General Question Regarding Connectix Speed Doubler

[BeniD82]

Hey Guys,

I've read on quite a few sites that Connectix Speed Doubler is helping with general file access/write speeds, as well as providing other overall speed and performance improvements. Do you guys have any real experience with this piece of software? What is the last version compatible with 68k machines (OS 8?) as well as PPC base systems? Information is kind of sketchy on the web hence I'm throwing out the information here, wanting to know if it's worth getting ... thanks!

-- BeniD82

 

[Byrd]

I've found Speed Doubler (8.0?) to be fairly beneficial on early PPC machines that run OS 7.6 - 8.1 (and not suitable for later releases), with 32MB+ RAM - for example, in Nubus PPC or lowly 603-based machines. I don't think it's worth installing on 68K machines. File copying operations and 68K emulation is definately faster, but these do take up more system RAM. In addition, the faster 68K emulation promised isn't overly useful as emulation performance still isn't great on early PPC Macs, and you can probably find a FAT/PPC native app that will run considerably faster. Background delete is pretty handy. Keep in mind it doesn't do much else; program/boot times remain the same, so if you can spare the RAM, try it, but disable some of the lesser-used components of the utility.

Both RAM and Speed Doubler become fairly useless with OS 8.6 and upwards due to Apple having improved their virtual memory and disk operations on PPC machines.

JB