Mac OS X 10.1.5--How Fast Is It?

As frequent readers know, we have been benchmarking the speed of Mac OS X versions since version 10.0 was released a year ago last March. The reason for doing so is that 10.0's slowness (Finder operations, 2D graphics generally and 3D graphics with some "older" graphics chip sets) was the most universal complaint about Mac OS X. While some minor speed improvements accompanied some of the 10.0.x updates, it was not until version 10.1 that the Finder's performance was brought up to a minimally adequate level. The performance issues with 2D graphics generally and 3D graphics on chips prior to the ATI Rage 128 Pro remained. The 10.1.x updates through 10.1.4 have not significantly addressed the remaining performance issues and may even have lost some speed in startup. In his keynote address at last month's Apple Worldwide Developer Conference 2002, Steve Jobs promised that the next major release of Mac OS X, code-named "Jaguar", would address 2D speed but how about 10.1.5?

Our test computer has been a Power Mac G4 Cube with a Rage 128 Pro video card. The only physical change has been an increase in RAM from the initial 384MB. We added a 512MB chip before the 10.1.3 results which could have affected startup time if there is a RAM check. We conducted the tests with all networking ports closed, AppleTalk off and the ethernet cable disconnected to avoid delays associated with networking at startup. The time to complete each action was recorded three times and the average, rounded to the nearest full second, is reported.

Here are the results from Mac OS X versions 10.0.4 through 10.1.5:

Mac OS X Actions on a 450 MHz G4 Cube (Average Times in Full Seconds)

Action	10.0.4	10.1	10.1.1	10.1.2	10.1.3	10.1.4	10.1.5
Startup Chime to Login	96	68	60	59	75	71	79
Login to Desktop	20	9	11	12	18	20	19
Shutdown	-	4	4	3	4	6	5
Classic Mode	40	46	46	46	46	44	43
Netscape 4.77-4.79	4	2	2	2	2	2	3
AppleWorks 6.1-6.2.4	6	2	1	1	1	1	2
IE 5.1-5.1.4	9	2	2	2	2	2	3
OmniWeb 4.0-4.0.6	10	3	4	4	4	4	4
System Preferences	3	1	1	1	1	1	2
Scroll in Acrobat 5	69	82	86	87	82	73	71
Let1kWindowsBloom	-	-	61	62	57	58	57

The only significant difference is in startup time. Version 10.1.5 is clearly slower to start up on our Cube than its predecessor but only by about 11 percent. Since we rarely restart or cold start anymore, the small difference doesn't matter much. However, we'd be pretty unhappy if the total startup time increased to the 2 minutes of the 10.0.x versions. Curiously, most applications took a fraction of a second longer to launch after being consistent since 10.1.

According to the Read Me file, version 10.1.5 provided improved 2D and QuickTime drivers for the ATI Rage Pro graphics chip set but we do not have a card to test. Perhaps some readers will comment.

Our experience with Mac OS X 10.1.5 has been mixed. This version fixed a major problem that we had accessing shared volumes or drives on a Windows NT 4.0 network. Prior to 10.1.5, if we tried to access a file that was two or more folders deep on a Windows NT share, frequently the Finder would quit or the Mac would freeze. We can access all files and folders in 10.1.5. However, we now have a problem "seeing" other Macs that are also running 10.1.5 on the same Windows NT network in the Go/Connect to Server window. If we manually enter their IP address we have no problem connecting and Macs running other Mac OS versions do show up.

-- Weekend, June 15-16 --