Mac veeeerrrrry slow

T

theshadow27

Gawd
Joined
Sep 7, 2004
Messages
695
is it just me, or do apple's suck at (life) folding?

when my grandpa moved he got a g5 and gave me his g4, 500mhz Power Pc

i said id use it, and id hate to lie to him, so i set it up folding (had to pirate OS10, grumble grumble)...

it does like 1 part in 2.5 hours, but my my slowest p4 boxen does 1 part in ~50 min

am i missing something, he swore that macs are fast at everything, especialy "complicated caluclations" and i thought they had a diffrent internal construction or something that made them super fast?

or has apple just been bs'ing us all this time?

EDIT is it worth it to sell this somewhere (pref a stupid mac nut) and buy a real computer? lol
 
It could be the protein it is running.


But seriously it is the fact that Apple sucks. ;)
 
at first i enabled large file support whatever, then i let it run for 2 days... i came back and thought it froze, but when i killed it and let it restart it was on like step 1400 of the first 2000, which was step 1 of 200 LOL so disabled large support and now it does 5 to 6 steps per day

i think it is not dragin its weight, it uses a full sized ATX PUS :rolleyes:
 
it may just be a different protein than the p4 system, which could cause the discrepancy. but yeah, i'd say macs are kinda slow compared to PCs now.
 
macs are slower than pc are b/c the code used for Folding is slower in macs than x86 based comps.
 
is there any way to speed it up?

any unix commands that increase CPU attention for one program?

does anyone know where to go for unix help lol?
 
Probably not, the very nature of F@H makes sure that it uses all available CPU time and throttles when other apps need the CPU. You might look in some of the mac forums around and see if there is anything specific however.

 
theshadow27 said:
is there any way to speed it up?

any unix commands that increase CPU attention for one program?

does anyone know where to go for unix help lol?
Click to expand...
`nice` changes the priority of a process at startup, or `renice` to change an existing process.

Look at `top`'s output to see how much CPU it's taking right now.
 
you must be doing something wrong, the g4 400 mhz runs the avg tinker @ 1 hr per frame, the g3 runs much slower (less optimization) but not 2 hrs per frame long, must be something with the computer or your settings
 
These threads piss me off :mad:.
IT IS SLOW BECAUSE IT IS A MAC
:rolleyes:

I agree with TH3F4T4LON3, something must be messed up on your end.

To see how much CPU it is using, do this:
Open Terminal in /Applications/Utilities and type "top -uw"
Ctrl C when you are done.

You are probably not going to want to play with its priority, nice is what you want to do for something like this.
 
Here's one possibility: iBook slowdown under 10.3.8. Tinker WUs run very slow on Macs too, but I don't think that's what you have, is it? You could post your log in the Mac OS X section of the Folding-community forum and someone should be able to tell you what's going on.

ChelseaOilman
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Note to the Mac Addicts: Macs can't run Tinkers. They die. OR should die. In a fire.

They're also slower than PCs for Gromacs.

Generally, Macs are way too expensive for folding. They aren't worth the trouble.
 
mwarps said:
Note to the Mac Addicts: Macs can't run Tinkers. They die. OR should die. In a fire.

They're also slower than PCs for Gromacs.

Generally, Macs are way too expensive for folding. They aren't worth the trouble.
Click to expand...

Unless you get them for free. Then make them fold until they die.
 
sigmend said:
IT IS SLOW BECAUSE IT IS A MAC
Click to expand...
mwarps said:
Macs can't run Tinkers. They die. OR should die.
.
Click to expand...
even if you are being sarcastic, i agree

sigmend said:
Open Terminal in /Applications/Utilities and type "top -uw"
Ctrl C when you are done.
Click to expand...
but ctrl C you meen apple-C? the control key inserts a funny charecter....
mwarps said:
Generally, Macs are way too expensive for folding. They aren't worth the trouble.
Click to expand...
im begning to feel this way, it was free, but still, lots of problems.

maybe ill find tiger somewhere.

till then, thanks all.
 
Not sure of all the ins and outs of the mac client. But the g4 is a pretty nice processor.

I know it used to crush all with the rc5-64 contest.

That leads me to believe it's a code optimization thing.
Or maybe the two projects use different parts of the chip.
 
sigh...the reason it is slow on a Mac isn't because it is a Mac but because Stanford didn't write a good client for OSX..I have borged 2 G4 Dual 1.25's a single G5 1.8 and my backup machine which is a G4 400 and they all run...slow sometimes but they run...and for all you Mac haters out there...I am not a Zelot...I work for Apple and use both and it is obvious you haven't either used OSX or a Mac in years

 
gigglebyte said:
sigh...the reason it is slow on a Mac isn't because it is a Mac but because Stanford didn't write a good client for OSX..I have borged 2 G4 Dual 1.25's a single G5 1.8 and my backup machine which is a G4 400 and they all run...slow sometimes but they run...and for all you Mac haters out there...I am not a Zelot...I work for Apple and use both and it is obvious you haven't either used OSX or a Mac in years

Click to expand...

Be careful the broad strokes you paint they will do nothing but prove you a fool.
 
gigglebyte said:
sigh...the reason it is slow on a Mac isn't because it is a Mac but because Stanford didn't write a good client for OSX..I have borged 2 G4 Dual 1.25's a single G5 1.8 and my backup machine which is a G4 400 and they all run...slow sometimes but they run...and for all you Mac haters out there...I am not a Zelot...I work for Apple and use both and it is obvious you haven't either used OSX or a Mac in years
Click to expand...

This has been tackled. Check out the threads over at the folding community. They've been working on it, but it's still dog slow. Don't overgeneralize too much, you might show your true colors.
 
probably because people like them (and me) havent used them in the past 3 years...
its hard to get used to going back to try something when you had bad experiances
with them... although phantom sounds like he is having fun with his mini.. might
have to try one someday...
 
I picked the Mini up on Sunday. I know it's not a true gauge of what Apple has to offer, but there is no denying that those can be seen as generalizations. It's all a matter of preference. Even the OP isn't fond of them but was trying to make the best out of what he was given. To each their own, I personally like both, OSX is easy and the hardware is surprising responsive for such a low spec compared to a PC, but there's the convenience of knowing that everything out there exists for the PC whereas its just a bit harder to find things for the Mac.

 
video cards are about it nowadays...they take standard RAM, HD, Optical drive and most USB perfs are recognized by the OS and no drivers needed..I used to be a Mac hater and that was before I started working for Apple doing tech....and believe it things changed quickly...I still use my PC but that is mostly for gaming and folding...if I need to do any work I do it on my iBook because it will do just about everything else (oh..and it folds too when plugged into AC)

 
gigglebyte said:
well when I see people saying








now tell me these aren't generalizations? so who does use a Mac here or has in the last 3 years?

Click to expand...

Since two of those are mine I will say something. Yes that mac is a boat anchor. 500mhz chugging away like that is a boat anchor just like a PC doing the same. Don't feel so special. Also, the first had a wink.......implying joke.

Now used a Mac in the last 3 years? Check. Mac tech in the last 3 years? Check. Use a Mac daily? Check. Dual G5? CHeck. Does it run our software worth a damn? Uncheck. Unfortunately we are stcuk with it though because there isn't PC support for our particular hardware/software combo.
 
I'd happily take that boat anchor off of his hands, I'm a PC guy right now, but I've been wanting to dive into Mac (to learn another OS), am even considering getting an iBook soon that I'd set up to fold. If the OP doesn't want to run it (either because its sucking too much juice for what it does or whatever), I'll gladly take it off his hands and run with it for the [H]orde.
 
id just like to add from _actual_ experence (i started the thread lol)

for the 4 days that this thread has been going, and the 4 days that mac has been running, it is still on WU#1, 48%....

96 hours... nonstop chunking 100% cpu usage ( i checked )... my 466 Mhz quantex p3 is faster then that
 
theshadow27 said:
id just like to add from _actual_ experence (i started the thread lol)

for the 4 days that this thread has been going, and the 4 days that mac has been running, it is still on WU#1, 48%....

96 hours... nonstop chunking 100% cpu usage ( i checked )... my 466 Mhz quantex p3 is faster then that
Click to expand...

Every little bit helps man, remember that. :D

And if you do wanna get rid of it...I'll happily pay shipping. ;) :D
 
Maniacmous said:
Every little bit helps man, remember that. :D

And if you do wanna get rid of it...I'll happily pay shipping. ;) :D
Click to expand...

I don't care if it's a MAC or PC, face it, at 466 neither will set the world on fire with folding performance. It's just a slow CPU in both cases.

 
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