save2600 wrote:
As spoken about in another thread recently, I was disappointed going from 10.4 to 10.5. I have a 2.1ghz G5 and noticed slowdown in everyday usage in 10.5's performance. There are a few major annoyances, such as how the Finder takes "forever" to load and it seems that the the OS loads and hogs more resources for stuff you normally wouldn't use anyway. I've also noticed delays in typing in Safari as well. 10.5 just seems sluggish compared to the 10.4.
You are correct from my observations as well. 10.5 feels slower than 10.4. Although I don't know everything here are some important notes:
Make sure you're comparing with "comparable" machines. What this means is: Leopard was not made for some of the older machines in mind, therefore it does not support them as well. As an example, on my PPC Mac Mini Panther is WAY faster when you go over the dock and have its Magnify feature enabled. Leopard feels and looks sluggish. The reason: the graphic stack has changed to the point that the poor ATI w/ 32MB in the Mac Mini isn't supported so well. In fact, 16bit modes are officially unsupported and in the older video cards these are faster, which means you end up with code going through the slow path.
A more correct comparison would be to compare the "recommended" machine configuration for each OS and compare those. Just like a video game which says: "recommended config 64MB RAM, minimum 8MB". Yo want to run all the tests on the config that's labeled as "recommended"
Another reason might be on how much RAM the machine has. If at any point there's swapping, performance will drop DRAMATICALLY. This is very critical. Leopard was targeted with machines that had at least 2x the RAM than those required for Tiger. But with the same RAM, yes Tiger will probably be faster on certain machines, just like Mac OS 1.0 would have been. Just like Amiga OS 1.x is faster than 3.x.
The other thing is to be aware of what's going on under the hood. As previously mentioned, if Spotlight is indexing your disk while you're testing, well things will definitely be sluggish.
Finally, good tuning helps a lot. You can turn off services you don't need or use (ex: Dashboard). Some reading and Googling is required for this, but there are tools like TinkerTool, OnyX, Deeper, etc.
Some hints:
http://macupdate.com/search.php?keywords=optimization&os=machttp://macupdate.com/search.php?keywords=hidden+ui&os=machttp://www.thexlab.com/faqs/performance.html
save2600 wrote:
there. HD failures are not common on a Mac like they are on
This is unsubstantiated. Macs use the same HDDs and same HDD technology. Failure of the HDD will be in the same levels. What WILL be different is file system failure, because Mac OS X uses HFS+ (typically) a journaled FS, which is pretty robust. However most other OSs have comparable FSs like Windows NTFS and Linux's EXT3, ReiserFS, JFS, etc.
save2600 wrote:
I currently run 10.5, but would like to go back to 10.4 someday. Oh - and that huge month tag that distracts from viewing iPhoto's thumbnails is annoying. I wish you could turn that off. There was also a few features taken away for unknown reasons from the latest iMovie/iDVD too that was mentioned and sorely missed by the editors at MacWorld that
Part of the reason is that the software (iMovie) was completely re-written. The whole paradigm of how to make a movie was changed with the new version of iMovie. Progress has its victims, which is complacency and comfort. BTW, I felt "the loss" as well, but only until I got used to the new way of doing things.
save2600 wrote:
I cannot remember. Don't use them too much. All I know is that the iLife suite took a hit too performance wise, but of course - there may be positive tradeoffs... just can't
Some of the reasons again is that these are targeted at the new line of multi-core, multi-Ghz Macs which are far more powerful. And a ton of new features of course:
(just a sample)
http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/http://www.tuaw.com/2009/01/06/apple-introduces-ilife-09-at-macworld-expo/(more complete)
http://www.getlisty.com/conchovalleyhomepage/new-features-in-apples-ilife-09/
save2600 wrote:
think of any right now. All aspects of the computer seem slower with 10.5 on my system and I did a clean install too!
Yep, that will be the case in certain cases :-)
save2600 wrote:
Oh and ditching classic support was really idiotic. I really like the flexibility of running OS9 type stuff and had a few programs which still used it. My favourite version of Photoshop for instance. I've since replaced it with CS4, but what the heck - it's only money, right? :lol:
I hear you and I echo your sentiments often sometimes. However it's done in the name of progress and improving the user experience, which many of those older apps lacked, EVEN THOUGH they are familiar to us and we've grown to love them and even accept their imperfections (does anyone forget the days when Photoshop crashed and took their precious art and the whole OS with it? Or when you couldn't run Photoshop and ten other apps because you were afraid of one crashing app killing the other ones?)
Another very important reason is that of a workforce. If they had kept Classic OS around, they would have to support it, which means a lot of people would have to be working on it and not able to help with the other stuff. It's resources and money really. Backwards compatibility and "discontinued" products cost a lot.
save2600 wrote:
IMO - If you normally prefer stability and responsiveness to gimmicky bloat, you will be sorely disappointed in 10.5.
Argg... here we go again with "gimmicky" and "bloat". Read my first post on this thread.
save2600 wrote:
BTW: Anyone have any use for a boxed copy of 10.2?
Not boxed.
