The Mac OS 8.1 Special Report lists several performance improvements, especially a faster virtual memory scheme which speeds application startup and disk caching.

Have these improvements actually been noticed on 68k Macs?

Thanks!

Special report or not, if your Mac can run Mac OS 8.1, use it. It has many features that you will like it.

Probably won't see a speed improvement on a 68k machine, but the advantages are well worth the price (can we all shout FREE!).
I use 8.1 on my Quadra 630 because I now have access to HFS+ (although I have an HFS standard partition so I can boot up) which is nice because I use the machine as a file server, and I have a 15GB drive in it. 8.1 also "fixes a billion bugs" (-Steve Jobs), some of which were nasty memory leak problems associated with the first multitasking code.

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-Eliott Wolfe
Winnetka, Calif

LC475 (68040 at 25mhz) and up can handle 8.1
any thing less stick to 7.6.1. But a LC 475 likes the system 7's better.
7.6.1 didn't crash as much as 8.1 but on a PPC 8.1 way faster. But 7.6.1 cant run new software, most are made for 8.1

68k work around, if you have a 68k with a 2 GIG HD or more, patition it into 2 Drives, one 500mb for the HFS and system and the other HFS+. Make sure the first partition is HFS and has the system on it.

[finboy]

7.6.1 is more stable on the older macs, in my experience. I know that my Quadras CAN run 8.0 and 8.1, and I'd definitely use 8.1 over 8.0, but the performance is so appalling that I topped them out at 7.6.1. Of course, most of my apps are older and won't run under 8 anyway. A lot of 68k apps won't run under 8, so keep THAT in mind too before you upgrade your system.

I installed OS 8 on my Preforma 6400 and was perty much disgusted with how slow it ran.

Then After upgrading to 8.1 it was acceptable, though not as fast as system 7.