Java on Macs

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Wee Jin Goh - 07 Sep 2003 14:16 GMT

Hi,

I'm thinking about buying either a Powerbook or an iBook because I want to
dabble with OS X. The main thing I am most concerned with is how well it
runs Java. Does anyone here use a Mac, and if so how does Java run on it?
I've Apple has made Swing use native components and even the JVM supports
shared memory. But so far, no one has touched on performance. How does it
run compared to x86 hardware of a similar cost?

Thanks,
Wee Jin

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Michael Amling - 07 Sep 2003 14:58 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> shared memory. But so far, no one has touched on performance. How does it
> run compared to x86 hardware of a similar cost?

I'm running Mac OS 10.2 with Java 1.3.1, and it runs fine. Any
particular benchmarks you're interested in?

[~] java -version
java version "1.3.1"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build
1.3.1-root_1.3.1_020714-12:46)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.3.1_03-69, mixed mode)

--Mike Amling

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Wee Jin Goh - 07 Sep 2003 16:41 GMT

> I'm running Mac OS 10.2 with Java 1.3.1, and it runs fine. Any
> particular benchmarks you're interested in?
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> 1.3.1-root_1.3.1_020714-12:46)
> Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.3.1_03-69, mixed mode)

I'm interested in knowing how running apps like Netbeans feels like. Is it
fast, sluggish, or whatever. Also, Scimark might be a good indicator of how
fast scientific programs (similar to my research rpoject) will run.

Thanks,
Wee Jin

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Michael Amling - 07 Sep 2003 17:11 GMT

>> I'm running Mac OS 10.2 with Java 1.3.1, and it runs fine. Any
>>particular benchmarks you're interested in?
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> fast, sluggish, or whatever. Also, Scimark might be a good indicator of how
> fast scientific programs (similar to my research rpoject) will run.

I don't have any NetBeans code. I get 44.5 on Scimark 2.0, using an
800 MHz iMac that was $999 new earlier this year.

--Mike Amling

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Wee Jin Goh - 07 Sep 2003 19:28 GMT

> I don't have any NetBeans code. I get 44.5 on Scimark 2.0, using an
> 800 MHz iMac that was $999 new earlier this year.
>
> --Mike Amling

That's not good. My Athlon XP 1700+ gets me 190, which I thought was quite
slow. I'm not too sure about getting one now.

Thanks,
Wee Jin

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pete kirkham - 08 Sep 2003 19:10 GMT

I get 92.9 on a twin 1.42 G4. Both the G4 and the iMac will be slower
than the comprable wintel machines, because there was such a long time
between the G4 and the G5. The G5 claims to be much faster, so find a
benchmark for the hardware you can buy now, not that with was designed a
few years ago.

Pete

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Wee Jin Goh - 09 Sep 2003 13:01 GMT

> I get 92.9 on a twin 1.42 G4. Both the G4 and the iMac will be slower
> than the comprable wintel machines, because there was such a long time
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Pete

I'm not sure I agree with you there. The G4 was the top of the line Mac
until the G5 was released, which was sometime earlier this year. The
Athlon 1700 XP is from 2001, which is definitely not cutting edge.
Browsing through the Scimark website, the latest P4 3.06 Ghz gets over
500 points.

For some reason, the Power PC CPUs seem to be slow when running Java
based scientific apps. Perhaps its because Apple's VM doesn't yet
generate AltiVec instructions. In any case, I've just ordered a
Powerbook :D, and I can't wait till it gets here, slow scientific
calculations or not.

Regards,
Wee Jin

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