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domerdel · Oct 24, 2006, 02:00 PM

I've owned my PowerMac dual G5 2.5 for almost 2 yrs now. Great machine, but what I notice no matter how fast my machine is, MAC OS X is still behind the times as far as running Firefox/Safari or any browser that get's heavily involved in code (such as myspace) the browser will either A) stop responding which results in a force quit B) run EXTREMELY slow, kicking the fan/cpu usage way up.

I'll open my PC that's a quarter of the price and it's screaming fast compared to the same pages visited on myspace.

so i'm curious. When leopard comes out, will web applications/web sites run up to speed on MacIntels (and maybe PowerPC processors) ? Or are we still going to suffer because most web languages are microsoft based?

Notice any pages with flash aren't as fast on the mac as well.

seanc · Oct 24, 2006, 04:18 PM

How much RAM do you have? This is also an applications/lounge thread really.

Chuckit · Oct 24, 2006, 04:22 PM

My 2 GHz iMac G5 doesn't seem to have this problem.

domerdel · Oct 24, 2006, 04:25 PM

Originally Posted by seanc

How much RAM do you have? This is also an applications/lounge thread really.

Here's the full system specs

Dual G5 2.5 ghz
4 GB DDR memory

2 x 250 Raid 0 drives

128 MB Ati 9600

kick52 · Oct 24, 2006, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by domerdel

I've owned my PowerMac dual G5 2.5 for almost 2 yrs now. Great machine, but what I notice no matter how fast my machine is, MAC OS X is still behind the times as far as running Firefox/Safari or any browser that get's heavily involved in code (such as myspace) the browser will either A) stop responding which results in a force quit B) run EXTREMELY slow, kicking the fan/cpu usage way up.

I'll open my PC that's a quarter of the price and it's screaming fast compared to the same pages visited on myspace.

so i'm curious. When leopard comes out, will web applications/web sites run up to speed on MacIntels (and maybe PowerPC processors) ? Or are we still going to suffer because most web languages are microsoft based?

Notice any pages with flash aren't as fast on the mac as well.

my g4(sig) is ok on the web, so i think you might have a broken install or something...

you might want to reinstall.

also, try a G5 optimized Camino build.

seanc · Oct 24, 2006, 04:46 PM

My G4 PB also seems cool on the web, my PowerMac G3 however is dog slow, but I blame the graphics card for that.

ghporter · Oct 24, 2006, 04:59 PM

My wife's 800MHz G4 iBook surfs just fine-though she's dumped Safari for Firefox because Safari has problems with some sites. My MacBook Pro has NO problems at all surfing or downloading.

I'm curious what kind of Internet connection you have, and if you've looked at how OS X is configured. There are a few things that you can do to make some connections (DSL in particular) much faster, but you need to tweak a few things for this to happen.

domerdel · Oct 24, 2006, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by kick52

my g4(sig) is ok on the web, so i think you might have a broken install or something...

you might want to reinstall.

also, try a G5 optimized Camino build.

My installs are fine, i've had this problem in both panther and tiger both on fresh and existing installs.

You might take my initial view too literally. Don't get me wrong, day-to-day browsing such as CNN, Yahoo Sports, and hotmail are all perfectly fine.

When I get into building sites with flash, the framerates are much slower (even optimized correct FPS for animations in flash). I literally have a PC right next to my mac, and it zooms.

Another hinder is a website like Myspace. Although with million DB and general code flaws to the site, it still screams on a PC. It seems when viewing certain profiles, too many compiliations are going on, and Mac just can't keep up with it.

I've noticed this with streaming video that's non-quicktime format(s).

PC still dominates the web and games (but i'm not a gamer so that doesnt apply), but i'm not losing my tight grip on my dual G5 nor my Powerbook pro.

EDIT: my connection speed is 3MBPS DSL. but that's totally irrelevant because i'm bencharking to the PC right next to it.

Chips G · Oct 24, 2006, 06:26 PM

I have the same issues with sites like MySpace, or even playing videos on YouTube generally make my MacBook fan speed up so that I can easily hear it.

kick52 · Oct 24, 2006, 06:36 PM

yeah... anything with more than a couple flash anims *SUCKS*!!!

seanc · Oct 24, 2006, 06:38 PM

All the more reason to disuade people from using too much flash on their sites.

TETENAL · Oct 24, 2006, 06:38 PM

If anything, according to your description, then the Mac would have a problem with Flash not the Web. I don't see that though. I have a MacBook with 512 MB RAM and no issues with Youtube and the fans don't speed up when viewing Flash-video or browsing the web.

jaydon34 · Oct 24, 2006, 06:48 PM

Get firefox 2.0 seems to be better with myspace. Safari is horrible with it but I think it's because so many people play wmv files.

domerdel · Oct 25, 2006, 10:46 AM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

If anything, according to your description, then the Mac would have a problem with Flash not the Web. I don't see that though. I have a MacBook with 512 MB RAM and no issues with Youtube and the fans don't speed up when viewing Flash-video or browsing the web.

Sorry to be blunt, but you are wrong, and here's why. I have flash professional 8, and you can preview just the SWF without it being in a web browser.

However, once the flash file (at any size/fps) is implemented within some sort of HTML file, the file drops in performance dramatically.

Again, I think some of you take me too literally, i'm not the everyday user, small thing bugs me. I'm the type to tell the difference between pepsi and coke... and i think some of you are saying "seems to be fine... taste like cola to me" LOL

domerdel · Oct 25, 2006, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by seanc

All the more reason to disuade people from using too much flash on their sites.

This sounds like a type of answer a PC user would give a mac. Are those really your system specs in footer? If so, then I can see your point

Chuckit · Oct 25, 2006, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by domerdel

Again, I think some of you take me too literally, i'm not the everyday user, small thing bugs me. I'm the type to tell the difference between pepsi and coke... and i think some of you are saying "seems to be fine... taste like cola to me" LOL

Well, you said the computer slows down or locks up when viewing YouTube or MySpace. Mine doesn't. I don't know what figuratively slowing down or locking up is, so I can't really comment on that.

Gee4orce · Oct 25, 2006, 11:48 AM

So...don't visit MySpace or YouTube. It's not like you'll be missing anything important, and your productivity will improve.

If I were a management consultant, I would have charged you $1M for that advice.

chabig · Oct 25, 2006, 12:21 PM

Originally Posted by domerdel

I'll open my PC that's a quarter of the price and it's screaming fast...

...until Vista ships.

Horsepoo!!! · Oct 25, 2006, 01:47 PM

I'm sorry to hear the 'web' is 'slow' on domerdel's computer. But I am proud to announce that I have no such problems on my machine.

What exactly are you looking for domerdel? A solution to the problem? Our pity? A reaction?

My advice...use the PC if it makes you happier. Excuse me if I'm a little wary of posters with low post counts starting their MacNN forum careers with a negative attitude.

seanc · Oct 25, 2006, 02:14 PM

The PowerMac isn't in use now. FYI I also have a 3.2ghz PC with 1gb RAM and a 200gb hdd.

domerdel · Oct 25, 2006, 03:00 PM

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

I'm sorry to hear the 'web' is 'slow' on domerdel's computer. But I am proud to announce that I have no such problems on my machine.

What exactly are you looking for domerdel? A solution to the problem? Our pity? A reaction?

My advice...use the PC if it makes you happier. Excuse me if I'm a little wary of posters with low post counts starting their MacNN forum careers with a negative attitude.

Basically I was looking to see if this was a known issue, since I have two machines with the same results. No pity taken, neither having a negative attitude.

Originally Posted by Gee4orce

So...don't visit MySpace or YouTube. It's not like you'll be missing anything important, and your productivity will improve.

If I were a management consultant, I would have charged you $1M for that advice.

It's quotes like this, however, are the ones who are negative and very close minded.
Myspace/YouTube, you've already declared my productivity...and that falls under where in personal computing? yes did mention flash pro, but that's a totally different issue.

Thank you big brother

Tuoder · Oct 25, 2006, 03:17 PM

I usually have the same problems with myspace, etc.
Mostly the pages that are terribly done take a long time for me. My PC fares better on these sites. I ahev much the same thing. I blame the people who make cruddy myspaces.

moodymonster · Oct 25, 2006, 08:52 PM

have you got the latest flash plugin? It's version 9.20 last time I checked, does run a bit faster and smoother. (the plugin is separate from you Flash app) - mac flash has always run slower than PC flash, though the latest player/plugin does seem to level the playing field slightly.

the other slowdowns will be down to pages being made for IE and a disregard for other browsers.

javascript written for IE often doesn't play nice with other browsers. Likewise html, css etc

it's worth getting flip4mac for handling wmv files - it's free and runs wmv stuff through quicktime, both in the browser and standalone player.

jmiddel · Oct 25, 2006, 09:36 PM

On my Dual 1.8 G5 with 3 G ram running 10.3.9 My Space seems to work just fine, just viewed the trailer for mybrotherthemovie, not a gulp. In Safari. I do have a 6mb/s connection.

I agree with seanc that flash is over-rated (I hope I'm not mis-representing you). Being kinda fast and goal oriented, the frills of flash have me often impatiently tapping my fingers. Less is more, form follows function. On the other hand, to anyone who loves the sensually enticing magic of flash: I totally understand, I taught the history of Italian art and love luscious baroque music

Wiskedjak · Oct 25, 2006, 10:20 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

I'm curious what kind of Internet connection you have, and if you've looked at how OS X is configured. There are a few things that you can do to make some connections (DSL in particular) much faster, but you need to tweak a few things for this to happen.

What are the things?

Azzgunther · Oct 27, 2006, 04:38 AM

My experiences on multiple computers, both Mac and Windows, have me believing that OS X is an inferior platform for web-browsing. Myspace is a wreck...about 1 in 8 profiles freezes Safari. Flash-heavy websites are bad...about 1 in 20 freeze the browser and 20/20 slow it down significantly until the website finally finishes loading. ESPN.COM is a wreck...just slow and gummy feeling compared to Windows. Jumping website to website is one of the weaker aspects of OS X. Your install, computer, and connection are likely fine.

I've never understood the harsh words that some here have for people who point out or question a flaw they experience with OS X.

bowwowman · Oct 27, 2006, 06:09 AM

Well, I reckon if my ole Sawtooth DP/450 w/2gb ram, Camino, and 6mb/s cable svc can play anything on youtubey & myspaceout quite well, flash or otherwise, then IMHO, that would suggest something is funky with your setup, yes ?

ps: I've never had any issues with any kind of video/flash/QT/WMP files, embedded or otherwise........

now Realplayer files OTOH.......thats another story

JLL · Oct 27, 2006, 07:37 AM

Do you empty all caches from time to time?

~/Library/Safari/Icons can also be emptied from time to time.

Tsilou B. · Oct 27, 2006, 11:36 AM

1.) Windows GDI+ is A LOT faster drawing primitives and non-color-corrected bitmap graphics than Quartz on the Mac. Almost every drawing operation is accelerated by the GPU. That's its only advantage, Quartz is extremely much more advanced in every way. Nevertheless, for usual web browsing you do not need any of the Quartz features, and so Windows browsers will always be faster.

2.) It's true that Safari chokes on some complex web sites. However, the latest development version of WebKit (WebKit Nightly Builds) already works much better on many of these sites.

3.) Firefox is really slow on the Mac (compared to FF/Win), because it's not optimized for the Mac at all. We can hope that this will change someday.

So basically, it's true that Mac OS X is much slower browsing the web due to unoptimized browsers and its use of Quartz. (However, this shouldn't be a real problem if you have a fast Mac, because who really cares if the web browser needs 0.01 or 0.1 seconds to render a web page.)

Dark Helmet · Oct 27, 2006, 01:36 PM

Web seems MUCH faster on my Intel Macs.

Apfhex · Oct 27, 2006, 09:35 PM

Originally Posted by Azzgunther

My experiences on multiple computers, both Mac and Windows, have me believing that OS X is an inferior platform for web-browsing. Myspace is a wreck...about 1 in 8 profiles freezes Safari. Flash-heavy websites are bad...about 1 in 20 freeze the browser and 20/20 slow it down significantly until the website finally finishes loading. ESPN.COM is a wreck...just slow and gummy feeling compared to Windows.

I've visited some sites heavy on flash that ran at slow framrates in Safari on my PowerBook, but nothing like freezing the browser. And on my Mac Pro every website is fast (well, they better be on a machine like this!). ESPN.com is flawless and speedy.

Frankly, some MySpace profiles lockup any web browser you throw at them. Also, I find that MySpace works a lot better with the latest Flip4Mac plugin (on profiles that have videos on them)... the older version had a pretty buggy browser plugin that Safari did NOT like. The profiles that have problems are typically the ones trying to use lots of odd plugins.

Since I also boot Windows from time to time on my MP, using Firefox for browsing, I know what speeds are like compared to OS X on identical hardware and I really don't find it any faster.

I know I'm mostly talking about high end hardware here, but you have a Dual 2.5GHz PMG5 so it seems fair. My point is that I haven't really experienced the general crappiness that you talk about under current software (10.4.x, Safari 2.x, Firefox 1.5-2.0, Flip4mac 2.x, etc). If you can point me to some sites other than ESPN or MySpace I'd be glad to try them out. Everyone has different experiences and I'm not trying to say you haven't had a poor one, but it's my opinion that that's not necessarily the case for most Mac users. Other replies seems to indicate the same.

p.s. I can absolutely tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Pepsi's better.

jamil5454 · Oct 27, 2006, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by Tsilou B.

1.) Windows GDI+ is A LOT faster drawing primitives and non-color-corrected bitmap graphics than Quartz on the Mac. Almost every drawing operation is accelerated by the GPU. That's its only advantage, Quartz is extremely much more advanced in every way. Nevertheless, for usual web browsing you do not need any of the Quartz features, and so Windows browsers will always be faster.

2.) It's true that Safari chokes on some complex web sites. However, the latest development version of WebKit (WebKit Nightly Builds) already works much better on many of these sites.

3.) Firefox is really slow on the Mac (compared to FF/Win), because it's not optimized for the Mac at all. We can hope that this will change someday.

So basically, it's true that Mac OS X is much slower browsing the web due to unoptimized browsers and its use of Quartz. (However, this shouldn't be a real problem if you have a fast Mac, because who really cares if the web browser needs 0.01 or 0.1 seconds to render a web page.)

I'd have to agree with this guy. Firefox 2.0 under XP on my iMac C2D is much more responsive and faster at rendering complex sites than Firefox 2.0 under 10.4.8. However, I've noticed that the new Intel processors help responsiveness under OS X tremendously, probably due mainly to the large L2 cache.

ghporter · Oct 28, 2006, 07:57 AM

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak

What are the things?

The "things" you can do are primarily adjusting a couple of important values that OS X doesn't necessarily set correctly, particularly if you're on a DSL connection. The most crucial one is the MTU or maximum transmission unit, which sets the maximum packet size. DSL's PPPoE connections eat up 8 bytes (at least) of each packet, so the default value of 1500 is too big-but just barely. Any packet that's full will be fragmented, requiring multiple retransmissions and often effectively halving your speed. This gives you some "interesting" slowdowns in some situations, but often just gives you global, "everything is SO SLOW" problems. Changing the MTU to 1492 prevents this, but some DSL connections give an even smaller effective payload, so you may need to experiment.

This Broadband Reports.com FAQ is a great guide for tweaking a Mac to perform better online. I have used the RMAC app mentioned in the FAQ, and it's quite handy.

Note that you may not see any difference, depending on the way your home network and the equipment in it are set up, and a really fast connection can hide mismatches in these settings anyway.

Axel · Oct 28, 2006, 02:20 PM

Originally Posted by Horsepoo!!!

What exactly are you looking for domerdel? A solution to the problem? Our pity? A reaction?

My advice...use the PC if it makes you happier. Excuse me if I'm a little wary of posters with low post counts starting their MacNN forum careers with a negative attitude.

well I would be more wary myself of posters with high post count with defensive attitudes, telling people asking for advice to go back to their PCs

here's the OP's question :

Originally Posted by domerdel

so i'm curious. When leopard comes out, will web applications/web sites run up to speed on MacIntels (and maybe PowerPC processors) ?

On a side note, I'm sure lots of users start their MacNN forum careers with a "negative attitude", since what you call "negative attitude" I call "support seeking".

Chuckit · Oct 28, 2006, 03:07 PM

Asking if Leopard will fix a problem with the OS that does not exist (as far as anyone here can tell) isn't really "support seeking." If he had presented specific pages that were giving him trouble and asked for help with whatever is wrong with his computer, that would have been seeking support. but just going, "Mac is slow! When will it be faster?" What support is that seeking?

SirCastor · Oct 28, 2006, 03:07 PM

my G4 (1.5Ghz 1.25GB Ram) runs like a champ on the web...

Axel · Oct 28, 2006, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Asking if Leopard will fix a problem with the OS that does not exist (as far as anyone here can tell) isn't really "support seeking." If he had presented specific pages that were giving him trouble and asked for help with whatever is wrong with his computer, that would have been seeking support. but just going, "Mac is slow! When will it be faster?" What support is that seeking?

Sorry, I should have made it clearer in the last part of my post that I was not specifically referring to the original poster.
I was only responded to Horsepoo's comment about first posters and "negative attitude" : having a negative attitude on a first post on the boards doesn't shock me since lots of first posts are motivated by a problem that can't be solved by the user. Thus the comments such as "My mac is slow", that some label as "negative attitude".

As for the OP, he mentioned MySpace pages and Flash content. I see no reason for some people jumping on him, asking him if he's looking for pity, and telling him to go back to his PC. That's just rude, but unfortunately quite common on mac forums (not specific fo MacNN, I just saw similar posts on french MacBidouille forums).

GTKpower · Oct 29, 2006, 03:28 AM

Not sure what the issue is.

I've got ESPN.com open now, a video is playing of Red Auerbach, I'm clicking everywhere, opening tabs, etc. Using Safari and everything is running amazingly well. Very smooth. I've got DSL service, currently topping out at about 1.34 down and about 400 up.

I've got Flip4Mac installed as well, all updates to Tiger. Mind you I'm on an imac core duo, but with only 512mb of RAM.

No complaints whatsoever. I've had no problems with Safari so far, and I've been using it along with Camino for about 2 months now.