OS X Problems... still

[fishbonex]

I tell ya, I thought I was satisifed, but I am frustrated beyond belief again.

OS X, is NOT for everyone. I am a Mac evangelist, and I can see the advantages OS X has for most. If you have a newer machine, or just use it to read email, it's a great OS. But as for me, and I am sure a silent group of others like me, this OS X blows to try to do ANY productive amount of work on.

All of my complaints were made months ago, but I will breifly repeat them again. I fixed some of the speed probs by upgrading my video card to a Radeon 9000. But it did not fix everything.

Drag and drop: this is a vital proceedure in the way I work, but I can no longer simply drag a eps file onto a photoshop icon to open, or a jpg, gif or pdf file for that matter. Having to File/Open every single document I want to work on is a MAJOR hassle. Ever want to open more than 1 image at a time, from random places? I hope not, cuz you can't do it anymore.

Speed: working within my big 3, Photoshop, ImageReady and Dreamweaver is really slow. Simple operations, like "new document", "layer styles" or even "new layer" take seconds longer. If anybody reads that and says "seconds? Get over it" then you obviously do not work in graphics for a living.

Snapshots: useless as PDFs going to my desktop. Why? I use a LOT of snapshots the way I work, and all of them collecting on my desktop as random PDFs sucks. And since I can't drag and drop them, it's again a slow, tedious process.

I am running a G4 with 400MHz and 832MB of memory, I wish, really wish, there was some kind of warning to those of us with older machines not to upgrade cuz of speed issues. Instead, all this OS X love festing has put me in a bad situation trying to work. I wish I had never upgraded, I use a similar G4 (minues the upgraded video card) at work everyday with OS 9 installed. Sure, it crashes WAY too often (OS X NEVER crashes), but stability isn't everything when your freelancing at home on a project and it'sd taking forever to do simple projects. OS 9 is way faster on G4's configured like mine and way easier to use.

If anybody has real answers, let me hear them. Not BS answers like "get over it" or "works fine to me". If you do not understand why I am complaining abou these subjects, you either have a newer machine that OS X was MEANT for (as opposed to Apple letting us all move to it without warning) or you do not require to work at hi-speeds under daily deadlines such as I do. I love Apple, and understand OS X is better. But it ISN'T a better option for everybody. OS 9 is way better if you have an older machine and you want to work productivley.

[Cat]

Well, then you seem to have two options:
1) Go back to 9
2) Upgrade your hardware

Since 3) "put up with it" can't be done, I suggest one of the others. If you have the money, I think 2) is the best option, since minor OS speed tweaks will not resolve your problems. Maybe one of the new rumored PowerMacs can satisfy you ...

However, are you sure your installation is OK? The drag'n drop issue seems wierd to me ... I'm running 10.2.6 and can drag'n drop normally, both to app icons on the desktop as well as in the dock ... Maybe you should check whether your OS installation is OK and your other software is well configured and up to date.

Alas, I have no other suggestions you might want to hear ...

[Giaguara]

Drag and drop every item to Photoshop icon to open them? You can open them multiply from the menus "open" or with apple-o in Photoshop, you don't need to drag and drop everything.

OS 9 is faster on a 400 mhz machine. So you would be able to work faster with it. It is faster even on mine, i just decided not to use it at all.

I use Kunvert to change the snapshot format. it opens the file, saves it to .jpg (or what you like) and deletes the original, and closes the program when it's ready.

What can i say? OS 9 is faster on your machine. It will probably be more productive for you.

[Urbansory]

I have the same machine, and my work flow has not dropped to far below that of X. Like I always say, 9 crashed more often cutting down the workflow and fixing the problems with 9 took time as well. Considering the lost time and frustration, I get more work done, some actions aren't as fast, but a few seconds don't bother me too much. I rarely had my 9 system up for a week without a crash, I recalled days of constant crashes, try to execute something, CRASH or a damn system freeze. I miss the speed, but it's merely a few seconds and i do mean few.

[fishbonex]

I know OS 9 is faster on my machine, that's my point. I never read anywhere before upgrading, and I waited until last summer before making the jump, that there were any type of speed/performance related issues. All I heard was how marvelous it is and "what was I waiting for"?

I know how good it is. I know how good it looks. I know how stable it is. I love the networking abilities. But I hate how all my programs run on it. I hate the loss of simple functionality. I know I don't HAVE to drag and drop every file in photoshop, I just prefer to open them that way becasue it's faster. Using the "open" command in the menu, as I stated, is not helpful. It's sluggish, and it doesn't help when you want to open 3 items that are in 3 spots. Double clicking on a file is preferable of course on single files, but that's not what I'm complaining about.

Snapshot PDFs are fine, I've grown accustomed to them. I just wish they woudl get saved somewhere else than on my desktop. But I will give that program a shot, see how it works.

I would estimate the lags in performance times is at least 25% on simple proceedures. New layers should be instantanious, as should delting layers, creating new documents, file/opening, etc. This all adds up when you work on teh machine for a living 10-12 hours a day.

I don't have the cash to drop a couple of G's on a new machine, this one was fine. I really would rather not move back to OS 9 in order to be able to make a living on my machine again, but I don't see any other solutions here to the problem. I am running OS X 10.2.6, have all of the X software updates and after those purchases, I am not too happy about having to go back to 9. I don't know about you, but another couple of thousand dollars is a big deal in my life and I already dropped over a grand on X related updates.

[dlloyd]

Oh quit whining!
There are articles all over which state quite clearly: OS X isn't as fast as OS 9 on a comparible machine.
For most of us, however, the slight performance hit is more than made up for in the stability and ease of use that it has over OS 9.
I must say though, it seems like your OS it quite messed up. For most people (including me) drag-and-drop works fine.
Now think about this: does the slowdown, while annoying, actually cause you to lose more time than the crashes and incompatibilities of OS 9 did?
If you can't use OS X nicely on your computer, either cough up and buy a new one, or go back into OS 9 until you can. One other option would be for you to buy a processor upgrade card. That wouldn't be as expensive as a new computer, but it would give you a big performance boost.
In short, don't come trolling around this forum complaining because OS X is a little slower then OS 9 on a very border-line machine for it anyway.

[serpicolugnut]

If you had read the slightest bit of OS X related info before you upgraded you would have heard the warnings that while OS X will run on your system, don't expect stellar speed.

If you don't have the cash to drop on a new Mac, then drop back to 9 or live with the speed of X on your machine. There is really no simple, cheap solution to better performance. Additional RAM might help a bit (probably reduce the spinning beach ball frequency), but it will not "speed up" the feel of the OS.

A processor upgrade card will speed some things up, but since your video card is 16MB (and not AGP, if you have a Yikes! mobo), you will not benefit from Quartz Extreme, which goes a long way towards making the OS feel more responsive...

The G4/400 could still yield around $700 or so on eBay. Unload it and apply that money to a new Mac.

[fishbonex]

Oh please, don't insult me with "you should have researched it" crap. If somebody point me to a single article pointing out OS X speed issues with APS, DWM, AI, etc., dated a year ago or so (before the fevor had died down). I read a TON of stuff, I stated I waited a whole year before even making the jump because I WAS reading and reading about it. Also, as my post had stated, I took the step to upgrade my old crap video card to a Radeon 9000. It made it more responsive, sure. But not enough to make up for the lag. My machine is my job, and it pays bills for me. I take screwing around with the inside of it very seriously.

And you can toss that crap out the window trying to paint a picture of me being "a troll". I have been on this board a while now (I registered on about 2 months after you), I don't post much, I just read what I want. Message board games are not my bag.

I don't know about you, but I may have crashed occasionally on 9, but I can't fathom how anybody could crash SO much that the slower speed adding a friggin layer effect to a 12Mb PSD file would be worth it. If you're machine WAS crashing that often, then there was serious problems besides the simple OS.

And thanks for the "just cough up the dough" advice! I never thought about that! Forget the mortgage payment, the car payments, the 1k + I spent upgrading software and the video card to work properly on OS X, it's a borderline machine anyways!

Sure my post is bitching, but you're way off base trying to paint a picture of me being some kind of PC troll fishing for a fight or a naive child jumping on the OS X bandwagon. I have been using MACs professionally for a decade now, have owned 5 different machines and know my way around the guts of the box. I know I'm not alone in my feelings and bitches (the moderator of another OS X board has similar gripes) and I am certainly justified in complaining about the problems which have no answer besides "buy a new machine".