Why is it so SLOW!! (with dual G4 proc)?

aksoldotnaaksoldotna
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Can anybody tell me why FH10, AI10 etc, etc run sower on 10 on two proc than in 9 on one?



Also---how will this effect Apple until the usual suspects AI-FH-PS-QUARK become Cocoa apps (not carbon)?



Also---will things speed up with cocoa?



Also--will this ever happen ( the cocoa apps being developed)?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 27
    microtrashmicrotrash Posts: 57member
    Agree with you. I'm running Illustrator 10.0.3 on my DP 1Ghz with 10.2.1 and I see a difference. It's slower in X, until you decide to run other prog, like a 3D rendering in background (in my case) or just encode mp3 usig itune. 9 suck for multitasking... and ever if some soft run a little slower in X, I must admit that X is a way better if you run multiple app at time.



    if only we could have the best of 2 world .......



    [ 11-01-2002: Message edited by: microtrash ]</p>
  • Reply 2 of 27
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    [quote]Originally posted by aksoldotna:

    <strong>Can anybody tell me why FH10, AI10 etc, etc run sower on 10 on two proc than in 9 on one?

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    At minimum:



    1) OS X doesn't let any single app monopolize the machine, the way 9 did, so the frontmost app will almost always be slower, all else being equal.



    2) The applications aren't threaded to take advantage of multiple processors. By all means tell the vendors that you want this, but don't expect it too soon: I certainly wouldn't want to be the poor guy tasked with threading any app that size.



    Also, the ports aren't mature yet. Optimizing for OS X is completely different than optimizing for OS 9, and the requirement to support OS 9 as well as OS X is preventing the big vendors from abandoning the cruftier parts of Carbon.



    [quote]<strong>Also---how will this effect Apple until the usual suspects AI-FH-PS-QUARK become Cocoa apps (not carbon)?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Probably never. That's fine, since Cocoa apps are not faster than Carbon apps. In fact, it's perfectly possible for the reverse to be true. Cocoa's big selling points are rapid development and dynamism, neither of which is synonymous with blazing performance. Also, Carbon is a bit easier to use in cross-platform code, and much more familiar to veteran Mac programmers.



    [quote]<strong>Also---will things speed up with cocoa?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Carbon and Cocoa are capable of both blazing speed and numbing sluggishness. Whether an app runs and responds quickly is up to the developer.



    Note that it's perfectly possible to mix Cocoa and Carbon in the same application, so it's possible to take advantage of the strengths of both, and work around the weaknesses of either.



    [quote]<strong>Also--will this ever happen ( the cocoa apps being developed)?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I doubt it. Carbon is here to stay, and it's not intrinsically bad the way you think it is. However, bad Carbon ports are certainly out there, and given the sizes of the codebases you're talking about, it'll take a little while for them to settle comfortably into OS X. Especially if what I've heard is true, and the Adobe OS X apps are actually based on the Windows code (i.e., they took the Windows code cross-platform instead of keeping a separate codebase for the Mac).



    [ 11-01-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]



    [ 11-02-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 27
    rodukroduk Posts: 706member
    At the risk of repeating Amorph's first point, the foreground application under OS9 may run faster than under OSX, partly because of the poor way in which multi tasking is implemented under OS9. Ironically I believe one reason why OS9 was so popular with muscians when using audio applications, compared to Windows, was because the application could hog the processor, helping to reduce latency times.



    [ 11-02-2002: Message edited by: RodUK ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 27
    igoofigoof Posts: 1member
    Question??



    If OS X's multitasking is responsible for the hit in speed, then how do you explain Be OS's much-hyped speed, seeing as that had preemptive multitasking as well? (Granted Be wasn't running AI, PS or FH)? Is it Unix? Or bad Carbon porting? Slower hardware maybe?
  • Reply 5 of 27
    mrmistermrmister Posts: 1,095member
    Quartz, massive window buffering, etc.



    Basically: next generation operating system being delivered today. Trust me: in 2 years everyone will be incredibly happy OSX made the leap that it did.



    In the meantime, it can be...challenging.
  • Reply 6 of 27
    rodukroduk Posts: 706member
    [quote]Originally posted by iGoof:

    <strong>Question??



    If OS X's multitasking is responsible for the hit in speed, then how do you explain Be OS's much-hyped speed, seeing as that had preemptive multitasking as well? (Granted Be wasn't running AI, PS or FH)? Is it Unix? Or bad Carbon porting? Slower hardware maybe?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I'd say OS X's multitasking enables all applications to run faster, except the foreground application, i.e. overall it is quicker and better balanced.

    I think it's fair to say the hardware is playing catchup to some degree. Unix has traditionally been associated with huge mainframes, the fact it can even be used at all on a consumer laptop like the iBook says a lot, but there is still some way to go.

    Add on the additional layers (media - Quartz, OpenGL, QuickTime etc, frameworks - Cocoa, Carbon, Classic etc), and a heavy weight GUI like Aqua, and OS X's hardware requirements become pretty hefty.



    [ 11-02-2002: Message edited by: RodUK ]</p>
  • Reply 7 of 27
    rogue27rogue27 Posts: 607member
    Despite the highly resource-intensive things like Quartz, OS X is mainly slow because the GCC compiler still isn't doing justice to the PPC code it compiles and the developers are also still learning how to code well for OS X and in some cases the developers are lazy and content to ship anything that "works".
  • Reply 8 of 27
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    [quote]1) OS X doesn't let any single app monopolize the machine, the way 9 did, so the frontmost app will almost always be slower, all else being equal.<hr></blockquote>



    Well you can set its nice to -20 and it will monopoize quite a bit...
  • Reply 9 of 27
    bigcbigc Posts: 1,224member
    How is a AI 10 slow. I'm working on a 680 MB tiff w/ dual gig 1.5 GB memory and its a lot faster than it was a year ago with a 733 Mhz <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
  • Reply 10 of 27
    synsyn Posts: 329member
    If I'm not mistaken, AI10 does triple buffering on OSX, still. ie it does it's own double-buffering, and then goes through Quartz' own DB. That's one of the main reasons put forward by Adobe engineers...
  • Reply 11 of 27
    microtrashmicrotrash Posts: 57member
    [quote]Originally posted by SYN:

    <strong>If I'm not mistaken, AI10 does triple buffering on OSX, still. ie it does it's own double-buffering, and then goes through Quartz' own DB. That's one of the main reasons put forward by Adobe engineers...</strong><hr></blockquote>



    triple buffering !! wow. Could someone explain me the advantage of triple buffering, or at least double buffering ? That seem a little overkill !
  • Reply 12 of 27
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    [quote]Originally posted by microtrash:

    <strong>That seem a little overkill !</strong><hr></blockquote>It *is* overkill. There is no real advantage to it.



    The reason? Legacy code. Before OSX, Adobe double-buffered graphics through its own apps. Some people theorize that Adobe is *still* doing that since its apps are backwards-compatible to OS9 where the system provides no buffering. Thus, on OSX, Adobe buffers the windows' contents AND Quartz buffers the windows' contents. Overkill indeed.



    Also, complainers should note that Adobe's apps (and most Carbonized apps) are essentially like version 1.0 again. A LOT of things have to change when Carbonizing 15-year-old legacy code. Things aren't going to be fully optimized on the first release. The priority was to get a *working* version out to ship. Optimization comes later. I suspect Illustrator 11 and Photoshop 8 will fly when they are properly cleaned out to run on OSX.



    By the way, does the "make it work, then make it work fast" mantra sound familiar? Mac OS X Public Beta anyone? *ahem*



    [ 11-03-2002: Message edited by: Brad ]</p>
  • Reply 13 of 27
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    i was going to post something similar to this thread re: speed under duals and os x, but it appears that someone beat me to it.



    for reference: i have installed more machines than i can count, and just finished installing all of my neceesary apps on my dual 1 ghz w/ 1 gb of ram at work.



    oout of the box, macromedia mx apps are slow. very slow... don't get me wrong, i love dreamweaver and fireworks, but anyone who denies this have their heads buried in the sand. for kicks, i installed golive 6 and dreamweaver mx on a 400 mhz imac dv running jaguar 10.2.1.



    time to launch:

    golive = 4-5 bounces

    dreamweaver = 40



    FORTY!!!



    anyway, gettign back to the point (and off my soapbox), all of my apps gets dramatically slower and more "quirky" as time goes on. hell, even menu and keyboard commands start working erractically or cease functioning altogether. it seem especially bad in an environment such as mine, where i am constantly changing fonts sets over and over (i have used both latest versions of suitcase and font reserve, and have seen similar symptoms).



    under the classic os, i would attribute all this to bloated preferences, but now i am not so sure. any ideas???



    p.s. re: cpu usage of applications

    remember that connectix, based off so many complaints regarding virtual pc 5's speed (or lack thereof) had to work with apple to BREAK os x's habit of giving equal power to all apps, and allow vpc to use more when in the foreground. still kinda pokey, but it was stupid-slow before the 5.0.2 update (oh, and if you want slow, try installing windows xp - even just home edition - under virtual pc, and watch "loading windows..." for a half hour, even on my kickin' work gear).



    [ 11-03-2002: Message edited by: rok ]</p>
  • Reply 14 of 27
    codewarriorcodewarrior Posts: 196member
    I don't think that some apps will be better/faster until they give up OS 9 support and optimize for OS X. The sooner OS 9 is gone, the better OS X and apps will be. Faster hardware will help too.
  • Reply 15 of 27
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    [quote]Originally posted by tonton:

    <strong>What the hell do you guys do with your installations? 40 bounces?



    Launching DWMX from my 400Mhz PowerBook, fresh from a restart, takes four bounces, and then five more seconds before the program is ready to take a command.



    Surely the G4 doesn't have that much of an advantage in launching apps!</strong><hr></blockquote>



    tonton, i'm not an idiot. i've done this type of thing five million times (only a slight exaggeration there). this was a clean (like nuke and pave type clean) install, with os x.2.1 (and all necessary software update patches and add-ons) on a 400 MHZ G3 iMac DV SE (original graphite). and yes, 40 bounces for dreamweaver mx on a clean install and first thing launched. i would have thought it was just the g3 processot, but like i said, golive launched in 4-5, illustrator in 8-9, photoshop in 9-10. and all were consistent. dreamweaver dropped to 30 bounces after repeated app launching, but still... but dreamweaver has a much easier time launching on our studio computers, even on the 350 and 400 MHz G4's we have.
  • Reply 16 of 27
    mactechmactech Posts: 31member
    It is probably because of all the fonts installed. That has been my experience. An OS9 system folder, with a lot of fonts slowed down OS X.
  • Reply 17 of 27
    kalikali Posts: 634member
    [quote]Originally posted by MacTech:

    <strong>It is probably because of all the fonts installed. That has been my experience. An OS9 system folder, with a lot of fonts slowed down OS X.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Are you sure about this ? I have about 70 fonts in my OS 9 folder. May I expect some speed gain in OS X if I lower the number of fonts in my OS 9 fonts folder, let say to 15 fonts ?
  • Reply 18 of 27
    rick1138rick1138 Posts: 938member
    If Adobe is writing to its own buffer,then writing to Quartz's buffer as well,that is moronic,it's simply bad program design.
  • Reply 19 of 27
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    Having fonts in your OS 9 System Folder can kill performance a bit. I had something like 250 in there before I nixed OS 9 and shoved them all in my user fonts folder. Before it took 45 seconds (!) to get the font panel up in Cocoa apps, now it takes less than five.



    On a side note, Dreamweaver MX launches in 5 bounces the first time around, 3 second time around.



    233MHz iMac, WTF have you done with your install to make it so slow?
  • Reply 20 of 27
    mactechmactech Posts: 31member
    [quote]Originally posted by Kali:

    <strong>



    Are you sure about this ? I have about 70 fonts in my OS 9 folder. May I expect some speed gain in OS X if I lower the number of fonts in my OS 9 fonts folder, let say to 15 fonts ?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yeah, I am sure. I am a sys admin for a large typesetting comany. 70 fonts is nothing. going to 15 wouldn't effect it much. Some font families have 25 different styles in them. When an app that builds a font list in a menu launches and there are hundreds of fonts, there will be delays. OSX incorporates classic fonts too.
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