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equinox · May 19, 2003, 12:37 PM

Hello,

my iMac G4 1Ghz seems very slow while browsing different websites. I use Safari, but it feels the same with ie and camino. On my PC the websites scroll very smoothly but on my Mac is is very sluggish...How can this be? Is there a benchmark-program where i can compare my system with others?

Thanks,

Regards,

Peter

bmedina · May 19, 2003, 12:55 PM

Scrolling in OS X in general is pretty sluggish, even in 10.2. The best thing you can do to fix general slowness is add more RAM.

Morenix · May 19, 2003, 12:58 PM

have you check the 'use velocity engine' option in system preferences?

Powaqqatsi · May 19, 2003, 01:00 PM

Originally posted by Morenix:
have you check the 'use velocity engine' option in system preferences?

Developer · May 19, 2003, 01:20 PM

Originally posted by equinox:
On my PC the websites scroll very smoothly but on my Mac is is very sluggish...

Internet Explorer on the PC uses some special smooth scrolling. You can turn that on in Mozilla and Camino on the Mac. To do so in Mozilla type about:config into the URL field and add a general.SmoothScroll setting with Boolean value of true.

MindFad · May 19, 2003, 01:43 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
Internet Explorer on the PC uses some special smooth scrolling. You can turn that on in Mozilla and Camino on the Mac. To do so in Mozilla type about:config into the URL field and add a general.SmoothScroll setting with Boolean value of true.

Say what? How exactly would I do that -- or, more like, what exactly would I put into the URL bar?

Scrolling generally blows in OS X, and hopefully Panther will add some performance boost (like when 10.1 > 10.2 did). The best scrolling I've found in any browser so far is Safari.

Developer · May 19, 2003, 01:52 PM

Originally posted by MindFad:
Say what? How exactly would I do that -- or, more like, what exactly would I put into the URL bar?

You type about:config into the URL field (without the space before the colon, the forum somehow insists in adding that here) and press the return key. Then you control click and add a new boolean setting general.smoothScroll with value true.

equinox · May 19, 2003, 03:11 PM

Originally posted by Morenix:
have you check the 'use velocity engine' option in system preferences?

I cannot find this option? Where is it? I think if this option exist it will be turned on by default!?

Regards,

Peter

equinox · May 19, 2003, 03:56 PM

if you look at http://www.paderkino.de/ and try o scroll in safari you will notice the sluggish behaviour. other browsers don't show this behaviour. very strange because safari is somehow faster on other sites...

MindFad · May 19, 2003, 06:25 PM

Originally posted by Developer:
You type about:config into the URL field (without the space before the colon, the forum somehow insists in adding that here) and press the return key. Then you control click and add a new boolean setting general.smoothScroll with value true.

Cool. Tried it in Mozilla, but performance didn't increase. Wouldn't work in Camino (maybe because I have an older version?) -- the list headings came up, but there was nothing in the list, and I couldn't add anything.

cacarr1 · May 19, 2003, 07:55 PM

Originally posted by equinox:
I cannot find this option? Where is it? I think if this option exist it will be turned on by default!?

Regards,

Peter

I think he's pulling your leg...

Webscreamer · May 19, 2003, 09:55 PM

Originally posted by equinox:
if you look at http://www.paderkino.de/ and try o scroll in safari you will notice the sluggish behaviour. other browsers don't show this behaviour. very strange because safari is somehow faster on other sites...

I think this is because of the large table on the site. Macs are slower at processing that stuff and scrolling at the same time...

I think at least

bmedina · May 20, 2003, 12:49 AM

Safari still has bugs with scrolling. It's smoothe most of the time, but sometimes it really crawls.

about:config is not yet available in Camino. But newer builds of Mozilla and Mozilla Firebird support it. However, due to poor scrolling performance in OS X, their smoothe-scroll setting is pretty unbearable. Here's hoping Panther fixes scrolling for good.

Morenix · May 20, 2003, 06:51 AM

yahh... panther will fix all... like speed... and will not have more debug code... (deja-vu?)

even scrollin' on windows 95 on VPC is fast....

JLL · May 20, 2003, 01:29 PM

Originally posted by Morenix:
even scrollin' on windows 95 on VPC is fast....

And so is scrolling in System 7 - what's your point?

MindFad · May 20, 2003, 02:15 PM

No one uses system 7 or Win95. Panther will fix it; no worries.

macintologist · May 24, 2003, 05:09 PM

I find that scrolling on the PC's is smooth, like the smoothness found in playing Quake 3 on a Radeon 9000. We have Quartz extreme, I think it should be speeding up our scrolling and making it nice and smooth.

Catfish_Man · May 24, 2003, 09:36 PM

Omniweb 4.5 (the sneakypeeks) scrolls very well (on my machine anyway).

MindFad · May 24, 2003, 09:47 PM

Originally posted by macintologist:
I find that scrolling on the PC's is smooth, like the smoothness found in playing Quake 3 on a Radeon 9000. We have Quartz extreme, I think it should be speeding up our scrolling and making it nice and smooth.

As of now, QE doesn't affect scrolling in any way (it doesn't help make it faster). Not to say it won't in the future (Steve's got performance stuff to talk about at WWDC). 10.1 > 10.2 gave a good scrolling jump, because I read that they fixed the algorithm or some such thing for scrolling to make it speedier. Still, it's lackluster at best when dealing with anything but text. I imagine 10.3 will eliminate these troubles (see: Photoshop's pathetic scrolling, though I'm sure Adobe can share some of the blame).

Gul Banana · May 24, 2003, 10:25 PM

http://www.paderkino.de/ scrolls very nicely in OmniWeb (4.5 sneakypeeks)