Every
time that Apple updated their OS, it required more RAM and a faster
processor. Then came Mac OS X. Version 10.0 ran slowly on
anything.
OS X 10.1 was a big improvement over that, including many
features (such as CD burning and the ability to play DVDs) that
were missing from 10.0.
When Apple started marketing OS X by codename, Jaguar (10.2) was
another step up in terms of performance. It lived up to its
promises - on the 15" PowerBook
G4/400 I had at the time, it ran significantly faster than 10.1
had - and that was with just the basic 128 MB of RAM that came with
the machine. Of course, it ran much better on my 12" PowerBook G4/867 with 256 MB of
RAM.
Then came 10.3 (Panther). It ran decently on the 12" PowerBook
G4, but with only 256 MB of RAM, some applications would struggle.
When I upgraded from Office v. X to Office 2004, I noticed a
significant performance drop. While Office 2004 had some great
features that (these days) I'd struggle to live without, it
certainly seemed to like using up my RAM.
While OS X doesn't give "out of memory" errors like the classic
Mac OS used to, you can tell when it's out of physical memory by
the performance - or lack thereof.
I held off on Tiger (OS X 10.4) for a while. Panther's a great
operating system, and all of the software that I use runs just fine
on it. However, the convenience of the dashboard on my Power Mac G5
(see Moving Up from a 15" 350 MHz Power Mac G3
to a Dual 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5 for that story) got to me, so I
decided it was time to upgrade my PowerBook as well.
It really wasn't a big deal. Installing Tiger was like
installing any other version of OS X, and pretty soon the
machine was up and running again. I eagerly clicked on the
dashboard - and waited - and waited - while the hard drive made all
sorts of noise. Finally the default widgets jerked into view on the
screen.
I added a couple others, and waited for them to be updated
online. I must've waited about 5 minutes, and nothing had happened!
I clicked the dashboard off and on a few times . . . and
finally one at a time they started updating themselves with the
current weather and time.
Tiger might as well have been called "Tortoise" on this
PowerBook. Doing anything - even opening iTunes - was painfully
slow. Firefox would run out of RAM and crash several times in an
hour. iPhoto would start failing whenever I asked it to do a
slideshow.
It was beyond ridiculous, it was unusable. 10.4 seemed to mark
the end of OS X getting faster with each revision. Sure, Tiger
might be faster - but only on the newest hardware.
I then figured that while 256 MB had been adequate for previous
versions of OS X, even the Mac mini comes with 512 MB these
days. There's no reason why my PowerBook shouldn't have at least
that much, so I picked up a 512 MB upgrade and installed it,
bringing total RAM to 640 MB (128 MB is built-in).
The performance increase was dramatic. For the first time in the
two years that I've had this machine, it's actually been quick -
faster than it ever was with 10.2 or 10.3.
Okay, it doesn't boot up as fast as the G5, but Firefox launches
quickly, iTunes doesn't give me any more trouble, QuickTime and
Windows Media videos play without a problem, and the dashboard even
works as it's supposed to (though it seems the ripple effect
doesn't work on G4s). I installed iPhoto 5, and it's currently
updating my photo library as I type this and listen to music in
iTunes.
Just as a quick test I typed a search in Spotlight. I was
curious to see how quickly the machine would find the original file
for "The Accolade" by Symphony X. It took about 3 seconds.
The fact that it seems to be able to perform basic tasks quickly
and efficiently shows me that it's not so much the OS by itself,
but the additional applications that slow the machine down. If I
were still running the exact same applications as I had been two
years ago when I bought the machine (and there are a few I still
use), I would probably have very few problems with performance. For
a PowerBook, 867 MHz shouldn't be a speed slouch - and it's not
with a decent amount of RAM.
Is Tiger actually faster than Panther and Jaguar, or is this the
end of OS X getting faster with every new version?
Since I've never run Jaguar or Panther on this machine while it
had 640 MB of RAM installed, I'll never know for sure.
