i have a ppc g4 desktop that crashes like crazy. 90% of the time this happens on sites like facebook, youtube, and the like. i think i needlessly replaced my hard drive on this computer recently as everyone was telling me my hard drive was why i kept crashing. brand new hard drive, still crashes within seconds of playing any kind of streaming audio/video. i am now suspicious that flash is my problem. the thing about updating flash though is that it seems that you can only update to the most current version if you have an intel mac. my current version of flash is 10.1.something-or-other. the current version is 10.3. i am running tiger, 10.4.11. am i overlooking something here? all i want to do is go online for more than 30 seconds w/out crashing.
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Have PPC users been left for dead?
- Thread starter boynigel
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What browser are you using? I have very slow video on my iMac G5, and setting a new user profile in Firefox helped, but only for a bit. I have Leopard though. Your system might be old enough that it's just not supported anymore. 
How long has it been since you've wiped and reinstalled the OS on it? If its been a few years, I would highly recommend it. What you're seeing isn't right at all and could be from some corrupted files somewhere.
brand new system hard drive installed 2 weeks ago. doesn't get much cleaner than that.
Try maxing out your RAM. You can also opt in for using HTML 5 beta on youtube, that might help you. Certainly helped my Powerbook G4 15"! Runs as well as my desktop now.
I'd recommend maxing out the RAM and upgrading to Leopard if possible. Even doing so on my 12" 1.5GHz G4 PowerBook it still has issues with playing Flash. HTML 5 video is a breeze though.
open up console logs and look for crash reports, something other than flash might be causing it. I don't have any issues with my pb g4 running camino, btw whats your g4?
Upgrading RAM won't fix a crashing issue unless the issue is directly related to RAM. Spending money on a PPC Mac is also iffy right now...
try tenfourmac its ppc version of mozilla but coded for the g4 procs but i have had good luck with it on my g4 imac running youtube with flash
Flash always caused crashes in NetNewsWire for me, so I installed Click2Flash (or some flash blocker like that) and BAM instantly, no more crashes. I'd also say upgrade from Firefox to TenFourFox 5 (which is a version of Firefox 5 for PowerPC Macs that also supports Tiger), and if you can, upgrade to Leopard (it works acceptably on ANY G4 Mac so long as it's got 1GB+ of RAM.)
all this is true, you need to install a flash blocker and deal with each flash video at a time. I life ten four fox, but I find Safari works much better with click to flash installed, and if you enable the developer menu for pesky hd youtube videos its almost perfect. I only have 1 gig of memory but I have upgraded my g4 powerbook to leopard.
+1 that Flash absolutely kills PPC. An old iBook G3 Clamshell my school had couldn't load the homepage for YouTube; Safari would crash. But on G4's, as said, max out the RAM. And you can try using the browser "Camino". Works well on PPC Macs, the iMac G4 and eMac were much more usable with it installed and used over anything else.
I wouldnt take a g4 past 10.4 Tiger
You are bottle necked by the lack of modern GPU, your cpu is basically a nintendo wii divided by 2, if I recall in my parent's old g4 tower they could use SATA hd's and ram is just OLD OLD.
To be blunt, PPC users were left for dead long before web 2.0 proliferated, arguably back to the days when shockwave slowly got replaced
You are bottle necked by the lack of modern GPU, your cpu is basically a nintendo wii divided by 2, if I recall in my parent's old g4 tower they could use SATA hd's and ram is just OLD OLD.
To be blunt, PPC users were left for dead long before web 2.0 proliferated, arguably back to the days when shockwave slowly got replaced
Everything you say is the exact opposite in my experience. The G4 in my signature runs 10.5 like a champ and I have a GPU that supports every single GPU feature in the OS.
G4's do not take SATA drives by default like you hint at. All of them have either ATA 66 or 100. I had to install a PCI card to get SATA.
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What is your graphics card? I know the ATI Rage Pro AGP has random crashes issues with OS X tiger because it is not fully supported (in OS 9 it was). It was the default card on my blue G4 digital audio 533 mhz. Change the card for a geforce4 mx, ati radeaon 9000 if you're on a budget, or anything better if not.
The Rage Pro was not supported in OS 9, however Apple never shipped a G4 with a Rage Pro.
The G4 did not ship with a Rage Pro, but shipped instead with a Rage 128 Pro, which is fully supported under OS X.
Different cards. I have a G4 Cube which used to have a Rage 128 Pro, and it worked totally fine for both 2D and 3D.
Likely your card was just dying.
Bypass Flash with Mactubes or Youview
PPC mac users really need to abandon Flash, as they (Adobe and Apple) have most certainly abandoned you. Download mactubes or youview and play 480p (lets face it, good enough to great for most youtube videos) in ffmpeg or quicktime. You will be stunned at the quality,and the ease at which your g4 1.0ghz or higher can stream youtube. In mactubes you can download higher quality flash files and as long as you have Perian play them in quicktime. For web video other than youtube I use download helper in firefox (works in tenfourfox as well) and presto, anything under 720p will play peachy. For 720p I use Coreplayer. It takes my ibook 1.2ghz to about 90% CPU cycles, but, hey, it still plays. Some claim 1080p playback is possible with coreplayer, maybe with a better video card and slighty fast processor, but for me no go. Check out ppc luddites blog for some ubergeeky command line tricks to get mplayer to play HD. He has a low end 500mhz G4 Sawtooth tower, and with a decent video card can still enjoy 720p.
Also, Cameron Kaiser (tenfourfox) has a new haxie in the beta of 6.0 that lets you play webm video in quicktime from the browser. It's very beta but it works, and I can confirm that if set your user agent to ipad in firefox or safari all kinds of sites will stream you video that quicktime can handle. If you get my drift.
PPC mac users really need to abandon Flash, as they (Adobe and Apple) have most certainly abandoned you. Download mactubes or youview and play 480p (lets face it, good enough to great for most youtube videos) in ffmpeg or quicktime. You will be stunned at the quality,and the ease at which your g4 1.0ghz or higher can stream youtube. In mactubes you can download higher quality flash files and as long as you have Perian play them in quicktime. For web video other than youtube I use download helper in firefox (works in tenfourfox as well) and presto, anything under 720p will play peachy. For 720p I use Coreplayer. It takes my ibook 1.2ghz to about 90% CPU cycles, but, hey, it still plays. Some claim 1080p playback is possible with coreplayer, maybe with a better video card and slighty fast processor, but for me no go. Check out ppc luddites blog for some ubergeeky command line tricks to get mplayer to play HD. He has a low end 500mhz G4 Sawtooth tower, and with a decent video card can still enjoy 720p.
Also, Cameron Kaiser (tenfourfox) has a new haxie in the beta of 6.0 that lets you play webm video in quicktime from the browser. It's very beta but it works, and I can confirm that if set your user agent to ipad in firefox or safari all kinds of sites will stream you video that quicktime can handle. If you get my drift.
You make many good points. Anyone who doesn't make a living on flash development has no excuse to be a slave to this horrible codec/tech.
Some users here in the PowerPC section have actually listed flash playability as a reason they finally went to Intel. A slave to the worst codec ever and out of nothing but pure ignorance. It's really quite sad.
What a useless comment... man, who cares if the name is Rage 128 Pro or Rage Pro... The thing is, that card has random crash issues under Tiger. I don't know if its only for the digital audio G4's or all G4's prior to that one, but this bug has been already reported by other people. Card is not dying; the mac is still working everyday, and those random crashes have been happening for more than 5 years. Never happened under OS 9. The mac was reinstalled several times, nothing to do. Google it, you will see I know what I'm talking about. Ok, granted I did not know the exact name of the ATI card, but come on, I'm talking bout the stock one in the G4 digital audio.
PPC G4 10.4 Saved from Flash....
So I just registered here to share a positive story about this Flash / PPC debacle. Close to a year of frustrations brought to a quick end. I blame adobe.
As people have noted allready, TenFourfox !!!! I cant thank these guys enough.
http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/
Its basically Firefox designed/coded/and optimized for G4s and after getting it you put in some flash block and flash download extensions right from mozillas standard Firefox add-ons procedures. I now load up any page on the internet ....including youtube and facebook w/ no problems at all. if i want to see a video I have to right-click and download. the downloads are tiny, quick and look and play fantastic w/QT or VLC. Some add-ons claim to auto convert and run within page or are directed to a stand alone player. Im just DLing until I find the right one. Its a bit of pain but Now Im scrolling through pages while i watch Med quality avi files on another monitor, at the same time. Internet + multi-tasking with no real problems. And heres the kicker...Im doing it on a10.4 PPC G4 466mhz!! It never as fast as you want but fast enough to still be VERY usable.Especially considering that this machine couldnt load a web page for years now. Even with fresh installs of everything.
SOOOO MANY PPC G4 + G5 users are completely frustrated with their machines.ALL because of flash problems!!! Adobe is a foul foul company for letting all these ppc users upgrade(at their insistence) a plug-in that cripples these machines and then offering no other solution other than buying new equipment.The forums are on fire with this topic. Moderators/bloggers/writers please!! help!!! Make some good concise "Headlines" letting people know about this before they throw away a great machine.
Oh yeah my PPC dualG5 w/Radeon 9600 video card running 10.5 leopard still has flash on it but performance was increased significantly after I fixed a display + sleep issue attributed to Radeon video cards.And I quote::
""There is a missing extension in System/Library/Extensions/AppleNDRV(folder).
For those who have Ati Radeon 9600 PC and Mac Edition, ATI ROM Xtender is missing in Leopard causing sleep and display problems. The AppleNDVR folder contain only two extensions (AtiDriver.bundle and ATIRuntimeDriver.bundle). You need ATI ROM Xtender from Tiger(or ATI Displays preference pane reloaded onto 10.5) to have a correct display. Just put it in the folder and restart.""
I Hope this helps someone just as everyone else s post helped me out.
We must all turn our backs on Adobe + Flash. Give them nothing,, and destroy them if possible.
Viva La PPC !!!!!!!!
So I just registered here to share a positive story about this Flash / PPC debacle. Close to a year of frustrations brought to a quick end. I blame adobe.
As people have noted allready, TenFourfox !!!! I cant thank these guys enough.
http://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/
Its basically Firefox designed/coded/and optimized for G4s and after getting it you put in some flash block and flash download extensions right from mozillas standard Firefox add-ons procedures. I now load up any page on the internet ....including youtube and facebook w/ no problems at all. if i want to see a video I have to right-click and download. the downloads are tiny, quick and look and play fantastic w/QT or VLC. Some add-ons claim to auto convert and run within page or are directed to a stand alone player. Im just DLing until I find the right one. Its a bit of pain but Now Im scrolling through pages while i watch Med quality avi files on another monitor, at the same time. Internet + multi-tasking with no real problems. And heres the kicker...Im doing it on a10.4 PPC G4 466mhz!! It never as fast as you want but fast enough to still be VERY usable.Especially considering that this machine couldnt load a web page for years now. Even with fresh installs of everything.
SOOOO MANY PPC G4 + G5 users are completely frustrated with their machines.ALL because of flash problems!!! Adobe is a foul foul company for letting all these ppc users upgrade(at their insistence) a plug-in that cripples these machines and then offering no other solution other than buying new equipment.The forums are on fire with this topic. Moderators/bloggers/writers please!! help!!! Make some good concise "Headlines" letting people know about this before they throw away a great machine.
Oh yeah my PPC dualG5 w/Radeon 9600 video card running 10.5 leopard still has flash on it but performance was increased significantly after I fixed a display + sleep issue attributed to Radeon video cards.And I quote::
""There is a missing extension in System/Library/Extensions/AppleNDRV(folder).
For those who have Ati Radeon 9600 PC and Mac Edition, ATI ROM Xtender is missing in Leopard causing sleep and display problems. The AppleNDVR folder contain only two extensions (AtiDriver.bundle and ATIRuntimeDriver.bundle). You need ATI ROM Xtender from Tiger(or ATI Displays preference pane reloaded onto 10.5) to have a correct display. Just put it in the folder and restart.""
I Hope this helps someone just as everyone else s post helped me out.
We must all turn our backs on Adobe + Flash. Give them nothing,, and destroy them if possible.
Viva La PPC !!!!!!!!