How well does Leopard run on 512MB of RAM?

[dandeco]

I'm seriously considering upgrading my eMac G4 to Mac OS X Leopard (it came with Tiger pre-installed). However, since I am super tight on money (someone loaned me a Leopard retail disk to use ), I'm wondering how Leopard performs on 512 MB of DDR-SDRAM? The processor meets the requirements, etc. (it's a 1 GHz G4 eMac from 2004, I copied the Leopard disk to a DMG and plan to do one of those external hard drive install setups I've seen, since I don't have an external DVD drive and the Mac has a CD-ROM drive) Leopard can be supported on my model. But the question is on how it runs if the memory does not exceed, but rather meet, the system requirements (in this case, 512 MB of RAM, which is PC2700 DDR-SDRAM). Can anyone give me any experience/comments on how it would operate?

 

[BlueRevolution]

Don't expect all of the eye candy to be silky smooth, but it should run just fine.

 

[michael.lauden]

Don't expect all of the eye candy to be silky smooth, but it should run just fine.

good thing there are tools like onyx+tinkertool to help with that.

if you disable dashboard and don't use a lot of menu bar apps then you should be fine.

 

[richard.mac]

i get slow downs and high swap usage with 1 GB on Leopard after leaving my Mac on for a few days especially with Safari left open. even though the minimum specs are 512 MB i would say for no slow downs with heavy usage you should have 1.5 GB or more.

i reckon you should just install Tiger as it will run a lot better on 512 MB. also not owning a Leopard disc means that if you have problems where you need to boot into the install DVD or reinstall youre out of luck. so go for Tiger.

 

[dandeco]

i get slow downs and high swap usage with 1 GB on Leopard after leaving my Mac on for a few days especially with Safari left open. even though the minimum specs are 512 MB i would say for no slow downs with heavy usage you should have 1.5 GB or more.

i reckon you should just install Tiger as it will run a lot better on 512 MB. also not owning a Leopard disc means that if you have problems where you need to boot into the install DVD or reinstall youre out of luck. so go for Tiger.

Actually it already HAS Tiger. I will keep it until I upgrade the RAM to at least 1.5 GB.

 

[richard.mac]

oh k sorry (scanned your post) then leave Tiger on it.

thats the amount of RAM i used to have until one of the dimm slots in my MBP fried and i found i had a lot less colour wheels (slow downs) and nearly always no swap usage. Apple's minimum specs of 512 MB is just enough but will be pretty slow. 1 GB will be fine for everyday usage but its not great.

 

[SkyBell]

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I run Leopard on my 1.42 GHz eMac with just 512 MB. It works pretty well, though there is the ocassional. Beachball every once in a while. It should be fine if you aren't doing heavy stuff