Needed Help with iBook G4

[roundsaturn]

Hello, I am brand new to Apple. I was given an iBook G4 for my daughter. She loves it and I am blown away at how quick it is (booting up and browsing the internet) even compared to brand new lower end pc based laptops.

My question- She plays an online game called "Stardoll" on my home desktop PC and wants to play it on her G4. Some of the main graphics don't show up. I believe the technology is "flash" but not sure. The graphis are very basic, not like a modern video game on a game console. Do i need to download something or upgrade the laptop to be able to allow her to use it for this?

Please give me some knowledge when you have time. I am trying to learn...

Thank you very much,

Roundsaturn

 

[Bloodstar]

Unfortunately, Flash on Mac OS X across the board is rather bad. The situation is even worse on PowerPC machines, however...

Which OS and version of Flash is that machine running? You can check the OS through the Apple menu -> About This Mac, and your Flash version by right clicking/control clicking the flash content. (Processor speed and physical screen size may help here, as well - only the latest iBook G4 models had decent graphics capability, and these two features will help you determine which iBook. Alternately, you can check in System Profiler.)

If you're running Flash 9... Flash 10 might be worth a shot. Keep in mind, 10.1 is the last available version for PowerPC machines. I've personally had better luck with Flash 10.0 over 10.1, but this was on a non-Core Image capable machine.

Good luck getting things working!

 

[SkippyThorson]

Somewhere in this forum is a thread where a user on a G4 (I forget if it was an iMac or iBook, but anyway...) found a version of Flash that ran exceptionally well on his old G4. I would search around for that if I were you.

As the above user said, there is really no perfect version of Flash, and it's quite bad on old PowerPC Macs, for instance the G5s, G4s, G3s... If you find the user's I'm talking about, I believe the conclusion was that they found the optimal versions of Flash for either overall general speed or optimal graphics performance for games.

Also, even with the best version of Flash, games on PPC Macs just aren't great. They're plenty fine enough for many, such as myself, don't get me wrong - but don't ever invest a ton of money in PPCs hoping to make them run the latest and greatest software. Always balance upgrading versus upgrading in your mind.