Re: Word 2004 slow performance
From: Paul Berkowitz (berkowit_at_spoof_silcom.com)
Date: 06/06/04
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Date: Sat, 05 Jun 2004 21:07:32 -0700
And a computer that ran Word 5 just fine could have a lot of trouble with
Word 2001. So Word 2001 sucked too? Read John's answer carefully. More
advanced versions of all manner of applications can require more power than
previous versions. That doesn't mean they suck - it means they're more
powerful and require greater machine resources to run them comfortably. In
this case, the fact that word depends on Apple's ATSUI instead of QuickDraw
- so that Unicode is now available - takes an extra special performance hit.
So you have two options:
If you have no need of the new features of 2004, just go back to using X.
If you need or want some of the new 2004 features that don't suck, just
increase your RAM until the day in the future when you get a more powerful
computer.
It sounds like you don't need 2004 at present, so returning to X is a
feasible alternative for you.
-- Paul Berkowitz MVP Entourage Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html> AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/> Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be ignored. PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - **2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise. > From: Nate Goldshlag <nate@remove_me_pobox.com> > Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word > Date: Sat, 05 Jun 2004 09:46:49 -0400 > Subject: Re: Word 2004 slow performance > > John, > > I really appreciate you being here to help people. But please do not > go telling me things like quit applications, get a faster computer, > etc. I am using the same 1 GHz Powerbook with 1 Gbyte memory that I > used for Word X. I open the same document with complex graphics in > both. Word 2004 sucks compared to X at showing these graphics. As I > said, I get a spinning beachball for 15 seconds or more. > > Giving me advice like this, instead of owning up to a problem with Word > 2004, really makes me think you are just an apologist for Microsoft. I > would rather you gave me no advice than give me advice like this. It > just does not fly, John. > > Nate > > In article <BCE679FD.4B7D%john@mcghie.name>, John McGhie > <john@mcghie.name> wrote: > >> Hi Nate: >> >> Yeah, well... I think you are subjecting that poor computer to cruel and >> unusual punishment :-) >> >> Please let us accept a little reality here: It's not "Windows" that's >> quicker (although it is a little) it's the "computer". >> >> None of Apple's (or Intel's...) waffle gets away from the fact that we are >> often comparing data travelling on a 133 or 150 MHz line with data >> travelling on a 3,200 MHz line. Of course, a dual 2 GHz G5 will improve >> your mileage somewhat. If you get one, can you send me one too, please? >> >> The speed of the CPU is practically irrelevant (which is why people are so >> fond of quoting it...) What determines how quickly "Word" does things is >> the speed of the motherboard and the speed of the disk. The more complex >> the document, the more you will see this effect. >> >> We could start the thread from hell very easily at this juncture, so let me >> see if I can hold it down to a dull roar: >> >> 1) Word 2004 changed to Apple's ATSUI text rendering system from Apple's >> QuickDraw mechanism. This is the main reason Word 2004 seems a little >> slower, particularly when scrolling, than Word X. It is: about 20 per cent >> slower if there's a lot of text on the screen. >> >> 2) ATSUI is about 20 per cent slower than QuickDraw. It's also quite a bit >> slower than the equivalent Windows mechanism, but give them a chance: the >> Windows mechanism is in its sixth generation and has been seriously tuned >> for speed. Apple will get there, but this is not "coding 101" - this stuff >> is difficult :-) >> >> 3) The best you can get on Apple at the moment is 1 GHz of front-side bus. >> Word can use only one processor, and it's only 32-bits wide, so while a >> second processor can mean Word gets interrupted less often by the system, it >> won't actually make a lot of difference to how quickly Word does things. >> The fastest Pentiums will go a little quicker than this (not much!!). >> >> 4) Windows XP is also in its sixth generation. It is completely tuned and >> optimised for the environment it finds itself in. OS X is still in this >> process: that's why the updates are coming so regularly. Again, give them >> time. >> >> 5) At home, I currently have Word 2003 on Windows XP on a 256 MB Pentium >> 1500 and Word 2004 on OS 10.3.4 on a 1.2 GHz G4 with 256 MB of memory. The >> performance of the two is about line-ball. The laptop is a little slower >> when things start happening too or from the disk because laptops have a slow >> system bus and slow disks, whereas the PC blew a hard disk recently and I >> put a quick one in it. Both would go a lot better if I had the funds to >> shovel them full of memory :-) >> >> Now: How to respond to this? >> >> 1) The most obvious improvement you can make to Word is to add memory to >> the system. 1 GB of memory is a nice round number. For normal documents, I >> find that Word 2004's performance on a 1 GHz processor in 256 MB of memory >> is very acceptable. For the kind of documents *I* do, 512 would be better >> and 1 GB is very handy as your documents climb above 500 pages each. >> >> 2) The next most obvious improvement you can make is a fast disk. Word >> does not "stream" data onto the disk, it makes literally thousands of small >> random accesses. A disk with high rotational speed and a very short seek >> time will improve your performance, as will a disk with a large cache. Just >> remember that the faster the disk spins, the louder and hotter it will get, >> and the sooner it will fail. Don't be tempted to put such a disk in an >> iMac, it may overheat and cook the system. >> >> 3) Now decide if you are going to do long complex documents. If you are, >> take the time to learn the techniques the pros use, such as external >> graphics and inline with text objects and cleaning up documents. Hang >> around here and I will be happy to describe each of these in detail. >> Embedding graphics is very convenient, but it imposes quite a heavy speed >> penalty. >> >> 4) If you are going to make a living in long and complex documents, then >> the time you will save with that Dual 2 GHz G-5 with 2 GB of memory and a >> RAID-5 15,000 RPM SCSI 320 array will pay for it in a year or two. For the >> rest of us, patience is not only a virtue, it's a great cost-saver. >> >> 5) When heaving complex documents around in Word, it pays to Quit, not just >> minimise, other applications. Each reduction in the number of interruptions >> other applications make to tell the system they don't have anything to do >> will speed up the apparent responsiveness of Word a lot. Windows Word >> doesn't actually go much faster than Mac Word, but Windows is very highly >> developed to make it "appear" faster by favouring the user's actions over >> getting work done in the background :-) Each application you quit frees up >> a chunk of memory Word can grab. >> >> Hope this helps >> >> >> On 28/5/04 8:53 PM, in article 280520040653281731%nate@remove_me_pobox.com, >> "Nate Goldshlag" <nate@remove_me_pobox.com> wrote: >> >>> I have a Word document that was partly done on a PC with embedded high >>> resolution graphics (not sure what type) which, sad to say, the PC >>> appears to do better than the Mac in Word. In Word X it was a bit slow >>> as I scrolled through the document the first time and hit these >>> graphics, but not too bad. With Word 2004 it is *much* worse - >>> spinning beachball for probably 15 seconds or more, and more beachballs >>> after that. Neither version handles hyperlinks to files on the network >>> well - you could go get dinner in the time it takes to open the file. >>> On the PC it is almost instantaneous. >>> >>> Nate
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