Shocked? Maybe you didn't think Microsoft could pull it off this many months after the release of the universally despised Vista. Maybe you thought they were just going to release a luke warm pile of crap for a service pack and expect us all to eat it with a spoon. Heh. Just kidding. (Computerworld)
From the article: The Vista RTM was not updated with any of the bug fixes, patches or performance packs that Microsoft has pushed through Windows Update since the operating system's debut.
"One gigabyte, 2GB [of memory], it didn't make a difference," said Barth. "SP1 was never more than 1% or 2% faster."
I've not tried Vista. I see no improvements in SP1 that are going to be worth my time. I'm experimenting with Ubuntu, Mandriva, and other Linux distributions as a way to kill time before OS X (10.5) or XI or whatever is available for the Intel platforms without toooo many bugs.
I'm currently wrestling with a firmware corruption that Mandriva gave me on my laptop's wireless device (Centrino)and that should just be a prison sentence for whomever wrote that code. But Linux works - most of the time - for doing what I want to do.
I just want an Operating System that doesn't take all day to load, and won't run like syrup poured on the hard drive when it's booted. I want an Operating System that doesn't make me configure stuff just to get it working - it should know how to configure itself to my hardware. Is that too much to ask?
Evidently.
6 comments:
"One gigabyte, 2GB [of memory], it didn't make a difference,"
That's not good!!!
My hope was that SP1 would make this OS at least serviceable. But after years in the making, and a lack luster SP1, Vista could be one of Microsoft's biggest flops.
Well, bring on Leopard.
One question that I do have is if and when Leopard is available for the PC, will it not run on AMD machines? If not, I may have to get a different laptop.
I for one think these guys are cracked. When I upgraded my old laptop, I noticed a significant increase in speed just going up to 1 gig. Then when I went to the 2gig laptop, I got a great amount of boost.
As far as my desktop, I've seen great improvement. As with anything, your components make a big difference, as do the drivers for those components.
But hey, I'm also one of those people that got 386 only programs to work on my old 286, and got Pentium only programs to work on my 486. Or maybe I understand that an operating system can only go as fast as the slowest bottleneck with hardware.
Even if it does run better than XP, if you have to be a geek to tweak it, the OS will fail since 98% of the planet are not geeks. That scenario reminds me squarely of OS/2 Warp. Great stuff, but you had to know your dip switches, BIOS, and anything connected to them.
Perception becomes reality. If it is going to tank like ME (even if it's seriously a great OS) because of perceived performance issues I won't want it on my machine....
So I think it's a Lose / Lose proposition for MSFT. They need it to be substantially faster than XP by some qualitative means - or at least no slower on the same hardware.
Actually, my current laptop came with XP pro, and a couple months later I got a free Vista Home Premium upgrade. As far as boot up time, it did decrease and I have all the bells and whistles turned on (Aero, sidebar, etc.)
I did notice that until the recent updates, battery life was shorter, but I don't use the power saving features. (I don't know why).
After I did the upgrade, anything using Direct X improved in speed, especially games. I actually couldn't play Neverwinter Nights 2 until I did the vista upgrade.
As far as tweaking Vista, I always use programs like TweakVista (TweakXP) and such. I don't feel like searching through the registry, so I make a program do it for me.
I have to agree with Tim, Perception becomes reality. I have Vista running on this very laptop, with some of the things I'm happy about, and some I'm not. My laptop is a little over a year old with 1GB of memory, and I have to turn of the sidebar just to run a movie from my hard drive smoothly.
I can tweak this thing, and get much better performance I'm sure. But like Tim said, why should I have to do it? And what do people do who don't have the skill set that I do? Are they just SOL? All I'm saying is that I wanted serious improvement from SP1.
It's just a shame that I might have to depend on 2 different OS just to get what I want out of a computer.
Jut to answer the question of will Leopard solely support Intel, or will it also work with AMD?
It really depends on a couple of things; 1.) Has Apple made it auto detect Chip/Chip-set manufacturer and program it ONLY to install/run on Intel or not.
or 2.) Over time chips are designed with certain instruction sets optimised, this started years ago with math coprocessors, then MMX. Later AMD would include that and add something called 3DNow; since then the improvements have been known as SSE1, SSE2, SSE3 and so forth. Sometimes deltas occur and one instruction set gets incorporated into a line of chip made by a manufacturer, and it's up to whether the other manufacturers can license the technology or not to include in their chips.
What this all boils down to is if a certain chip doesn't have an instruction set built in to the processor like the other manufacturers, It will still execute the instruction, but it will tax the processor and you'll likely notice a difference in speed. This is because if a chip has whatever instruction set already within itself, it see code and pretty much executes it automatically without having to make the processor "think".
Apple could decide, based on the current deltas that not only will Leopard only work with one manufacturer; but it will only work with a chip that has what Apple deems necessary built in instruction sets.
It's easy to understand why they would do this. They want Leopard to be fast and capable of handling all the latest and greatest multimedia instruction sets that hit it. If the chip has that instruction set, Zoom, things appear to happen instantly. Without it, Leopards reputation could potentially take a hit because the other processor will need longer execution time.
I sure hope this makes sense, if it doesn't let me know and I'll break it down better and add some link that graphically show what I'm talking about/show emerging trends between the two heavy hitters Intel and AMD. For the last few years they have been somewhat cooperative regarding the automated instruction sets (even though the chips themselves are very architecturally different) Surprisingly they seem to be getting away from that; and people are going to see more dramatic shifts of what runs better on Intel chip A vs AMD chip A, not to mention chips b through d for each manufacturer.
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