Did anyone get their Tiger early?

[BTs_Mysterio]

Installing in 5.... Ill test doom when done...4...3...2...1

[BFG]

barefeats did some gaming tests which many people should find very pleasing - Tiger seems to be responsible for a 19% speed increase of Doom3 running High settings @ 1920x1200  - a almost 20% speed increase is not bad at all! However we know apple has been doing a lot of work to help optimize things for Doom.

anyone to lazy to click the link, well heres the brief:

                                               Panther   Tiger           Gain
Maya 6 Software Render                50 sec         47 sec       6.4%
Photoshop CS2 MP Actions              28.2 sec      25.8 sec     9.3%
AltiVec Fractal Carbon 64K              18.1 mf   18.7 mf    3.3%
Halo "High" 800x600 4X FSAA       80.7 fps   83.8 fps    3.8%
Doom3 "High" 800x600 4X FSAA    46.0 fps   50.4 fps   9.6%
Doom 3 High 1920x1200              29.7 fps       35.4 fps   19.2%

Overall not mind boggling but also nothing to complain about. On the subject of games though they did get some nasty results with Unreal2004:

We tested Unreal Tournament 2004. We used SantaDuck Toolpak to run all 8 flybys and 7 botmatches at 1920x1200 Max. Panther was 0% to 7% faster than Tiger in every case except the Primeval Flyby where Tiger was 5% faster.

But to end on a high note, and probably the most inportant thing for most of us:

We'll continue to compare Panther and Tiger in the days ahead and report to you any new discoveries. For example, we are finding Tiger and Photoshop CS2 make a potent combination, especially since Tiger addresses the full 8GB of memory and Photoshop CS2 can create a memory cache of up to 3.5GB. The latest caching scheme is so effective, our 500MB file rotate dropped from 20 to 10 seconds the second time we tried it, even though we closed the file between tries.

Now that is inpressive!

["Sixhits"]

I do, and it's a good upgrade. The new mail app is almost enough on its own, but Spotlight and Widgets are nice additional features. Sadly, I still feel ripped off by the absurd price.

Moved in here from the GG.  -Lone

[BTs_Mysterio]

Doom time demo did 15FPS on 800x600 (High Quality, 4X FSAA) on my Dual 2 G5 with a 9600 pro (64MB), so that's a improvement.
However, tiger brought back the G5 CHIRP. Poor Rev A owners such as mysty.

[BFG]

Honest? the chirp is back?

Damn it though 15fps for that spec machine is still by no means anywhere near PC levels - mind you myst i be you get massive fps inprovments if you turn off FSAA and hit medium quality?   btw what were you getting before on Panther with the same settings?

Six - im kinda amazed there wasn't a bit more talk about the completely overhauled mail app - its so much better in so many ways! spotlight still takes top dog for me though - closely followed by the massivly beefed up "system integration"

[BTs_Mysterio]

The annoying beep won't silent itself.

I was doing that more for the fun of testing. 4XFSAA wasn't available under panther, only 2X. On that timedemo I got 10. Timedemos are not like actual game play, they are slower due to the fact they spend the time to render every frame fully. Normal game play i turn off FSAA and down to medium, it sits around 35-45 FPS on the test then

[BFG]

it sits around 35-45 FPS on the test then

Sounds good! and what kinda of inprovment is that from running on Panther?

[BTs_Mysterio]

Let me run a time demo. 1 second, btw I love remote desktop. Its a increase of 10FPS.

[|MP|Nomad]

BFG & SixHits,

Can you please elaborate more on the improvements of Mail.  I have not upgraded to Tiger but there is something I been waiting for Apple to improve on.  That is, many times I use Mail, when quitting the app or when click the receive mail icon on tool bar, I get a dialog box opening asking me to enter in my email password for that particular email account, I have 3 in total; even though, when I consult the Mail preferences in th accounts section, it is clear that my password is there and saved, yet many times, I still get that annoying dialog box. 

And, if I don't enter the password and simply ignore it (b/c of frustration), next time I launch Mail, it shows that little triangle or squiggly mark next to the inbox folder (right of it) and when clicking on those symbols, it indicates that either I have to bring that account back online, or something else ( I can't remember now).

So, I would like to know if anyone who has Tiger has noticed if this still happens??, assuming that you have experienced this with Panther.  thanks fellas...

[BFG]

Heya Nomad, Sure let me see.

First up im unfortunatly only to aware of that bug your describing - i remember doing some research about it a while back, but i can't remember what they said the problem was. - anyway i currently have 3 mailbox's running and i have yet to have the bug you are decribing (and which i suffered from repeatedly in Panther) come up, which is great! And to be honest mate, i would upgrade just for that, i had exactly the same problem as you and it drove me nuts.

As for other inprovments etc, Second up is the searching and speed of Mail - for me i have found Mail2 to be faster, a lot more stable, and with the help of spotlight finding particular emails (or the content of emails) is fantasticly easy.

Thirdly are the smart mailbox's - you'll know from mail that you could make 'rules' to help automatically organsie your emails - say if you get the apple e-mail weekly updates you could set rules to automatcally move them to a seperate folder. Smart mailbox's basically work the same way as the smart playlists of itunes - so there is a endless list of ways you can organsie and sort your email - from having a folder for all 'work' related emails, to folders containing all emails from a certain group of friends, or say a certain group of friends in the last week.... you get my drift

hope thats helpful

[BTs_Mysterio]

So clarify: Mail will now actually work with multi accounts with out FUBARing?

[BFG]

the current lack of any FUBARing regarding mail has been impressive in my experience

[BTs_Mysterio]

I might just have to give it another chance then. Web based gmail is so boring.

With all my accounts set up, it works. I also love the threaded mail option. I thought I would loose that without gmail, but mail does it better. I now love mail, way to go apple. Now make a spreadsheet app.

[|MP|Nomad]

Hey Myst,

Can you just describe more about this threaded option you mention? I think I know what yer talking about, but if you can humor me, that would be great.

BFG, thanks for the input...

[Civrock]

some more news about the coming first update for Tiger - 10.4.1 - by AppleInsider.com:

http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1058

Forthcoming Mac OS X 10.4.1 Update addresses Tiger issues

The first stable builds of a maintenance and security update to Apple's recently released Tiger operating system are being passed around the company's Cupertino headquarters, AppleInsider has learned.

Anonymous but reliable sources say that after a month in development, Mac OS X 10.4.1 Update, code-named "Atlanta," is ready to be deployed for rigorous and wide-spread testing. Its objective will be to rectify any and all outstanding issues present in the shipping version of Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger," which went on sale over the weekend.

Software builds of the Mac OS X 10.4.1 Update have reportedly been assigned to the 8Bx millstone, with the most recent builds rumored to be Mac OS X 10.4.1 build 8B5, 8B7 and 8B9.

According to various contacts, the update will address issues with over three dozen components of the Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system, with an emphasis on improving general stability and reliability.

Some of the key areas to be targeted by the update include: AFPServer, AddressBook, AppKit, Bluetooth, Carbon, CoreFoundation, CoreGraphics, DashBoard Widgets, DVD Player, Directory Services, Fonts, Help, iCal, iSync, Mail, Preview, Printing, OpenLDAP, Quartz, SecurityAgent, and WebCore.

Insiders also believe that Mac OS X 10.4.1 will include updates to Tiger's .Mac synchronization and notification components and pack a new version of the Mac OS X xnu kernel.

Already, insiders tell AppleInsider that recent builds of the system update have addressed nearly two dozen bugs located in Tiger, including sleep issues with iMacs, random crashes related to the new H.264 video codec, PDF printing problems with Safari and Bluetooth over FTP.

Problems with AddressBook, .Mac registration, iPhoto, Pages, iCal, iSync and iDVD have also been rectified, sources said.

Of interest to some users, sources said Mac OS X 10.4.1 will also correct DHCP issues experienced by some Tiger users who own certain D-Link wireless routers.

Mac OS X 10.4.1, which currently weighs in at approximately 35MB, is slated for a mid to late-May release.

[BTs_Mysterio]

Hey Myst,

Can you just describe more about this threaded option you mention? I think I know what yer talking about, but if you can humor me, that would be great.

BFG, thanks for the input...

If you reply to a email it will start a "thread" (Drop down arrow ---> expand) so you loose some clutter.

[BFG]

Yep - basically say me and Brutha have been in Corresponance over a topic and five or six emails have nipped back and forth between Norway and England over a couple of days.... Mail basically goes "oh look" and groups the emails together in a thread for you - if you click on the thread it will then open up and show you the emails it contains inside... its very slick and very cool, a hidden gem!

[BTs_Mysterio]

BTW, computers that don't support core image you don't know what you're missing! Dashboards water effect is a sad loss without dashboard. Either way Tiger is a great OS! I don't know why people think dashboard is over rated. It's free, you can design widgets better/easier than similar applications on Mac and PC. Also notice the lack of any CPU usage. I'm amazed with the OS user switching in tiger. The multiple user sign in no longer take any performance away.

Automator is a very useful "hidden jem". Oh look at that Apple Spell check doesn't like the spelling yet. Remote desktop under Tiger is also a huge improvement over 10.3 ARD. The new iChat icon makes me happy, I killed AOL for a reason. iTunes's widget is a very nice looking one. I also like the volume spin wheel.

Of the Apple Widgets, the ones I use most are:
1. Weather
2. Converter (mainly currency)
3. iCal's
4. Calculator
5. Thesaurus
6. Stickies

Some third party widget reviews:
1. Stopwatch - Does what it says it does. Compact and useful.
2. Versiontracker - Terrible design, limited usefulness.
3. Daisytracker - Word/Joke/Quote of the day. Weird choices but it's entertaining.
4. TypeCast - Helpful with finding fonts when you want previews or to match what to see in the browser without switching applications.
5. Transmit - Great widget, I'm gonna keep using it to see how it goes.

[|MP|Nomad]

Myst,

thanks for the clarification.....one question, in your last post you talk about 3rd party widgets, do those come with the OS or do you have DL buy/DL them, extra?

[Civrock]

you have to download them. go into your Dashboard screen where you drag/drop them from... above it on the right is a button that says "More Widgets...". click it.