[CS-FSLUG] Macs and Memory

[Timothy Butler]

> I was using Audacity the other day on my Mini, and I was disappointed
> to see that the line that tracks progress as the song is playing was
> lagging behind and then speeding up afterwards to catch up, and this
> was happening somewhere around once a second. I remember Tim saying
> that OS X is an OS that's designed around multi-threading, but I
> can't help feeling that this issue is mainly due to the graphics
> being underpowered or the driver for the graphics not being
> optimized. I had a look at other macs and to my disappointment if I
> want something with more than 64MB of graphics memory, and preferably
> something with discrete graphics I would have to go with at least an
> iMac model which is unacceptable. Do any of you others in this list

	iMacs are pretty nice machines. Why not one of those?

> have an Intel Mac with 64MB of memory on an on-board graphics chipset?

	No. But, I've been pleased with the ones I've worked with.

> What I'd really like to know is if I got a core duo mini, would I get
> rid of that second delay every time I scroll, pause for a fraction of
> a second, and then scroll again in iPhoto?

	Depends on how many photos you have. My photos run mostly smooth on  
my Dual G5 @ 2.7 GHz with 1.5 GB of ram and 256 meg video card. But,  
I'm scrolling through 27,000+ photos, so obviously I'm demanding a  
lot. Any Mac should scroll through a small library without trouble.

> Would FireFox allow me to
> scroll down on web pages that have flash or video content without the
> motion being slow and jagged (such as http://www.apple.com/macosx)?

	I think so, but I don't use Firefox usually, so I'm not sure.

> Would Audacity be able to keep up to the music playback when I'm
> zooming in on a section of music? Has anyone tried photoshop on a


	I don't know. Have you tried GarageBand? Native GTK is coming, but  
in the mean time, optimizations are somewhat lacking.

>
> core solo/duo Mac Mini with ~1GB of ram, and how responsive was the
> software? Would third party apps run in OS X without bogging down to
> the point of always giving me jagged motion.

	Expect Photoshop to be usable but slow on any Intel Mac, until you  
move into the Mac Pro range. Photoshop is never speedy, and running  
via Rosetta doesn't help. I can't really say about the upcoming CS3,  
but I expect that to be faster since it will share processor  
optimizations with the Windows version.

> I was on Digg the other day and when I wanted to look at someone's
> flash mockup of what Digg would look like in 3D my mini couldn't
> handle it, the motion was jagged and the thing seemed like it was
> ready to barf on me in Safari and Camino. FireFox can't run without
> lagging and giving me jagged motion when I'm scrolling as soon as
> there's the slightest bit flash or video content in a page, so how
> can this thing even be considered a decent internet and word-
> processing machine?
>
> I'd really like to decide now whether to invest in another Mac, and
> if so which one. Don't get me wrong, the design is wonderful and the
> computer is beautiful, but for the performance this thing is giving
> me is worth about half what I paid for it.

	I don't know, I've never seen a Core Solo machine in action. As I've  
said though, I was always suspicious of the Solo, and I suspect Apple  
only released it to hold the price down at the time. They dumped it  
fairly quickly. The Core Solo is slow because Intel's new method is  
putting two slower processors together rather than one faster one  
(AMD's technique too, of course). The Solo was 1/2 of the new way of  
doing things. (That's why I strongly recommended to you to wait a  
week or two and buy the Duo that replaced the Solo.) While the Core/ 
Pentium M line was based on the more efficient Pentium III rather  
than the less efficient Pentium 4, a 1.5 GHz single core is just  
rather puny compared to a 3.0 GHz system.

	Core 2 Duos win out in multiple ways: (1) new architecture, (2) dual  
cores, (3) higher clock speeds.


> I'd like to know if there
> is a headless Mac out there that would give me the kind of
> performance I'm looking for. I want something that'll handle FireFox
> showing me pages with flash and video content without scrolling
> jaggedly, that'll run iPhoto the way I see Steve jobs running in it
> his keynotes, without annoying delays when scrolling or resizing the
> images. I don't want a screen attached because I've already got a
> nice Samsung 940BW monitor and a KVM switch so I can use it with my
> Mac and PC.

	If you want a really performance oriented Macs, and you don't want  
to do an iMac (which is sort of middle of the road), you're going to  
need to go for a Mac Pro, which starts around $2,000.

>
> If someone could refer me to that Christian Mac Mailing list that
> would be good too, in fact you have my permission to forward this e-
> mail over, just tell them to write me back directly because I'm not
> subscribed to their list.

http://www.cmug.org/MacMin.html

> PS. If I do get a faster Mac, will these performance issues crop up
> again with the next release of OS X? I got the impression that was
> the case since Tim was saying that with the addition of dashboard the
> minimum ram requirements jumped up with Tiger. I'd like to get a Mac
> that performs well even with graphical apps for at least a whole two
> and a half year run.

	Not likely, but only Apple knows that for sure. What I can say is  
that it wasn't Dashboard, but Spotlight that upped the ram  
requirements. Since md_import runs in the background and is often  
indexing files (when they are modified -- unlike most indexers it  
doesn't index files other than when the file i/o system has notified  
it that the file has been modified), it bumps up the requirements.

> If Macs can't do that, and I just got the wrong impression from Job's
> keynote presentations then please just tell me that Macs aren't for  
> me.

	Well, my PowerBook 1.33 GHz performs just fine for light graphical  
work and has since Spring '04. My PowerMac should be able to go even  
longer. But, like any computer, if you buy the very base model, you  
can't expect it to perform great and for a long period of time (and  
IMO, the Core Solo never should have been sold at all, just from what  
I could gather without seeing one).

	If you want a computer that's going to go for a long time, buy a  
good one. Unfortunately, if you want a Mac without a built in  
display, you have to choose either low end or high end. For you, high  
end makes sense if you are willing to pony up the bucks for it.


	Obviously, the graphics rich Mac OS X interface is not going to beat  
the same hardware running IceWM or something like that. But, I find  
my Macs just as responsive as anything else I use (Windows XP systems  
I admin, for example). My G5 is at least as snappy as the Athlon 64  
X2 I just installed at church.

	You know, Nathan, you might try buying a used PowerMac G5 on eBay as  
an alternative option. It isn't as nice as the new Mac Pros, but you  
should get a decent amount of time out of it. Though I may replace  
mine sooner rather than later, from most standpoints, the G5 is still  
a monster.

	-Tim


---
Timothy R. Butler | "Bad is so bad, that we cannot but think good
Editor, OfB.biz   | an accident;  good is so  good, that  we feel
tbutler at ofb.biz   | certain that evil could be explained."
timothybutler.us  |                           -- G. K. Chesterton