[herbsman]

Ever since my friend showed me these unofficial G5 optimized builds for firefox http://www.beatnikpad.com/archives/2...oxG5nightlies/ , i've basically dropped safari mainly because of the huge difference in speed.

i'm not a computer saavy guy, so can someone explain to me how the heck these g5 optimized builds are smoking safari in regards to speed?

i would use these g5 firefox builds exclusively except for the fact that downloading is REALLY horrible. anytime i try to right click and download a linked file from a webpage there is a long 5-10 second delay before the download starts, and in the meantime the browser is frozen until the download begins. it drives me absolutely crazy. i think this is also common in the official firefox releases as well.

[mduell]

A well written program optimized for your processor architecture is fast. Does this really surprise you?

[herbsman]

how about a response that actually addresses the question?

to answer, yes it does surprise me that it performs so well. i'm wondering why apple can't optimize safari to have equivalent peformance. i am assuming that there's probably a very techinical reason for this or maybe i'm wrong.

if you ready my original post, i explained that i'm not a computer saavy guy. so thanks for your brilliant insight mr. dell.

[mduell]

By letting the compilier use optimizations that work well on the G5 and only work on the G5, they can make Firefox really fast. By limiting the builds to just one processor, they can make more informed tradeoffs; since most G5s have about the same amount/speed cache and RAM, they can set the size/performance tradeoff where it makes the most sense. Also they can use instructions that are only available on G5s. They know where the bottlenecks are in the system and the relative cost of doing things different ways. You may want to read the Wikipedia article on optimization for more information and examples.
Apple has to keep Safari running on G3s and G4s, so they can't use any of the optimizations that only work or only make sense on the G5.

[nycdunz]

where can you download those unofficial g5 builds of firefox? would love to try it out

[wataru]

Have you actually compared it to the official builds? I really doubt there's any significant speed difference.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by nycdunz

where can you download those unofficial g5 builds of firefox? would love to try it out

In the spirit of the new forum rules, STFW.

[ctj]

Originally Posted by nycdunz

where can you download those unofficial g5 builds of firefox? would love to try it out

Ummm... isn't that what the link is in the first post in this thread?

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by wataru

Have you actually compared it to the official builds? I really doubt there's any significant speed difference.

I don't find a big speed difference between the two. Some pages render faster with Safari, some faster with the G5-specific Firefox.

[angelmb]

I find Camino faster than Firefox… The reason Firefox runs kinda in slow-motion mode with my MDD G4 is beyond me.

[His Dudeness]

I find this pretty fast, not quite so fast as Camino, but it's nice. And btw, what the heck is DeerPark???

[wataru]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

I don't find a big speed difference between the two. Some pages render faster with Safari, some faster with the G5-specific Firefox.

No, I mean compare the official Firefox build with the G5 optimized one. I really doubt there's a noticeable difference.

[P]

Originally Posted by His Dudeness

I find this pretty fast, not quite so fast as Camino, but it's nice. And btw, what the heck is DeerPark???

The codename for version 1.5 of Firefox. Only the officially released builds can be called Firefox and have the official logo.