Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
New PPC G4 Upgrade Suggestions
- Thread starter IronLionZion
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Radeon 9600 upgrade (MDD)
Hello everyone,
Last week, I bought a couple of RADEON 9600 Mac/Pc Edition (original cards - not flashed) and, after some troubleshooting, I was able to make them work perfect in my 2 MDDs.
Here are the improvements over the stock Radeon 9000:
- Transparent Menu Bar is now automatically enabled.
- much quicker dock animation for opening folders.
- flash playback is even faster (!) (Didn't expect this one as it's mostly CPU driven but the extra memory of the 9600 can't hurt).
When it comes to 720p/1080p, here are the results (I used the 4:3 trailer -mastered in 16:9- from Star Trek Next Generation Season 2 Blu-Ray release)
MDD 2x1.25:
720p
VLC 1.1.9 great/no frame loss
VLC 2.0.4 great/no frame loss
iTunes so-so/frame loss
1080p
VLC 1.1.9 shows only 1 frame
VLC 2.0.4 some frames shown/compression artifacts
iTunes decent attempt/shows lots of it/slow down
MDD 2x1.42:
720p
VLC 1.1.9 great/no frame loss
VLC 2.0.4 great/no frame loss
iTunes good/some frame loss
1080p
VLC 1.1.9 shows only 1 frame
VLC 2.0.4 several frames shown/compression artifacts
iTunes better attempt/shows lots of it/slow down effect/surprisingly watchable
At the end of the day, I'm amazed by 1080p in iTunes; I expected nothing and I got "something" (as flawed as it can be).
Next step : SSDs !
Hello everyone,
Last week, I bought a couple of RADEON 9600 Mac/Pc Edition (original cards - not flashed) and, after some troubleshooting, I was able to make them work perfect in my 2 MDDs.
Here are the improvements over the stock Radeon 9000:
- Transparent Menu Bar is now automatically enabled.
- much quicker dock animation for opening folders.
- flash playback is even faster (!) (Didn't expect this one as it's mostly CPU driven but the extra memory of the 9600 can't hurt).
When it comes to 720p/1080p, here are the results (I used the 4:3 trailer -mastered in 16:9- from Star Trek Next Generation Season 2 Blu-Ray release)
MDD 2x1.25:
720p
VLC 1.1.9 great/no frame loss
VLC 2.0.4 great/no frame loss
iTunes so-so/frame loss
1080p
VLC 1.1.9 shows only 1 frame
VLC 2.0.4 some frames shown/compression artifacts
iTunes decent attempt/shows lots of it/slow down
MDD 2x1.42:
720p
VLC 1.1.9 great/no frame loss
VLC 2.0.4 great/no frame loss
iTunes good/some frame loss
1080p
VLC 1.1.9 shows only 1 frame
VLC 2.0.4 several frames shown/compression artifacts
iTunes better attempt/shows lots of it/slow down effect/surprisingly watchable
At the end of the day, I'm amazed by 1080p in iTunes; I expected nothing and I got "something" (as flawed as it can be).
Next step : SSDs !
For something else, try Quicktime 7 once you've installed Perian. Quicktime is the back end of Front Row and iTunes so will give you a lighter weight player that can still handle most formats.
It should be able to play most things with a few frame drops on 1080p content, but that all depends. If you want to get seamless playback try a few different H.264 encoding settings until you get something that plays back.
An SSD will help with getting information off the hard drive, and make things snappier, but the difference it will make to video playback will be marginal as you hit the physical hardware limits for what a G4 is capable of.
It should be able to play most things with a few frame drops on 1080p content, but that all depends. If you want to get seamless playback try a few different H.264 encoding settings until you get something that plays back.
An SSD will help with getting information off the hard drive, and make things snappier, but the difference it will make to video playback will be marginal as you hit the physical hardware limits for what a G4 is capable of.
Last edited:
Looks like I'm a week late to the party...
Office 2004 runs consistently on my PPC machines, from my lowly iMac G3 600Mhz to my DP2.0 G5.
I have Office 2008, but I only ever ran it on my trio of PM G4 DA 700Mhz / 1.5GB RAM. I personally prefer 2004 over 2008, and now that 2004 can handle docx and the like, I just kept with it.
As for wireless, I recommend against a USB dongle. If the price is right, the Airport express it the way to go. I use em and love em.
Office 2004 runs consistently on my PPC machines, from my lowly iMac G3 600Mhz to my DP2.0 G5.
I have Office 2008, but I only ever ran it on my trio of PM G4 DA 700Mhz / 1.5GB RAM. I personally prefer 2004 over 2008, and now that 2004 can handle docx and the like, I just kept with it.
As for wireless, I recommend against a USB dongle. If the price is right, the Airport express it the way to go. I use em and love em.
Your only issue is that Apple never released an 802.11n card for PPC. For browsing the internet an Airport card will be fine, however if you want to transfer files wirelessly 802.11g is not going to be fast enough.