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[Roman78]

I hope i won't get banned for this 

But i used OS 9 not that much. The first Apple i ever bought was a used PowerMac 9200, but moved very quickly to a used G3 whit 10.3 on it. After that time i used OS9 rarely for some older games. Lately i had a G3 Beige running at 433 Mhz and OS9 runs well, for only 433 Mhz. Than that one broke and i went on to a G4-AGP at 450 Mhz. Also tested A quicksilver at 866 Mhz. Astonishing was that there is no big difference. Now i installed it on a 1.5 Ghz Mac Mini. This one should be at least 3 times faster than the G3. But i don't feel any big difference,

Booting time on the mini takes 55 seconds. Even whit memory test disabled. Than the feel of it is quite slow when doing stuff on the OS itself. Running programs are fast, games or software like Photoshop and QXP runs much faster on the Mini. Only the OS itself, like when copying or even opening folders. OSX 10.4 feels much faster.

Now i compare it a little whit Windows 98, because of the same time frame. When running W98 on a Pentium 2 at 433 Mhz it feels much faster. But than, when running it on a Pentium III-S @ 1.5 Ghz it fly's like a rocket.

Can someone explain why? Do i have to optimize something?

[darthnVader]

I suspect, the GUI is better optimized for the G3. My 750FX G3 600 Mhz seems much faster than any of my G4's as far as just the feel of the system, opening and closing Finder windows, things of the nature.

However, the G4's are faster running any real world apps.

[IIO]

my OS9 on the macminis does not feel slow at all. it is at least as fast as on the QS933/GF4MX.

the two main issues which cause waiting time (the actual drawing should not be a problem) in classic are - in my experience/opinion:

 - the harddisk (anything older than 10 years should be replaced with something better)

 - the amount of files on the disk(s)

 - an activated file size calculation for finder windows

 - activated appearance soundsets (i like the OS9 sounds, but mine are off since ever)

 - on very old machines, watch out that background pictures are not too big (i.e. properly compressed)

and then, of course, the screen size: a colored imac will feel as fast as a G4 with a 2k monitor because the GPU has only a third of the work to do. i know that you know this, but somehow i think you missed something like that in your comparison.

what i currently dont understand is that the mouse speed on the mini seems to differ from my other computers. same usboverdrive settings, same mouse, but seems to be a bit slower.

[Roman78]

You say it is at least as fast as your QS933. Well i feel the same whit the QS866 i tested. But the QS is not much faster than the G3 433. And that had an old 60 GB hard disk. So i assume what darthnVader said, OS9 is running better on a G3.

The amount of files. Its an new installed system. I made 2 Partitions one for the OS and one for data. The OS partition is about 20 gig and the Data is 60. I still have the default 80 Gig Harddisk inside. I could switch whit that one from the Intel mini because i planned to change that to a 500 gb Raptor. On the G4 i had problem whit to big hard disk, once i installed a 500 Gig and i had lost of freezes. Maybe a SCSI-device would do better. I could make a Test on one of my G4's. Still have some SCSI cards here.

What is an activated file size Calculation and how can i disable it?

Are the sound not only warning sounds. Who needs sounds anyway

And who needs background pictures. Well indeed, this is an issue whit a lot older operating systems. I still have the default as background. But gonna remove it asap.

The last years i always had the OS9 machine onto a 20" Dell monitor running 1600x1200 (this is great monitor for playing old games at 800x600).  Also the G3 whit its 4Meg card was connected to that screen and made the 1600x1200 öööhhhh but i think not at 32-bits. Hmmmmm

And that whit the mouse I also noticed. First thing after a new installation is to set the speed higher. And sometimes the mouse does not even work after a warm reboot.  But hey... OS9 is not able to run on the Mini... they said...

[IIO]

But the QS is not much faster than the G3 433.

weird.

The OS partition is about 20 gig and the Data is 60.

when i said "many files" i was more thinking of 4 terabytes, 5 million files, and then you open a folder with 2500 files inside. this is much slower on OS9 compared to OSX.

calculating the file size is present and opt-out for the list view of folders. [command-J], just as in OSX. select "...to all folders" and turn it off.

once i installed a 500 Gig and i had lost of freezes. Maybe a SCSI-device would do better.

SCSI 3 and/or SAS is not a solution for MacOS8 or later. and everything older than that is slower than IDE.

this here would be the best you can get

http://www.welovemacs.com/29160.html

it requires the 64-bit slot of an MDD. people used those with the 73Gb 10k rpm raptors for video. but note that this is parallel scsi, that means around 75 mb/s per disk if you have two. and no proper panther and leo support.

the latest generation of IDE disks are 1. almost quiet and 2. about 2 times faster than the 20-80 gb disks the quicksilvers originally came with.

for more storage you should add SATA 150 via PCI and get SATA 300 disks for it.
up to 2000 mb per disk, up to 500 per volume. around 100mb/s when you copy between them. minor issues with sleep when you have bad luck, but otherwise the best upgrade you can give to your "audio" PPC.

right, if you have 4 mb video buffer you should not use any bg image but on a G4 its no problem.

[IIO]

btw, worst thing you can do is putting aliases to all your HDs into the apple menu. then the machine takes 5 minutes to boot.

[Roman78]

nah.. i won't buy hardware. I have enough.. i could open a shop 

I have a sata-Pci card somewhere. Had it once in my QS. But i am reducing machines and space, so the Mini is the machine i want to use. So i'm stuck whit the ATA-100  USB 1.1 and ooohhh Firewire 400

But it is only for some retro feeling. Older software and games. Next to it is an Intel Mini whit 10.4.11 installed. Eventually the 500gb Raptor is arriving today. And a ThinClient whit windows98 installed, also for older games and software.

Oh and also the power consumption of those mini computers is very low compared normal ones. Such a mac mini uses 17-40 watt and the thin client 11-20 watt. My QS whit dual 1.6 uses 110-150 watt. Not to mention the G5 i have here....

[macStuff]

trust me its something in your combination of hardware + software
we should do a thread on the fastest booting os9 computer boot time
as a competition..
 i guarantee you some people have thier setups dialed to the "9's" (pardon the pun)

an on going argumentn/debate on the site here
re" the "Specific" versions of os9.22

i personally hold the belief that apple customized/tweaked each and every seperate bundled version of os9.22 that
came with their machines, and if you use the wrong version on the wrong computer it causes, bugs, wierdness, slow boot times etc
mactron doesnt believe that of course.

i vote that we do a thread on fastest booting os9 computer!
who seconds my idea?

[IIO]

hm, strom preise sind für uns europäer immer ein thema. dass nachts 2 desktops zum runterladen und rendern laufen hab ich schon lange abgeschafft.

i still wonder what that could be what gives you the experience that things like opening and closing folders would be slow, or slower than on a G3.

i would not even be able to tell if closing a window on my OS9 mac minis would take 10 or 12 milliseconds. you click it, and it is gone...

[Roman78]

Yeah.. benchmark thread... Mine is bigger  Is using an SSD cheating?

Well, i not feel the G4 is slower than the G3. But it is not faster. They feel equal. And that is something strange. A PC that is 4 times faster does not feel faster. It is just feels like Java, slow on every machine. Generally OS9 feels slow. Also had a 200Mhz Umax, and compared that to a G3 is not much slower.

But my 500 Gig Raptor game yesterday. So i installed that in the Intel Mini running 10.4. This gave a Boost from 55Mb/s to over 120Mb/s. So I moved that original 120GB 5400RPM hard disk from the Intel to the G4 to replace the 80Gb 4200RPM.  Yellow is the old hard disk and red the new one.

[IIO]

in between i wonder if we are talking about the same thing at all.

if i compare OS9 (on a 933) with windows 7 (on a core2duo 2660) and an OSX 10.7.5 (on a n Xserve 8x2000) Xeon, OS9 is by far the fastest with literally no waiting time for most of the tasks you can do in the finder, navigation services, open/load stuff and so on.

and my windows machein and the Xservee are clean and fresh, while my OS machines are fully loaded with a dozens of harddrives, milliones of files, and two dozen system extension (such as solid window dragging) which should decrease the performance even more)

what are the specific tasks you feel that are slow?

[Roman78]

I just feel the other way around. I feel that OS9 by far is the slowest. Just doing stuff in the finder, like moving or copying files, or simply dragging or just selecting windows. Sometimes i cant select a windows, it feels like if the finder is collecting information about the files and in between you can do nothing. I could make a video about what i mean.

[IIO]

well, copying files is another story - but yes, i would be interested in examples, videos, pictures. we can always from that.

the hangs you describe when opening a folder or selecting a window is something which should normally not appear.

[IIO]

mac mini 1,42

opening 200 empty folder, fullscreen at 1920*1200, with zoom rect on: 24 seconds

opening 200 empty folders, small default window (icon view), with zoom rect off: 4 seconds

closing 200 windows: 0 seconds

switching between windows when 1600 windows are open: 0 seconds

copying 200 emtpy folders within the same folder (so that you get 400): less than 1 second

copying 1600 folders (so that you get 3200): 5 seconds

copying 6400 folders (so that you get 12800): more than 2 minutes

moving 3200 folders to another location (incl the trash): 4 seconds

opening the get info dialog of 200 folders: 33 seconds

opening the get info dialog of 200 folders with zoom rect off: 15 seconds

closing the get info dialog of 200 folders: 2 seconds

[Roman78]

Do you have scripts or benchmark tools for that tests?

[IIO]

a script would probably slow down the drawing for 1000%

just use a stopwatch...

[Roman78]

I'm not that familiar whit os9. How do i open 200 windows at once and close those again.

First of all, hoe do i make 200 Folders quickly?

[IIO]

both OSX and OS9 support controlling the finder functions almost exclusively with keyboard commands - many people dont know this, and of course it is also a matter of taste, but if you get used to it you can win every speed contest.

try this on your desktop:

command-N
command-O
command-N
command-D (9 times)
command-A
command-D (9 times)
command-A
command-D (9 times)

you now have 1000 folders inside a main folder.

now let´s open their windows:

command-A
command-arrown-down

close them again:

command & ALT - W

what you see here is the one-folder-one-window paradigm of MacOS. some of us just love it, it feels more like browing the actual thing and not only links like on other OS.

but the best part in real world browsing is navigating through subfolders in list view.

[MacTron]

we should do a thread on the fastest booting os9 computer boot time
as a competition..
...
i vote that we do a thread on fastest booting os9 computer!
who seconds my idea?

Good idea:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,4421.0.html