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Buying PowerPC Macs In 2012
- Thread starter Goftrey
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I have a dual 1.8 G5, 2.5GB ram, 10.4.11, and the original crap geforce 5200 and can play 480p and 720p on youtube just fine without Mactubes or any mods. It only stutters when I do 720p fullscreen or 1080p.
Regarding the whole dual G4 vs single G5 discussion, of course the G4 will be faster with two processors. When I replaced my single 867 G4 with my G5 I was not really complaining about the speed too much, it got me around. The wall I hit was in the memory department and that's where the G5's shine. I had 1.25gb in the G4 and started paging badly as I multitasked (nothing too insane). Paging to a IDE drive is just painful. Plus my two 40GB HDDs were filling up fast. It just wasn't really worth investing more into with a 1.5gb ceiling.
Now I have SATA, 2.5GB ram and can go to 4GB if I want and things are so much better (I still have and love my old G4 though). I was hoping Tom would get a dual G5 for the memory reason alone. I have to admit though those G4s look nice and are fun to upgrade. But at any rate the G5s really don't shine until multitasking or video editing comes into the picture. Sure the video card offerings over the G4 isn't much better (at least not in my AGP G5) and the processors aren't miles ahead, but the whole package of a dual G5 when properly upgraded and used are great (software updates withstanding).
Regarding the life span of PPC, of course it's up to each users needs. For myself I bought this G5 with expectations of getting 2 years out of it. I am now 1 year into it and have no regrets. Memory was a breeze to buy and install, and it works with my old apple monitor with ADC. Only things I had a hard time swallowing is finding Leopard and a better fx card at decent prices. I decided to pass on those and save for an intel Mac for next year. I will still keep the G5 and G4 around for some classic stuff though. The writing is on the wall for many though and Tom makes some good points.
I did have a few pleasant surprises along the way with my G5. Having both classic and Tiger allowed me to play Myst 1-4 as well as other classic games like Sim City 2000. Better than these facebook games IMO. Interested to see where Tom goes with his next vids. Even though I know about all this stuff it's nice to see support for PPC Macs let alone Macs at all.
n8
Regarding the whole dual G4 vs single G5 discussion, of course the G4 will be faster with two processors. When I replaced my single 867 G4 with my G5 I was not really complaining about the speed too much, it got me around. The wall I hit was in the memory department and that's where the G5's shine. I had 1.25gb in the G4 and started paging badly as I multitasked (nothing too insane). Paging to a IDE drive is just painful. Plus my two 40GB HDDs were filling up fast. It just wasn't really worth investing more into with a 1.5gb ceiling.
Now I have SATA, 2.5GB ram and can go to 4GB if I want and things are so much better (I still have and love my old G4 though). I was hoping Tom would get a dual G5 for the memory reason alone. I have to admit though those G4s look nice and are fun to upgrade. But at any rate the G5s really don't shine until multitasking or video editing comes into the picture. Sure the video card offerings over the G4 isn't much better (at least not in my AGP G5) and the processors aren't miles ahead, but the whole package of a dual G5 when properly upgraded and used are great (software updates withstanding).
Regarding the life span of PPC, of course it's up to each users needs. For myself I bought this G5 with expectations of getting 2 years out of it. I am now 1 year into it and have no regrets. Memory was a breeze to buy and install, and it works with my old apple monitor with ADC. Only things I had a hard time swallowing is finding Leopard and a better fx card at decent prices. I decided to pass on those and save for an intel Mac for next year. I will still keep the G5 and G4 around for some classic stuff though. The writing is on the wall for many though and Tom makes some good points.
I did have a few pleasant surprises along the way with my G5. Having both classic and Tiger allowed me to play Myst 1-4 as well as other classic games like Sim City 2000. Better than these facebook games IMO. Interested to see where Tom goes with his next vids. Even though I know about all this stuff it's nice to see support for PPC Macs let alone Macs at all.
n8
He briefly talked about the PowerPC Promise in his latest update-video. Basically he just clarified that the experiment is starting somewhere around early to mid-july - and he will be buying and upgrading during may/june. So I guess that's when the geeky goodness starts to come out more frequently.
He briefly talked about the PowerPC Promise in his latest update-video. Basically he just clarified that the experiment is starting somewhere around early to mid-july - and he will be buying and upgrading during may/june. So I guess that's when the geeky goodness starts to come out more frequently.
And he'll be doing the experiment for 14 days, instead of 7. He took the advice of people on Twitter & on here to make the challenge longer.
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That's nice to know, I just bought a dual 1.8 G5 last night (due to my 1.6 dying of a LB problem, or at least I'm 90% sure of it).
Hello, I purchased a PCI-E PowerMac G5 recently and I have trouble playing YouTube HD (720p+) videos - video playback is very jerky but sound is OK. Gotta note it has nVidia 6600LE 120MB Video card and it runs OS X 10.5.8. Do you think that upgrading to Radeon x1900 would solve the problem?
Upgrading the video card will help, but try MacTubes set to Quicktime player first. Should improve video playback a lot. http://macapps.sakura.ne.jp/mactubes/index_en.html
On a side note, I always watch youtube in 720p on my computer (G4 in my sig). I'm using MacTubes to get url and CorePlayer to play videos for that purpose.
I would also think that your system should play 720p fine. I wonder if software has anything to do with it. I am running a lesser FX card and 720p is fine for me. I am using OS 10.4.11, Safari 4.1.3, Flash 10.1 r102, with 2.5gb ram. I have heard certain versions of flash being poor performers but can't remember which exact versions. Or you could use Mactubes like suggested.
@Tom
Not sure what software you are planning to throw at your G4, but I would be interested in seeing it run the X-Plane 8 simulator, before upgrades and after and see what FPS you get. I think it's a good game to test overall system performance in all areas. It is old enough to run on that system while having enough options, both CPU and GPU intensive, to turn on to really test out your rig. Just update it to version 8.6.4 so that it uses version 8 textures and not the older version 7 textures. It can be had for cheap when it does come up for sale.
You guys can take a look at http://macpowerpc.wordpress.com
Tried hulu desktop from the link you have posted and it works on PowerPC Macs.
I bought a new-like looking early 2005 DP 2GHz, 3GB RAM G5 month ago. I just couldn't pass it as G5-s are so rare in where I live. I payed 190 for whole set + got Retail Leopard with it, which I can sell for like 90. Actually I didn't need it, but I tought if I get such a opurtunity, then I need to grab it. Bought new Apple wired keyboard for 35 and just replaced old PC, which I did.
Next thing I'm going to do is swap HDD out with small SSD, about 40GB or so, which is well enough for internet-text usage.
I am most impressed by silence it works, cannot even compare with 2006 PC that is like turbine.
That is something special about these machines, raw power or something.
Next thing I'm going to do is swap HDD out with small SSD, about 40GB or so, which is well enough for internet-text usage.
I am most impressed by silence it works, cannot even compare with 2006 PC that is like turbine.
That is something special about these machines, raw power or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD0fTG0sgbU&list=UUkLTdFxnM_0Ej163wR9wI1g&index=3&feature=plcp
well it looks it's finally going to be on..
well it looks it's finally going to be on..
go PPC
looking to drag my dual 2.7 G5 back from OZ to where i am living now. and ofcourse looking to max out the ram in that puppy.
looking to drag my dual 2.7 G5 back from OZ to where i am living now. and ofcourse looking to max out the ram in that puppy.
I just bought used iBook G4 12" 1.33GHz machine couple days ago. The previous owner said that that machine has been used very little because his pet rabbit bit the power cord and after that he didn't get new charger. He said that this machine has been stored several years in the closet and now he said it was time sell it but he couldn't promise that it works.
I didn't believe him, that story was so unbelievable, but because the price was so low (20 euros without charger) I just thought I'd buy it and try repair i (I assumed that it was broken despite what the seller told me). Well, the machine arrived and I hooked my cheap chinese charger on it and everything worked. The machine looked like new, software was old and battery was the original which has been charged only 32 cycles even though it is 7 years old and it still promises 4 hours of usage. So I guess the seller told the truth.
G4 is slow as hell by today's standards and of course very few apps get new PPC -versions, but I think this was worth the price and while it its not my primary or even second machine, it is still good for web browsing and watching some YouTube -videos by using YouView, that's what I do mostly anyway. This iBook can do it but only bit slower than my Intel -based PC and Macbook Pro.
I didn't believe him, that story was so unbelievable, but because the price was so low (20 euros without charger) I just thought I'd buy it and try repair i (I assumed that it was broken despite what the seller told me). Well, the machine arrived and I hooked my cheap chinese charger on it and everything worked. The machine looked like new, software was old and battery was the original which has been charged only 32 cycles even though it is 7 years old and it still promises 4 hours of usage. So I guess the seller told the truth.
G4 is slow as hell by today's standards and of course very few apps get new PPC -versions, but I think this was worth the price and while it its not my primary or even second machine, it is still good for web browsing and watching some YouTube -videos by using YouView, that's what I do mostly anyway. This iBook can do it but only bit slower than my Intel -based PC and Macbook Pro.
No there not. I browse the internet, play games, watch videos(local and streaming) and edit videos on a G4.
Well yes, you can edit videos on G4, I have also done that couple years ago, but compared to every laptop stores now sell as new (excluding netbooks) the G4 is slow.
What about Pentium 4's ? Most(If not all) G4's are faster than them yet people still use them.
Well clock for clock G4 is faster than atleast the first P4 processors, problem is that Pentium 4 easily scaled to higher frequencies, had higher bus speed and packed larger caches in the end.
My point was that despite this machine being old and slow by today's standards, I'd pay this same 20 euros for every 12" iBook I see which are in this condition, nearly unused. G4's are not completedly obsolete machines.
In many respects both P4's and G4's are just fine by today's standards. Both would be fine for most people to pay bills, generate documents, email i.e. 80% of whats done with a computer. Having said that we delude ourselves if we think that there fast in the modern sense. I'm typing this from my daughters 12" PowerBook it surfs the web just fine and it's 4x3 screen is great for doc's and web pages but if she wants to watch movies and the like she take the MacBook.
I remember my pet bunny chewing through a laptop charger, Airport base station power cable, a G4 iMac power cable, and an Ethernet cable. Though not so far that they didn't work, or that my little bunny fried itself.
Unless there is a very special reason and purpose I doubt anyone should pay money for powerpc computers. There are still quite a few around in some kind of use. If you happen to have one, are given one as handmedown or similar it is worth the effort to make it work for your needs. I`ve noticed there is quite a large aftermarked of replacement parts for these computers.
Not everybody wants to spend $600 or more for a second- or first-gen Intel at least, and not everybody likes PC's either, so that covers a good amount of people. A lot of people like them better, in fact. Apple's a different company than they were before, and it's shown in their products. If you look at the specs, they're enough for most things, especially now that Flash is dying.