Speed of FM on OSX vs OS9

[BobWeaver]

I'm curious about whether any of you can give me any feedback on how fast Filemaker performs on OSX compared to OS9. I have OSX 10.0.4 which was shipped with my G4. I have never upgraded to a newer version because I still mainly run OS9.

When I run FM 5.5 on OSX it seems to run about 4 times slower than it does on OS9.2. This applies to all operations: finds, big replace operations, scripts etc. This really worries me. Are the newer versions of OSX faster? I hope so. I can't imagine having to eventually migrate to a new OS that performs so badly compared to the old one.

Is FM6 faster than FM5.5?

[jasonwood]

I never ran any controlled experiments, but 10.1 was supposed to be a very significant performance boost, and I think 10.2 was a noticeable difference as well. 10.0.4 was largely an unfinished product.

I have not used OS 9 in more than a year, and I am still somewhat dissapointed in the speed of OS X on my old G4 450. On the other hand, the stability and multitasking is so greatly improved that it has been well worth it overall.

[Wes Rich]

I think you will find FMPro running faster with 10.2 Jaguar. Overall, Jaguar is much faster than the early versions of OS X. After your Jaguar install, remember to use Software Update several times to get the latest updates. Hope you have a fast connection as some of thiose updates are 20 megs or more in size.

[falkaholic]

Interface-wise, OS9 is far faster then OSX on the same machine (especailly sub-500Mhz machines). 10.0.4 is bearly usable, you'll be happy with 10.2.2. I find that OSX gets slower the more updates you install on it (so install fresh with a re-format, don't go 10.0->10.2).

One thing to also consider, is the state of FM on OSX. It doesn't have the toolbars (which I don't miss, but some people do), its not too stable (it get unexpeced quits often) and it doesn't strange things like get really slow sometimes (not sure if that is my machine).

I too haven't used OS9 in a year, I'll never go back to OS9, one your see the X, there is no going back.

[jasonwood]

its not too stable (it get unexpeced quits often)

I use FileMaker 5.5 on OS X v.10.2 extensively on two personal machines and 4 business machines at one of my workplaces. I can't recall ever hearing of or seeing a crash... are you sure this isn't a problem with your machine?

[BobWeaver]

Curiously, I haven't experienced any of the instability problems in OS9.2 that everyone seems to use as a reason to switch to OSX. Even 9.1 (which there were a lot of complaints about) caused me almost no problems.

[Helpful Harry]

Nope, no problems here with MacOS 9.1 or 9.2 either (except for the crashing caused by the ATI graphics card software!).

I don't use X, but I've heard from some people I create databases for that FileMaker does run slow(er) - not sure which version they're using though. I'd hope the next version of FileMaker deals with ALL these "problems" since it'll be a [color:"blue"]MacOS X Only version.

[kenneth2k1]

As Eric had pointed out and in my experience, the migration from OS9 to 10 is much smoother on faster G4s. Usually, ppl that upgrade on iMacs, G3s and G4s that have slower clock speeds will see OSX stuggle. This is because (relative to OS9) 10 is a resource hog. One upgrade that I have seen make a marked improvement is to increase the RAM. We put 10 on an old 333 iMac and it had trouble. We put 512 of RAM in it, and the performance increased.

Ken

[BobWeaver]

Just for reference, I'm using an early G4 Ti powerbook 400MHz, 384Meg Ram. It's certainly slower than what's available now, but I hate to think of it as a slow machine.

So, does that mean that I could expect a smaller relative speed difference between OS9 and OSX if I have a 1 GHz G4 with 2048 Meg RAM. Or, is it still going to be slower by the same relative amount, but I won't care because it will so be blazing fast?

[kenneth2k1]

Hey:

I would think that if you have a 1GHz G4 with 2GB of RAM, you shouldnt see anything happen slowly

With that in mind, one of our fastest Macs in the office is an eMac G4 700MHz w/ 256MB RAM. The difference between this machine and a G4 350 tower we have is negligible. Also, at $1099, I still think it was a ripoff because you get the stripped down system bus (100MHz) and 256K L2 cache. For the same amount, I could have gotten a P4 2.4GHz system with similar hardware (maybe a little more for a 17" flat screen). People get oohed and aahed because its the cheapest Mac out there.

[falkaholic]

Not likely, I've reinstalled OSX (with reformats) twice with the same problems.

It seems to happen only with large system that have complex and graphical layouts. 80% of the time it unexpectedly quits when I'm quitting anyway, which isn't too big of a deal, but some database don't get closed properly.

[falkaholic]

If you do a totally clean install (if you still want OS9, put it on a different partition) with 10.2 it won't be so bad. G4 400 is OK, but not great. OSX will take some getting used to in more ways then just the speed.

Try X out, it can't hurt to try.

[IdealData]

I recently upgraded some of my DBs - this involves Import/Export.

ON OS9 the job took 65 mins - ON OS X, it took only 30 mins !!

I'm running OS X 10.2 on a G3 PowerBook 266/128 - I'm living with it.

[richshone]

I have noticed a certain amount of slowing down in accessing related files when running Filemaker 5 in Classic mode vs. my old system, but have til now thought that was a Classic vs. OS X issue. Still waiting to get my upgrade to Version 6 to decide on the final outcome in relation to Filemaker.

In all other respects, OS 10.2 running native applications are a whole lot faster than anything on my older OS 8.6 that I had for years. In terms of OS 9.2 on my current computer, I have only rebooted once - lets call it being stubborn and wanting my $$ worth out of a very expensive machine - and that was to fix an OS X problem from the back end.

If I may make a final point about OS X/OS 9, the issues are somewhat complicated because:

a) 10.0.x - 10.1.x are very different animals than 10.2.x and

: so called Carbonized versions of software are rampant with still very little real rewrites (Cocoa versions?)...

...supposedly, any application that is Cocoa - that is, completely rewritten native for 10.2.x - would be more stable, faster and better suited to the unique properties of the new OS (eg. my version of Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 10 kicks some serious ass)... my problem is finding out just how up-to-date Filemaker 6 is.

Maybe this is in part your problem - using version 5.5 (which I believe is Carbonized) while using OS 10.0.x? Just a thought...