keep comparing a NEW Apple OS on OLD Apple hardware vs a NEW Microsoft OS on NEW PC Hardware...
Um... DUH - yeah PC would seem better at this point, no? (altho PCs still have problems)

Like my old Mustang with a NEW motor is giving me problems vs my friend's NEW Mustang.... yeah - no kidding! This is a suprise? :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top