Is Lion faster than SL, or slower?

ecs · July 9, 2011 6:08AM

I've been reading these months that Lion is faster than 10.6.x.

However, the rumor saying Lion will ship next week, says Apple has told stores to upgrade RAM in their showroom machines.

This makes me think that it will take more to boot, and be "heavier" than 10.6.x.

If it's heavier, I won't upgrade, because 10.6.x is very efficient with the RAM I have. In that case I prefer to hold 10.6.x and wait until I buy another Mac on the future.

Thanks!!

tallest skil · July 9, 2011 8:01AM

So even though you'll NEVER HAVE TO SAVE AGAIN, plus the two hundred other odd features, you'd forgo Lion because it "boots slower"?

No, seriously, tell us why you really don't want to spend $29 on an OS that will change the fundamental way you work with your computer.

It's fine, by the way. Booting's even faster than Snow Leopard.

ecs · July 9, 2011 9:30AM

SL boots in a few seconds (less than 10 seconds I guess) on my machine (MBA). I've the 2.13GHz CPU and 4GB RAM. Performance is great for the work I do, but I work with large files very often, so I'm afraid that if Lion takes more RAM than SL, my MBA could become to behave as the "netbook" that some say the MBA is, instead of the MBP-like performance I'm getting from it now.

The most important feature I wanted from Lion is TRIM support, because I want to get the most from the 256GB SSD in this MBA. However, the latest SL update enabled TRIM for my MBA, so I no longer need Lion for getting this feature.

The rest of new features in Lion would be great, of course, but I want to get every bit of performance for my machine, and if Apple told stores to upgrade their machines RAM, that's not a good symptom performance-wise.

Thats why I asked.

mcarling · July 9, 2011 12:21PM

What if Apple were to simultaneously do all of the following?

- New MacBook Air models all ship with 4GB RAM

- Existing Mac Mini and MacBook models get 4GB RAM for the same prices as the current 2GB configurations

- Announce that 10.7 Lion either will not be officially supported on Macs with less than 4GB or perhaps even will not install/boot with less than 4GB RAM.

Apple might be able to sell some additional hardware. Bumping 2GB to 4GB at the same prices for the Mac Mini and MacBook would alleviate some of the resentment that would follow such an announcement.

Apple impose a RAM minimum of 1GB for 10.6 Snow Leopard, so 4GB for Lion seems very unlikely.

tallest skil · July 9, 2011 5:52PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcarling

- Announce that 10.7 Lion either will not be officially supported on Macs with less than 4GB or perhaps even will not install/boot with less than 4GB RAM.

That's nonsense. We'd have seen that in the Developer Previews, and no OS is bloated enough to NEED 4GB.

mcarling · July 10, 2011 2:07PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

That's nonsense. We'd have seen that in the Developer Previews, and no OS is bloated enough to NEED 4GB.

It seems to didn't bother to read to the end:

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcarling

Apple impose a RAM minimum of 1GB for 10.6 Snow Leopard, so 4GB for Lion seems very unlikely.

tallest skil · July 10, 2011 2:15PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcarling

It seems to didn't bother to read to the end:

No, I just ignored it because if you had taken that at face value, you wouldn't have written what I originally quoted at all.

You obviously believe differently than that sentence states, otherwise you wouldn't have added "4GB RAM limit" as an option.

mcarling · July 10, 2011 2:44PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

No, I just ignored it because if you had taken that at face value, you wouldn't have written what I originally quoted at all.

You obviously believe differently than that sentence states, otherwise you wouldn't have added "4GB RAM limit" as an option.

You may have read it, but you clearly didn't understand what you read. I started by posing a question, discussed it, and reached a conclusion. I'm sorry that was beyond your ability to follow.

tallest skil · July 10, 2011 2:47PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcarling

You may have read it, but you clearly didn't understand what you read. I started by posing a question, discussed it, and reached a conclusion. I'm sorry that was beyond your ability to follow.

Nice try.

So why would you say something you didn't even believe in the first place?

mcarling · July 10, 2011 2:50PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Nice try.

So why would you say something you didn't even believe in the first place?

Your question presumes facts not in evidence. Your question is logically equivalent to: "When did you stop beating your wife?"

dacloo · July 12, 2011 8:23AM

Don't bother responding to a troll :-) He's clearly here to give stupid answers to a perfectly valid question.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcarling

Your question presumes facts not in evidence. Your question is logically equivalent to: "When did you stop beating your wife?"

tallest skil · July 12, 2011 8:33AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dacloo

Don't bother responding to a troll :-) He's clearly here to give stupid answers to a perfectly valid question.

'Kay, please explain to me how "Apple could impose a 4GB RAM minimum. Apple won't impose a 4GB RAM minimum" is in any way valid.

bazokajoe_2k · July 12, 2011 2:04PM

Err...back on topic. I've been using the Lion DP4 for a little bit now on my Spring 2010 MBP w/4gb of RAM and other than a few graphic stutters (which I think will be ironed out in the final release), it runs extremely quickly and "feels" quicker than SL. I think this is partly due to tweaked animations and a few other things, but it all works together to make a very snappy OS. Especially with an SSD, I think you'll be just fine upgrading to Lion on your MBA.

gdog · July 13, 2011 9:05PM

i have a 2007 imac core 2 duo 2.33 with 3 mgs ram. has anybody used lion on an older mac like this? i want to upgrade but am wondering if os lion will be slowing me down.

i am looking forward to faster safari but will not be happy with other system wide slow downs. any input would be appreciated. thx

skottichan · July 15, 2011 6:26PM

Has anyone thought that they're upgrading the floor models to get them as close to the specifications of the lowest-end models they'll be offering after the refresh? This way, they don't need to replace literally every floor model but said floor models offer a user experience comparable to the computer you'll bring home if you choose to buy one. As for why the computers are getting their RAM bumped up... duhh? Apple always improves their products when they refresh them. That's why they refresh them and replace the previous model with the new one. Are you all new to the consumer electronics field?

stratokaster · July 18, 2011 3:53PM

On my stock low-end 13" MBP with Core i5, Lion GM is horrendously sluggish. I experience constant bouts of SBBoD when using Safari (with no plug-ins or extensions) and Lightroom 3. Scrolling in Safari feels jerky. Also many animations (Mission Control, Versions etc) are choppy. SL is fine on the same machine, so the issue clearly is not in the hardware.

tallest skil · July 18, 2011 4:43PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stratokaster

On my stock low-end 13" MBP with Core i5, Lion GM is horrendously sluggish. I experience constant bouts of SBBoD when using Safari (with no plug-ins or extensions) and Lightroom 3. Scrolling in Safari feels jerky. Also many animations (Mission Control, Versions etc) are choppy. SL is fine on the same machine, so the issue clearly is not in the hardware.

Then it's a botched installation, because it runs perfectly fine on others' machines of the same model. You did something wrong.

aquatic · July 18, 2011 8:42PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Then it's a botched installation, because it runs perfectly fine on others' machines of the same model. You did something wrong.

Or something went wrong because of some bug and it is not stratokaster's fault.

Or, most likely there is just system cruft. stratokaster did you do an Upgrade? I'd recommend a fresh install, and moving folders of settings, data and apps over manually. It's what I always do. I wish Upgrade would just work but I don't trust it for precisely this reason.

What I want to know is...does 10.7 support TRIM for non-Apple SSD drives. If not that is weak-sauce. Good thing there is a hack for it but that's lame to need a hack for it, because I thought TRIM was a standard or something. It seems arbitrary. Then again I may be missing something as I don't really understand the technical details of it. I just know I want to get an SSD sometime this year or next year when they get a tad cheaper.

dhagan4755 · July 18, 2011 9:41PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Then it's a botched installation, because it runs perfectly fine on others' machines of the same model. You did something wrong.

I concur. I have been running Lion Server on the same model & it runs fine. Clean install Lion on yours.

stratokaster · July 18, 2011 11:54PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aquatic

Or, most likely there is just system cruft. stratokaster did you do an Upgrade? I'd recommend a fresh install, and moving folders of settings, data and apps over manually. It's what I always do. I wish Upgrade would just work but I don't trust it for precisely this reason.

Ironically, I upgraded all the way from 10.2 to 10.6 and experienced problems only once - going from Leo to Snow Leo. Thankfully, when I did fresh install and then transferred my data using Migration Assistant, everything was ok.

When I bought this machine 3 months ago, I decided to start from scratch and manually copied only really needed data. I doubt I could accumulate that much cruft in just 3 months.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aquatic

What I want to know is...does 10.7 support TRIM for non-Apple SSD drives.

It does not. But many SSDs nowadays implement their own garbage collection routines and are fine without TRIM.

stratokaster · July 19, 2011 10:25AM

If anybody's interested, I tracked the problem down to Safari. Each time I open or refresh a web page, Safari starts to frantically read and write something to HDD and slows down the whole system.

Is Lion faster than SL, or slower?

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