ML sucks??? Are there any Real advantages of Mountain Lion

[WarthogARJ]

Are there any real performance advantages from using ML compared to Lion or Snow Leopard?
I don't care about all the "fluff" about FaceBook etc.
I am an engineer and just care about using it as a computer.

But maybe it is inherently "better" than SL or Lion?
Like more stable, faster etc etc.

I am buying a new 13" MacBook Pro (2.9GHz) and will immediately swap in a new 512GB SSB. I will buy my own: is cheaper plus the store had no stock.
And want to add in the Max RAM: supposedly it will run on 16GB altho Mac says only 8 GB.

I have a late 2008 13" MacBook (2.4GHz Intel Core Duo).
SnowLeopard seemed pretty good: like XP (I'm an old MS guy).
Lion on my 2008 MacBook was so so.
Mountain Lion runs VERY badly: lots of beach ball issues and some bugs.
I used to have 6GB of Ram and in SL and Lion it was recognized.
But ML doesn't recognize it.

So I am worried about putting ML in my new machine.

Thanks,
Alan

 

[stridemat]

I would say that 10.8.2 is very stable (talking Snow Leopard stability).

What version of OS X does the 13" MacBook Pro your thinking about buying come with? I think you may find it quite hard to roll back to older OS's.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Your new MBP will come with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, though you could try to downgrade to 10.7.4 via a clone and your old Mac.

And a 2011 and 2012 MBP will accept 16 GB RAM, once 16 GB 204-pin DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM modules arrive, probably even 32 GB.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

As for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, I used it for one month and reverted back to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, still the second best Mac OS X version after Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for me.

 

[fisherking]

ML is, for me at least, the snow leopard of lion...ie better, faster, more stable. (snow leopard is, so far, my fave apple OS, but ML is still a work in progress).

but yes, better than lion...

 

[WarthogARJ]

Thanks for the replies so far.

And yes, the new MBP will come with ML, but on a standard HDD.
I always wanted a SSD but the store had no stock so I plan to swap in a new SSD: probably Samsung 830 512GB. Is cheaper than thru Apple too.

I'm not too sure yet how I'd add my data and apps from my backups to the new MBP.
If I keep it at ML the is easy.
If SL then not so sure.

I use TimeMachine as well as CarbonCopy Cloner.
But all backups have been done after my current machine went to ML.
So is not easy to go backwards I understand.
I tried on my current one.
Did a clean install of SL and Timemachine wouldn't migrate.
I then upgraded to Lion and then the migration utility automatically upgraded me to ML!!!
Argggggg.
Without asking.

I think in theory I can use my CarbonCopy Clone backup and choose not to install system files.
Will try that.

But after quite a few hours of searching I still don't know if I should go to quite a bit of effort and install SL.
Or else just go with the flow and stay as ML.

I use Parallels and I could run SL with that.
Or else I guess partition enough space and install SL here?
And at bootup choose my OS I think: not sure if that's possible.

But I could try that as an afterthought and initially just accept defeat and stay on ML.
But would be nice to see more about why ML is so much better than SL.
So far I'm dubious: but I'm no IT expert so maybe there ARE real advantages.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will not run on that machine, natively, as Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard does not contain drivers for 2012 hardware. The lowest you can go is 10.7.4.

I do not know about using Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in a VM, but since that VM will run inside OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion anyway, stability issues persist.

 

[stridemat]

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will not run on that machine, natively, as Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard does not contain drivers for 2012 hardware. The lowest you can go is 10.7.4.

I do not know about using Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in a VM, but since that VM will run inside OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion anyway, stability issues persist.

This man said is as clearer than I would have put it, but he is correct!

 

[petsounds]

I too was very leery of upgrading to 10.8 from Snow Leopard; I do a lot of coding and a lot of audio production, so the stability of my computer is very important. But for the most part, 10.8 has been as stable for me as Snow Leopard. And I run a 2008 Mac Pro.

I say 'for the most part' because the initial upgrade was horrific, as ML completely trashed my Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL environments, which took over a day to get back up to speed.

 

[Iphone4sinwhite]

And a 2011 and 2012 MBP will accept 16 GB RAM, once 16 GB 204-pin DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM modules arrive, probably even 32 GB.

Any idea when will 16 GB modules be available?

 

[spoonie1972]

Any idea when will 16 GB modules be available?

the question everyone wants an answer to, myself included. if they're remotely reasonable in price (under $400 for both chips) they need to shut up and take my money.

 

[MikhailT]

I don't think there'll be any 16GB DDR3 laptop memory sticks for a year, probably not until they get to 2x-nm process size for it late next year. There are not a lot of demands for this and the costs would be high since it requires newer technologies to make it happen.

I believe we'll likely see it happen with DDR4, a few companies are already sampling the 16GB DDR4 sticks for servers with scheduled release in 2014 and for customers in 2015.

 

[InuNacho]

Are there any real performance advantages from using ML compared to Lion or Snow Leopard?
I don't care about all the "fluff" about FaceBook etc.
I am an engineer and just care about using it as a computer.

But maybe it is inherently "better" than SL or Lion?
Like more stable, faster etc etc.

I too would like to see some more factual proven statements regarding ML's performance rather than the onslaught of "it feels snappier" or "it's smoother".

Theres an Italian website that has done some tests with graphic updates from 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8.

http://ikir.ikirsector.it/newsitem.php?id=38

http://ikir.ikirsector.it/newsitem.php?id=36

Since there is no real performance gap between 10.7 and 8 we can assume FPS is essentially the same. Supposedly sometime during 10.8's lifespan we'll get an OpenGL update, as to when that is we may never know.