Leopard Under The Hood And Requirements Analysis

[liberty4all]

Dual 450 MHz = 900 MHz i.e. > 867 MHz G4?!

So I have a Dual 450 MHz G4, so would that = 900 MHz i.e. > 867 MHz G4 -- would 10.5 therefore install?

What happens, does 10.5 fail to install on lower CPU Macs?

 

[ppc_michael]

I remember when you could fit an entire OS on a floppy. But then again, it couldn't deinterlace my DVDs, so I guess there's a trade-off.

 

[mjonson]

looks like canadian prices for 10.5 are the same as the American ones for the OS. nice to see, i wonder when/if hardware prices will follow.

 

[liberty4all]

Hmm, if so, I smell the revival of Xpostfacto!!! ;-)

See:
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/Framework.cfm?page=XPostFacto3.html

and:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/11168

My guess is that it looks at clock speed.

 

[CWallace]

9 gigs for the OS? Boo!!!!!

I would hope this is the "default" install size and once you have at it with something like OMNI DiskSweeper, you can prune a few GBs off.

I asked this before but no one answered. Apple says the 800MHz machines are too slow, so why are the 867's okay? What kind of difference does 67MHz make?

I admit to not being up on my PowerPC processors like I used to, but did the 867MHz models have a faster FSB or memory ratio? That might explain why Leopard works on the 867MHz and not the 800Mhz. I agree that just 67MHz of raw clock speed shouldn't be a deal-breaker...

 

[elppa]

If it won't install on my Dual 800mhz Quicksilver, I'll be breaking out my conductive pen and doing a bump to 867mhz

Please check before you start messing with the pen.

If the installer looks at the model identifier or something other than clock-speed to determine whether it can install, then it will be a fruitless exercise and you'd be better off with a software solution like XPostFacto.

 

[Luap]

I remember when you could fit an entire OS on a floppy. But then again, it couldn't deinterlace my DVDs, so I guess there's a trade-off.

Good point..

I remember the days when the word "deinterlace" didn't even exist. And now in 2007 where it does exist. I dont even know what it means

 

[Project]

Personally I don't think there's going to be a 10.6

11.0

I don't. I think the 10.x designation will be mostly phased out. OSX is the brand now.

 

[ChrisA]

Why do you say this? Do you know anything technical about the processors?

Intel Processors use SSE, SSE2, and SSE3. Advanced instructions for multi-media. How do you know that these backdrops arent coded heavly with SSE? Thus, Making the G4/G5 unable to execute these tasks.

This was exactly what I was thinking. They needed to hand code the background stuff using SSE. They could have supported the G5 with it's atlavec (sp?) but Apple perhaps just did not want to spend the money to pay for this. Or the feature could depend on a cleaver trick that works for SSE but has no equivalent on the G5. If you think about what is being done. It's a lot of work. They are comparing two images and generating a mask where they differ then using the mask to composite the live feed and background. and this has to happen once per frame at 30fps even with mini DV firewire camera running 480i. It works out to tens of millions of pixels per second. Likely the G5 is not up to the task.

 

[Foxglove9]

9 gigs isn't that much...

No it's not much at all. But for an OS that was only about 3 gigs before it's a big jump in file size. And as someone posted before, if you bought your macbook last year you have a 60-80 gb hard drive. That really makes things extremely tight. Nevermind if you have a laptop older than 1 year old, time to upgrade.

When I installed Tiger on my old G4 it took about an hour. I can only imagine how long it would take to install Leopard. Eep!

 

[ChrisA]

I don't. I think the 10.x designation will be mostly phased out. OSX is the brand now.

I think the "X" will continue to be used as the name of the OS that is based on BSD UNIX with the stuff from Next added. When/if they move to a completely different architecture we will see "OS XI".

I don't expect to see a change like that for at least a decade. After all
the current system has roots going back to the late 60's.

 

[dethl]

Photobooth backdrop effects require Intel Core Duo or faster

Ouch. Any reason why this is an Intel-only feature?

 

[mcdermd]

Please check before you start messing with the pen.

If the installer looks at the model identifier or something other than clock-speed to determine whether it can install, then it will be a fruitless exercise and you'd be better off with a software solution like XPostFacto.

The pen comes off with alcohol and then you're back to square one. I'd think target disk mode would work for install, but not too sure the installed OS would boot off of the old G4 hardware afterward. I would probably get the circle/slash.

 

[mkrishnan]

I don't expect to see a change like that for at least a decade. After all the current system has roots going back to the late 60's.

I think reinventing the wheel is going to get less and less appetizing over time. Since we've reached the point where the Unix paradigm can scale all the way from even basic embedded devices to supercomputers, although I think we'll still see periodic Symbian's and so on, I think the day of whole new paradigms in operating systems is basically over, at least until there's a big paradigm change in how computers work at a basic mechanistic level (i.e. at some point, if wholly new OS ideas are necessary for quantum or organic computing). Modulo, perhaps, whatever becomes of the few outliers out there -- that teetering house of cards, Windows, and the other holdouts that are not Unix-like architectures such as Symbian, PalmOS, etc.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

So I have a Dual 450 MHz G4, so would that = 900 MHz i.e. > 867 MHz G4 -- would 10.5 therefore install?

What happens, does 10.5 fail to install on lower CPU Macs?

Nice sense of humor. If not, don't quit your day job.

 

[twoodcc]

yay for faster network drive mounts!

agreed

but 1.6 ghz for watching dvds?

 

[mkrishnan]

but 1.6 ghz for watching dvds?

There's another thread that goes into much more detail about this... DVDs play like they do now on pretty much any computer they'll play on now. There's an advanced de-interlacing / upscaling engine (for better video quality) that you can only use if you have the >1.6GHz processor.

 

[Eidorian]

Hmm, if so, I smell the revival of Xpostfacto!!! ;-)

See:
http://eshop.macsales.com/OSXCenter/XPostFacto/Framework.cfm?page=XPostFacto3.html

and:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/11168

Imaging/cloning might be a work around as well.

 

[nakile]

9GB of HDD space isn't too much, at least for all the stuff the OS can do. I find if kind of... small.

Compare it to Vista Home Premium. It needs 15GB of space and doesn't do half the stuff Leopard does. I really don't know how Microsoft can use up all that space.

 

[FJ218700]

So I have a Dual 450 MHz G4, so would that = 900 MHz i.e. > 867 MHz G4 -- would 10.5 therefore install?

What happens, does 10.5 fail to install on lower CPU Macs?

I'm soooo glad I went with the dual 867 MDD a few years back. Waited so long. So worth it now.

 

[Eidorian]

I'm soooo glad I went with the dual 867 MDD a few years back. Waited so long. So worth it now.

The Mirrored Drive Door was the greatest Power Mac in my opinion.

 

[Transeau]

No Photo Booth backdrops for me? No DVD Player? No Front Row? Ouch!

I can't believe I will not even be able to use DVD Player. That's a bit much, isn't it? Not a big deal since there are other apps I can use, but still.

With those small complaints aside, I still can't wait for Leopard.

read closely.
You will not be able to do progressive output. You can still watch a dvd, just not deinterlace.

 

[FJ218700]

The Mirrored Drive Door was the greatest Power Mac in my opinion.

I'm a believer. It's my main computer at work. Has been running not stop for a few years now. With 2 GB or RAM and an upgraded video card, this thing is begging for Leopard.

 

[Eidorian]

I'm a believer. It's my main computer at work. Has been running not stop for a few years now. With 2 GB or RAM and an upgraded video card, this thing is begging for Leopard.

What video card do you have?

I might bug you about the performance on a G4 when it ships.

 

[madmax_2069]

I asked this before but no one answered. Apple says the 800MHz machines are too slow, so why are the 867's okay? What kind of difference does 67MHz make?

I was wondering that myself, but i originally i thought it was to x out a complete system model at first ( since they list the QS as vintage), but i looked again at everymac just to learn there is a Quicksilver model with a 867mhz cpu in it, so that blew that theory out of the water in some way's. so there is only half support still for the QS G4 model. and what about the QS MP 800 system. one would think that the 867mhz QS would be slower then the MP 800mhz QS. but if the system requirements are 867mhz then it would x out the QS MP 800 system wouldn't it.

That would make the QS models a bit easier to get Leopard to install then others, since the machine ID check might see the QS 867mhz model as ok , then if thats the case the QS model's have the go ahead by the machine ID check, so the only thing that is holding the QS 800mhz and slower models is the virtual cpu speed limit in the installer. so all you would need to do is bump up the cpu past the 867mhz mark, or wait for a work around.


i think apple should have allowed any system (with AGP) that can meet or go above the 867mhz requirement (VIA cpu upgrade) to enable it to install leopard, and not lock out the systems by machine ID. i don't like the fact that apple does this, and never have and never will