My, what a pretty beachball

[csonni]

At various tasks, such as opening some apps, etc., I've noticed the pretty beachball that Apple implemented for us in OSX.  Obviously, there must be more than just visual going on.  Can someone explain how we should interpret the spinning of the multi-colored beachball?  Is the processor having a difficult time accessing some files?  Is it normal to see the ball during certain tasks which put a load on the processor?

[iGuy]

Sad to say but yes, it is normal.  At least in system 10.1.5.  Don't know if this has improved with Jaguar.

Ryan

[csonni]

Such is the case for Jaguar, too, seeing that I am running 10.2.3, or maybe because it's running on a 400 G3 Pismo with 512 megs of ram?  Once thing I notice is that screed redraws are rather slow in some tasks- is this due to my 8 meg video card?  I'd like to install Jag on my G4 350 Sawtooth when I get around to it, and then put a card in there that can handle Quartz Extreme.  I wonder if I'd see much of a difference between the Pismo and Sawtooth.

[kps]

I run Jag on a 350MHz G4 Sawtooth and it's quite speedy, so I think you'll notice a difference. I do get the spinning "beachball" at times but not as bad as in earlier versions.

[RobW]

With at least one or two programs that I'm aware of updating to OSX.2.3 seems to have helped with that. (That's by reports of others in addtion to my own experience.) I wonder if that update is more "CPU Friendly" than the previous version.