Looking at platforms objectively [X4U]

[Zane H. Healy]

> > When I finally moved from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X 10.2 on my G4/450 AGP 
> 
> A friend of mine has almost the same hardware (400 MHz G4). On it the GUI
> feels much smoother. The limiting factor for window management on low-end
> hardware doesn't seem to be the CPU which is fast enough in most cases, but
> shuffling RAM contents, because all the window buffering (unless you have
> Quartz Extreme) happens in RAM, and that causes a lot of IO. Now my iBook is
> terrible in this respect with its 66 MHz bus.

This is why I upgraded the video card at the same time, so I could run
Quartz Extreme.  IIRC, this wan't much of an issue prior to 10.2, and I only
ran releases prior to 10.2 for testing.

> > Though at least one graphically and CPU intensive app that ran just fine 
> > under Mac OS 9 didn't under Mac OS X, I took this to be more of an issue 
> > with the differences between 9's cooperative multitasking and 10's 
> > preimptive multitasking.
> 
> If pre OS X apps break under Classic, then it's usually a matter of direct
> hardware calls. OS X's Classic environment doesn't allow that.
> 
> If pre OS X apps don't run native under OS X they have not been
> "carbonized", where Carbon is an API similar to that of the old Mac OS but
> some system calls are differently. Developers had to replace some of their
> system calls with new version to make older apps run natively (or relatively
> so) under OS X.

It was a "carbonized" app.  It was largely a case of not getting enough CPU
cycles once I switched to Mac OS X.  That's where the whole bit about 
Mac OS 9's cooperative mutlitasking comes into play.  It let the app behave
"badly" and get more CPU time.

> > No, I mean VNC.
> 
> But the problem with VNC is almost always limited to network bandwidth from
> my practical experience and also theoretical understanding, not OS
> performance or RAM or CPU? Even my lowly 500 MHz G3 iBook handles VNC well
> as good as the connection (modem to Ethernet) permits.
> 
> What's your scenario where you expect VNC to improve on intel hardware? When
> you compared VNC on WinXP and the Mac, connecting to a remote Linux box, did
> you have the same network connection? And were you using the same VNC server
> and settings on the Linux box?

I've tried connecting to a Linux box at home from WinXP and Mac OS X, even
with the WinXP being the slower system, it still beats Mac OS X VNC
performance hands down.  This is on switched 100Mbit ethernet.  When I last
messed with this, I even tried using multiple different VNC clients on the
Mac.  If I am in fact doing something wrong, I'd love to know what.

Once I upgraded my system to a G5 2x2, MS RDC performance became "good"
enough to be usable, but it's nothing compared to what I get from a *much*
slower WinXP system.  Though in the case of RDC/WTS it might be an more an
issue of how it works on Windows, I don't know.  I've a bit more knowledge
of VNC than I do of RDC/WTS.

Basically I stand by my statements, for me, on a much slower WinXP system
using VNC or RDC/WTS is just like being on the local box.  This is on
switched 100Mbit.  On a 768k DSL line, going through VPN, VNC and RDC/WTS
are about as fast as Mac OS X is with a 100Mbit switched connection.

		Zane