Sonoma is crazy fast...

[johannnn]

At work I have a 2017 5K iMac with 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It was extremely fast when I purchased it, but it's starting to show its age, especially compared to my personal M1 iMac.

I would like to be more restrictive with OS updates since I don't think I can ever convince work to get me a new Mac.

For the people here that have tested both Ventura and Sonoma, is it really true that Sonoma is fast? Then I might indeed update to Sonoma when it launches, but maybe take a paus fall 2024 depending on how that version performs.

What are your opinions?

 

[zevrix]

At work I have a 2017 5K iMac with 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD. It was extremely fast when I purchased it, but it's starting to show its age, especially compared to my personal M1 iMac.

For the people here that have tested both Ventura and Sonoma, is it really true that Sonoma is fast?

What are your opinions?

in my view, you won't know until you try it on your particular Mac under your specific setup. I'd recommend to install Sonoma on a separate partition on your Mac and see how it goes.

 

[richmond62]

I have put my 2018 Mac Mini with its endless supply of MacOS Sonoma betas "over there" and purchased a 2015 27" iMac that runs MacOS 12 'Monterey' like a charm . . . $600

 

[fisherking]

I have put my 2018 Mac Mini with its endless supply of MacOS Sonoma betas "over there" and purchased a 2015 27" iMac that runs MacOS 12 'Monterey' like a charm . . . $600

what's your point? if you sign up for the betas, you get... betas. if you don't want that....... don't do it. 🤔

 

[richmond62]

My point is that while I want to see what MacOS 14 comes up with I still need a computer that can run my development environment.

 

[fisherking]

My point is that while I want to see what MacOS 14 comes up with I still need a computer that can run my development environment.

probably good to explain that next time... 🤔

 

[mrfunnypenguin]

This is good news. Ventura does seem slow when compared to Monterey.

 

[jha]

Does Sonoma resolve the weird visual glitches from Ventura like messages window flickering and popping up even if closed, menu bar flickering, and frame rate drops?

 

[fisherking]

Does Sonoma resolve the weird visual glitches from Ventura like messages window flickering and popping up even if closed, menu bar flickering, and frame rate drops?

on what mac? i've not seem anything like that on either of my macs (in ventura, or sonoma....)

 

[jha]

on what mac? i've not seem anything like that on either of my macs (in ventura, or sonoma....)

Seeing it on my M2 Pro 14". Have also seen it on multiple devices (messages app randomly popping up, not framerate drops) on M2 and M1 Air

 

[fisherking]

Seeing it on my M2 Pro 14". Have also seen it on multiple devices (messages app randomly popping up, not framerate drops) on M2 and M1 Air

are others reporting it? perhaps something you have installed on those macs? anyway, never experienced that here, but would be good to know if others have; then perhaps you can find common denominators...

 

[fakestrawberryflavor]

Does Sonoma resolve the weird visual glitches from Ventura like messages window flickering and popping up even if closed, menu bar flickering, and frame rate drops?

I have never once seen this on any Mac I have running Ventura…

 

[dmccloud]

Seeing it on my M2 Pro 14". Have also seen it on multiple devices (messages app randomly popping up, not framerate drops) on M2 and M1 Air

I haven't seen any such behavior on my 14" MBP.

 

[jha]

I haven't seen any such behavior on my 14" MBP.

Turns out it's the 1Password safari extension causing this weird behavior – Safari flickers even though it is closed and always wants to come in the foreground even if no windows are open.

 

[dmccloud]

Turns out it's the 1Password safari extension causing this weird behavior – Safari flickers even though it is closed and always wants to come in the foreground even if no windows are open.

While I use 1Password, my primary browser is Firefox. I basically limit my Safari use to accessing the Apple Developer site. The extension does not cause similar issues in Firefox.

 

[jha]

While I use 1Password, my primary browser is Firefox. I basically limit my Safari use to accessing the Apple Developer site. The extension does not cause similar issues in Firefox.

Chrome extension doesn't do this either. Just Safari.

 

[zevrix]

EDIT: While this issue was consistently reproducible when I reported it, it eventually turned to be some temporary disruption. Suddenly, AppleScript now is running just as fast as on Ventura. No complaints - although I don't have an explanation for that. So it was a false alarm.

---

Regarding Sonoma being "fast":

For all I know, AppleScript is currently six to thirteen times slower on Sonoma than on Ventura.

On Monterey, Apple greatly improved the speed of AppleScript - it became blazingly fast, several times faster than before.

Hopefully Sonoma won't bring us back to stone age when released.

 

[fisherking]

Regarding Sonoma being "fast":

For all I know, AppleScript is currently six to thirteen times slower on Sonoma than on Ventura.

On Monterey, Apple greatly improved the speed of AppleScript - it became blazingly fast, several times faster than before.

Hopefully Sonoma won't bring us back to stone age when released.

what's your source for this info?

sonoma already is what it is, it's just in the refinement era of pre-release betas. and (in general), it's at least as fast in everything as ventura was (for me); safari IS faster.

 

[Earl Urley]

For me, I second that thought on Safari being faster. Been watching 60 fps sporting events on various websites and playback is smoother for longer on Sonoma beta 7 over Ventura.

At the moment, still getting scores of 140-150 in Speedometer 2.1 on an 8 GB 2018 13-inch rMBP.

220-238 on a 16 GB 2020 13-inch rMBP.

Both quad-core machines running at 2.3 GHz and 2.7 GHz respectively, though I suspect Ice Lake optimization at the hardware level being responsible.

Both machines have low power mode set to never and optimized video is disabled, tests were run with adapter plugged in

 

[jsgrrchg]

Regarding Sonoma being "fast":

For all I know, AppleScript is currently six to thirteen times slower on Sonoma than on Ventura.

On Monterey, Apple greatly improved the speed of AppleScript - it became blazingly fast, several times faster than before.

Hopefully Sonoma won't bring us back to stone age when released.

Source?

 

[zevrix]

what's your source for this info?

sonoma already is what it is, it's just in the refinement era of pre-release betas. and (in general), it's at least as fast in everything as ventura was (for me); safari IS faster.

EDIT: While this issue was consistently reproducible when I reported it, it eventually turned to be some temporary disruption. Suddenly, AppleScript now is running just as fast as on Ventura. No complaints - although I don't have an explanation for that. So it was a false alarm.

---

well, obviously different users care about different aspects of macOS performance. i personally don't care about Safari as i never use it. although I'm happy if it became faster.

my source is my own commercial apps based on AppleScript (or, more accurately, on AppleScriptObjC).

here's one example (hopefully I'm not violating any forum rules):

https://zevrix.com/downloads/GraphicInspector.dmg

this app scans folders of images and vector graphics (or any files, for that matter).

to test, you can drop a folder with relatively significant number on files on the app - and compare the speed of scanning the folder on Ventura vs. Sonoma.

in my tests, what takes less than 2 seconds on Ventura - takes 12 seconds on Sonoma. tested on the same machine that runs both Ventura and Sonoma on different partitions.

i get even worse results with tools that scan InDesign files.

like i mentioned, Apple made AppleScript blazingly fast on Monterey (largely thanks to a particular AppleScript enthusiast from Japan). it looks like all these gains got wiped out on Sonoma.

 

[richmond62]

Why this obsession for speed when, when I use LibreOffice the damn things types so fast I don't have time to gulp my coffee?

This is the MAIN reason I do any word-processing using ClarisWorks 6 on a G4 iMac running macOS 10.4.

 

[fisherking]

Why this obsession for speed when, when I use LibreOffice the damn things types so fast I don't have time to gulp my coffee?

This is the MAIN reason I do any word-processing using ClarisWorks 6 on a G4 iMac running macOS 10.4.

more speed has always been important, for obvious reasons. we want to (and should be able to) do things without bottlenecks, delays, or (in my case) patience 🤣. anyway, there's no 'cutoff point' where things are 'just fast enough'...

 

[richmond62]

"Less haste, More speed."

 

[Luckygreek]

Does anybody install Sonoma beta on Intel MAC?
I have an iMac 2019 27" with Big Sur. May I know about Sonoma beta's performace? is it smooth enough?

Long winded but here you go..
I do, from the 2nd beta, and it's "smooth" relatively speaking, very stable, however some odd "bugs" but better with each release. Performance..for me as good as Ventura or slightly better, Big Sur seems like ages ago, so from there you'd more than likely see a bump in speed.
I've been booting from an external Thunderbolt NVMe drive (since Monterey) so it's pretty snappy, I've also replaced the internal "spinner" with an SSD (strictly for backups). The biggest gains were from an SSD, that produced a significant bump in speed, Thunderbolt NVMe, even more so. Reads & writes from Thunderbolt, in the 2,500's, SSD's 550's, spinner, at best, 200 or so.

In parting, on a daily driver, yeah, I'd probably wait for the public release, sometime in Oct, Nov at the latest, that is unless you're comfortable "working" with beta's, even then you'd want a backup of your previous system.
I keep a "pristine snapshot" of Ventura with all my app's mail, etc, on an external Thunderbolt, just in case.