Apple's Mac OS X 10.3.8 Update--How Fast Is It? (Interim Results)
According to the client Read Me file:
The 10.3.8 Update delivers improved compatibility and reliability for Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther" and is recommended for all users.
Key updates include:
- improved OpenGL technology and updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers
- improved file sharing and directory services for mixed Mac and PC networks
- improved compatibility for third party applications and devices
- previous standalone security updates
The client details contained in this Apple KBase article are:
- network volumes are now available in the Finder sidebar and Desktop for convenient access
- improved file sharing and directory services for Mac (AFP), UNIX (NFS), PC (SMB/CIFS), PPTP, and wireless networks
- improved support for NTFS formatted volumes
- improved reliability of user logins, mounting of home directories in a networked environment, and launch of network applications
- improved PostScript and USB printing
- improved font management
- improved disc burning and recording functionality
- improved Bluetooth compatibility for Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse and Bluetooth phones.
- iPods connected via USB 2.0 are now recognized by iTunes and iSync
- improved Open GL technology and updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers
- updated Address Book, Calculator, Disk Utility, DVD Player, Image Capture, Mail, Preview, Safari, Stickies, and QuickTime applications - improved compatibility for third party applications
- additional support for FireWire and USB devices
- FileVault, FireWire 800 and WebDAV improvements from Update 10.3.1
- previous standalone security updates and Bluetooth Update 1.5.1
Perhaps confusing things, additional client details contained in this other Apple KBase article are:
These are some of the enhancements delivered with the Mac OS X 10.3.8 Update:
- Addresses an issue with Mac OS X 10.3.7 in which iChat, Mail, or other network-based applications could take a long time to open.
- Addresses an issue in which a computer wouldn't always restart automatically after a power failure, even when the Energy Saver preference option "Restart automatically after a power failure" was selected.
- Improves the performance of Blizzard World of Warcraft's "Full Screen Glow" video feature.
- Improves DVD Player compatibility when playing a movie (using certain ATI Radeon cards) to an external widescreen TV with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
- Resolves an issue in which a "flicker" could be seen when navigating DVD menus in DVD Player on certain PowerBook G4 computers.
- Addresses an issue in which a PowerBook G4 computer would, on rare occasion, wake from sleep with a black screen and not respond to any keyboard, mouse, or trackpad input.
- Addresses "jumping cursor" issues that might occur when using your portable computer's trackpad with your thumb, side of thumb, or a "flat" finger.
- Resolves an issue on certain Power Mac G5 computers where a fan cycles erratically at unexpected times, such as when Seti@home software is running.
- Speeds up Address Book and Mail LDAP lookups that are performed by a Cisco DistributedDirector DNS server.
- Addresses an issue that could prevent clients using the Active Directory plugin from binding to their Active Directory server.
According to the server Read Me file:
Key updates include:
- improved reliability of Open Directory replication and PDC authentication
- more reliable binding to Active Directory domains
- improved compatibility for third party applications and devices
- previous standalone security updates
The server details in this Apple KBase article are:
Key updates include:
- improved reliability of AFP, CIFS and NFS file services, and network automounts
- improved Server Admin, Workgroup Manager and Network Image Utility applications
- improved Open Directory scalability and reliability, Active Directory integration and Kerberos support
- updated QuickTime streaming and broadcast services for compatibility with 3G phones
- added support for background rebuilding of RAID mirrors, and network VLAN tagging
- updated to Samba version 3.0.2 and MySQL version 4.0.18
- more reliable Rendezvous registration
- improved PostScript and USB printing
- added Fibre Channel Utility application and multipathing with support for bandwidth aggregation and failover
- additional support for FireWire and USB devices
- improved compatibility for third party applications and devices
- previous standalone security updates
Finally, and just as confusing, there is this set of server details in this other Apple KBase article:
These are some of the enhancements that are part of Mac OS X 10.3.8 Server Update:
- Active Directory Plug-in: Addresses an issue in which some Mac OS X computers would not bind to Active Directory, affecting computers with Mac OS X 10.3.6.
- Password Server: Improved scalability and performance with Password Server and Kerberos in a replicated environment.
- Password Server: Addresses an issue where Password server replicas may not be created properly after migrating your 10.2.8 NetInfo servers to 10.3.X OD master.
- Workgroup Manager: Improved batch editing when assigning admin privileges to users.
But, in any case, the server update includes all of the client updates as well.
So how fast is it? We will post our complete tests later but our preliminary tests indicate that the largest performance improvement is in the ATI and Nvidia OpenGL drivers included with 10.3.8. This is in keeping with the enhancement noted in the client Read Me file above.
We ran Xbench v1.1.3 on a stock 450MHz Power Mac G4 Cube, a 1.5GHz 17" PowerBook G4, a new 1.67GHz 17" PowerBook G4 and a dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 with an upgraded Nvidia 6800 Ultra DDL graphics card. The tests were run on 10.3.7 after performing disk maintenance and again after the Macs were updated to 10.3.8. Here are the results:
|
Mac
|
10.3.7
|
10.3.8
|
% Improvement
|
|
450MHz G4 Cube
|
81
|
81
|
0
|
|
1.5GHz 17" PBG4
|
116
|
127
|
+9
|
|
1.67GHz 17" PBG4
|
139
|
141
|
+1
|
|
Dual 2.5 GHz PMG5
|
178
|
197
|
+11
|
The interim results are that Mac OS X 10.3.8 improved OpenGL performance in the last generation 1.5GHz PowerBook G4 and the latest generation dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 according to the Xbench 1.1.3 application. The improvement is on the order of ten per cent. The G4 Cube has an older ATI Rage 128 Pro graphics card and its performance was not improved. The new 1.67GHz 17" PowerBook G4 received on Monday of this week shipped with a late version of Mac OS X 10.3.7 that probably already included the new drivers because its OpenGL performance was not substantially improved either.
The interim results are in keeping with the first enhancement listed in the Mac OS X 10.3.8 client Read Me file. [Bill Fox]
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