Just started Mac OS 9 for OS X/macOS (running SheepSaver v2018.10.23), on my MacBookPro running OS 10.12.6. Loaded my critically important A4-Accounting(4thDimension) CLIENT app. It is very slow to start up, and all actions are super slow under SheepSaver. It does function, but so slow as to make it unusable. Got it to link to my A4-Accounting(4thDimension) SERVER app, which runs on a separate Mac with the old OS9 app running on "classic" mode on OS 10.4.11 (thats the last OS X that supported OS9 classic, running in Apples built-in emulation on OS X. I have several other PPC Macs 10.4.11 "Classic" running the A4-Accounting(4thDimension) CLIENT app, and they run just fine linking to the SERVER Mac. All Macs are connected via Ethernet or Airport, and work fine. Wanted to get the CLIENT app to run on Sheep Saver, so I could use a modern mac. How can I get it to run faster?

Play with the settings? Especially the JIT emulation.

I would try the latest recommended build: http://ronaldpr.home.xs4all.nl/sheepsha ... 190224.zip
Every half recent MBP should run SheepShaver really fast.
You could try MiniBench 2 FAT, even with my 2012 SandyBridge I´m getting this:



Fast enough for all tasks I can imagine.

4D makes heavy use of floating point operations; it's possible that's slowing things down. Personally, I've never used it on any OS more recent than 7.6.1. 68k builds fly on Basilisk II.

Never used 4th Dimension, I have to admit.
As far as I can see, version 6.0.6 from Macintoshgarden is usable without issues and the emulated FPU is really fast, as expected.
This is especially true for MacOS 7.6, but 8.6 or 9.0.4 should work fine too.

What happens when connected to a database server is another story, presumably.
I can hardly believe any slowness should be related to SheepShaver itself.
The default SLIRP device however, is not the choice for AppleTalk or similar.
I seem to recall that AppleTalk is not possible via SLIRP at all?

Only "the real thing", DDP based AppleTalk, requires a different way to connect. But IP based AppleTalk should be fine via SLIRP.