Latest Version of OS X that Will Run Smooth on iMac G3?

[Win7>SnowLeopard]

Hey Does Anyone Have An Idea About What the Latest Version of OS X Is that Will Run Smoothly on an iMac G3 without lag and without working on it for months?

 

[davisdelo]

What model of G3 are you using? On my RevD I would say that no version of OS X ever ran smooth, mostly due to the fact that it never had video acceleration support in the OS for the old Rage Pro. The second gen G3s fair a lot better. I used to have an old 400Mhz graphite that ran Panther very well.

 

[Amethyst1]

On my RevD I would say that no version of OS X ever ran smooth, mostly due to the fact that it never had video acceleration support in the OS for the old Rage Pro

PowerBook G3 Wallstreet "PDQ" Appreciation

PDQ Accelerated! Not to be discouraged by a few failed attempts, I systematically went through each iteration of Mac OS X updates from 10.4.11 backwards to find a working driver for the ATI Rage LT Pro. Mac OS X 10.4.3 - 10.4.11 ATIRagePro.kext + ATIRageProGA.plugin v1.4.4.2 (1366) Mac OS X...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Project Alice]

I practically grew up running Tiger on mine. And an iBook G3. It runs fine. It feels choppy no matter what because of the obsolete at time of release Rage chips Apple used in all of them.

 

[1042686]

Typically I run Tiger in slot loaders & pather in tray loaders & then a separate partition for 9.2.2 in all.

Max ram certainly helps in all.

 

[Project Alice]

Typically I run Tiger in slot loaders & pather in tray loaders & then a separate partition for 9.2.2 in all.

Max ram certainly helps in all.

Tiger is faster than Panther IMO. They’re basically the same OS but Tiger is more refined and runs more software. My tray loader runs Tiger and 9.2.2.
I have a Beige on Tiger too.

 

[swamprock]

PowerBook G3 Wallstreet "PDQ" Appreciation

PDQ Accelerated! Not to be discouraged by a few failed attempts, I systematically went through each iteration of Mac OS X updates from 10.4.11 backwards to find a working driver for the ATI Rage LT Pro. Mac OS X 10.4.3 - 10.4.11 ATIRagePro.kext + ATIRageProGA.plugin v1.4.4.2 (1366) Mac OS X...

forums.macrumors.com

That thread has a post from me showing that the same kexts will work on the Bondi iMac... actually, any iMac with the Rage Pro. Setting the depth to 16-bit helps it quite a bit. It's still not going to be a speed demon, though. My Bondi has a 400 mhz G4 dosdude1 upgrade in it, and it's still pretty slow in OS X. OS 9, however, flies.

 

[1042686]

Tiger is faster than Panther IMO. They’re basically the same OS but Tiger is more refined and runs more software. My tray loader runs Tiger and 9.2.2.
I have a Beige on Tiger too.

Cool, I’ll give it a shot sometime. Truth be told I vastly prefer Tiger for all the reasons you mentioned. Did you use TDM or XPostFacto to get Tiger on a 233/333mhz no FW iMac?

 

[Amethyst1]

That thread has a post from me showing that the same kexts will work on the Bondi iMac...

... which is why I dug it up

 

[Project Alice]

Cool, I’ll give it a shot sometime. Truth be told I vastly prefer Tiger for all the reasons you mentioned. Did you use TDM or XPostFacto to get Tiger on a 233/333mhz no FW iMac?

I used xpostfacto on mine, just because I wanted it to install the OS under it’s own power, and I was bored. However you can also stick the drive into another mac, install and put it back. That’s probably faster in most cases. TDM isn’t available on the Bondi obviously due to the lack of FW.
Tray loading iMacs are like lombard powerbooks as far as firmware and hardware goes. They’ll even boot Leopard without issue if a G4 is stuck in it.

 

[1042686]

I used xpostfacto on mine, just because I wanted it to install the OS under it’s own power, and I was bored. However you can also stick the drive into another mac, install and put it back. That’s probably faster in most cases. TDM isn’t available on the Bondi obviously due to the lack of FW.
Tray loading iMacs are like lombard powerbooks as far as firmware and hardware goes. They’ll even boot Leopard without issue if a G4 is stuck in it.

Lol derp that’s hilariously stupid of me. Thanks, I’ll give XPostFacto a shot when I get a chance. I think I will max out the ram on my bondi before upgrading to Tiger.

 

[Amethyst1]

Tray loading iMacs are like lombard powerbooks as far as firmware and hardware goes.

Can you not temporarily fake the model identifier in OF to one of a later iMac and fool Tiger's installer that way? No TDM/XPF necessary.

 

[Project Alice]

Can you not temporarily fake the model identifier in OF to one of a later iMac and fool Tiger's installer that way? No TDM/XPF necessary.

Possibly, I’ve never tried. But I don’t see why not.
XPF is pretty straightforward though. Faking OF would be more of a “because I can” type of thing just for fun.

Lol derp that’s hilariously stupid of me. Thanks, I’ll give XPostFacto a shot when I get a chance. I think I will max out the ram on my bondi before upgrading to Tiger.

Definitely can’t hurt. Though if you’ve got at least 128MB in it go for the install and just upgrade the ram when it arrives.