Are G5/Panther Going to Deliver?

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
SO I went to Macworld and saw the G5 and Panther for myself. Granted, I was only able to spend about 5 mins playing with one of the new dual 2GHz macines. And it was running 10.2.7. But I certainly did not get the impression that I did things like opening apps, resizing windows, or other general OS navigation any faster than the current line-up of G4-based machines. In fact, window resizing in Safari and iTunes was so clunky that I asked about it. I was told to go see the Panther demo and that I would be satisfied.



So I went to see the Panther demo, which was running on a 17" 1GHz Powerbook. There, I also tried to resize windows in Safari and had the usual problems. Worse yet, the new finder window also resized in a very clunky, iTunes-like way. So I asked the guy standing there about it, and he said that I should go see the G5s and that I would be satisfied.



All-in-all, it was very reminiscent of last year's MWNY when I arrived with very high expectations of 10.2 and Quartz Extreme only to be a little disappointed.



Maybe the combination of the G5 and Panther will be the magic one.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 32
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I don't know what to tell ya, man.



    Here I am, running "lowly" Jaguar 10.2.6 on this useless, piece-of-shit 800MHz G4 iMac ( ) and everything is fine.



    I scroll, open, re-size all live long day and nothing feels clunky or "draggy".



    Yes, I hope Panther and the G5 is the magical combination so Macs will stop sucking so bad. These past couple of years have just been unbearable.













    I kid because I love.
  • Reply 2 of 32
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Just one thing: Those demo G5s and Panther booths porbably had been pounded with alpha extensions/incomplete software ALL DAY LONG. Did you try rebooting a machine?
  • Reply 3 of 32
    jimmacjimmac Posts: 11,898member
    So what machine was Steve Jobs using during the keynote and the Panther demo? Things seemed pretty smooth there.
  • Reply 4 of 32
    macusersmacusers Posts: 840member
    he used a Dual 1.42 G4
  • Reply 5 of 32
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Not trying to be a Thread Nazi but Panther and Powermac G5s are not Future Hardware.



    I'll reserve judgement for when Panther final comes. It makes no sense to speculate on the performance of a Beta OS.
  • Reply 6 of 32
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,457member
    I'm using Jaguar on a dual 1 GHz G4 w/ Radeon 8500 and the window opening, dragging, and resizing is silky smooth. Beats the high end PCs at work running Win2K and XP hands down. Perhaps my standards are just too low or you're sensitive to something in particular (mouse update rates or some such).
  • Reply 7 of 32
    cowerdcowerd Posts: 579member
    Quote:

    SO I went to Macworld and saw the G5 and Panther for myself. Granted, I was only able to spend about 5 mins playing with one of the new dual 2GHz macines. And it was running 10.2.7. But I certainly did not get the impression that I did things like opening apps, resizing windows, or other general OS navigation any faster than the current line-up of G4-based machines.



    Yup, that's certainly going to make or break G5 sales. All those Maya, Final Cut Pro and Photoshop benchmarks are meaningless in the face of slow window resizing.



    get. a. grip.
  • Reply 8 of 32
    neurokidneurokid Posts: 108member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Programmer

    I'm using Jaguar on a dual 1 GHz G4 w/ Radeon 8500 and the window opening, dragging, and resizing is silky smooth. Beats the high end PCs at work running Win2K and XP hands down....



    OK. Now I know I'm not in Kansas anymore. You guys who think that OS X apps resize better and more smoothly than XP apps are just crazy! Everything in OSX that has a brushed metal look turns out to be a complete disaster when it comes to resizing. iCal, iTunes, iPhoto (the worst!), iMovie, Safari, and...maybe now the new Fnder?. If Apple can't make this brushed metal thing work flawlessly like it should, then they should abandon it. Let's face it...it's not even that asthetically pleasing to begin with. Why let it bog everything down?
  • Reply 9 of 32
    neurokidneurokid Posts: 108member
    [QUOTE]Originally posted by cowerd

    [B]Yup, that's certainly going to make or break G5 sales. All those Maya, Final Cut Pro and Photoshop benchmarks are meaningless in the face of slow window resizing.



    If a platform can't even resize a window properly, what kind of confidence are people going to have in its ability to run Maya? It's all related.
  • Reply 10 of 32
    elricelric Posts: 230member
    You know its a good machine when all the trolls can find to bitch about is how it resizes windows
  • Reply 11 of 32
    bigcbigc Posts: 1,224member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by neurokid

    OK. Now I know I'm not in Kansas anymore. You guys who think that OS X apps resize better and more smoothly than XP apps are just crazy! Everything in OSX that has a brushed metal look turns out to be a complete disaster when it comes to resizing. iCal, iTunes, iPhoto (the worst!), iMovie, Safari, and...maybe now the new Fnder?. If Apple can't make this brushed metal thing work flawlessly like it should, then they should abandon it. Let's face it...it's not even that asthetically pleasing to begin with. Why let it bog everything down?



    I king of agree it is a little clunky but I don't resize windows all day long so who cares.

    I just want some render speed and +4 gigs of memory. I thought that was what the G5 was going to offer (that and Panther with a better finder and FTP).



    Or maybe I'm wrong, does everyone want fast window resizing for some reason that's not particularly clear to me?
  • Reply 12 of 32
    cowerdcowerd Posts: 579member
    Quote:

    If a platform can't even resize a window properly, what kind of confidence are people going to have in its ability to run Maya? It's all related.



    Sure. People who run Maya and have to meet render deadlines always run other benchmarks like window resizing before they buy hardware.



    Some perspective:

    Avg time spent in Maya ~8-10 hours a day

    Avg time spent resizing windows ~1-2 minutes a day (and to reach these number you have to be a habitual window resizer)
  • Reply 13 of 32
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    bump
  • Reply 14 of 32
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    The G5s has issues at the showfloor. Some locked up others were really slow others just had bizarra behavior.



    I hope 10.2.7 is bug free and stable but after my MWCP experience I am doubting that



    One G5 i used i simply opened 5-7 Photoshop documents at once. The G5 basically slowed to a crawl and nothing happpened. Processor usage would not go over 7%.



    Force Quit didn't work on the apps.



    And then Apple blames me that the machine is working like shit. Simply because I opened 5-7 Photoshop documents.
  • Reply 15 of 32
    neurokidneurokid Posts: 108member
    [QUOTE]Originally posted by applenut

    [B]The G5s has issues at the showfloor. Some locked up others were really slow others just had bizarra behavior.



    I hope 10.2.7 is bug free and stable but after my MWCP experience I am doubting that



    One G5 i used i simply opened 5-7 Photoshop documents at once. The G5 basically slowed to a crawl and nothing happpened. Processor usage would not go over 7%.



    Force Quit didn't work on the apps.



    And then Apple blames me that the machine is working like shit. Simply because I opened 5-7 Photoshop documents.



    Yeah, I was watching one guy applying a filter in PShop (something that a cheap PC would do in about a second) and it took forever. He asked the Apple guy there what was up and the guys response was (and I'm not kidding): "Adobe is working on the patch to make PShop take advantage of the power of the G5".



    I was floored. I mean, shouldn't it work at least as well as it did before without this mystery patch?



    Granted, this experience that I had may be unique to those machines on the show floor, they may have been messed up for a number of reasons, etc, but I was not impressed. It was, after all, Apple's big show.
  • Reply 16 of 32
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,457member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by neurokid

    OK. Now I know I'm not in Kansas anymore. You guys who think that OS X apps resize better and more smoothly than XP apps are just crazy! Everything in OSX that has a brushed metal look turns out to be a complete disaster when it comes to resizing. iCal, iTunes, iPhoto (the worst!), iMovie, Safari, and...maybe now the new Fnder?. If Apple can't make this brushed metal thing work flawlessly like it should, then they should abandon it. Let's face it...it's not even that asthetically pleasing to begin with. Why let it bog everything down?



    Win2K/XP might redraw the frame during resizing more "smoothly", but I spend far longer waiting for updates and stalls before I can even start resizing the window. I'd much rather have my GUI feel solid and always responsive than have a few extra frames per second (iPhoto not withstanding, but I virtually never resize that one) in the window resize update. Complain about it if you want, but I'm much more concerned with how long it takes me to actually do stuff.



    It does sound like the G5s on the show floor had some issues, however. This isn't surprising since the 970 has a few differences from the G4 which will likely trip up software that has been carefully optimized (Photoshop being a prime example). Adobe has probably been using a couple of instructions & techniques that helped on the G4 but hurt on the G5. Hopefully Apple gets these things sorted by the time they ship the G5s, and Adobe (and others) gets their patches out. The transitions from 601 -> 604 -> G3 -> G4 all has similar issues -- they'll get sorted out soon enough.
  • Reply 17 of 32
    kupan787kupan787 Posts: 586member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by neurokid

    It was, after all, Apple's big show.



    Really? Someone must have forgotten to wake up Steve.



    But really, it was already stated (I think on slashdot?) that the machines being shown were not the shipping machines. That there were still some changes to be made (something regarding malloc comes to mind amongst other things). Add to the fact that probably everyone and their mom at the show was mucking around with thse G5s, who knows what people did to them.



    But back to the resizing thing, it is not dependent on the "window look". While almost all brushed metal apps resize at a horiblle rate (the mouse moves, and the window lags behind very noticably), Safari (even if you change it) is really bad. But that is because it is resizing, on the fly, all the contents of the window. Note this was all done on my 867 G4/Geforce 3.
  • Reply 18 of 32
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    Ahhh, it's a lot of hype and bullshit.



    I'll bet any of you $20 that when the G5s ship and some of you start getting them, you're still going to bitch and be let down at the performance.







    I'll be genuinely shocked if I hear some of you have nothing but praise for it, upon receiving it.



  • Reply 19 of 32
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by neurokid

    SO I went to Macworld and saw the G5 and Panther for myself. Granted, I was only able to spend about 5 mins playing with one of the new dual 2GHz macines. And it was running 10.2.7. But I certainly did not get the impression that I did things like opening apps, resizing windows, or other general OS navigation any faster than the current line-up of G4-based machines. In fact, window resizing in Safari and iTunes was so clunky that I asked about it. I was told to go see the Panther demo and that I would be satisfied.



    So I went to see the Panther demo, which was running on a 17" 1GHz Powerbook. There, I also tried to resize windows in Safari and had the usual problems. Worse yet, the new finder window also resized in a very clunky, iTunes-like way. So I asked the guy standing there about it, and he said that I should go see the G5s and that I would be satisfied.



    All-in-all, it was very reminiscent of last year's MWNY when I arrived with very high expectations of 10.2 and Quartz Extreme only to be a little disappointed.



    Maybe the combination of the G5 and Panther will be the magic one.




    A beta OS on a preproduction computer was not smooth and fast!



    We must go and tell the King!--Chicken Little
  • Reply 20 of 32
    rolorolo Posts: 686member
    I think it's premature to comment on the performance of a new machine before it's ready to ship. Wait until these things start to show up in Apple stores in August. Best performance won't be seen until the G5/Panther combo and there will certainly be further optimizations after that, both in the OS and the apps.



    Don't worry, be happy!
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