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Originally posted by buffsldr


I am very religious. I commend people for their search for truth and I hope we all find happiness and truth. I feel religion is so deeply personal that it should only be discussed at appropriate times. I respect others right to come to a macrumors web site and not hear my views. Sacred things have a time and a place.

Having said that, I think if religion does come up and people are interested in discussing it, perhaps they should do so elsewhere. Sacred things deserve being discussed in an appropriate manner.


i agree to a point....but someone else brought it up. im never bringing it up. so if someone wants to hit...they best be hitting the right person. im merely engaging in conversation.....thats all. what is wrong with that? if people want to talkt about whatever the hell they want ...who am i to stop them...im not the moderator and most these people complaining about this shiznit arent either.... so unless the mod (ARN or blakespot) says to stop there is nothing wrong with going on about it on here.
 
My iMac DV-SE (G3, 500 Mhz) isn't exactly Apple spec, as I replaced the original 5400 HD with an (internal) 80 GB 7200 rpm HD (heat does not seem to be an issue; I have carefully checked this) and put 1 GB RAM into the machine.

OS X is quite responsive on it now, and GUI performance is on par with my 933 Mhz G4. I really have no need or desire to go back to OS 9 on the iMac. And, yes, OS X on the souped-up iMac runs as well (if not better) than OS 9 does. (And, yes, I do run FCP 3 and will run Photoshop 7.0 as soon as I can get it.)

Obviously, this is not the type of set-up you can get from Apple, so it does not count for much under the "real world test" rubric. Even so, it does prove that a G3 in tandem with comparable (to G4 machines) hardware can run OS X just fine.

(And, for some reason, rendering in FCP 3 in OS X is faster than rendering in OS 9. Not a dramatic difference, mind you, but a difference nevertheless. Of course rendering on a G4 is dramatically faster, but we are talking about G3 performance here.)

Not trying to flame or be contrary for the sake of it either. I'm merely telling you my personal experience.
 
i have asked many people who are mac techies and advanced users about whether a g3 machine will take os x, and it gives me hope to hear your experience

my wife and i may plan to replace our 2 1/2 year old ibook with another ibook a year from now...but hopefully by then, the ibook will also have a g4 processor

thanks pepzhez!:)
 
It is impossible to find any useful info on the net regarding OS X and the G3. All I ever come across is the useless "G3's are old and must die ... besides, Steve says you need a G4" type of hysteria.

With all due respect to Mr. Jobs, I don't think it takes a genius to regard his "OS X requires a G4" statement a tad skeptically. Of course he wants to sell new iMacs, Ti books and G4 towers. Can't blame him for that and I do indeed hope that Apple sells tons of them.

But, as for the rest of us who neither want nor can afford to junk our still perfectly functional G3 machines, what's needed is some unbiased real-world tests. I do not perform benchmarks or the like, but I have been using OS X in my G4 933 Mhz tower, the dual processor 800 Mhz machine I use at work, as well as in my G3 iMac DV-SE.

As stated in my previous post above, I mainly do video work on the Macs (Final Cut Pro 3 and After Effects 5.5) and am using OS X 100% for these operations in all three machines.

As to why I would use FCP in an iMac G3, well, I do find it useful to do smaller edits and video capturing in the iMac while the G4 is doing the more intensive labor (rendering). I use a firewire HD to transfer files between the machines.

Anyway, my real-world experience with OS X on a G3:

1) RAM does indeed make all the difference. Moving up from 256 MB to 1 GB of RAM on the iMac was a huge improvement. A friend of mine is now getting perfectly acceptable FCP 3 performance on OS X on a 400 Mhz iMac DV+ (original 5400 rpm drive) with 640 MB RAM, as good as or better than the performance she gets with it using OS 9.2.

2) The 7200 rpm HD makes things speedier, yes, but OS X was running quite well on the iMac's original 5400 rpm drive.

3) Have not seen this mentioned anywhere else, but the 10.1.3 update made for an improved speed/performance gain with a G3 processor. I did not notice any speed improvements with the G4 machines under 10.1.3, but it is VERY noticeable with a G3.

So, as far as I'm concerned, here is the bottom line on running OS X on a G3:

- So long as you are using 10.1.3 and have plenty of RAM (no less than 512 MB, I'd say), you can expect to have OS X run as well as OS 9.

- Having more RAM is more more crucial than HD speed. 5400 rpm is perfectly acceptable.

- The OS X GUI on a properly equipped G3 machine (RAM, RAM, and more RAM) will be just as responsive as it will be on a G4.

- You will NOT take any performance hits. I am not about to argue about apps taking 1.5 more seconds to open under OS X than they would under OS 9. It isn't a big concern to me, really. (Plus, that's an OS X - not a G3 vs. G4 - issue). I find that some apps (especially Cleaner 5) open IMMEDIATELY in OS X and take much longer in OS 9 (whether you are using a G3 or a G4).

[I never sat here with a stop watch to see if FCP 3 opens a tenth of a second faster in OS 9 than in OS X and I really don't care if it indeed does. Strangely, this is an issue that seems to concern people a great deal, but I'll have to plead ignorance - or just indifference - at this juncture.]

- There is a reason why Apple's specs say OS X will run on a G3 - because it does! And it can run well. Don't listen to Jobs on this score - he'd much rather sell you a new G4 machine than just a box containing OS X for your old G3.

(And I REALLY wish Ambitious Lemon - much as I respect him - would stop trotting out the "Steve sez we all needs a G4" every post. This is a dubious argument, to say the least. I'm sure that whenever G5's finally become available, Jobs will be crowing that we all need THAT to run OS X.)

Yes, I agree - OS X itself still has some growing to do, and it is evolving along quite nicely. But when all is said and done, OS X as it is TODAY will run equally well in a G3 or a G4.

(Apologies for the long post, but I have been frustrated over not finding anything helpful on the net about this issue, so I'm taking full advantage of the opportunity to add my two cents here.)
 
Pepzhez, you've got it!
imagine how slow OS X is on a G4 350....the 400 iMac really does go faster! (they sit next to each other...) the 400 wins only after 10.1.3 came out, i'm not sure what exactly they did, but it helped G3's!
to tell you the truth, i think G4's are over-rated in everything but one area and that's openeing multiple apps at once! of everything, that is the thing i love the most. i've never seen any other OS do it so well, i can hit the adobe buttons and they all open at once, instead of one at a time...as well as FCP 3...all opening at once! i love it! anywho, ya, that's more of me gloating about OSX, but, even for "heavy rendering" tasks G3's can do it, all you need is RAM (as Pepzhez said) and a fast HD, the 7200 does make a difference in the end...and also have your internal drive partitioned and have one of the partitions the RAM disk (take 80 GB 7200 RPM drive, 2 GB for RAM, and man it will scream in OSX, well, for a G3 anyway) so ya, it's lat and i'm enoying rambling....have fun!
 
Originally posted by cb911
all these tests and stuff are in seconds. i guess thats alright for the average user, but does anyone know where to find any stuff about testing things like render time in hours?

Yes. visit www.bearfeats.com they also have several iBook vs TiBook tests. someone claimed that it's one of best Mac performance comparison site
 
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