[Cold Warrior]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Oh, yeah: Another random, anecdotal data point. I've noticed that, on Windows, Microsoft applications launch very, very quickly. I just started Powerpoint and it was up and ready in about a second. Third party apps, however, aren't so lucky. InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat are as slow to launch on Windows as under OS X.

I've heard that MS keeps parts of its Office apps in RAM in order to improve launch times. Adobe Reader also has something called Speed Launch, which I suspect is a similar tactic.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

The joys of PPC Linux: no real Flash. Forget about YouTube, etc. From what Flash does come through there doesn't seem to be much difference. The biggest difference would seem to be Safari's memory usage and caching behavior; Safari 2 and earlier would eat up a lot of memory and get sluggish after a while. Safari 3, while still eating up lots of memory, seems to have fixed the sluggishness.

There is a Flash mozilla browser plugin, I'm running it myself and it plays flash movies fine, which is why I was asking...

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

There is a Flash mozilla browser plugin, I'm running it myself and it plays flash movies fine, which is why I was asking...

In PPC Linux? Not in my experience. Flash support is very limited. Most ads work (yay!) but YouTube doesn't. What flash there is seems to play about as well as OS X. The new gnash is supposed to fix this, but it isn't in the Feisty repositories yet.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Oh, yeah: Another random, anecdotal data point. I've noticed that, on Windows, Microsoft applications launch very, very quickly. I just started Powerpoint and it was up and ready in about a second. Third party apps, however, aren't so lucky. InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat are as slow to launch on Windows as under OS X.

That's because two-thirds of that **** is so tightly "integrated" into the OS that it's ALWAYS RUNNING ALREADY.

"Bloat!", you say.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Dark Goob 

Anyway video camera will be the best way to show you.

Can you also film Safari 3 on both Mac OS X and Vista? I would be interested to see how they perform in comparison.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

In PPC Linux? Not in my experience. Flash support is very limited. Most ads work (yay!) but YouTube doesn't. What flash there is seems to play about as well as OS X. The new gnash is supposed to fix this, but it isn't in the Feisty repositories yet.

Yup, Flash Player 9 from Adobe. I'm using it in Ubuntu, but the fact you are on PPC shouldn't matter...

[badidea]

I just tested to load CNN.com with an iMac24", 2GB RAM, 16MBit ADSL...

Vista Ultimate and IE7: 3sec
Vista Ultimate and Firefox: 3sec
OS X 10.4.9 and Safari 3.0b: 3-4sec

This was very close but Safari seemed to be a tiny little bit slower! I'm ok with that but I have a problem with Vista and the time it needs to connect to the internet!
OS X: 1-2sec
Windows XP: 1-2sec
Vista: 15-20sec

[Anand]

Why do people respond to drivel like this. 17 seconds to open up CNN.com? I make my money on half life? People!!!!!!!

Just walk away....

[analogika]

Second Life, not Half Life...

[Cold Warrior]

Yeah, it's not a game. It's virtual reality. Real.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Yup, Flash Player 9 from Adobe. I'm using it in Ubuntu, but the fact you are on PPC shouldn't matter...

Uh, dude, check Adobe's website. Their Linux Flash player is x86 only. There is no official Flash player for PPC Linux. None.

[dharknes]

Originally Posted by moonmonkey 

Open GL performance in games like Second Life is not as good as on PC's, but other things should be at the same speed, there is definitely something wrong with your browser.

It would be if game developers actually used Open GL. Most games developed for windows are driectx (because Open GL on windows sucks) and then (poorly) ported to Mac and Open GL.

[dharknes]

Originally Posted by Dark Goob 

Upon further testing I am getting about 4 seconds to load cnn.com in Safari as well as Camino. Still, for that or for espn.com, it's about half the speed of what it takes in the IE7 on Vista.

Are you really concerned with 2 seconds?

Originally Posted by Dark Goob 

But as for OpenGL, my understanding is that it's a piece of junk compared to DirectX 10, which is the standard for newer 3D engines. If you read the stats on the NVIDIA 8600M GT, it supports OpenGL 2.1, but really it's designed primarily for DirectX 10 with all its cool hardware features. (GeForce 8600M - Notebook and Laptop) Of course, Microsoft is not likely to port this proprietary Vista technology over to the Mac.

This is very true on Windows since MS doesn't ship OpenGL which means 3rd parties have to provide their own implementation. These 3rd party version may or may not plug into the Windows kernel properly and generally suffer performance problems.

From a technology stand point OpenGL far out paces Direct X which is why most high end 3D apps use OpenGL.

Originally Posted by Dark Goob 

But still, is lack of DirectX the reason why something like Second Life would run at 1/2 the speed of Vista while on OS X? Are we saying that the performance issues are because Linden Labs (the developer of SL) does not take advantage of multi-threaded OpenGL? (To be sure, I have submitted a support ticket to them regarding this matter, but have not heard back yet.)

They may use it, but I'm sure its not their primary development environment. As with any software developer they want to minimize the differences between platforms so they can maximum profits. So if they can find an emulation layer that provides Direct X to OpenGL mapping then why optimize for or even use OpenGL?

[Don Pickett]

More random dataish points:

IE renders differently that OS X browsers. It has a habit of loading the HTML and what have you, waiting and then rendering it all in one pass. So, you get the page loading, a blank screen for a second or two and then BLAM the whole thing is rendered. This seems opposed to OS X browsers, which render the elements as they come in, leaving you with a screen in various stages of render for one or two seconds.

Perhaps does this make it appear as if IE renders more quickly?

[gskibum3]

Two things come to mind for me.

1. Broken DNS.
2. Safari may be running in Rosetta.

[Thinine]

OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster DNS

[HyperX]

My experience with a Mac has been that OSX is WAYY slower than Windows. However, I like the stability. I have a 3,0 gigahertz Mac Pro, and even though I have Windows XP and Mac on there, I run Mac OS almost all the time. I also wish that 10.5 would address performance issues. In my opinion I would be embarrassed if I was the chief OS engineer at Apple. Even Ubuntu on my Mac loads apps much faster.

edit - just as a test, parallels running windows xp on my mac pro open cnn faster in firefox than natively on my Mac OS. Kinda funny actually.

Also - browsing my folders over a network (via a Linux based NAS). To show initial files in the mac, it takes 9 seconds (over 5000 files in one folder). In parallels windows xp it takes less than 2 seconds - and this is not a cache issue. This is a fresh windows xp parallels session that just has all service packs and firefox.

So yea I, Mac OS performance is laking. Hopefully it will be fixed. I still like the stability - but PLEASE fix the performance!

[jasong]

Originally Posted by dharknes 

Are you really concerned with 2 seconds?

I'm with you man, you could add up all those seconds on your "2 times faster" IE 7 for a years worth of web browsing and still come out negative with the time you spent posting about it. It's just that insignificant. If we were talking about a 5 minute process, then 2 times faster is important, no one questions the difference between 5 and 10 minutes, but 2 and 4 seconds? You're just insane. As am I, because now I am wasting my time with this insanity . . .

[Dark Goob]

Guys it's not a matter of whether we're concerned with "2 seconds" etc. It's just a simple matter of, OS X needs to perform at least as fast as Windows. Why shouldn't it?

-=DG=-

[Dark Goob]

Originally Posted by Anand 

Why do people respond to drivel like this. 17 seconds to open up CNN.com? I make my money on half life? People!!!!!!!

Just walk away....

Well I'm sorry if you don't use your Mac to make a living. It's kind of fun.

Just because you work in meatspace doesn't mean that those of us who don't are somehow inferior or "don't get it" etc.

In fact those of us who work in cyberspace are those who feel the effects of slower browsing, slower performance multiple times per day, every day. And therefore we're going to care about it a lot more than those of you for whom your computer is just there to check e-mail and fiddle with iLife apps etc.

-=DG=-

[larrinski]

Originally Posted by Dark Goob 

Well I'm sorry if you don't use your Mac to make a living. It's kind of fun.

Just because you work in meatspace doesn't mean that those of us who don't are somehow inferior or "don't get it" etc.

In fact those of us who work in cyberspace are those who feel the effects of slower browsing, slower performance multiple times per day, every day. And therefore we're going to care about it a lot more than those of you for whom your computer is just there to check e-mail and fiddle with iLife apps etc.

-=DG=-

Wow! You read quickly if an extra second or two to load pages effects your productivity. I find however that the design of the page I am viewing will make for a better browsing experience. You can load a page as fast as you want, but if you can't find the information quickly on the page, then it doesn't matter! Quit acting like a couple of seconds makes your life more difficult. You have spent more time complaining about it than an hour's worth of page loads...

[jasong]

Originally Posted by Dark Goob 

Guys it's not a matter of whether we're concerned with "2 seconds" etc. It's just a simple matter of, OS X needs to perform at least as fast as Windows. Why shouldn't it?

-=DG=-

It should, but at least as fast is a relative term when you are talking about 2 seconds. The Mac OS interface and usability more than makes up for those two seconds for me. You need to decide for yourself if they (or some other feature) does the same for you. If you are more productive using Windows, guess what you should be using? It's just a tool, and you should be using the one that works best for you, whatever that means. If it's CNN.com loading in 2 seconds vs. 4 seconds, so be it.

That being said, Apple should continue to make improvements throughout, it sounds like Safari 3 will make some significant speed gains to Mac browsing (in my experience it feels mostly the same, but I am using a 1Ghz TiBook, so claims of speed are pretty muted for me). I don't think anyone is apologizing for Apple here, merely stating that they have spent their time and effort in different places. Again, if these are the wrong places for you . . . Well, you know what to do.

[Big Mac]

Smells like a troll.

[pooka]

I don't think he's trolling at all. Perhaps some people just don't spend enough time observing the differences between the two platforms. A well maintained Windows machine absolutely spanks any comparable Mac system when it comes to online activities. The gap is only widened when factoring in flash or dhtml/javascript elements that are becoming increasingly common on many popular sites. The fact that most users accept or excuse this fact is puzzling to me and apparently to many recent switchers. ****, I hope this is finally the year that they come close to catching up.

[Thinine]

Flash, maybe, but that's their issue. Safari is much faster than IE, with Camino, Opera, and FireFox also performing well above IE.

Loading CNN.com is not a test. Now if you can find some actual browser benchmarks on the other hand...