Intel iMac Impressions

[Edge100]

My wife was watching and she said "That one is so much faster than yours"....

Not to drag this thread into the gutter, but I get this all time from my wife...only its usually "bigger" rather than "faster"....

 

[nph]

The RAM on the imac I tested with Photoshop had 1 Gig, actually most of the display ones had 1 Gig.

-Peter

 

[nagromme]

Also how big an image, and which filters?

People doing posters for print will have trouble, but what about people just working with images from a 3-5 MP digital camera? I'm thinking that could be useable, since my lowly 1.25 G4 handles those images fine. Especially since I mainly do Curves and cloning and copy/paste stuff on them -- time-consuming filters aren't the ones I generally need.

Thanks for the reports!

(I'm thinking more about a MacBook personally.)

 

[Lincoln]

Diablo II

Has anyone tried Diablo II on the new intel imacs?

I contcted Blizzard about this game and got the following reply:

"At this time we have not announced plans to release a Universal Application update for our older titles to natively support Intel Macs. All existing titles that natively support Mac OS X (StarCraft and later) will run on Intel-based Macs via the Rosetta binary translator included with Mac OS X.

Diablo II and StarCraft players will need to use the Mac OS X Native Installer to install and play the game on Intel-based Macintosh computers. Recent shipments of Diablo II and StarCraft include a Mac OS X Native Installer on the installation discs. However, players without a Native Installer on their installation disc may need to download the installer from our website at the following links:

-Diablo II: (http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/diablo2/patches/Mac/Diablo_II_Installer.dmg).
-StarCraft: (http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/starcraft/patches/Mac/StarCraft_OS_X_Installer.dmg).

Currently, the following titles cannot run on Intel-based Macs since a Native Installer or Universal Application update is not available:

-Diablo
-Warcraft: Orcs and Humans
-Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
-Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal
-Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition

If you are interested in a Universal Application update to our existing software, feel free to suggest this in the Suggestions forum at - (http://www.battle.net/forums/board.aspx?ForumName=suggestions)."

So it looks like it will install and run, but no clues as to how fast.

 

[shrimpdesign]

I just got my iMac today. It's pretty sweet, much faster than my MDD Dual 1Ghz G4. Halo is really nice and plays fairly well, but I want a universal binary of Halo just to see how fast it can go.

I'm still transferring Photoshop from my old computer.

I tried opening all the applications in the application folder, I heard it would be pretty fun on the new Intel Macs. After about 30-45 seconds everything seemed to be running okay. I used Exposé and it showed all the Windows, and Photobooth was still displaying a live feed even with everything running! Pretty awesome.

It seems to run things pretty fast, but I am thinking about adding RAM. Because RAM always helps.

 

[nagromme]

So it looks like it will install and run, but no clues as to how fast.

Don't know--but the developer of Alice for Mac said that Quake 3 engine games (even more recent, detailed ones like Alice) ran great in Rosetta on the old developer kit Macs--which didn't have the nice GPU that the real Intel Macs had.

Also, I've seen two major reviews now claiming that Doom 3 runs at close to the speed it did on the old G5s: about 85% framerates. That's not good enough for most people since the old iMac G5 wasn't stellar for Doom 3. However, it does suggest that the faster GPU in the new iMacs goes a long way toward helping compensate for Rosetta, even in a really complex modern game. (Doom 3 is expected to have a Universal Binary soon of course.)

So I'm thinking that older (non-Classic) Mac games should run great in Rosetta, depending on just how CPU intensive they are. Remember that they were meant to to run on G4s, and not the latest G4s either. So they may not demand more speed than Rosetta can deliver.

I just got my iMac today. It's pretty sweet, much faster than my MDD Dual 1Ghz G4. Halo is really nice and plays fairly well, but I want a universal binary of Halo just to see how fast it can go.

Good to hear. I imagine a Universal patch for Halo is expected (I know it is for UT2004 and Doom 3) but I haven't noticed anything official being said.

 

[cr2sh]

This thread is interesting. I get a feel that any Apple software is going to blaze but the stuff I'm really interested in (dreamweaver, photoshop, fireworks) may be hurting.

I'd love to see some head to head benches on the g5 and intel on programs that really matter!

 

[avensis087]

i purchased an iMac G5 a few weeks before Steve's keynote and after the announcement of the new Intel Core Duo iMac I frantically called my local Apple Store (The Woodlands) to see if an exchange was possible. The WONDERFUL store manager said that it would be no problem to exchange even though I was past my 14 day return period. Now I'm running a 2GHz Core Duo with 1.5 GB of RAM. Woooonderful machine, and a definite speed increase compared to the G5 I had on my desk no more than a week ago! Just thought i'd share!

 

[wpwj40e]

Had a friend over tonite helping me set up my wireless lan on my old pc - has been relegated to being a print/file server....

While he was there I was ripping a concert dvd to ipod format(using handbrake), downloading a 180 meg hd movie trailer, playing music on tunes, creating a keynote presentation, had a game going on, 11 safari windows open, several widgets, transfering files from my pc(over my wireless network), running an automator script - changing sizes of photos and converting them...and then was bouncing through a number of apps showing him the software on the iMac.

He was stunned to see this. No hesitation, everything worked smoothly and the beat went on...(pun intended)

Whats funny is that I have been doing this for the past week - well not quite as much - but when I have had the time to sit down - have literally been working the heck out of the iMac. I have gotten used to doing so many things at once - I forget how amazing it is. BTW - This is with 1 gig of ram. Have monitor running and clearly am in desperate need of more ram. Am on backorder. This machine LOVES memory.

But...I have been able to do more in the short amount of time I have to devote to getting stuff done than I ever was on my old PC - which was not a slouch either.

It truly is a different experience - yea - hardware has alot to do with it - but so do the apps.

I don't know how "fast" a machine has to be - but at the moment I can't keep up with my iMac

Therese

 

[bigfib]

Gettin better

Its funny....

When I first set up my intel 17" (stock 512) it seemed a bit clunky, particularly with rosetta...
But its actually getting a bit faster with each day that passes... and this isn't just an impression, i've benchmarked it.
Maybe osx does some kind of optimisation as it goes along???
Anyway I have an extra gig arriving later this week so it should really fly.
Overall though, I am well pleased.

 

[jhero]

The secret inner workings of os x

<.<

>.>

O.O

 

[jacobj]

Had a friend over tonite helping me set up my wireless lan on my old pc - has been relegated to being a print/file server....

While he was there I was ripping a concert dvd to ipod format(using handbrake), downloading a 180 meg hd movie trailer, playing music on tunes, creating a keynote presentation, had a game going on, 11 safari windows open, several widgets, transfering files from my pc(over my wireless network), running an automator script - changing sizes of photos and converting them...and then was bouncing through a number of apps showing him the software on the iMac.

He was stunned to see this. No hesitation, everything worked smoothly and the beat went on...(pun intended)

Whats funny is that I have been doing this for the past week - well not quite as much - but when I have had the time to sit down - have literally been working the heck out of the iMac. I have gotten used to doing so many things at once - I forget how amazing it is. BTW - This is with 1 gig of ram. Have monitor running and clearly am in desperate need of more ram. Am on backorder. This machine LOVES memory.

But...I have been able to do more in the short amount of time I have to devote to getting stuff done than I ever was on my old PC - which was not a slouch either.

It truly is a different experience - yea - hardware has alot to do with it - but so do the apps.

I don't know how "fast" a machine has to be - but at the moment I can't keep up with my iMac

Therese

Your claims are so extraordinary that I am inclined to disbelieve.... but I want to believe...

 

[TBi]

Its funny....

When I first set up my intel 17" (stock 512) it seemed a bit clunky, particularly with rosetta...
But its actually getting a bit faster with each day that passes... and this isn't just an impression, i've benchmarked it.
Maybe osx does some kind of optimisation as it goes along???
Anyway I have an extra gig arriving later this week so it should really fly.
Overall though, I am well pleased.

Rosetta is supposed to save translated code and optimise as time goes by. I believe that initially it does enough translation to get the app running, then the more you use the app it does optimisation to make it run better plus it has already been translated.

 

[thefunkymunky]

Rosetta is supposed to save translated code and optimise as time goes by. I believe that initially it does enough translation to get the app running, then the more you use the app it does optimisation to make it run better plus it has already been translated.

Wow. Thats seems pretty neat. I use PS, Illustrator, Acrobat, Quark daily and would be interested to see how these apps run under Rosetta. Due to upgrade our MDD Dual 1.25GHz PM's to some shiny new Intel iMacs. Will the apps running under Rosetta be faster than the PM's?

 

[terigox]

Has anyone tried Diablo II on the new intel imacs?

I contcted Blizzard about this game and got the following reply:

...

So it looks like it will install and run, but no clues as to how fast.

I have been reading through the forums for a while, and really haven't until now had an opportunity to buy a Mac, but here I am!! Still debating on whether to wait longer on order my MacBook... but that's beside the point.

I was writing to see what the opinions are of the 128mb x1600 vs the 256mb x1600 on the new macs. I'm hoping to do a little bit of gaming, maybe some FPS like UT, but some Blizzard games as well, WoW specifically.

I'm trying to decide if I really _need_ the 256mb of vram. Any opinions or thoughts on that portion of the iMac, or people's experience or benchmarks at the difference it would make?

Thanks everyone

 

[Blue Velvet]

Here's my impression of the new Intel iMacs.

<click, whirrr... shhhh, hummmmmmm>







Not bad, eh?

Can't wait to have a go at an impression of a MacBook Pro.
May have to get more (un)hinged.

 

[TBi]

Here's my impression of the new Intel iMacs.

<click, whirrr... shhhh, hummmmmmm>







Not bad, eh?

Can't wait to have a go at an impression of a MacBook Pro.
May have to get more (un)hinged.

You forgot the *BONG*

 

[Blue Velvet]

You forgot the *BONG*

That was one coming out of sleep...
Need more practice.

 

[mkrishnan]

<click, whirrr... shhhh, hummmmmmm>

Ahhh, BV....

And I thought the *real* iMacs were sexy!

 

[jsfpa]

I just tried Photoshop under Rosetta at the Applestore in Willow Bend.
It was slow as molass trying to run some filters on a large JPEG.
Everything else more or less flew but for heavy applications like PS under Rosetta you have to have some patience. It was slower than my current imac 800MHz G4...

Btw, they are totally out of the imac G5 that I was asking about, hoping to see some discount!

Just be aware.

/Peter

P.S. Still thinking to get one to replace my G4 that is getting a lot of reboot screens lately despite reinstalled systems.

I've played around with Photoshop on my iMac. With 1.5 gig of ram it seems to run ok. I'd say at least as well as my G5 1.8 (single) with 2 gig of ram. I was play with files froma 8 megapixle camera. I'm not a heavey user of Photoshop so for what I do, I'm pleased with it's performance.

 

[wpwj40e]

Your claims are so extraordinary that I am inclined to disbelieve.... but I want to believe...

Well...Don't know how to "prove" my claims Maybe becasue my iMac has been running for a week - it got the "Im getting faster bug" or because most of the stuff I was doing was not running under Rosetta...

Maybe because none of the things I was doing were "pro tasks" using "pro apps". Really can't say - but as I am typing this am ripping the Elton John in concert DVD's(one at a time...), have a Neil Young concert I ripped incorrectly the first time (too big) playing in a Quick time window, have VPN'd into work and have ppt and excel running as I am working on a project - only have 6 safari windows open, am downloading two apps - printing a first draft of a white paper I am working on - have word open also....I am noticing a bounce to two when I open a new app - like when I opened word to print. But short of that - simply amazing!

Therese

 

[cr2sh]

But short of that - simply amazing!Therese

What machine was your old mac? I mean, did you go from a B&W G3 to this machine... or did you have like a 1GHz G4? Or a 1st gen g5?

Give us something to compare your amazement to!

 

[Peace]

Ok..Here's an impression on the new iMac.

I'm a member of the Apple Developer Connection.So there are things I can't say in specific.

I had the DTK for 6 months.Also have a rev b.dual G5 2.3 Powermac w/4 gigs ram,a rev a. single G5 1.6 Powermac with 2 gigs ram and a rev a. aluminum G4 1.0 15" Powerbook..

I did some encoding of various video and audio formats..
The relative time to do these on my G5 2.3 dual Powermac was around 5 minutes.
The relative time to do these on the iMac 17" dual 1.83 w/512 megs ram was around 5 minutes..
About the same..

I have found ( so far since yesterday ) the iMac to be stable,consistant and very quiet..

The ONLY thing bad I could say would be the screen contrast is too low on the 17".Not sure about the 20"..

I'll be putting in 2 1gig sticks today and putting it through more rigorous tests..

Until then I'd say people that are complaining about the power/speed of the Intel iMac..Well..they have some kind of problem..what it is I don't know.

I do have a request of the Intel iMac owners.Could you please tell me what version of OS X is installed on your system ? including build number.
To find out click on the Apple icon on the top and select about this Mac then the more info.
In the system profile go down to software and it will tell you the version there.
Thanks!!

 

[wpwj40e]

What machine was your old mac? I mean, did you go from a B&W G3 to this machine... or did you have like a 1GHz G4? Or a 1st gen g5?

Give us something to compare your amazement to!

Never had a MAC before. Actually did have a mini (speed bumped one) that I played with before giving to my parents for the Holidays. This is night and day different than that.

My WIN PC - P4 3.2 - 800mhz. 200 gig HD,400 GIG external. 2 gig ram, ati 800 256 graphics, 16x Pioneer DVD r/w external - dual, installed dvd r/w - unknown. Running under XP and firewalls and spyware and..and..., tweaked weekly - which helps.

If I ripped a dvd using dvd decrypter then nero or videora - my machine pretty much came to a halt. Downloading(programs/files etc) and ripping a DVD ensured that was all I would be doing. If I attempted to play a cd or music under iTunes and ripped and had excel/ppt open and downloaded...I could literally take a break between key strokes and music playback could get choppy. Although I was able to copy/burn a cd faster than on the iMAC if that was the only task I was doing. The iMac seems to max out at about 16x copying cd's over to iTunes - however that is with other stuff running. Doesn't seem to make alot of diffference - think the hold up must be the optical drive on the iMac - maybe it being sideways has something to do with it. Don't know - but it is faster on my PC if that is the only task my PC is doing.

Games like WOW/Halo - I do not play my kids do - so have them loaded really for "testing" and having them play around with them - used to be on my PC all the time til they got their souped up machines(all built). Anyways - games are faster with better frame rates on my PC than on the iMac - again once you start doing multiple tasks the PC bogs down and becomes comparable. In non-games - the kind of stuff I do - the iMac seems to handle multiple tasks MUCH better/faster and more handily.

Of course - I blame XP and the other garbage loaded on windows for causing my machine to act slow - hardware wise it is fine.

Anyways - gives you some perspective on where I come from...


Therese

 

[wpwj40e]

I do have a request of the Intel iMac owners.Could you please tell me what version of OS X is installed on your system ? including build number.
To find out click on the Apple icon on the top and select about this Mac then the more info.
In the system profile go down to software and it will tell you the version there.
Thanks!!

Here ya go...
Mac OS X 10.4.4 (8G1165)
Kernel Version: Darwin 8.4.1


Therese