How will tiger be on older machines?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Can anyone say?



So far OSX has become progresivvely faster and better on older machines since 10.0, but will 10.4 mark a slowdown from 10.3 on older machines?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    No reason to think it will.



    FWIW, I run Panther Server on a 350MHz B/W G3 just spiffily.
  • Reply 2 of 13
    I would actually expect another very modest speedup in what you are already doing. But, like every version of the OS since 10.0, there will be a number of new features that older computers won't have the horsepower to take advantage of. Examples from the past include smoother dock scaling, QuartzExtreeme functions (and speedups), and the new major feature will be the CoreImage suite. While none of these are deal-breakers, they are really nice if you can get them.



    Personally, I expect that 10.5 will be the next major compatibility breaker, probably requiring DVD and a G4... possibly a 32MB AGP video card.
  • Reply 3 of 13
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    Is it plausible that older machines will remain equally functional, but the gulf in GUI embellishments will become increasingly apparent with every new OSX release? Similarly, the cutting edge machines will go on to feature increasingly elaborate GUI dog and pony show-isms?



    How about a darker, alternate reality where Apple "wises-up" to the notion that subsequent releases of OSX are not "emphasizing the need" for newer hardware acquisitions in a "strong enough" manner (yes, lots of quotes and eye-winking are intended to read this sentence properly). So later OSX versions inexplicably become more bloated, and more graphical effects arise that really bog down older hardware and are seemingly so integrated into the basic function of the OS, such that simply being able to disable said effects is not practical or feasible. I hope Apple doesn't go down that road, but who's to say they won't?
  • Reply 4 of 13
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Other than everything they've been doing has been in the opposite direction?



    I anticipate that future updates will continue to add on new features for new hardware, but retain old algorithms as fallback on less capable hardware. It's the intelligent thing to do. At some point, yeah, it'll be less worth it to continue on older hardware, but that's going to take some time.
  • Reply 5 of 13
    I have Tiger on a 500MHZ G4 PB and it seems to run fine.
  • Reply 6 of 13
    Quote:

    Originally posted by GreggWSmith

    I have Tiger on a 500MHZ G4 PB and it seems to run fine.



    Could you please define "it seems to run fine"?



    Compared to Panther, does it run



    a) a bit slower but you don't mind.

    b) as fast.

    c) a bit faster.

    d) so much faster that I need to get in line to get my copy as soon as it's available.
  • Reply 7 of 13
    B
  • Reply 8 of 13
    mikefmikef Posts: 698member
    Hopefully better than Panther runs on the same hardware... I am already frightened by rumours of it running slower than Panther on the same hardware. I hope that's just unoptimized, debug code and not a true indication.
  • Reply 9 of 13
    I remember that a lot of fuss had been made in the past about OS X applications running slower than they could because the Application Binary Interface (ABI) was written in a very non-RISC way and that re-writing the ABI with better PowerPC code could result in a 10-30% performance increase.



    I also read (on MOSR, unfortunately) that Tiger would allow developers to re-compile applications in such a way that results in a performance increase on Tiger. Could it be that Tiger has a new ABI?



    I'm sure one of the registered developers out there would know.
  • Reply 10 of 13
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rogue27

    I remember that a lot of fuss had been made in the past about OS X applications running slower than they could because the Application Binary Interface (ABI) was written in a very non-RISC way and that re-writing the ABI with better PowerPC code could result in a 10-30% performance increase.



    The ABI might not be optimal, but it is by no means a 10-30% performance hit. Maybe 1%. Maybe.





    Quote:

    I also read (on MOSR, unfortunately) that Tiger would allow developers to re-compile applications in such a way that results in a performance increase on Tiger. Could it be that Tiger has a new ABI?



    No new ABI, but about the only thing I can think of might be the auto vectorization of gcc 4.0. For some applications that'll yield a nice performance boost of certain bits of code, but whether that'll translate to overall performance gains is doubtful.
  • Reply 11 of 13
    mugwumpmugwump Posts: 233member
    Well, shouldn't it be inherently faster than all previous versions of X?



    I read that spotlight uses the meta database for search content. This is a search speedup.



    I read that Safari will benchmark Java performance out of this world. This is a render speedup.



    Maybe they can speed up the mouse without GPU help. Okay, maybe this is a lame point, but a speedup nonetheless.



    I read that iChat will have 4x the resolution at the same bandwidth and processor use. This is a video chat improvement, if not speedup.



    I read that Mail will handle greater volume of emails and will index them for spotlight on the fly. This will be an email speedup.



    I read in another forum that window resizing will finally utilize the GPU for realtime manipulation. This will be a GUI speedup on newer machines, and thus far each .1 upgrade has drastically improved the snappiness?, so why would that change with another $140 release?



    And certainly the dual processors should benefit from more systemic threading. I read that Tiger will run a newer version of the Unix under the hood, which should reduce all the background system noise for everyone and streamline things a bit.



    In other words, aren't some of the features supposed to inherently improve the speed? Again, each upgrade has done so tremendously, at some battery performance cost though...
  • Reply 12 of 13
    mikefmikef Posts: 698member
    It all sounds good in theory, but I'd be quite surprised if the newer version of OS X offered better performance with the same system. These new features come at a cost and where performance is gained in one place, it is lost in another.



    Sorry to be cynical, but my newly acquired iBook 1GHz is already slow and I am afraid Tiger is going to make it even slower.
  • Reply 13 of 13
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    [joke mode on] Hey, when is OS 9.5 coming out, already? Hasn't been word about it in years! Are they holding out on us???! What's the deal? [/joke]



    I kid, I kid!
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