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Best OS for a 733?

Best OS

  • OS 9

    Votes: 2 8.0%

  • 10.0 Cheetah

    Votes: 1 4.0%

  • 10.1 Puma

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 10.2 Jaguar

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 10.3 Panther

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 10.4 Tiger

    Votes: 13 52.0%

  • 10.5 Leopard

    Votes: 9 36.0%
  • Total voters
    25
Lil Chillbil

Lil Chillbil

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 30, 2012
1,335
111
California
I just bought a quicksilver 733 for $60 shipped, I plan to do some upgrades but was wondering where the best support is for a near baseline QS?

Update

Sticking with panther atm because I have the discs
I'm installing Final Cut Express 4
Ilife 05 and i'm ordering the Max ram 1.5 Gb this machine can hold
 
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I would go for a Mac OS 9.2.2 + 10.4.11 dual-boot setup on that hardware, but it's also perfectly capable of running Leopard, despite not being officially supported (good idea to max-out the RAM to 1.5 GB first).
 
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It's shipping with 10.3.9, the last time I ran panther was in 2012 and the support was horrid. Cheetah-Panther are easily the most abandoned OS X Versions from what I gather.
 
I could only choose one so picked Leopard.

With that said, I agree with the above. My standard configuration for higher spec G4s is triple booting Tiger, Leopard, and OS 9.
 
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I voted for Leopard. The app support is way better making for a more usable & current machine ime and there's some good stuff over at macintosh garden which is awesome. RedHeeler's right - max out ram to 1.5gb first. It's a cheap & easy upgrade - $20 on ebay. A usb2 pci card is another cheap upgrade ($8 on ebay) that will increase data transfer speeds from 12 on the QS to 480mbits on the card. I am a fan of wifi, so I also popped for a AP card that was $6 shipped off of ebay.
 
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I somewhat am considering sticking with panther or Jaguar purely because I would like this machine to remain quick as the day it was made. Putting old software versions of final cut pro, itunes etc. maxing out the ram and an ssd and let friends screw around with it as an example of how its bloating software that slows computers down and that a 2001 Mac is just as fast in its own native environment as a new mac pro.
 
Lil Chillbil said:
I somewhat am considering sticking with panther or Jaguar purely because I would like this machine to remain quick as the day it was made. Putting old software versions of final cut pro, itunes etc. maxing out the ram and an ssd and let friends screw around with it as an example of how its bloating software that slows computers down and that a 2001 Mac is just as fast in its own native environment as a new mac pro.
Click to expand...

I too had planned to put a SSD in my QS but you'll need a Sata controller card to do it and I as of yet still have not found one that plays nice with osx g4 and wasn't like $150. I am using a pata to sata converter to utilize some sata hdds I had but you dont get the speed boost w/o the controller card. They are like gold I swear lol.

I will say that while I like Tiger alot, upgrading from tiger to leopard did not impact app speed. The only thing I did notice was boot up. Tiger is much faster there but once up n running, no difference for me - just way better app support, availability etc. - even video streaming was improved. If you do choose leopard at some point, I recommend doing a fresh install and not upgrading. For some reason, a fresh install yielded even better performance for me. As always just my (very limited hobbyist) experience. ymmv :)
 
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For a while, every OS X version made an across the board speed improvement as the OS matured.

Panther is the absolute minimum I would consider using, and Tiger really is just an overall better choice. You will not notice a speed hit vs. Panther and may even notice a slight improvement along with many more features and much better software support.

I can't think of anything I've experienced where Jaguar has been faster than Panther.
 
I've decided on tiger, now I just need a parts list on what the best graphics card I can get for it is, a recommended hard drive and any other things.
 
If I had to pick one for a G4/733 it would be Tiger. That said, on most of my G4 Macs I have three partitions which run 9.2.2, 10.4.11 and 10.5.8. My G4DA (1.467) does, my 12" 1.33 GHz Al Book does (with unsupported trick for 9.2.2), my 1 GHz TiBook does. And my tricked-out 7600 will eventually; it has a partition reserved for Leopard if I can get a faster G4 PCI card in it for something less than the ridiculous prices they are going for now.

One last thing and it has been mentioned above -- I'd want to max the RAM on any G4 that runs Leopard. Tiger is fine with 512 MB; Leopard should have a gig and preferably more.
 
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Lil Chillbil said:
I somewhat am considering sticking with panther or Jaguar purely because I would like this machine to remain quick as the day it was made. Putting old software versions of final cut pro, itunes etc. maxing out the ram and an ssd and let friends screw around with it as an example of how its bloating software that slows computers down and that a 2001 Mac is just as fast in its own native environment as a new mac pro.
Click to expand...
Hehe... Jaguar & Quick have never been in the same sentence together before.
 
Hrududu said:
Hehe... Jaguar & Quick have never been in the same sentence together before.
Click to expand...

Compared to 10.0 or 10.1? Yeah, Jaguar was quick. ;)

I have the Digital Audio 733 and I run two partitions. One with Leopard and the other with OS 9. You have no idea how often I still come back to Mac OS 9.
 
MysticCow said:
Compared to 10.0 or 10.1? Yeah, Jaguar was quick. ;)

I have the Digital Audio 733 and I run two partitions. One with Leopard and the other with OS 9. You have no idea how often I still come back to Mac OS 9.
Click to expand...
More features & a little more stable than 10.0 and 10.1 sure, but not quicker IMO. Jaguar was the first OS X that replaced Classic Mac OS as my everyday boot (version 8.6 in my case) and I was amazed at Panther's speed and stability when it came out. Man I miss that time! lol
 
Hrududu said:
More features & a little more stable than 10.0 and 10.1 sure, but not quicker IMO. Jaguar was the first OS X that replaced Classic Mac OS as my everyday boot (version 8.6 in my case) and I was amazed at Panther's speed and stability when it came out. Man I miss that time! lol
Click to expand...

10.3? Yeah that one ruled. I wish Apple would have learned something from releasing something as snappy fast as 10.3.
 
Lil Chillbil said:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Mac-G...514415?hash=item3d249168ef:g:SHYAAOSwvzRXydI2

This is the fastest card I can get for a quicksilver right?

It would be an interesting challenge to get this thing hooked up to my current setup of 3 monitors, router/modem headphones and yeti mic, and just have it replace the mac pro for a weekend.
Click to expand...

That is the fastest card that will give hardware acceleration in OS 9, and also the fastest "official"* card for a Quicksilver.

Unofficially, you can get MUCH faster cards if you want to tape, modify, and/or flash. I'm using a Radeon 9600 from a G5 in my main Quicksilver. It's taped and also has some additional work to support an ADC monitor.

With that said, I LOVE the 4Ti-it's a wonderful card. Its major downfall in later OS X version is its lack of core image support. I like it enough that I have three of them. I will add the caveat that if you are patient, you can usually find them for about half that price.

*The rare Radeon 9700 that was BTO for the MDD will sometimes work in Quicksilvers, and if it does work it is plug and play.
 
I have a 9700 in an MDD that PSU blew out


Edit, I went into the storage room and turns out that MDD was stripped long ago.
 
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IDK what the hell happened to some of my apple stuff between 2013-2016 when I went pc, it's like I took out my frustrations on my 17 Inch lined imac with a hammer or something... Maybe my Tiger discs went too, but I still have my Leopard DVD

1614193_620891114670549_7629719178062097246_o.jpg

When I was 15 I was Str8 Edge Bro
 
Hello from my new to me MDD on tenfourfox I found that this g4 didn't have a geforce 4 it has a weird card for an mdd. (My quicksilver isn't here yet and I didn't want to spam threads)
 

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OOOOH, that's a rare one. AFAIK, it was a retail-only card.

PM me if you want to part with it-I can set you up with something else if you would be interested.
 
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