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wowser

wowser

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 25, 2004
895
0
Inglaterra, Europa
hello, there
i'll be buying an emac this week from the UK apple HE store

i was just wondering about OS X and RAM, as i don't think i'll be able to stretch to 512mb and may have to go for 384mb (or even 256). how will this fare with OS X, if we ignore software for sec.
also, i was wondering how the emac fared with a game (such as the nice Age of Mythology), as it only has a 32mb graphics card.

please go easy, huys :)
 
hey we were all newbies once

i suggest you get ur emac and do not buy ram from apple, meaning just keep it stock, but make sure that config has a free ram slot.

then you go to www.crucial.com/uk
thats where you get your ram. its cheaper than apple ram and same quality (crucial supplies the same ram that apple uses), you can install it yourself.

If your a little uncomfortable with opening up your mac, you can look at the apple support website and it has details instructions and diagrams of how to do this simple procedure.

If your still to nervous i guess you could go with pre ordered ram, but this way you save some money, and that can get you up to 512

OS X takes up 128 mb itself, and at 256 it runs well enough; but above 256 the better, you will really notice a diff if you are able to get up to 512. i know emacs run games pretty well, it can run warcraft III pretty decently, but it struggles with tony hawk; i havent tried age of mythology.
 
The amount of RAM that you need, depends a lot on what you plan to use the Mac for. Please let us know what you intend to use it for. However a Mac will not be at its best with just 256MB. Ideally you want to be aiming for 512MB or more. If your use is mainly Web and e-mail then 256MB / 384MB may be OK. Don't buy additional memory from Apple though, much cheaper to buy elsewhere. I would recommend crucial.
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listProductLine.asp?cat=RAM&mfr=Apple&submit=Go

For GBP 81.06 inc VAT you can get 512MB
 
thanks - i seem to remember using OS X on a 128mb Imac and it creaking through.
hmm, yes, the crucial site saves quite a bit! i installed memory on my PC, so i may give this a try. And Tony Hawks 4, a game included with the package runs slowly? jees! Truth is, though, that i'm not much of a gamer, but i'm a bit worried about Mythology :(

also, i'm pretty sure the answer is a "NO", but is Garageband bundled with the Emac (as part of iLife), or do i jest get the photo and music bits (ie - not iLife 04)
 
I would buy from www.computerwarehouse.co.uk, I got my PowerBook G4 from there with my education discount, they are cheaper than the Apple store and have better service. Plus if you live in London, you can go and pick it up.

You could go there and try out the games on the eMac and see if you still want it.
 
i'm cool if the games were slow on an emac, or didn't work, as i can hardly afford new game anyways! i'll get AOE2 (unless you tell me this isn't compatible with OS X - Argh!)
 
I am sure that iLife '04 comes with all new Macs. If you order from the Apple store you should be fine, but if you order from anywere else check that it has iLife 04 and not the older version. iLife 04 has garageband included.
 
well if you buy it now from apple they will preload ilife, including garageband, if its not on there, you can go to an apple store show ur invoice and tell them that u want ilife. they cant argue with you cuz thats the policy, im sure others in the forum will be back meup on that.

well since ur comfortable with installing ram thats great.

tony hawk doesnt play great, it can run acceptably with settings on normal to low. i dont think age of empires is compatible. but i could be wrong.
 
i see, good news and bad news. i quite liked the look of garageland, so that'll be alright, and i'm not too bothered about Hawks, really
i see they even have a video of how to install mac memory and it appears less painfull than the PC one. Thanks, guys - now i just have to ditch my Pentium II 233!

i must also add that the emac stand swivel thing is very overpriced!
 
ill have to agree on that swivel stand being overpriced. it probably took some work to researcha nd make it, but still i dont think its worth it. i guess if your desk is too tall, or you really have a thing for moving ur monitor around its worth it, but i rarely move my main monitory around.
 
quite. in fact, the only prob i have with my Iiyama CRT is that the movable stand gets in the way, and i can't set the minitor in a perfectly straight position. oh, one more thing (at least until i've ordered) is that i'll be using appleworks (at least until i can afford Office - students version) - is it able to do double spacing, footnotes, page numbers and justified text ?sorry i'm bombarding with all these qs!)
 
well glad we could help u a little; as for the apple works, im afraid i havent used it in a while, so ill have to pass up on that. i assume it can do the basic formating tho, and justification, but i am not quite sure about the footnotes

microsoft is updating office v.x to 2004 version soon, so you could wait for that and get it from ur university store (if they have one) or use ur student discount.
 
hmm, after a little googling, i get the impression that footnotes are possible - even if not, it will be a damn site better than MS wordpad!
 
thanks for the help, huys. i've just ordered from apple and crucial, getting the 640mb ram emac for 650 quid. the crucial tip saved me over 50!
 
AppleWorks can do just about everything Word can do, except the worthless stuff. There's also no Auto-summarize, no WordArt (boo hoo :p) and a few other things, but footnotes, double spacing (even TextEdit can do that!), page numbers, section numbers, footers, headers, shishkabob, (erm...) Yeah, so AppleWorks does what you need, and you don't have to pay extra for it.
 
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