Any explanations on start-up speed?

SwampFan · Post by **SwampFan** » June 5th, 2003, 7:40 am

I'm currently using Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030603 Mozilla Firebird/0.6 and have noticed many people commenting on its speed. Is it page rendering speed that you are talking about? It certainly can't be start-up speed.

Since late May, it seems that the builds take forever to start-up. Am I the only one who has this issue? Any explanations on why the start-up speed has gotten so much slower?

David James · Post by **David James** » June 5th, 2003, 8:38 am

Yes, it is rendering speed that is being referred to.

SwampFan · Post by **SwampFan** » June 5th, 2003, 8:52 am

OK then, I agree - rendering speed is very nice indeed, especially when used with this tweak - http://texturizer.net/firebird/tips.html#oth_rendering.

So does anyone know why start-up speed has become so much slower?

Post by **tve** » June 5th, 2003, 8:56 am

SwampFan wrote:So does anyone know why start-up speed has become so much slower?

hasnt become any slower for me... just faster, actually...

define "forever" :)

on my antique PC (550Mhz P3, 192MB RAM, XP Pro), cold start-up is under 10 seconds, warm start-up is varying between 2 and 6 seconds (just checked it a few days ago after a similar topic :P)

Piel · Post by **Piel** » June 5th, 2003, 10:15 am

SwampFan wrote:OK then, I agree - rendering speed is very nice indeed, especially when used with this tweak - http://texturizer.net/firebird/tips.html#oth_rendering.

So does anyone know why start-up speed has become so much slower?

I don't know what kind of machine you are using, but I too have noticed decreased startup speeds (cold start that is). Interestingly enough, the P4 optimized have even longer startup times for me. I am not so concerned about the rendering speeds because quite frankly, I find them to be perfectly acceptable as they stand.

Jack · Post by **Jack** » June 5th, 2003, 10:24 am

I know what you mean... Mozilla Firebird takes up as much time to start up anymore as it does for Mozilla 1.3.1. There's no difference, and my machine is an AMD XP 2000+ with 1 gigabyte of DDR RAM. But I find Mozilla Firebird more aesthetically pleasing, so I stick with it.

Jack

Paradox52525 · Post by **Paradox52525** » June 5th, 2003, 11:02 am

I've noticed this too, I've taken to using Quicklaunch in firebird (no UI preference for it anymore, but you can still use
mozillafirebird.exe -turbo to turn it on). In my experience it works as well for Firebird as it did in Mozilla. It does cause an error if you have TBE installed, but there is a workaround for this elsewhere on the forums. Personally I think they should just leave quicklaunch there, but I've heard it's getting removed eventually =/

SwampFan · Post by **SwampFan** » June 5th, 2003, 11:08 am

Piel wrote:
SwampFan wrote:OK then, I agree - rendering speed is very nice indeed, especially when used with this tweak - http://texturizer.net/firebird/tips.html#oth_rendering.

So does anyone know why start-up speed has become so much slower?

I don't know what kind of machine you are using, but I too have noticed decreased startup speeds (cold start that is). Interestingly enough, the P4 optimized have even longer startup times for me. I am not so concerned about the rendering speeds because quite frankly, I find them to be perfectly acceptable as they stand.

I'm using a P3 750Mhz w/ 512MB, and have used this setup since Phoenix 5.0. Startup speed used to be extremely fast, but I can't put an exact date on when it slowed down - I think it may have been just before the 1.4b releases. I've measured cold startup speeds anywhere from 12-16 seconds, and about half that time for warm starts.

I'm using Win2000 SP3 - not sure what others are using that are experiencing the same issues.

Piel · Post by **Piel** » June 6th, 2003, 11:37 am

SwampFan wrote:I'm using a P3 750Mhz w/ 512MB, and have used this setup since Phoenix 5.0. Startup speed used to be extremely fast, but I can't put an exact date on when it slowed down - I think it may have been just before the 1.4b releases. I've measured cold startup speeds anywhere from 12-16 seconds, and about half that time for warm starts.

I'm using Win2000 SP3 - not sure what others are using that are experiencing the same issues.

I have commented on this a number of times already, but I will say it again if only for your sake, but I am disappointed to see that cold startup times have gone on my p4 1.6 ghz w/512MB ram and WinXP Home SP1 (ie: no slouch of a laptop) from 3 to about 10 seconds in the last few months (with new profiles and no extensions or themes I might add). Even warm launches have gone from about 2 to 5 seconds.

kendp · Post by **kendp** » June 6th, 2003, 1:07 pm

I've also noticed how long a cold start takes. A warm start is slower than it should be, too.

Mark Larson · Post by **Mark Larson** » June 6th, 2003, 6:26 pm

Thanks a lot for the Quick Launch tip! Much appreciated!

I attributed the slow speeds compared to Mozilla to the fact that i keep on installing new nightlies again and again, fragmenting the files all over the place. Let's hope they fix that, since that's the primary reason many people aren't willing to shift from IE.

tseelee · Post by **tseelee** » June 6th, 2003, 6:44 pm

Mark Larson wrote:i keep on installing new nightlies again and again, fragmenting the files all over the place. Let's hope they fix that, since that's the primary reason many people aren't willing to shift from IE.

If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time I heard this as a reason for not moving from IE. Besides, you don't get nightlies (or yearlies now) with IE.

Mark Larson · Post by **Mark Larson** » June 7th, 2003, 1:09 am

Are you kidding? Launch speed is the most common reason cited for not switching to Mozilla or Firebird.

Piel · Post by **Piel** » June 7th, 2003, 10:36 am

Mark Larson wrote:Thanks a lot for the Quick Launch tip! Much appreciated!

I attributed the slow speeds compared to Mozilla to the fact that i keep on installing new nightlies again and again, fragmenting the files all over the place. Let's hope they fix that, since that's the primary reason many people aren't willing to shift from IE.

I'm not so sure about this....I defrag my hard drive pretty regularly and I do not notice any improvements in startup performance. My next step is to wipe my disk and reinstall the OS (just for the sake of general clean up)...and see what happens.

tseelee · Post by **tseelee** » June 7th, 2003, 11:06 am

Mark Larson wrote:Launch speed is the most common reason cited for not switching to Mozilla or Firebird.

Yes, I'm aware of that (tho not personally affected), but the reason given -- fragmentation of files -- is new to me. Seems like it'd be an easy fix for those experiencing it if true.