[PookJP]

I upgraded to Panther last week, and I'm experiencing two problems that are quite irksome. My question is whether these issues are specific to my computer, or if other users have experienced these things as well. I didn't see much discussion dedicated to mutitasking in the other threads, hence this one.

1. Multitasking is just not as good in Panther. In Jaguar, I could be doing a heavy Photoshop operation and using Safari comfortably. In Panther, Safari can barely run for 5 seconds without the beachball appearing if Photoshop is busy.

2. As I reported in another thread, the preview of images in the Finder does not load nearly as quickly as in Jaguar. Panther requires a good second, Jaguar required just a fraction.


I see both of these as severe dents to my productivity, as finding images on my computer is important for my work, as is the ability to simultaneously use multiple applications while on is busy. I'm using a Powerbook 867 with 768 MB Ram.

[IamBob]

I noticed the same thing but have been too lazy to test and without testing I wasn't going to post about it.

I have journaling on so I'm wondering if that's not the cause. I don't use FileVault so I know that's not it on my system.

It's not a real big deal for me, just slightly annoying.

[SMacTech]

Something is wrong with your install of Panther. None of this occurs in the many installs I have done here at our company. You mentioned you upgraded. Did you do an upgrade or archive and install? You should do an archive and not an upgrade. You may want to download the 10.3.3 combo updater, as using it solved many problems of 10.3 incremental upgrades.

[PookJP]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
Something is wrong with your install of Panther. None of this occurs in the many installs I have done here at our company. You mentioned you upgraded. Did you do an upgrade or archive and install? You should do an archive and not an upgrade. You may want to download the 10.3.3 combo updater, as using it solved many problems of 10.3 incremental upgrades.

This is the second install of Panther I've done, this one a totally clean install. Specifically, I reformatted my entire hard drive and installed, so I can't imagine there would be any complications at all. Both times I've experienced the same problems, so it's becoming less likely the install is to blame and more likely it is Panther.

If I could ask you to do a quick test, go to a folder with a number of 700KB+ pictures, open the preview pane, and scroll through the files holding the down arrow. Don't pause on any of the pictures. See if they appear on your machine because in both of my installs, they have not.

Regarding the deficient multitasking, I don't know what to say other than it's happened both times I've installed. Last time it happened I was rasterizing a 12 inch pdf at 266 dpi in photoshop, and it basically brought my computer to a halt. Even the dock wouldn't respond. This simply didn't happen in Jaguar.

I've installed the 10.3.3 update... is that the one you are referring to?

[Developer]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
Something is wrong with your install of Panther.

I noticed that iTunes skips sometimes in Panther. Never did that in any prior version.

What is wrong with my install?

[ApeInTheShell]

If you use the Finder more often the pictures are likely to appear more quickly.
I preview mine at 48x48 because I need to see the detail as there are pictures that are slightly altered. The file sizes usually don't exceed 1 mb on jpeg and gif files so they load in record time. Also if you have opened them in the past they will appear quickly.

In general, column view has a 3 second delay for pictures and icon view a 1 second delay.

The file format and size can effect how fast or slow it loads. I have tiff files from new scans on my main drive and it takes about 5 seconds to load. Some do not show up at all though.

My machine configuration is PowerPC G3, 400mhz, 576 mb sdram, 80 gb external firewire hard drive, 8mb vram. Therefore, it cannot be a hardware problem if a 867mhz G4 is experiencing approximately the same delays.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by Developer:
I noticed that iTunes skips sometimes in Panther. Never did that in any prior version.

What is wrong with my install?

Developer, I don't know what is wrong with your install. I take it you concur with the above posters? I once heard iTunes skip when copying large .dmg files to my bus powered LaCie FW Pocket Drive. The same didn't occur with my 10gb iPod or 160gb LaCie ext FW.
PookJP, I cannot say that I have specifically done what you are suggesting in the Finder. You mentioned PhotoShop and Safari beach-balling. Having used both on a MDD867, at times under very heavy load, I haven't seen the SBOD.
Apple may have changed the delay time when previewing in column view. I am going to go locate a large folder of .jpg on our server, copy them locally and let you know my results.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by PookJP:
If I could ask you to do a quick test, go to a folder with a number of 700KB+ pictures, open the preview pane, and scroll through the files holding the down arrow. Don't pause on any of the pictures. See if they appear on your machine because in both of my installs, they have not.

I've installed the 10.3.3 update... is that the one you are referring to?

No, no preview is displayed when I scroll through a folder with 100+ jpg and gif files. I must pause, and then after ~ 1 second the preview is shown. Unfortunately, the only Mac with Jag, is in our testing department, which is in use at the moment.
I do believe that the behavior has changed, and there is indeed a greater lag in displaying previews in Panther, compared to Jag. Maybe this was by design!

The 10.3.3 combo updater has solved problems for many users who incrementally upgraded from 10.3.0 - 10.3.1 - 10.3.2 and then 10.3.3. Apple has a KB article about it, which I can't find at the moment. Reapplying the combo updater over 10.3.3 fixes some issues, but not the preview problems.

[geekwagon]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
No, no preview is displayed when I scroll through a folder with 100+ jpg and gif files. I must pause, and then after ~ 1 second the preview is shown. Unfortunately, the only Mac with Jag, is in our testing department, which is in use at the moment.
I do believe that the behavior has changed, and there is indeed a greater lag in displaying previews in Panther, compared to Jag. Maybe this was by design!

Pretty sure it is by design. It makes scrolling through a large folder SO much faster and smoother, especially over the network. I remember noticing this little change right after I upgraded to Panther and appreciating how much better it was. Slow scrolling was one of the big complaint areas in Jaguar so I am sure this is part of the optimization to make it faster.

[PookJP]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
No, no preview is displayed when I scroll through a folder with 100+ jpg and gif files. I must pause, and then after ~ 1 second the preview is shown. Unfortunately, the only Mac with Jag, is in our testing department, which is in use at the moment.
I do believe that the behavior has changed, and there is indeed a greater lag in displaying previews in Panther, compared to Jag. Maybe this was by design!

The 10.3.3 combo updater has solved problems for many users who incrementally upgraded from 10.3.0 - 10.3.1 - 10.3.2 and then 10.3.3. Apple has a KB article about it, which I can't find at the moment. Reapplying the combo updater over 10.3.3 fixes some issues, but not the preview problems.

Thanks for trying it out, I appreciate your time. It's interesting this would have changed from 10.2 to 10.3 because I see it as a regression instead of an improvement.

ApeInTheShell - Do you remember if that delay time was there in Jaguar? I'm actually more interested if you've noticed a general decrease in the OS' ability to multitask. Did you notice a change when you moved from Jag to Panther?

Developer - I've had a bit of iTunes skipping as well. Hmm....

[Superchicken]

download pic2icon it will create full sized icons of all your graphics... very good.

[Lew]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
No, no preview is displayed when I scroll through a folder with 100+ jpg and gif files. I must pause, and then after ~ 1 second the preview is shown. Unfortunately, the only Mac with Jag, is in our testing department, which is in use at the moment.
I do believe that the behavior has changed, and there is indeed a greater lag in displaying previews in Panther, compared to Jag. Maybe this was by design!

I've actually had to turn off icon preview and item info on my PowerBook as whenever I try to display a folder of pics from my digital camera (2304x1712 pixels) with icon preview and item info switched on the Finder maxes out the CPU (even after the folder is closed) and continues to do so until I force-quit it.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by geekwagon:
Pretty sure it is by design. It makes scrolling through a large folder SO much faster and smoother, especially over the network. I remember noticing this little change right after I upgraded to Panther and appreciating how much better it was. Slow scrolling was one of the big complaint areas in Jaguar so I am sure this is part of the optimization to make it faster.

I would agree on this. I had a lot of complaints from users about scrolling folders with lots of picture files in it in Jag.

[PookJP]

Originally posted by SMacTech:
I would agree on this. I had a lot of complaints from users about scrolling folders with lots of picture files in it in Jag.

If that's the case, they should really have made it a choice within View Options because their help to others has proven to be a hindrance to me.


Mimizuku no Lew - that also gets back to my complaint about multitasking.

[SMacTech]

Originally posted by PookJP:
If that's the case, they should really have made it a choice within View Options because their help to others has proven to be a hindrance to me.

Yes, more options would be a good thing. My cube still has Jag on one partition. I am going to see what it used to be like and compare to Panther.

[Big Mac]

I don't use iTunes that often (since my iPod fulfills the need), but when I have had it playing I've noticed it is far more stutter prone than it used to be. Perhaps it's not getting enough processor time, even though it takes up more processor time than ever before. Has anyone tried renicing it?

[Link]

It'd be nice if you could flag specific folders "picture folders", and have them use the same system iphoto uses for thumbnails for super fast scrolling :drool:

[PookJP]

Originally posted by Link:
It'd be nice if you could flag specific folders "picture folders", and have them use the same system iphoto uses for thumbnails for super fast scrolling :drool:

The reason I don't use iPhoto is because it insists on reorganizing my picture folders, or making a copy of the entire thing so it can have a copy organized this way. If it could just be smart enough to use my existing picture folder with my existing organization, I'd use it. Until then... no iPhoto!

[poocat]

This is actually a big problem in Panther, in my opinion. Safari lags constantly, relative to Jaguar, especially while loading multiple tabs (often it's impossible to use one until the others have loaded) and the computer definitely beach balls more. I have been using Panther since it's release and there's no instal problem. The finder is fine, everything works very well, I love the upgrade.

But it's true. Multitasking has been sacrificed for front app speed, and it shows. ITunes in the background is a perfect example. An mp3 player should never skip when i'm surfing the web and chatting. That's all that's running, and the performance should be flawless. I really miss the earlier versions of Safari because they didn't wait for the other tabs to load. In 1.2 they load in a sequence, so that if one stalls or can't connect the others just spin until it is canceled. This, in my opinion, should be fixed pronto.

There was another thread, a long time ago, about how they'd changed something underlying Panther to cause this behavior, and how apps needed to be fixed to multitask properly. Why this hasn't happened to Safari befuddles me.

poocat.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
download pic2icon it will create full sized icons of all your graphics... very good.

I threw it out FAST after I realized that those full-sized preview icons add about 50KB to EVERY SINGLE FILE.

Turns a .jpg from 15KB to 70KB - NOT acceptable for emailing or web use.

-s*

[absmiths]

The overall multitasking in Panther is not much different from what it was in Jaguar. I am constantly running servers and background processes and have not noticed any difference on the machines running them. More than likely what you are noticing are changes to one or more of the following: Cocoa, Carbon, Finder, Safari, etc. Many people in this forum misuse the new catchword multitask to mean what they are able to do with their system - E.G., "My Panther won't multitask - I get the SWOD (It's not a ball, people)." If you can start up your computer and your Web Server is running while all the window server stuff is running and all the oodles of background-only processes are active - when the only thing on the console is the login screen - then your system is multitasking.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
I threw it out FAST after I realized that those full-sized preview icons add about 50KB to EVERY SINGLE FILE.

Turns a .jpg from 15KB to 70KB - NOT acceptable for emailing or web use.

-s*

[sarcasm]
Wow. A full color 128x128 icon adds to the file size? Who knew?
[/sarcasm]

Where exactly do these icons get stored? Do they go into the data fork with the other JPEG data? If not, then it probably won't matter since the meta-data won't be preserved anyway (on the web and not necessarily in email). Besides, in this case the author is clearly talking about very large (or at least moderately large, for PS) image files where +/- 50KB won't make that much of a difference.

[PookJP]

Originally posted by absmiths:
The overall multitasking in Panther is not much different from what it was in Jaguar. I am constantly running servers and background processes and have not noticed any difference on the machines running them. More than likely what you are noticing are changes to one or more of the following: Cocoa, Carbon, Finder, Safari, etc. Many people in this forum misuse the new catchword multitask to mean what they are able to do with their system - E.G., "My Panther won't multitask - I get the SWOD (It's not a ball, people)." If you can start up your computer and your Web Server is running while all the window server stuff is running and all the oodles of background-only processes are active - when the only thing on the console is the login screen - then your system is multitasking.

[sarcasm]
Wow. A full color 128x128 icon adds to the file size? Who knew?
[/sarcasm]

Where exactly do these icons get stored? Do they go into the data fork with the other JPEG data? If not, then it probably won't matter since the meta-data won't be preserved anyway (on the web and not necessarily in email). Besides, in this case the author is clearly talking about very large (or at least moderately large, for PS) image files where +/- 50KB won't make that much of a difference.

[DeathMan]

I've been noticing safari being really laggy when coming out of vram. I don't know what the deal is, though. Its like its doing all this housekeeping or something. Even if there is only one page open, it'll sit there and grind for a while.

I have also been getting iTunes skips now and then, and it is quite annoying, considering it used to be you could do anything and everything including encode dvd without so much as a hiccup.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by DeathMan:
I've been noticing safari being really laggy when coming out of vram.

When it comes out of your video RAM? When does it do that?

[Developer]

Originally posted by absmiths:
Where exactly do these icons get stored? Do they go into the data fork with the other JPEG data?

Custom icons are in the resource fork. Spheric, those have no influence on web use at all.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Developer:
Custom icons are in the resource fork. Spheric, those have no influence on web use at all.

If I stick'em on my iDisk for others to look at - which is mostly what constitutes "web use" in my case - they do bloat file sizes, AFAICT.

-s*

[Developer]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
If I stick'em on my iDisk for others to look at - which is mostly what constitutes "web use" in my case - they do bloat file sizes, AFAICT.

Then yes. I didn't consider the iDisk "web use". Sorry.

[DeathMan]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
When it comes out of your video RAM? When does it do that?

I meant virtual ram, asshole.

[PookJP]

I'm just mad absmiths didn't come back here for my big zing!


Anyway... I installed the Combo Update, and iTunes hasn't skipped at all since. Photoshop still brings my entire system to a standstill, and generally, I find that Safari beachballs more than it should.