Steps to a more responsive desktop
Apr 05, '01 09:45:17PM
Contributed by: Erik Toh
Try the following to maximize the speed of the desktop:
- Don't change the opacity of the terminal. [Editor: But it looks SO good!]
- Change the dock minimization effect to "scale" by typing defaults write com.apple.dock mineffect scale
- Increase the mouse tracking speed and the keyboard repeat rate through the System Preferences application.
- Set your colors to thousands, not millions. [Editor: Audion 2.1 looks so much better in millions!]
- Increase the priority of the Window Server. This requires root access. First type ps cx and look for the PID of "Window Manager". Now type sudo renice -(number between 20 and 0) (PID of Window Manager). You will be prompted for a password; enter yours (not root's). Take note that as root, a lower number means higher priority; try -5 or -10 as a start. The situation is reversed if you are just doing a renice as user.
So if 'ps' returns the PID of Window Manager as 243, you'd type "sudo renice -10 243" to set set the window manager's priority at -10.NOTE: See the comments for proof that this speed-up is purely pyschological at this point ;-)
PS: Some applications are not threaded properly. A good example is MSIE, it exhibits the exact same behavior under Mac OS X as it does under Mac OS 9. e.g. animated GIFs are "locked" in a frame if the mouse button is held down.
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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20010405214517345