Lie to me

[repairedCheese]

So, for laughs, I mounted the drive with my games from my PMG5 on my PMG4 MDD, tried running a few, and to my shock, they actually ran. And I say shock, because Civilization 4 and Doom 3 both say they need a G5, and Sid Meier's Pirates says it just absolutely needs a 1.6 ghz cpu, but it all starts nonetheless. Now, I'm pretty sure the installers will put up fits, and I'm not saying any of these will run well. It's not like they run well on my G5, but Civ 4 actually has the gall to tell me my computer is below the requirements, but then let me start a game anyway.

I really have to wonder how well this all runs on a more maxed out G4, and if there's anything that really, truly, doesn't run on one if it works in 10.4. Quite a few games did say they required a G5 at the end, but to take Civ4, for example, the Windows version only asks for a 1.2 ghz x86 cpu and a 64mb video card. Doom 3 is a little more honest, asking for a 1.5 ghz P4, and a quick check says only one model ever had a G4 cpu faster than that, the highest end of the last model of PowerBook G4.

tldr; did anything that said it needed a G5 for Mac OS actually need it? Ever? At all? Or were G4 chips just too slow and this was the easy way around that?

 

[velocityg4]

Can't say exactly for G5 era games. But quite a few games seem to be lazy about requirements. Like saying you need a 6th gen i5 or better when a 3rd gen i5 or i7 run it perfectly fine. While the reverse is often true about the GPU. Where even a GPU which meets minimum specs has a hard time with the game. Basically they are pessimistic about CPU and optimistic about the GPU.

I think a lot of developers just test on whatever products are recent. As there are too many possibilities. Plus very few G4 owners likely ever upgraded their GPU or RAM. A bone stock G4 likely didn't run the game very well. Due to the included GPU and RAM.

I remember way back when I could play games just fine on my G4 when the CPU was below specs. Simply because I had a lot RAM for the day and an upgraded GPU.

 

[repairedCheese]

Can't say exactly for G5 era games. But quite a few games seem to be lazy about requirements. Like saying you need a 6th gen i5 or better when a 3rd gen i5 or i7 run it perfectly fine. While the reverse is often true about the GPU. Where even a GPU which meets minimum specs has a hard time with the game. Basically they are pessimistic about CPU and optimistic about the GPU.

I think a lot of developers just test on whatever products are recent. As there are too many possibilities. Plus very few G4 owners likely ever upgraded their GPU or RAM. A bone stock G4 likely didn't run the game very well. Due to the included GPU and RAM.

I remember way back when I could play games just fine on my G4 when the CPU was below specs. Simply because I had a lot RAM for the day and an upgraded GPU.

I know you're not wrong about playing loose with the requirements, but there were definitely things the G5 could do that the G4 couldn't, and the impression I'm getting is that no one ever really used any of that. It doesn't help that there were probably a lot of sub 500mhz G4 Macs out there, and a ton of 2ghz G5's, so the difference is kind of a lot, and this was all happening in the backdrop of the Pentium 4 just being a thing that existed. "No G4s" feels a lot more like a lazy way of saying "no slow computers" which is literally something Apple did with 10.5, an OS that doesn't actually need a 867 mhz G4, but won't let you install unless you work around that.

 

[velocityg4]

I know you're not wrong about playing loose with the requirements, but there were definitely things the G5 could do that the G4 couldn't, and the impression I'm getting is that no one ever really used any of that. It doesn't help that there were probably a lot of sub 500mhz G4 Macs out there, and a ton of 2ghz G5's, so the difference is kind of a lot, and this was all happening in the backdrop of the Pentium 4 just being a thing that existed. "No G4s" feels a lot more like a lazy way of saying "no slow computers" which is literally something Apple did with 10.5, an OS that doesn't actually need a 867 mhz G4, but won't let you install unless you work around that.

I think it's mostly pro users who needed the speed. I know there was a world of difference using Final Cut on my 800Mhz G4 vs my roommates dual 2Ghz G5.

For games of the time. I can't imagine there were many a G4 at 1.2Ghz or better with a RAM and GPU upgrade couldn't play that say a stock 2Ghz G5 could. Most of the games were PC ports that which were a few years old and ran on Pentium III. Probably by the time games which would need the extra speed of the G5 were being ported to x86 only. I did fine with the 800 Mhz G4 (Sonnet Upgrade), 640MB RAM and Radeon 8500.

At the tail end of PPC games. I couldn't really say as I switched to Windows around 2005. Since I dumped a glass of water on my G4. Even busted it fetched me enough money to build an Athlon 64 3000+ gaming PC. Which absolutely smoked the G4.

Apple's been like that a long time with OS releases. It seems that after 10.2 and the Beige G3 lawsuit. Apple's been tighter with the specs on OS upgrades. Although there was quite a run from 10.8 to 10.11 were the mark didn't really budge.

 

[eyoungren]

Way back when, I went to install Adobe CS4 on a G4 Mac. Now the installer called for an Intel Mac. Sure enough, trying to get the installer to run, it told me "INTEL MAC PLEASE!!!!"

But, not one to be defeated, I took a deeper look. Turns out that only the installer, plus one or two apps in the suite actually required an Intel CPU. Those apps I didn't need. When I went to each individual installer (instead of the suite installer) every app in the suite (excluding the ones I mentioned) installed and ran.

Which is why I often bring it up whenever anyone tries to say CS3 was the last suite to run on PowerPC.

It's stuff like this that always has me test stuff out. I've had installers tell me "You can't do this!" only for the installer file to execute when I drop it into Terminal.

So, there are lies and then there are damn lies!

 

[repairedCheese]

I think it's mostly pro users who needed the speed. I know there was a world of difference using Final Cut on my 800Mhz G4 vs my roommates dual 2Ghz G5.

For games of the time. I can't imagine there were many a G4 at 1.2Ghz or better with a RAM and GPU upgrade couldn't play that say a stock 2Ghz G5 could. Most of the games were PC ports that which were a few years old and ran on Pentium III. Probably by the time games which would need the extra speed of the G5 were being ported to x86 only. I did fine with the 800 Mhz G4 (Sonnet Upgrade), 640MB RAM and Radeon 8500.

At the tail end of PPC games. I couldn't really say as I switched to Windows around 2005. Since I dumped a glass of water on my G4. Even busted it fetched me enough money to build an Athlon 64 3000+ gaming PC. Which absolutely smoked the G4.

Apple's been like that a long time with OS releases. It seems that after 10.2 and the Beige G3 lawsuit. Apple's been tighter with the specs on OS upgrades. Although there was quite a run from 10.8 to 10.11 were the mark didn't really budge.

There's only a small handful of games that demand either a G5, or a ppc cpu that would have to be a G5 just based on speed. And these games are pretty much all universal binaries, so they support x86 as well. These versions of those games worked long after the G5 was forgotten by most, but only really stopped working once Apple phased out 32-bit support. They've been mostly released, since.

The thing of it is, there are plenty of people who would have bought the software just knowing they'd have a bad time, instead of no time at all. I think some developers ignore the low end crowd a little too much.

 

[repairedCheese]

Way back when, I went to install Adobe CS4 on a G4 Mac. Now the installer called for an Intel Mac. Sure enough, trying to get the installer to run, it told me "INTEL MAC PLEASE!!!!"

But, not one to be defeated, I took a deeper look. Turns out that only the installer, plus one or two apps in the suite actually required an Intel CPU. Those apps I didn't need. When I went to each individual installer (instead of the suite installer) every app in the suite (excluding the ones I mentioned) installed and ran.

Which is why I often bring it up whenever anyone tries to say CS3 was the last suite to run on PowerPC.

It's stuff like this that always has me test stuff out. I've had installers tell me "You can't do this!" only for the installer file to execute when I drop it into Terminal.

So, there are lies and then there are damn lies!

And I thought faking the need for a G5 was bad!

Actually now I'm curious, just how low can CS4 go? Sub 1ghz? A 400mhz G4? 300 mhz G3? The world needs to know, Adobe certainly isn't telling the truth.

 

[velocityg4]

And I thought faking the need for a G5 was bad!

Actually now I'm curious, just how low can CS4 go? Sub 1ghz? A 400mhz G4? 300 mhz G3? The world needs to know, Adobe certainly isn't telling the truth.

I'd think you can go as low as an OS version it requires functions. At least for Photoshop. As a slower CPU will just take longer. I vaguely remember how bad Photoshop 4.0 was on a temporary IIcx when I'd been using it on a Power Macintosh 7100.

 

[sparty411]

Call of Duty 2 comes to mind; I've tried playing it on my DLSD, and it is a slideshow. The CPU is pegged at 100% utilization, and it pulls around 10 FPS 😂. My Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop with a 2GHz Pentium M, and Mobility Radeon x300 graphics that hit store shelves the same year as my DLSD, will run it between 45 - 70 FPS with medium settings @ 1440x900.

 

[Nermal]

Way back when, I went to install Adobe CS4 on a G4 Mac. Now the installer called for an Intel Mac. Sure enough, trying to get the installer to run, it told me "INTEL MAC PLEASE!!!!"

But, not one to be defeated, I took a deeper look. Turns out that only the installer, plus one or two apps in the suite actually required an Intel CPU. Those apps I didn't need. When I went to each individual installer (instead of the suite installer) every app in the suite (excluding the ones I mentioned) installed and ran.

Which is why I often bring it up whenever anyone tries to say CS3 was the last suite to run on PowerPC.

It's stuff like this that always has me test stuff out. I've had installers tell me "You can't do this!" only for the installer file to execute when I drop it into Terminal.

So, there are lies and then there are damn lies!

And there are opposites like the game Neverwinter Nights, which will happily install under OS 9... but will drop an .app folder onto the machine, which obviously won't run. There's no readme on the CDs and I couldn't remember which OS it needed! (I don't have the box).

 

[timidpimpin]

It comes down to the fact that G4 and G5 code are VERY similar. The only real 32 bit differences I'm aware of is in SMP, and then of course the 64 bit code, but OS X didn't really harness 64 bit until Snow Leopard anyway.

 

[repairedCheese]

Call of Duty 2 comes to mind; I've tried playing it on my DLSD, and it is a slideshow. The CPU is pegged at 100% utilization, and it pulls around 10 FPS 😂. My Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop with a 2GHz Pentium M, and Mobility Radeon x300 graphics that hit store shelves the same year as my DLSD, will run it between 45 - 70 FPS with medium settings @ 1440x900.

Well that's the thing, as much as we might like these old computers, Apple had some very good reasons to drop PowerPC. They were hotter than Intel and AMD chips now, and Intel was about to run circles around them and they didn't have anything to match it with. I mean, they couldn't even make a G5 laptop, the heating and power demand issues were that bad. But that's why the fastest G4s were in their laptops.

And there are opposites like the game Neverwinter Nights, which will happily install under OS 9... but will drop an .app folder onto the machine, which obviously won't run. There's no readme on the CDs and I couldn't remember which OS it needed! (I don't have the box).

You know, back in the day, 32-bit Windows games often used 16-bit installers. But that didn't mean they able to install those games on Windows 3.1! How do you screw something like this up on a system that effectively requires two operating systems installed to have backwards compatibility?

 

[TheShortTimer]

And I thought faking the need for a G5 was bad!

Actually now I'm curious, just how low can CS4 go? Sub 1ghz? A 400mhz G4? 300 mhz G3? The world needs to know, Adobe certainly isn't telling the truth.

I had a similar experience with an external HDD which had 10.5 listed as the minimum Mac OS compatibility on the packaging and in the manual. Of course, I suspected that this was nonsense and tested it with Tiger on my Sawtooth and it worked without any issue.

 

[Amethyst1]

You know, back in the day, 32-bit Windows games often used 16-bit installers.

To tell the Windows 3.1 user that a 32-bit OS is needed.

 

[Amethyst1]

So, there are lies and then there are damn lies!

And then there are statistics

 

[weckart]

Way back when, I went to install Adobe CS4 on a G4 Mac. Now the installer called for an Intel Mac. Sure enough, trying to get the installer to run, it told me "INTEL MAC PLEASE!!!!"

But, not one to be defeated, I took a deeper look. Turns out that only the installer, plus one or two apps in the suite actually required an Intel CPU. Those apps I didn't need. When I went to each individual installer (instead of the suite installer) every app in the suite (excluding the ones I mentioned) installed and ran.

Which is why I often bring it up whenever anyone tries to say CS3 was the last suite to run on PowerPC.

Surprised to hear anyone even thinks this. My G5 came with CS4 preinstalled by the recycler among other apps. I had to take my first one back and exchange it as it arrived badly damaged by shipping and he was reimaging Tiger and a whole suite of apps on a pile of e-wasted G5s he had waiting to ship out.

 

[Amethyst1]

Surprised to hear anyone even thinks this.

Well - John Doe launches the CS4 installer on his PPC Mac and is told "No way, buster!"

 

[weckart]

Well - John Doe launches the CS4 installer on his PPC Mac and is told "No way, buster!"

John Doe needs to take it up with Adobe. Master and Production have an Intel installer but Design Premium and Web Premium don't.

Creative Suite archive

If you purchased Creative Suite 5, 5.5, or 6 from Adobe or registered your app, you may be able to download the installer for your app from your account.

helpx.adobe.com

 

[Amethyst1]

John Doe needs to take it up with Adobe. Master and Production have an Intel installer but Design Premium and Web Premium don't.

That's weird.

 

[weckart]

That's weird.

Possibly. I haven't investigated but I assume that there are some items installed in the Master and ProdPrem collections that were Intel only, hence the Intel only installer.

 

[eyoungren]

Surprised to hear anyone even thinks this.

There have been a few people through here in the last few years that have said CS3 is the last version. Some have said CS2. It's happened enough that the whole issue sticks out in my mind.

 

[JMacHack]

Way back when, I went to install Adobe CS4 on a G4 Mac. Now the installer called for an Intel Mac. Sure enough, trying to get the installer to run, it told me "INTEL MAC PLEASE!!!!"

But, not one to be defeated, I took a deeper look. Turns out that only the installer, plus one or two apps in the suite actually required an Intel CPU. Those apps I didn't need. When I went to each individual installer (instead of the suite installer) every app in the suite (excluding the ones I mentioned) installed and ran.

Which is why I often bring it up whenever anyone tries to say CS3 was the last suite to run on PowerPC.

It's stuff like this that always has me test stuff out. I've had installers tell me "You can't do this!" only for the installer file to execute when I drop it into Terminal.

So, there are lies and then there are damn lies!

That explains why PS CS4 says "running in Rosetta" when I run it at work.

 

[Amethyst1]

That explains why PS CS4 says "running in Rosetta" when I run it at work.

CS4 apps are universal - that should not be the case.

 

[JMacHack]

CS4 apps are universal - that should not be the case.

It says so right here. I'm assuming this means it's running in Rosetta

 

[Amethyst1]

It says so right here. I'm assuming this means it's running in Rosetta

Color me very surprised. Is that option checked in PS' Get Info window? Or maybe you use plugins that require Rosetta?