Why is mountain lion so slow compared to snow leopard?

Just installed Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard (skipped Lion). I like the features of Mountain Lion but it is incredibly slow in overal start-up and general system responsiveness compared to Snow Leopard.
Running iMac and Macbook Pro and both are the same in really slow performance.

OK, been a busy week but I've installed RAM.
Had iMac 2007 model (iMac7,1) with 2GB of RAM (two 1GB modules).   Upgraded recently to 6GB of RAM (one 2GB and one 4GB module), yes, I know this is above the original specs of 4GB, but this model does indeed support 6GB with Snow Leopard or newer.   This now works fine under Mountain Lion with no spinning multi-colored ball.   With a couple of applications like Safari and Mail open, it has (using Activity Monitor) just under 2GB free memory.   Page Outs are now a very small (close to zero) fraction of Page Ins.   So, it works well.     If you are not upgrading memory then stick to Snow Leopard as it is a much lower memory footprint.
Had Macbook Pro 2008 model (MacBookPro5,1) with 4GB of RAM (two 2GB modules).   This wasn't performing as bad as the iMac with Mountain Lion but was still slow.   Anyway, upgraded to 8GB of RAM (two 4GB modules).   This is also now working fine with no major issues observed.
If running VMWare fusion, then a lot of the memory will be used up.   The free memory is very slim on on an iMac when running VMware Fusion with MS Win XP (ugh!), which I only do for a couple of scientific antenna analysis programs that I like to use that just aren't available on the Mac, but it is workable. Occasional memory address messages appear from the guest OS but othrwise fine.
So, in summary, if you have older machines (with low RAM) or have a multitude of apps open then Mountain Lion requires careful consideration as it needs just over 4GB when a couple of memory hungry apps open. Do anything exciting andmemory usage will increase causing tons of Page Ins compared to Page Outs and you'll be running in slow virtual memory.   So, for machines that you won't upgrade in RAM stick to Snow Leopard.   For modern Macs with 8GB, 16GB or more, then all will work well.
I still wish they could make the memory footprint leaner though.

Similar Messages

I had Leopard on may Mac. I upgraded to Mountain Lion using Snow Leopard. I can't use my video with Mountain Lion. Can I load Snow Leopard on an external hard drive so I can use it with my camera?

I had Leopard on may Mac. I upgraded to Mountain Lion using Snow Leopard. I can't use my video with Mountain Lion. Can I load Snow Leopard on an external hard drive so I can use it with my camera?

First, you cannot do this if you have a Boot Camp partition.
Second: Create a new partition.
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the hard drive's main entry then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.
Third: Install Snow Leopard.
Boot from your Snow Leopard DVD. Follow instructions for installation being sure that before you actually install Snow Leopard you have selected the new partition as your target destination.
Booting From An OS X Installer Disc
1. Insert OS X Installer Disc into the optical drive.
2. Restart the computer.
3. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the "C" key.
4. Release the key when the spinning gear below the dark gray Apple logo
appears.
5. Wait for installer to finish loading.

I have Mac OS X 10.5.8, can I upgrade to Mountain Lion without first upgrading to Snow Leopard or Lion?

I have Mac OS X 10.5.8, can I upgrade to Moutain Lion without first upgrading to Snow Leopard or Lion first?

No.
Upgrading to Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion
You can upgrade to Mountain Lion from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Mountain Lion can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $19.99. To access the App Store you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or later installed.
You can purchase Snow Leopard by contacting Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service. The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will receive physical media - DVD - by mail.
Third-party sources for Snow Leopard are:
Snow Leopard from Amazon.com
Snow Leopard from eBay
After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store.
You can purchase Lion by contacting Customer Service: Contacting Apple for support and service. The cost is $19.99 (as it was before) plus tax. It's a download.
Be sure your computer meets the minimum requirements:
Apple - OS X Mountain Lion - Read the technical specifications.
Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion
1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
7. Xserve (Early 2009)
Are my applications compatible?
See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps - App compatibility and feature support for OS X & iOS.
Am I eligible for the free upgrade?
See Apple - Free OS X Mountain Lion upgrade Program.
For a complete How-To introduction from Apple see Apple - Upgrade your Mac to OS X Mountain Lion.
Model Eligibility for Snow Leopard and Lion.
Snow Leopard General requirements
1. Mac computer with an Intel processor
2. 1GB of memory
3. 5GB of available disk space
4. DVD drive for installation
5. Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.
6. Some features require Apple’s MobileMe service; fees and terms apply.
Lion System Requirements
1. Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor
2. 2GB of memory
3. OS X v10.6.6 or later (v10.6.8 recommended)
4. 7GB of available space
5. Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.

Why is my OSX lion upgrade slower than my snow leopard?

Hey Everyone,
I run a
Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB
and every since I upgraded from snow leopard to lion. Everything on my computer seems slower. Just very laggy and not in shape like my last operating system....Anyone else having this problem? What can I do, .....Downgrade?
Thanks in advance

2GB memory is quite low for Lion. i consider 4GB a good amount for users without special memory requirements.
you can see how much memory is free using Activity Monitor. if the number is often small (e.g. less than 10% physical memory), then a memory upgrade would improve your Lion experience.
my needs are sort of high. even with 8 GB i still find myself going out of my way to free memory.

Mid 2010 Macbook Pro (7,1) - Downgrading from Mountain Lion (10.8.3) to Snow Leopard

Hi everyone!
I am looking for some help with downgrading my macbook pro from ML back down to SL. I'll start off with some information about my case:
I bought this computer mid 2010 - I believe in July, if that matters. It is a Macbook Pro 7,1 model. The computer came with two disks, one being the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 install dvd, and the other being the applications install dvd. I do still have these dvd's, sitting beside me as I type this. Just like many others, I upgraded my computer to Lion, and from there went to Mountain Lion. I have been on Mountain Lion for several months now, currently running 10.8.3. I know a lot of you out there are disappointed with this OS, and many have experienced significant adverse effects on the overall performance of their computer. That being said, I also know that a lot of you have not had these sorts of issues running the OS. As you can tell, I mysef fall into the first category, as I have not had the greatest experience with it. It just seems to tire out my computer at activity levels which, on Snow Leopard, would not be problematic. I say tire out here in that my computer will overheat, slow down, and even sometimes crash (the crashes primarily begin with the spinning rainbow wheel, attempts to quit / force quit the applications I am running, followed by complete and utter frozenness). When this happens, I have no choice but to press the power button until the computer shuts off, then I restart, occasioanlly taking multiple attempts because of kernel panics the first one or two times. Who knows why this happens...I upgraded my RAM a couple months ago from 4GB to 8GB, which has seemed to help some but not fix the problem entirely. So, I have been wanting to downgrade back to Snow Leopard.
Ok so, I have made multiple attempts at this. For starters, I can tell you that the computer simply will not boot from the Install DVD (it is the one which came with the computer, not a retail version or anything like that). Additionaly, I cannot restore the SL DMG file from the dvd, neither to my hard drive nor to a USB drive. Because of this, I ended up trying this: I downloaded the snow leopard installation files (I believe just the content of the DVD ripped from the disc) via a torrent. I then got a 16 GB USB flash drive, wiped and formatted it (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)), and copied to the USB drive the install file I downloaded. I'll also note that I have done the same thing for Mountain Lion, copying the install file from the app store to a separate 16 GB USB drive. Ok, onto the results of my attempts at downgrading:
Each time I have tried to downgrade, I have taken the following step:
1) Power down the computer
2) Insert Snow Leopard USB drive
3) Boot up the computer, holding the option/alt key
4) Selecting the Snow Leopard USB drive
     -It would successfully boot from the USB, and would bring me to the language selection window, as expected
5) After selecting English, the window gives me the option to continue with the install, or access any utilities, and I would go to Disk Utility
6) I selected the internal drive in Disk Utility (the whole drive, not the indented partition), and I went to the partition tab, partitioning the drive to have 1 partition, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), erasing the current partition
     **Note: I have not tried this, but I feel like maybe If I were to first Erase the drive, opting to zero out all data (1 pass) in the security options, then partition the drive the same way as I did in step 6, perhaps the installation would go smoothly without returning any errors...thoughts?
7) After step 6, I would return to the install os x window and begin installation of snow leopard.
     -Every time I have done this, the install has returned an error about mid-way through, and I would be prompted to restart and try installing again
8) Now having a non-booting computer, I would end up powering down, swapping out the snow leopard usb with my mountain lion usb, booting from that, partitioning the drive the same way as before, and reinstalling mountain lion
     -This beings me back to square 1. A working, booting computer on Mountain Lion...
I believe that my issues surrounding the use of my install dvd (that came with the computer) are caused by a bad optical drive. When in mountain lion, if I insert the dvd, it will read it, but it will do so very slowly. For example, after inserting the dvd and the install os x window coming up, if I select optional installs or instructions, each of these folders would open, but take a very long time to display their contents. It also is a struggle to get the disc to eject in this situation.
So, if anyone has had a similar situation and came out on top, I would truly appreciate your help!
Thanks guys,
Nick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaDMbmsRqkQ

I am ready to dump mountain lion and go back to snow leopard

Can someone stop me? I am so frustrated with lion and now mountain lion that I am actually looking at dumping the OS X 10.8 and reverting back to snow leopard.
I have a small office with three mac machines. I have been a fan of the macs for many years, even though we have software for enigineering that requires a windows versions. I have several issues that will not go away on each machine. I have a table below that describes a few of the problems. These problems have left me and my staff with no trust that our work is safe (yes, we do backups and TM). Our work flow is no longer fluid or fun with mountain lion.
Machine
OS X issues
Macbook 2009 5,0 running 10.7.3
Graphics problems, extremely slow performance opening and closing files.
Macbook Pro mid 2009, 5,1 now testing 10.8.3 beta
Graphics problems, dropped WIFI, time machine corruption, very slow finder performance, CUDA performance issues, loads of lsboxd issues, spotlite runs indexing alot, Sync services still broken in mountain lion. Cannot keep the Adobe licensing for Creative Suite 4 activated. Fresh install of 10.8.2
Macbook Pro Late 2011, running 10.8.2
Graphics problems, flash problems, kernel panics after sleep, Kernel panics with VM Ware fusion 5.0.2, Memory relase issues after software quits, Very slow finder performance, Safari causes kernel panics. Any panic causes multiple versions of Office for mac 2011 autosaved files from one original file., spotlite indexing issues. Sync services still broken in mountain lion. Fresh install of 10.8.2
I am normally a good troubleshooter and have resolved many issues so far. But they just cntiue and I am spending a lot of time resolving problems with the machine's OS that I could be using for productivity. I guess I feel like the old days as an engineer in an office where windows requires a near constant windows administrator.
Is this just me whining? Is anyone else suffering through the OS X 10.7 and 10.8 issues?
Somebady tell me I am crazy... I just want to get back to work.

Some troubleshooting information.
Isolating Issues
Isolating an issue by using another user account
Isolating issues in Mac OS X
Safe Mode
Safe Mode - About
Basic Maintenance:
Disk Utility
Disk Utility Repair Permissions You Can Safely Ignore
Reset NVRAM/PRAM
Reset SMC
General Maintenance Recommendations
Safari Problems

Is it possible to uninstall mountain lion and go back to snow leopard

Have an mid-2009 macbook pro and since installing Mountain Lion it has become very slow on startup, shutdown and everything inbetween including random crashes of software. Is is possible to go back to Snow Leopard ?
Thanks

Also you should look at this User tip as well, because your machine is a bit dated and likely needs a new boot drive + more RAM and performance tweaks for maximum Snow Leopard performance.
For Snow Leopard Speed Freaks
Snow Leopard is extremely fast on my Early 2011 machine here, it's because it's a 32 bit operating system that can address up to 16GB of RAM (or more)
OS X Lions are 64 bit operating systems so they act more like trucks and can move better in bulk.
Snow Leopard is like a small race car.

How to copy and replace new Mountain Lion hard drive with old Snow Leopard drive?

So far I have not found an answer to my question, so I am hoping that this is feasible.
A while ago I purchased a used 2010 Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard that did not have the installer disc. A week ago the hardware died on me, so I replaced it with a new 2012 Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion.
The problem is that I purchased a 1 TB aftermarket HD for my old Macbook Pro and want to replace the current smaller hard drive in my new computer with it. I've already run Time Machine and put all of my data in my new computer so I figured that it would be possible to simply copy that disk image back over to my old drive and replace it. However the computer showed that they weren't compatible. When I tried to put my old hard drive in my new computer there was not a bootable OSX available.
Since Mountain Lion already came on my new computer I do not have an installer that I can use.
Is there anyway I can copy the current Mountain Lion information from my new hard drive and basically have a fully functioning, bootable copy on my old hard drive that I can put back into my new computer?
Thank you.

Well, if you put the HDD from the old Mac into an external enclosure you can use a tool like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to clone the Mountain Lion installation onto the 1TB drive. If you go this route, I would suggest you consider using CCC as it does have the option to clone the Repair Partition as well as the boot volume.
Another route you could take would be to put the 1TB drive into the new MBP, and then boot to the Internet Recover . From there you can re-partition the drive and install Mountain Lion clean on the 1TB drive. During the installation process, you will have the option to use the Migration Assistant to migrate your data & apps. You can use your Time Machine backup for that, or if you have the original drive in an enclosure, you can migrate directly from the external drive. I have used this latter method myself a few times.

If I have OS X 10.5.8 installed, how do I upgrade to Mountain Lion? Do I need Snow Leopard first?

I have a MacBook Pro from 2008, and I would like to install Mountain Lion, but I currently have 10.5.8 (which I think is Tiger?). Do I need Snow Leopard first in order to get Mountain Lion? Where can I buy Mountain Lion (since I can't get Mac App Store with my current OS...
Thanks!
Jo

You'll need to purchase Snow Leopard (10.6) from the Apple Store before you can use the App Store application.

Mountain Lion cannot see fibre raid, Snow Leopard can?

Hi, I have a 3,1 Mac Pro, 8 core, 2.8GHz with an LSI 7404 fibre card. The card is connected directly to my 2 medea raids (no switch). The raids mount perfectly in Snow Leopard, but in Mountain Lion 8.2 only half of each raid can be seen in disc utility. Mountain Lion lists the fibre card as "driver installed" as well. Any help would be greatly appreiciated.

I would expect Disk Utility to still report the Physical drives, even if it could not see the Logical Volumes correctly. Does it see all the Physical drives?
If not, what kind of enclosure are they in? does the manufacturer have anything clever to say about this version of Mac OS X?
EDIT: Have you considered buying and installing Lion and installing it on another drive? It IS still available. You can buy a download code if you call the Online Store. Under US$30.

Saved a document created on mountain lion can't open on snow leopard, saved a document created on mountain lion can't open on snow leopard

I saved a document created on mountain lion on my flash drive. I cannot open the falsh drive on my other computer which is snow leopard. I was able to go back and forth until I installed snow leopard. Is this normal?

How is the flash drive formatted?
And, which application and which format did you use/save the document in?

Why won't Lion let me revert to Snow Leopard?

"Late 2006" 17 inch iMac with Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB ram, and plenty of space. Mac OS 10.6.8 fully updated at the time Lion was released.
Lion won't allow me to run several "must have" apps, so I want to revert to Snow Leopard. I have a perfectly good Snow Leopard disc (installed once, returned immediately to its original package, and tucked inside a clean cabinet). I try to restore from Time Machine as described in the Apple article "Reverting to a previous Mac OS X version". Step one, insert the Mac OS X installation disc.
I insert my perfectly mint condition Snow Leopard disc. It spins, then ejects. Lion does not eject any of my other discs, including discs for apps that Lion claims are PowerPC apps. Can anyone help?

This is a very valid point.
I have two SL disks, a grey one that came with my iMac and a retail one I purchased for the rest of the family.
In trying to create a partition and install SL on a lion machine, the retail one did not work on the iMac, even thought it loaded on my sons older iMac. When I tried the Grey Disk that came with the iMac, it worked first time. I wasted about 6 hours trying to work this out!!
Hope this helps!
Regards
Richard

Why is mountain lion so slow

I have been trying to download... why is it so slow??

May depend on our internet connection. Broadband (high speed) is preferrable.

How do I uninstall mountain lion and go back to snow leopard?

I've got a time machine backup that I can use.

How to revert your Mac to Snow Leopard
For Snow Leopard Speed Freaks

HT1338 Why does mountain lion make my computer run slow and my Safari too?

why does Mountain Lion make my computer run slow and my Safari too? Please help!

The problem is probably not mountain lion. It works just fine on my computer. And a few million others.
If your computer is having problems, you can try to fix it with some simple troubleshooting maneuvers.
Take a look at:
Mac OS X BASIC TROUBLESHOOTING & MAINTENANCE Tips Mountain Lion 10.8 Lion 10.7 Snow Leopard 10.6 10.5 Tiger 10.4 Why How To Tutorials

Why is mountain lion so slow compared to snow leopard?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for