The PowerPC was a runaway leader when I voted just now. (Thanks to George Cole for the URL) [3:15 PM Update]

Today's Apple InfoAlley has new/updated info on PowerBook G3 (no) screen contrast adjustments, Differences between QT2.5, 3 and 3 Pro, and a recently updated software list. [2:15 PM Update]

Bottom Line sends word they have only 3 PowerForce 275/275 CPU cards left in stock, priced at $1239.99. The say it benchmarks faster than the 300/150 card. See http://www2.blol.com/bld_desc.t?edp=22247&level=l for details. [2:15 PM Update]

The Devil's Advocate issue #3 "Trash in the Press" is now online. Check out Mike Fayman's latest weekly column on how the press never seems to give Apple a fair shake. Back issues are also linked on the page. [1:00 PM Update]

ByteMark FAQ: I received a lot of feedback yesterday on ByteMark. ByteMark is just one of many benchmarks, it's not perfect as compiler versions/optimizing heavily affect it, but those that think the PII is not treated fairly should read Byte's FAQ at: http://www.byte.com/bmark/faqbmark.htm. It mentions the factors that affect scores in Photoshop for instance, and also the portions of Photoshop that are optimized for MMX that benefit the Pentium/Pentium II, while the superior integer performance of the PowerPC 750/G3 result in better performance in other areas.

Keep in mind that MMX uses the floating point registers for MMX use, so the CPU cannot do floating point and MMX operations at the same time. I believe switching modes takes 16 clock cycles on the Pentium, and only 6 on the Pentium II but MMX code must be optimized for this otherwise some of the gain is eaten up by mode switching. This is one reason there has not been more MMX software. Notice how MMX games literally died on the vine. Future PowerPC processors are said to be coming with a similar feature, without the drawbacks of Intel's current MMX scheme. MMX II is also coming from Intel in future processors.

Thanks to Philippe Peirano for sending in the Bytemark FAQ URL.

See Monday's news for results of some Photoshop tests between a Apple G3/300 and a Compaq Pentium II 400mhz. In 3 of the 4 tests the G3/300 was the better performer, often by a substantial margin. Other functions may show different results, but in general the G3/300 outperforms the PII 400mhz it seems.

The other reason I like the PowerPC over the Intel CPUs is the lack of flaws (errata as Intel calls them). For a list of them, including one that still exists in the PII that limits memory speed, see one of my old favorite's - the Intel Secrets page ("what Intel doesn't want you to know") at: http://www.x86.org. Sure, some of these bugs are patched with the new PPro and up bios patching scheme, but others still affect performance. Here's some pages to read:

• Intel Inside - The Errata Series
• Pentium Pro and Pentium II floating point bug
• "Serious" Performance flaw with registers/memory performance, and a related page with charts showing test results with various CPUs.
• Secret MMX II instructions in PII 333
• Art - the MMX chip really is hot!
  (Now you know why they wear the foil suits - they're flame retardant)
• Art - Cooling down the PII (warning - not for children, may offend some viewers)
• Art- Repentium
• Spoof on Pentium II van hit and run.

Ok, enough of this - my primary focus is helping you get more from your Mac, but with all the pro-Intel mail yesterday, I thought I'd make readers aware it's not all rosy on the other side. I know, I've built, supported and worked with PC for years (still do every day). I prefer the Mac for many reasons, performance is just one of them.

Please, no more mail on the PII, I'm swamped helping Mac owners and that's my primary focus. I built my own PII 300 and know it well but it's not something I would recommend for most users.

Uri Keich wrote that he has also seen problems with the ByteMark benchmark. He wrote:

" Mike,
Thanks for your great site. Just wanted to let you know that I also encountered strange behavior with Bytemark: I ran it on two machines with the following results. 7300/180 - The Motorola version keeps either crashing or just hanging after it finishes the FP EMULATION test. I couldn't make it work not even with all extensions off, nor when starting from a CD. The CodeWarrior version on the other hand worked flawlessly! I compared the ".dat" files in the 2 folders and they are identical.

7600/132 - Both versions work fine. Both machines had OS 8.1 on them and both are fairly stable on the whole."

Using the original ByteMark (which had both Motorola and Codewarrior compiled versions), I had to copy over the DAT file from the Codewarrior folder to get reliable operation. However I still get errors in both the new and old versions with the stock PowerTower Pro 180, even with no extensions loaded. The PowerForce G3 card passes both tests (new DR/3 ByteMark and older version) with all extensions loaded. It seems to vary by system and CPU Card.

MacGurus has dropped the price on the Hitachi 19" monitors to $849.99. I have a B-Stock one and love it. They have VGA connectors, but I think it's a great monitor, with 18" viewable area in a not much larger case than many 17" monitors. For a list of other sizes see their Hitachi monitors page.

For information on Motorola's part numbering scheme for CPUs and other devices, see http://www.mot.com/SPS/PowerPC/teksupport/chips/partnum.html (very slow to respond this morning). I'd run across this page months ago and saved the chart image but had long forgotten the URL. Thanks to Arun for sending it in.

Marc Adams Interview: Jonathan Sugai sent me news of an interview with the WestLake Interactive's Mac game guru:

" Next Generation Online, which is a gaming site which covers the consoles and computers has this interview. Though their coverage is more PC dominant, I always get a sense of their love for the Mac. This interview really helps. I think more people would like to read this to help convince them that games are viable on the mac provided that the game is good.

This interview is with Marc Adams, the president of Westlake Interactive is currently working on the port of MacUnreal which is alive and well.

Part one can be found at:
http://www.next-generation.com/jsmid/news/2829.html

Part two:
http://www.next-generation.com/jsmid/news/2836.html

Looks like there are people who care. Now where's the port of Starcraft!!! Need starcraft now!!!
Jonathan Sugai"

As I said in my closing comments to Apple in my 1st Year in Review article, Games sell computers and are responsible for most of the PC sales of higher end machines to consumers. We (and Apple) need to do all we can to support the Mac game developers. I don't get much time for games but I show my support by buying a copy of all the best titles I can find. I'm buying Mac UnReal the minute it is released.

Office 98 Tip: If you're getting error messages or out of memory errors when translating or opening files from older versions of PowerPoint in Office 98, increase the memory allocated to the PowerPoint Translator. It's the file called " PP Translator 8-4" in the Translators folder. Do a "Get Info" on that file and increase the memory size and the problem should be fixed.

OpenGL on the Mac: Bill Hill reports he's running OpenGL fine on the Mac with the latest version of Hash's Animation Master:

" Mike,
When reading your page today I noticed your article on OpenGL. I use openGL on my 8600. It was installed by one of my 3D apps.(Animation Master 98).

The only info I can find on it is in my extensions folder I have a file named ConixOpenGL. I tried a url for conix, but they are a consulting service. AM98 also installed a heck of a lot of Microsoft extensions on me but the rendering of OpenGL works great and is really fast.
Bill Hill"

For more info on Conix 3D check their website at: http://www.conix3d.com. The OpenGL Mac info is available at: http://www.conix3d.com/Product.html (thanks to the many readers that sent the URLs). Good to see that Hash has incorporated it into their Mac products. There is also rumors of OpenGL being added to Quickdraw 3D and I heard a rumor that ATI is considering adding OpenGL support into their display drivers (since they develop for the PC as well, I'd guess they have some experience with OpenGL drivers).

Tim Atherton send an interesting comparison of OS scores with his 7200:

" Some figures for your research:

Quadra 700 =                100%  (6100 = 100%)
7200 + OS 7.6 =             338%  (137%)
7200 + OS 7.6 + 512k L2 =   416%  (169%)
7200 + OS 7.6.1 + 512k L2 = 418%  (170%)
7200 + OS 8 + 512k L2 =     404%  (164%)
7200 + OS 8.1 + 512k =      409%  (166%)

All done with Norton's System Info"

Thanks Tim!

Startup Doubler - another opinion: Jim Stoneburner replied with a more positive experience with Startup Doubler than reported by a reader yesterday:

" I saw your item about Startup Doubler (http://www.xlr8yourmac.com, on Tuesday, April 21, 1998). I have found that Startup Doubler speeds the appearance of icons across my screen noticeably.

I tested Startup Doubler's effect with a stopwatch on my system (OS 7.6.1, tons of startup files, PowerCenter 604e/233.58MHz). I timed from the first appearance of "Welcome to Mac OS" until the menubar first appears, i.e., the time during which Startup Doubler might have an effect (the time before or after this can be widely varying due to spin-up of drives, startup items, etc.). Each measurement was after a warm reboot. I use Conflict Catcher 4.1.1, rather than version 3 which was used in the other tests; perhaps this made the difference.

Without Startup Doubler: 54 seconds
With Startup Doubler: 45 seconds

While one may argue the worth of a 17% speed-up, Startup Doubler certainly performs as advertised (http://marcmoini.com).
Best wishes,
Jim Stoneburner"

I'm glad it works for some owners, but I still avoid such things on general principle. The startup time for most Macs is not a problem for me (even the PTP 180). Please no more mail on this topic. Thanks.

TurboBoot feedback: I post this for readers info only - please no more mail on this. I don't use it anymore. Here's two mails of interest:

Mike-
Just thought I would confirm your reader's comment on TurboBoot and other FWB extensions in general. I have experienced conflicts with FWB Hard Disk Toolkit extensions, specifically Turbo Boot and FWB Tools. FWB Tools works for the most part but conflicts with the Iomega Zip driver and doesn't even always work correctly when the Zip driver is disabled. When you have the "check drive on boot" option enabled it will hang on occasion while it is checking the drives. I originally thought this would be a good way to monitor my drives in an unobtrusive manner on a regular basis but definitely not if it causes my drives not to boot! I disabled all FWB stuff and my machine has been fine since. The FWB drivers are still installed on my drives and work fine though - just the extensions have problems."
Brennan L. Pang
Medical Broadcasting Company
Information Systems

"A contrary opinion regarding your update on the FWB TurboBoot issue:

versions 2.5.x are quite incompatible with MacOS 8.x. However, I have been using 2.0.6 since 8.0 came out (currently on 8.1) with no problems whatsoever. I created a System 7.6 startup disk just so I could install TurboBoot 2.5. I then moved it over to my 8 disk. In identical conditions, 2.0.6 would breeze through the boot process, while 2.5 would bomb immediately. I'm not sure what FWB 'improved' but they clearly did more harm than good."
Ryan Dumperth

Finder Fixer Feedback Here's the latest reader reports on Finder Fixer (mentioned in yesterday's news):

"Mike:
Re that finder fixer utility. I use another utility called Memory Mapper--it's very useful for determining how efficiently your hard drive space is being utilized. No matter what RAM settings I use with Finder Fixer, Memory Mapper always reports that my finder is using the same amount of RAM (2.533 megs, I think). So, I think, that although Finder Fixer does not cause conflicts, it also does not do much to change 8.1's finder RAM requirements."
Eugene Shekhtman

" Mike:
FYI, the control panel Finder Fixer seems to have successfully increased finder memory in OS 8.1. However, another control panel, Finder Heap Fix, corrupted the OS 8.1 finder on two machines; neither machine would boot ("not enough memory to launch finder" message). I replaced the finder and it's prefs file and all was well. (I keep a backup of my current system, for this kind of problem, so at least I didn't have to re-install the system software.)

I believe that both of these control panels were written for OS 7.x; they definitely pre-date OS 8." David Nelson
Mapping Services
Denver, Colorado

Although it seems to do no harm based on yesterday's feedback, one reader reported that finder fixer appeared to not affect actual OS 8.1 Finder memory use.

Need Help? Try searching the site (use quotes for exact matches! i.e. "mach 5" vs mach 5 which will match machine, 5, etc.) and to check the FAQ, Performance Basics, Links, and Forums for solutions to your problems or answers to tech support questions. They have a lot of good info and are a great source of help.

Yesterday's News

Please keep this site alive by visiting my Sponsors

No part of this site's content is to be reproduced in any form without written permission. All brand or product names mentioned here are properties of their respective companies.

Legal: Users of this website are bound by the Terms and Conditions of Use.