keith
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Posts: 269
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Post by keith on May 11, 2008 16:47:02 GMT
I feel that I have to make a comment on the OS X on a PC thing which Will talked about in episode 68 because he's cherry picked some comments from my email. Will mentioned that I took three days building OS X onto a laptop, this is correct. However, my email goes a lot further..... This is quite important. Yes, it did take me three days to get it working on the laptop but that was a learning curve with really quite non compatible hardware! My PC at home was fully built and working within two hours! I also made it quite clear that if there were a Mac that would suit my style of computing then I'd be saving up to buy one. I game. I play Eve-Online a lot and the gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro is simply too large. What I say there is quite valid, but I feel I've been a bit misrepresented on the show. 2Gb simply isn't enough memory with the applications I run and I need good accelerated graphics that the iMac and Mac Mini can't offer. A Mac Pro would be overkill. I stand by what I've said, there is a big gap that Apple have not yet filled. If Apple were to offer a system with [say] 2Gb RAM but with the ability to increase it to much more, with a single Quad core CPU at a good speed and a good fast graphics card then I'd be buying one. They don't, so I won't. Will read out a letter which said that emulators are clunky, buggy and underpowered which I'm guessing was from someone who has never used one. My last paragraph in the quote above says it all really. I'd challenge anyone to be able to use my computer with OS X once it's booted and not know that it's not Apple hardware behind the operating system. I will wrap with my final paragraph to Will. Keith.
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Post by gazmaz on May 11, 2008 21:33:11 GMT
Hey that is all fabulous and well said. But people go on and on about speed speed speed, one of the many reasons I finally switched was because the Mac Mini I tried Tiger on a 1.25 Ghz with 1Gb Ram ran actually ran Leopard. We all have differing speed requirements but I feel the windows world is in a self perpetuating loop when it comes to speed. I thought to myself at the time my self built Windows box which was quite upto date would only just run Vista, whereas the old Mini with little recourses didn't do a bad job running the latest cat. I tried to get OS X onto the windows box but obviously wasn't clever enough. Perhaps I need a bit of your wisdom, because I'd still like to hack it, and I do think you've done a great job, so you see my sucking up to get some of your wisdom :-)... Enjoy your machine. I think everyone with OS X seems to.
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keith
Senior Member
Posts: 269
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Post by keith on May 11, 2008 21:47:54 GMT
I'm quite open about the performance I need - Yes, I accept what you say about speed, speed, speed but I'm looking at this after six weeks of running a machine which is inbetween an iMac (even one of the new ones) and a Mac Pro in terms of performance and it's nearly what I need. I'd like a little more grunt to make Eve-Online properly playable which at the moment it isn't quite there. I've used both the native client and have bought CrossOver Games because I'm told it's more effective than the native OS X client (in reality they both perform about the same) but I don't quite have the performance I want. The reason I say that 2Gb RAM isn't enough for my needs is that I've been keeping an eye on the activity monitor and I'm usually using around the 2Gb mark, often a lot more so it's not just the Windows mantra telling me I need more memory, it's from experience. Incidentally, my hardware when running Vista x64 Ultimate absolutely steamed along, it was very fast
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Post by Forum Cat on May 11, 2008 22:51:58 GMT
Hi Keith, A big post there, too big for me at this time of night. A couple of things struck me, your 3.1 Ghz Core 2 Duo faster than any iMac seems to be very similar in spec to the new 3.06 Ghz iMac Clicky Though I expect yours cost less, unless your really splashed out on your screen and keyboard. The other thing was that you seem to be saying that the emulator that you use does not slow the OS down any. This was a surprise to me as I though all emulators were slower than running natively. Do you have a link to speed tests the software that you are using? I find this aspect of your experience most interesting. CC
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keith
Senior Member
Posts: 269
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Post by keith on May 12, 2008 5:21:23 GMT
I'll run an Xbench test tonight and post it to demonstrate the performance, I'm just off to work.
The word 'emulator' is a bit misleading though when applied to the OS. OS X isn't running in an emulator, it's running natively on the Intel hardware, just as on Apple hardware. The only difference is that (as far as I understand it) there's a small bit of code running in the background which tricks OS X into thinking that it's Apple hardware.
More later, off to work....
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keith
Senior Member
Posts: 269
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Post by keith on May 12, 2008 18:00:43 GMT
Here's the Xbench figure, the only thing which slows it down a bit is the hard drive because I'm not using a particularly fast one at the moment. And for good measure I ran a Geekbench as well. I've not registered it so it's only the 32 bit version, not 64 bit and it's reading the CPU speed direct from what it thinks it should be, rather than what it is. According to the performance chart here it's sitting between the Mac Pro with Dual Dual-Core Intel Xeons @ 2.00 GHz and the same machine but with the clock speeds @ 2.66 GHz, although closer to the slower one. Hardly surprising as I have 2 cores instead of 4 Xeon cores! So it's not a slouch.
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Post by Forum Cat on May 12, 2008 21:28:04 GMT
I have to confess that I understand about 1% of the numbers that you have listed. I believe you when you say it is not slow.
I doubt that I would have need for anything much faster than my trusty old G5. I doubt that it would hold a candle to your system when it comes to speed.
You like to use your machines for games I believe and for some games you need all the speed you can get. It seems that for your needs you have found the best solution.
I have different needs.
I need my machine to NOT have a tower. I simply don't have room for one.
I need my machine to be near silent as it sits in a recording studio.
I need Firewire 400 and 800 I need a decent 24" screen
I need a web cam, microphone and speakers preferably built in.
I need SPDIF input
I need a computer that looks great. I have a steady stream of clients that use it.
For me the 24" iMac is a near perfect machine.
I salute your efforts for producing a machine that does so much of what you want it to do. I have also to salute Apple for producing a machine that does so much of what I want it to do.
CC
p.s. Thanks for the figures Keith. I have a friend who will be all to keen to read them. He has the inclination to follow in your footsteps.
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Post by CyberChimp on May 12, 2008 23:57:41 GMT
this is my quick(ish) attempt to clarify some of the possible confusion which seems to be creeping in around use of the term "emulation" and the 'Hackinstosh'..... 'Hackintosh' computers running OSX 10.5.x will usually be running the Mac OSX operating system natively (ie using the computer's CPU, memory, etc directly). What is generally needed by way of emulation for 'Hackintosh' computers to load and run Mac OSX is an emulation of the EFI processes and functions. This is because nearly all motherboards built currently for use with PCs use BIOS instead of EFI, while Intel Macs all use EFI. In some ways Bootcamp does the reverse of this by allowing the EFI based Intel Macs to emulate BIOS processes and functions in order for Windows XP or Vista to run on them natively. ----------- In general, emulation software is used to provide a (software based) simulation of a particular computer system. When being used this will often provide a window on the desktop which contains the simulated / virtual computer system. Virtual PC (which allows Windows to be run on PowerPC Macs) or VMware (which allows Windows to be run on Intel Macs) are examples of emulation / virtual machine software. Both these examples run as applications on Mac OSX and allow Microsoft Windows to be run within the virtual machine which they create (the ZX Spectrum emulator which has been mentioned on the podcast recently operates in the same sort of way, but pretends to be a Spectrum rather than a PC). ...... I hope that hasn't confused things even more (or seemed patronising). Wikipedia can of course provide more detail about stuff mentioned in general, or InsanelyMac ( www.insanelymac.com) and the OSx86 Project Wiki ( wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) have about as much detail as you could ever want about 'Hackintoshes'.
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Post by Forum Cat on May 13, 2008 10:08:56 GMT
I was listening to a recent podcast (not BM) about a dude that built himself a Mac. The main problems he had was getting a compatible graphics card and keeping the machine cool. The card he sorted easily but he ended up using a manually controlled fan to keep it cool. I am not really sure why, something about the OS being picky over which temperature sensors it could see. Still I am the kind of person who hate all tower computes (including Apples), considering them to be a fugly waste of space. I don't have an external tower for my tv and I don't want one for my computer. I am also the kind of person who likes to get things done on the computer but who doesn't care what is inside the box. It either works as I want it to or I buy a new one. I have loads of respect though for anyone who know what things like BIOS and EFI are. You are the kind of people I would seek out if ever my computer breaks. CC
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Post by Will Green on May 13, 2008 19:31:36 GMT
Hi Keith,
I did feel guilty about cutting you short, but I had five or six emails regarding the same topic and I cut everyone short in the interests if keeping the podcast moving.
"What I say there is quite valid, but I feel I've been a bit misrepresented on the show" As you say, I think everything you said was valid and very interesting in these changing and converging times.
This week British Mac will sport a new and shiny section called The Gentlemen's Club which will feature the most interesting and lively discussions from the forum, and this certainly is!
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keith
Senior Member
Posts: 269
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Post by keith on May 13, 2008 20:52:00 GMT
Hey Will! I think the point I was more frustrated about was that you read out the bit about it taking three days on the laptop but didn't mention the fact that I had a fully working system in two hours on my system at home! Apart from that, all understood about having to keep things moving on. And as this is a general thread about show #68, I feel it's worth mentioning that the shownotes aren't visible in the menu m4macs - You've described the EFI thing better than I could, thanks. CC - You're an ideal Mac user, you know what you want and you use the machine, you don't know or care about what happens in the background and in all fairness, you don't need to know and that's perfectly fine. On the other hand, because I've been playing with computers and tinkering with them for so long, I need to know what's happening, and why it's happening and tweak it all to make it work better. If we were all the same, life would be very boring. When I go to the pub I like to sit and have nice conversations over a pint of nice twiggy real-ale and a packet of pork scratchings whereas others will fancy a game of darts or dominoes or perhaps a nice game of cribbage. Others still want to drink lager until their heads explode and they end up on a different planet, and again, all of those are perfectly fine, we all have different tastes. But I'm digressing I think there's room in the OS X camp for all parties and that's what's important. Game of cards and a pint anyone
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gavin
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Posts: 139
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Post by gavin on May 15, 2008 22:36:26 GMT
Keith, do you you know I was having this very debate with myself for a long while. iMac not powerful enough for games and Mac Pro being too expensive.
Well as I mentioned on the show a few weeks back I did in the end go for an iMac (which can take 4Gb RAM btw), but obviously I have now lost out on being able to play high end games. The iMac will play slightly older games on high settings but recent titles suffer.
I think what you've done with your machine is very interesting indeed. Had I looked into this more I might have upgraded my old PC instead of buying the iMac.
The thing I find is that OS X is only half the Mac experience. The hardware itself, while identical to PC hardware under the skin, is a league apart in terms of design and construction. Although you will generally have spent more for any given amount of horsepower, if you're like me you won't care because there is satisfaction in owning something which has been beautifully designed. Even the packaging is an art in itself.
Why can't PC manufacturers make a case as nice as the MacPro's? (Maybe they do but I searched long and hard but couldnt find one.)
There are limits however....if gaming is your thing, you can't be spending £2000 on a MacPro when you could spend £1000 on a PC for the same performance.
Will mentioned the constant quest for more performance. Again, if high end gaming is your thing you can never have enough. Never.
On the other hand, (removing games from the picture) Macs have a longevity that PCs don't seem to match. Check eBay for residual values of systems of a similar age if you want to see my point.
Back to the issue of there being a gap that Apple need to fill; I personally believe they have no intention of filling that gap. They used to sell towers at around the £1000 mark and have chosen not to. G5 towers still command that money from Apple resellers. In fact, when the Aluminium iMac was launched in 2007, Steve Jobs ridiculed the conventional PC tower as a home solution, "Look at all those messy cables. We think we have a better way."
Good debate, chaps. Gavin
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Post by Forum Cat on May 16, 2008 8:16:25 GMT
I have the feeling that most Mac users buy a games console for games. Bang for buck they seem to offer so much more. They make gaming so much fairer too with everyone using the same kit. There must be very little satisfaction in going online, playing a fantastic strategy only to be picked off by a richer player who can afford to keep his chip-set in cryogenic conditions. CC
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keith
Senior Member
Posts: 269
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Post by keith on May 28, 2008 23:22:59 GMT
That's true in some respects for some games, but with the game I'm playing, it's not like that at all. Eve can quite easily be played while browsing the net, or watching a movie at the same time so a dedicated gaming box isn't essential. That's not to say that I don't have an Xbox 360 and a Wii but I blame those on the kids!
Anyway, just to give an idea of how straightforward things are, I already have the 10.5.3 update on and it was painless to install.
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