IT-Enquirer has a three-part special on Mac OS X 10.4: Part 1, 2 and 3. Update: I declare the comments section on this news item to be a disaster zone. It can’t be saved. Just stay away.
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Special
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
116 Comments
2004-11-11 6:14 pm
Anonymous
My point is that the video in many of these older Macs is not only quite slow, but also completely and utterly void of any practical upgrade possibilities.
I am criticizing AGP 2X’s bandwidth for longhorn not OS X. Longhorn is more ambitious than OS X in terms of it’s graphics rendering. OS X only accelerates compositing today. Avalon proposes to render everything is hardware. OS X’s design decision was based on hardware constraints at the time of it’s design namely bandwidth. So a PCI solution should be reasonable for OS X, where as an AGP 2X solution wouldn’t for longhorn.
The 9200 mobility in my iBook isn’t particularly flash.
The “operativy” word here being mobility and 32MB vs 128MB VRAM.
If they’ve got an AGP slot, they’ve got a hell of a lot better prospects at running Longhorn usably than old Macs do at running OS X usably.
Nope. Worng. Sorry.
Sp AGP 2X doesn’t have enough bandwidth, but a PCI card with less than half that – in the best case scenario – will be just peachy ?
Not for longhorn no. But for OS X yes.
It’s quite usable for simple web browsing, word processing, email, etc. My cousin has a P2/350 with 512MB and it’s fine for that. Even _with_ antivirus and XP’s firewall, although the former is really unnecessary for anyone knowledgable and the latter pretty much unnecessary if you’re got an ADSL router that NATs.
Your iBook is useable for those things too. But not as a desktop replacement and PII 350 won’t be as useable as your iBook daily either.
AV software is unnecessary for any one knowledgable??? Please stop making me laugh. An broadband router’s NAT only buys you immunity one way. It won’t stop bonzai buddy or the loads of IE “enhancements” sending stuff out.
I would really think twice before hiring you as an admin.
Why would I sell something that does precisely what I bought it to do, quite well ?
Because you are complaining and only people unhappy with thier purchase complain. Maybe you should consider running linux on it. If you can’t run linux then sell it. Quite simple really.
2004-11-11 6:21 pm
Anonymous
Although I’m fascinated to know what thought processes got you from “OS X is slow on old Macs” to “biased towards Windows”. Must have been because I mentioned Windows without spitting and cursing Microsoft.
This isn’t the first time we have had similar discussions. And history being an indicator, I came to said conclusion. Your are biased toward windows and Microsoft.
And your alleged owning of an iBook or a 667Mhz powerbook doesn’t buy you any credibility in my books. Your words speak loud and clear. After owning a 667 PB and hating it running OS X you go out an buy an iBook, Please.
Are you a glutton for punishment? If you so dislike OS X’s lagginess why do you keep buying Apple gear? So you can gain credibility to post on OSNews’ Apple related articles? Why?
Why not wait till IBM and Apple have ironed out thier CPU roadmap and get an Apple product then?
2004-11-12 1:54 am
Anonymous
quoting. . .
“Quoting……
‘”Other new settings involve an Xgrid checkbox in the Sharing tab, and Voice-Over capabilities in the Universal Access tab. Voice-Over seems to be responsible for the Mac talking you through an install that looks like you don’t actually know what to do next (the installer does enable you to disable it in this build).” ‘
smile maybe it is because i have not used the release yet, but Voice-Over would seem to me to be that which allows everything to be read for the blind (or others who just want to have their screens read to them, can be helpful with dialogue boxes or if you want to do things at the same time as reading your e-mail, etc. Universal Access is where you set for “disabilities”
2004-11-12 2:53 am
Anonymous
for what it’s worth. . .my emac runs fine. i have it on most of the day and yeah it slows down when i boot up photoshop, but what can you expect with only 384MB ram? perhaps there is something wrong with me, but i do not see speed differences with windows and my 10.3.6-except that windows (course it is at school on an older box) is slower and more of a pain to work with. perhaps i am used to, as i think it is drsmithy who keeps complaining about the speed (no offense intended) and what hard-core mac users are used to. . .but i feel MUCH more productive and faster at home than at school where i have to run windows and it’s compliant programs. but it 10.3 runs fine for me and i’m looking forward to 10.4 for the speed increase and the ability to search in my files for that one piece of information that i can’t remember where i put it at. in case i was being to obfuscating earlier, even if the hardware/software combo is not technically faster, it feels faster when i am using my mac at home because things just work and i can find what it is that i am looking for and work around the programs i am using. good eve all.
2004-11-12 8:48 am
Anonymous
AV software is unnecessary for any one knowledgable???
Pretty much. I’ve managed to live without a constant virus scanner for _years_. The odd independent scan now and then confirms I haven’t been infected.
Please stop making me laugh. An broadband router’s NAT only buys you immunity one way. It won’t stop bonzai buddy or the loads of IE “enhancements” sending stuff out.
They have to get installed first. Run as a regular user, update regular and the opportunities are few and far between.
Because you are complaining and only people unhappy with thier purchase complain. Maybe you should consider running linux on it. If you can’t run linux then sell it. Quite simple really.
I am complaining about OS X – more accurately its performance on anything short of a top end Mac in general. My iBook does what I want it to do – although that is a fairly light workload. Certainly it would not be able to handle my regular day to day requirements – but I didn’t expect (or purchase) it to. For a cheap, extremely portable, long-life notebook it does an admirable job.
This isn’t the first time we have had similar discussions. And history being an indicator, I came to said conclusion. Your are biased toward windows and Microsoft.
Well, as I’ve commented on before, it would appear to me that anyone who isn’t obviously criticising Microsoft is apparently “biased towards them”.
After owning a 667 PB and hating it running OS X you go out an buy an iBook, Please.
Are you a glutton for punishment?
No. I _want_ OS X to do well. I *want* it to live up to not only its hype, but its potential. I really want an OS X that not only embodies the spirit of MacOS Classic, but also it’s user experience, combined with the stability of its unix heritage and the responsiveness of Windows.
I think OS X has the *potential* to do that. I really want to see it succeed – to become the ultimate combination of user friendliness, power and stability – because I think it has the best foundation of technology and philosophy to do so.
I feel that way because OS X is cool. It isn’t as mired in – and tied to – itself and its past as Windows is and it has more direction and drive than any OSS alternatives. It has excellent features to enhance user productivity and workflow (along with some shockers, but that’s life). It’s the “best hope” of the current market.
If you so dislike OS X’s lagginess why do you keep buying Apple gear? So you can gain credibility to post on OSNews’ Apple related articles? Why?
No. I bought my iBook because it offered – at the time – the most competitively priced, basic-yet-fully-functional notebook on the market. For the usage patterns I planned to – and typically do – demand of it, my iBook’s lagginess is acceptable.
Why not wait till IBM and Apple have ironed out thier CPU roadmap and get an Apple product then?
Because it wouldn’t matter. Apple are – and will probably remain – extremely secretive about their product roadmaps. Added to that, IMHO the problem with OS X doesn’t lie in the hardware, it lies in the software.
None of them can account for a 60% – 70% jump in CPU usage. Particularly when it _only_ happens while I page down in Safari.
You are doing work, A 60% jump in cpu usage isn’t much. Does it stay at 75% always, No. Quartz is rendering the page and that consumes cpu, what is wrong there.
No. At no stage did I suggest I would expect the iBook to be able to handle the same load as my desktop.
Yes you did. You claimed your PC has more grunt, Your PC being a dual 700 boz with gigs of RAM.
I’d really like to know what these people who say OS X “multitasks well” are doing. Probably running a dozen videos at the same time and seeing if any drop frames, or something equally as useless like how high a -j argument they can pass to make and get an improvement.
Try running a dozen videos on a 1ghz p3 box and you’ll know. BTW on my PB 1.25GHz G4 with 512MB of RAM I never get the spinning ball just by paging down a 500 post slashdot thread.
Your experiment is no more meaningful, I should say. Not when I can reproduce it.
Not the 3 – 5 year old Mac desktops that are being talked about here they don’t.
So your telling me a 5 year old single cpu laptop will run XP more responsively than a 5 year old Mac runs OS X. I highly doubt that.
I have a 700MHz celeron based toshiba laptop and XP is horrendously slow for doing more than one tast on it.
I am mostly happy with my iBook (and a 1.33Ghz PB12 isn’t _that_ much faster, particularly for the $$$, considering the other PB niceties it misses out on as the poor cousin).
Seeing as to how my PB is slower than the 1.33Ghz PB, I would say the 1.33 12 incher should be significantly faster than your iBook.
OS X is _extremely_ slow. It needs intensive code-level optimising or the ability to turn off some of the more expensive effects.
Most compilers are very good at optimizing code. There is not as much need for code-level optimizations unless most of OS X is written in hand coded assembly. Highly unlikely.
What Apple meeds to do is, since graphics hardware has caught to software requirements is move the rendering to hardware and not just compositng. Tiger seems to be taking a step in that direction. Core image and Core video being one of them.
The whole “feel” of OS X’s lagginess stinks to me of unoptimised (or perhaps just poorly written, but I doubt that) software, not underpowered hardware. A machine substantially faster does _not_ give a proportionate increase in system responsiveness. It’s almost like the entire GUI is “rate limited”.
Neither does it in windows. A 3.0 Ghz P4 does’nt feel twice as fast as a 1.5 ghz P4 for day to day tasks from a UI perspective. A lot of systems are timed wait based so a 70 msec wait is exactly 70 msec on any machine.
That said, Every release of OS X has brought performance improvements with it. !0.3 is reportedly faster on old hardware. Apple engineers are trying to optimize OS X at every chance it looks like. Your complaining is bordering on whining at this point. OS X is relatively new and was quite a bit ahead of its time. It has been 3 years since its debut. XP is in the 3rd generation and 8 years since NT debuted.
Longhorn is more close to OS X in terms of technology than XP is. I seriously doubt longhorn will be half as responsive on you p3 as OS X is on hardware of the same era.
I assume if you are working for a company that uses machiens that AVERAGE 4-6 years old, the oldest machiens are not eMachines or low-end Dells. I’m betting they are IBM’s, HP’s, or Compaqs, and I would also bet that in their day they cost as much as comparable Macintoshes.
The point most people on here have been making is that cheap PC’s with cheap parts are always going to cost less than Macintoshes because there are no comparably cheaply manufactured Macintoshes. On the ohter hand, they are not going to last like Macintoshes. In order for a PC to last like a Macintosh, it is oging to ahve to be built of comparable parts and that increases the cost.
“OS X is far from perfect but at least all fonts work perfectly, iTunes works perfectly, java plugins in web pages work, flash works, GUI works etc etc out of the box.”
That’s funny, it sounds just like my Linux machine. Aren’t we a pair of happy bunnies…
You are doing work, A 60% jump in cpu usage isn’t much.
It is for something as trivial as *scrolling down a webpage* – particularly so slowly. Not to mention that paging down said web page produces a *noticable lag* between pressing space and having the screen actually react. As I said, I could handle the high CPU usage *if* the UI responded appropriately, but it does not.
Does it stay at 75% always, No. Quartz is rendering the page and that consumes cpu, what is wrong there.
What’s wrong is that I have a quite powerful piece of computer hardware that can barely browse a few webpages without stuttering.
Yes you did. You claimed your PC has more grunt, Your PC being a dual 700 boz with gigs of RAM.
I was referring to my iBook having more power than the older Macs that are being passed off here as fast enough.
Try running a dozen videos on a 1ghz p3 box and you’ll know.
Not only wouldn’t I expect it to work (depending on the videos, of course), but I wouldn’t consider it a particularly pertinent example of multitasking – at least from an interactive use perspective, which is all that really matters from the typical desktop user’s point of view.
BTW on my PB 1.25GHz G4 with 512MB of RAM I never get the spinning ball just by paging down a 500 post slashdot thread.
Try it with a few tabs loaded up with threads that size. Try it again after you’ve been running Safari and the OS for more than a few minutes.
I’m well aware I’m not going to convince you with posts here, my objective is more in getting you – and others – to actually step back and take look.
So your telling me a 5 year old single cpu laptop will run XP more responsively than a 5 year old Mac runs OS X.
Damn straight.
I have a 700MHz celeron based toshiba laptop and XP is horrendously slow for doing more than one tast on it.
Doesn’t sound normal. Although the Celerons weren’t exactly the best performing of CPUs. The machine could also be memory starved.
The other thing to consider is that Celeron laptop probably only cost 2/3 as much as a Mac laptop did at the time, if that.
Seeing as to how my PB is slower than the 1.33Ghz PB, I would say the 1.33 12 incher should be significantly faster than your iBook.
Well, the 1Ghz iBook should have been faster than the 667 PB I owned a year or two ago as well, but it sure doesn’t feel like it.
Most compilers are very good at optimizing code. There is not as much need for code-level optimizations unless most of OS X is written in hand coded assembly. Highly unlikely.
There’s more to optimisation than just compiler tricks and assembler tweaks. *Something* is making OS X slow – it sure as hell isn’t the hardware and the graphical effects aren’t better enough to justify it, IMHO (not to mention most of them – like icon scaling and Expose – really are quite fast).
What Apple meeds to do is, since graphics hardware has caught to software requirements is move the rendering to hardware and not just compositng. Tiger seems to be taking a step in that direction. Core image and Core video being one of them.
Yes, and something tells me I’m going to have to buy _another_ Mac to see any real benefit. Typical bloody Apple.
Neither does it in windows. A 3.0 Ghz P4 does’nt feel twice as fast as a 1.5 ghz P4 for day to day tasks from a UI perspective.
Nor do I expect it to. However, if you go from a ~500Mhz P3 to a 1.4Ghz P3, you get a substantial increase in UI responsiveness. I don’t get anything close to the same feel going from a ~500Mhz G4 to a 1.25Ghz G4.
Top end PCs are more than fast enough to run Windows snappily. Hell, bottom end PCs these days are more than fast enough. The same does not apply to Macs.
It’s far more interesting – and relevant in the context of this discussion – to look at the slower machines where performance increases really do give noticable results, because that’s what most people are using.
A lot of systems are timed wait based so a 70 msec wait is exactly 70 msec on any machine.
Indeed, but it makes no sense for the UI to be “limited” at the slowness of OS X, if that’s really what it is (and I doubt it). In terms of user perception, UI responsiveness is king – a slow machine with a very responsive UI will feel much faster to the user than a fast machine with an unresponsive UI. Compare old Amigas and PCs running Windows 3.1 or OS/2, for example.
That said, Every release of OS X has brought performance improvements with it. !0.3 is reportedly faster on old hardware. Apple engineers are trying to optimize OS X at every chance it looks like.
Given how slow it started off, they didn’t really have anywhere to go but up. Still don’t, IMHO.
I do appreciate the problems involved, but I’m just not perceiving enough benefit to justify the issues I see.
Your complaining is bordering on whining at this point.
I’ll stop complaining when it gets faster. I mean, hell, if people can post about Windows, viruses, spyware and worms without “whining” despite the triviality of avoiding 99% of them, I think I’m quite justified in criticising OS X’s performance.
OS X is relatively new and was quite a bit ahead of its time.
Not really. It’s basically just NeXT with a revamped display system and GUI. NeXT has been around for quite a while.
Certainly, Quartz is/was impressive, but Apple have a few distinct advantages over others when it comes to rolling out product features and implementing technology. Namely complete control over their entire platform, little real interest in legacy support or product transition periods and a very dedicated customer base.
It has been 3 years since its debut. XP is in the 3rd generation and 8 years since NT debuted.
NT debuted in 1993, 11 years ago. XP is the 6th release in that product line (3.1 -> 3.5 -> 3.51 -> 4.0 -> 5.0 (2000) -> 5.1 (XP) [-> 5.2 (2003)]). Arguably it’s at least “4th generation” with Windows 2003 probably “5th generation”. Of course, you could probably justify weighting OS X’s evolution from the beginnings of NeXT, as well.
Longhorn is more close to OS X in terms of technology than XP is. I seriously doubt longhorn will be half as responsive on you p3 as OS X is on hardware of the same era.
I’d be extremely surprised. Certainly, Microsoft have a _far_ better record of supporting older hardware than Apple do and a better philosophy to facilitate that support (ie: they’re prepared to allow easy – usually automatic – disabling of the expensive features to improve performance).
There are also wider issues to take into account with that prediction as well – like the relatively greater performance of PCs from about that era onwards and their better upgradeability (it’s a hell of a lot easier to upgrade the video card in the typical PC than the typical iMac, eMac or early, non-AGP Powermac).
I was referring to my iBook having more power than the older Macs that are being passed off here as fast enough.
I have read this entire thread and your ranting about such a subjective thing as “feeling something is fast enough”.
If you don’t like OS X’s lagginess stop using it and just use windows. Your constant whining is irritating to say the least.
A lot of people are very happy using OS X and as a testament the number of Power Books in my group has gone from 3 to 14 in the last 12 months alone. More people are buying Apple laptops and are extremely happy with them. I am talking about hardcore system engineers with years of High end system development experience.
I think it is time you sold your ibook and put an end to your misery and ours. Sorry Apple and OS X didn’t work out for you. Cheers.
ike the relatively greater performance of PCs from about that era onwards and their better upgradeability (it’s a hell of a lot easier to upgrade the video card in the typical PC than the typical iMac, eMac or early, non-AGP Powermac).
Every try plugging a 8X AGP card into a 2X slot? or even a 4x slot? The spec is backwards compatible but the motherboard might not be.
Also a 8X card with only 2x bandwidth is not going to be significantly better for longhorn’s graphics.
I have read this entire thread and your ranting about such a subjective thing as “feeling something is fast enough”.
I have to wonder if you get similarly aggrieved about people “ranting on” about things like how good the food at a restaurant is, or how well a car handles.
If you don’t like OS X’s lagginess stop using it and just use windows. Your constant whining is irritating to say the least.
It would appear by your standard 90% of the posts in this forum are “constant whining”. One wonders why you continue to read it since such posts obviously bother you a great deal.
A lot of people are very happy using OS X and as a testament the number of Power Books in my group has gone from 3 to 14 in the last 12 months alone. More people are buying Apple laptops and are extremely happy with them. I am talking about hardcore system engineers with years of High end system development experience.
Lots of people are happy using Windows, as well, your point ?
I think it is time you sold your ibook and put an end to your misery and ours. Sorry Apple and OS X didn’t work out for you. Cheers.
My iBook serves the purpose I bought it for admirably. Why would I sell it ?
Every try plugging a 8X AGP card into a 2X slot? or even a 4x slot? The spec is backwards compatible but the motherboard might not be.
Ever tried replacing the video card on an integrated motherboard ? Ever tried finding high performance PCI video cards ? Ever try finding a 66Mhz PCI video card ?
At least on the PC you have the possibility an old motherboard will handle new cards and a *massive* old stock and second hand market if they don’t.
Also a 8X card with only 2x bandwidth is not going to be significantly better for longhorn’s graphics.
It’s going to be significantly better than an unaccelerated, 4MB onboard video device.
Lots of people are happy using Windows, as well, your point ?
My point being, smart experienced, power users don’t find thier Macs (their first ever) slow and are happy.
Let me guess, you got that but are pretending to be obtuse? or are you?
Ever tried replacing the video card on an integrated motherboard ? Ever tried finding high performance PCI video cards ? Ever try finding a 66Mhz PCI video card ?
Are you asking for the PC??? or Any machine in general? Aome UNIX workstations use high-end PCI based 66 MHz cards.
At least on the PC you have the possibility an old motherboard will handle new cards and a *massive* old stock and second hand market if they don’t.
Yes, So what is your point? My point is without memory bandwidth the upgrade is going to be useless for running longhorn’s fancy graphics.
It’s going to be significantly better than an unaccelerated, 4MB onboard video device.
Which would be on what PC? or Mac? from what era? My Dell PC circa 1998 has a 16MB AGP card. I wouldn’t dream of running XP on it, let alone longhorn. It’s 333MHz pII it is sitting in the garage out of comission.
My point being, smart experienced, power users don’t find thier Macs (their first ever) slow and are happy.
I certainly wasn’t back when I bought a top of the range 667 Powerbook and saw how slow it was. I sold it after the “massive speed increases” of 10.2 took it from painful to merely frustrating. At least when I bought my iBook I _knew_ it was going to be slow so I didn’t even bother trying to use it as a desktop replacement.
You might know “Power Users” who don’t find their Macs slow. I’m happy for them. I do, however, and I have many friends who agree. Heck, I even know an old-school Mac zealot who agrees OS X is slow (although he’s comparing to MacOS Classic, not Windows).
Let me guess, you got that but are pretending to be obtuse? or are you?
I was merely trying to point out your specious reasoning.
Are you asking for the PC??? or Any machine in general? Aome UNIX workstations use high-end PCI based 66 MHz cards.
Any machine in general, I thought that would have been obvious.
Some earlier non-AGP Powermacs have 66Mhz PCI video. Again, as I said, good luck trying to find an affordably video card to go in them.
Yes, So what is your point?
The possibilities of continuing to use an older PC with minimum additional expense are a _lot_ better.
My point is without memory bandwidth the upgrade is going to be useless for running longhorn’s fancy graphics.
Useless ? Bollocks. Less than optimal, definitely, but hardly useless.
You can get some pretty quick 2x-compatible AGP cards to drop into those old PCs.
Apparently you think OS X is usably fast on Macs that have AGP (or even PCI) video cards. But for some reason that will be “useless” for Longhorn ?
Which would be on what PC? or Mac? from what era?
Most G3 era iMacs and Powermacs fall into that class of video card (PCI or 2x AGP, 1st or maybe 2nd gen 3D accelerated), although admittedly I did underestimate the amount of VRAM – they tend to be 6 – 16MB.
My point is that the video in many of these older Macs is not only quite slow, but also completely and utterly void of any practical upgrade possibilities.
My Dell PC circa 1998 has a 16MB AGP card. I wouldn’t dream of running XP on it, let alone longhorn. It’s 333MHz pII it is sitting in the garage out of comission.
With 512MB of RAM it will run XP usably. Far better than a 333Mhz iMac will run OS X, I might add.
Apparently you think OS X is usably fast on Macs that have AGP (or even PCI) video cards. But for some reason that will be “useless” for Longhorn ?
Yes.
Most G3 era iMacs and Powermacs fall into that class of video card (PCI or 2x AGP, 1st or maybe 2nd gen 3D accelerated), although admittedly I did underestimate the amount of VRAM – they tend to be 6 – 16MB.
My point is that the video in many of these older Macs is not only quite slow, but also completely and utterly void of any practical upgrade possibilities.
Most G3s supported by OS X have 16MB VRAM.
Flexible display configurations, a wide variety of industry-standard connections and 128MB of DDR memory ensure that the RADEON® 9200 Mac Edition will support your creativity in gameplay, multimedia and personal productivity applications.
# Supported Mac OS version
# Power Mac G3, G4 or G5 (with available PCI slot)**
http://ati.com/products/radeon9200/radeon9200me/specs.html
This G4 circa 1999 has an AGP 2x slot
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4…
I wouldn’t say the upgrade possibilities are bad considering a Radeon 9200 with 128MB VRAM is available in PCI. The 9200 should be more than sufficient for quartz extreme. I didn’t even have to try hard to find this card
You were discussing 500MHz Macs. My point in bringing up the dell was to tell you that your 4MB VRAM era PCs wouldn’t be able to run XP.
With 512MB of RAM it will run XP usably. Far better than a 333Mhz iMac will run OS X, I might add.
Bollocks. It will be utterly frustrating doing any thing useful. Especially with Anitvirus software and firewalls constantly running.
I think I have established that your are biased towards windows. nothing wrong with that. But please sell your iBook and do us all a favor.
Yes.
And your reasoning is…?
Most G3s supported by OS X have 16MB VRAM.
I think the processing power of their graphics chipsets would be somewhat more relevant.
Flexible display configurations, a wide variety of industry-standard connections and 128MB of DDR memory ensure that the RADEON® 9200 Mac Edition will support your creativity in gameplay, multimedia and personal productivity applications.
# Supported Mac OS version
# Power Mac G3, G4 or G5 (with available PCI slot)**
You’re criticising AGP 2X’s bandwidth and then offering up a *PCI card* ?
This G4 circa 1999 has an AGP 2x slot