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New Uses for Old Computers

swamprock said:
I avoid Leopard on any machine that doesn't have Core Image support, with one glaring exception: the 1.0ghz TiBook. The L3 cache, at least in my experience, makes up for that somewhat, and it's actually a pleasure to use. I *do* get some glitches; Appcleaner's 3D mode does some weird things when I use it; but not enough for me to worry too much.
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CI definitely makes Leo BETTER, but at the same time in some ways a high performance non-CI card can do about as well as a low performance CI card.

The classic example I always think of is the GeForce FX5200 vs. the GeForce 4Ti-which one I'd rather have in Leo depends on what exactly I'm doing. The Intel GMA950, which wasn't even used in any PPC Macs, is also CI capable but probably even more of a step down than the 5200.
 
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swamprock said:
I avoid Leopard on any machine that doesn't have Core Image support, with one glaring exception: the 1.0ghz TiBook. The L3 cache, at least in my experience, makes up for that somewhat, and it's actually a pleasure to use. I *do* get some glitches; Appcleaner's 3D mode does some weird things when I use it; but not enough for me to worry too much.
Click to expand...

For me, if it has a G4, and at least 768MB of ram it gets Leopard. Although there is one exception I prefer Tiger, and that is anything that has a Geforce4mx. Right now I have two of those, a 1GHz iMac G4, and an 867Mhz 12" PowerBook. For whatever reason there are all sorts of graphic glitches all over the place with that particular GPU. The dock is dreadful unless you set it up like Tigers dock.

Other than that, I mostly agree. I will respectfully disagree with Jordan XP here; I discourage Tiger unless its a G3. Leopard is not as slow as it is made out to be. It's become one of those things that people just automatically assume and think without actually using it. Sorta like the Rumor that Windows Vista sucks. After all the updates it literally became Windows 7 with an older style taskbar and perfectly stable. People just hop on the Anti vista/Anti Leopard bandwagon.

I run Leopard on a Dual 500Mhz G4 and I could use that as a daily if I really wanted to (sometimes I do). It's also on my B&W G4. And my G4 upgraded Pismo (yeah the rage 128 sucks but it is still usable). These machines run fantastic with Leopard.

I use either a 15" or 12" 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4 as my main portable, all of the time. They work beautifully today. Keeping them on Tiger is like having a V8 running 4 Cylinders, in my opinion.
 
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swamprock said:
I avoid Leopard on any machine that doesn't have Core Image support, with one glaring exception: the 1.0ghz TiBook. The L3 cache, at least in my experience, makes up for that somewhat, and it's actually a pleasure to use. I *do* get some glitches; Appcleaner's 3D mode does some weird things when I use it; but not enough for me to worry too much.
Click to expand...

But Tiger has Core Image support too!
 
IIRC, almost all of my ppc macs have the geforce4mx card and runs Leopard quite well on my dual cpu boxes. Not by choice, I just haven’t gotten ahold of a nice high end card yet that wasn’t stupidly expensive.

I do run simple docks on my single g4 CPU machines ie: powerbooks, mini, imacg4 etc. but still use Leopard simply because of software & features that I like.

Running Tiger on a g3 as the preferred os makes great sense.
 
swamprock said:
Tiger doesn't utilize CI support for the GUI like Leopard does. Tiger will run quite well on a lower-spec machine without CI support, where Leopard runs like hot garbage on a 90 degree day...
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I disagree.
Quartz extreme is the killer here. Leopard runs fine without CI. It does not run very smoothly without QE. Ever used leopard on a 1Ghz Tibook? Or a Mac Mini G4? Radeon 9x00 series. They don’t have CI but leopard still flies. The only noticeable thing is you don’t get a translucent menu bar or dashboard waves.
 
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Project Alice said:
I disagree.
Quartz extreme is the killer here. Leopard runs fine without CI. It does not run very smoothly without QE. Ever used leopard on a 1Ghz Tibook? Or a Mac Mini G4? Radeon 9x00 series. They don’t have CI but leopard still flies. The only noticeable thing is you don’t get a translucent menu bar or dashboard waves.
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The 1.0ghz TiBook is one exception, since it has the L3 cache. I mentioned this in an earlier post. Mine happily runs Leopard. I have tried it on a Mac Mini G4 and wasn't happy with the performance, and my Mini is overclocked to 1.42ghz and is maxed out on RAM.
 
swamprock said:
The 1.0ghz TiBook is one exception, since it has the L3 cache. I mentioned this in an earlier post. Mine happily runs Leopard. I have tried it on a Mac Mini G4 and wasn't happy with the performance, and my Mini is overclocked to 1.42ghz and is maxed out on RAM.
Click to expand...

I also have a 1 GHz TiBook. Runs leopard fine, but the failing RAM slot is a pin.
 
swamprock said:
The 1.0ghz TiBook is one exception, since it has the L3 cache. I mentioned this in an earlier post. Mine happily runs Leopard. I have tried it on a Mac Mini G4 and wasn't happy with the performance, and my Mini is overclocked to 1.42ghz and is maxed out on RAM.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if this plays a role with Leopard usage, but it may be worth pointing out the 1.5GHz model comes with twice the VRAM compared to the other 3 (64MB vs. 32MB). It's just that I don't recall it feeling any different using Leopard on the mini (1.5GHz model) than it does on, say, my Quad G5 with a flashed X1950XT with CI support and everything. But maybe I ought to revisit Leopard on the mini later.
 
Jubadub said:
I'm not sure if this plays a role with Leopard usage, but it may be worth pointing out the 1.5GHz model comes with twice the VRAM compared to the other 3 (64MB vs. 32MB). It's just that I don't recall it feeling any different using Leopard on the mini (1.5GHz model) than it does on, say, my Quad G5 with a flashed X1950XT with CI support and everything. But maybe I ought to revisit Leopard on the mini later.
Click to expand...

It's quite possible that other factors have come into play in the past. I have yet to revisit Leopard on my Mini, but may have to in the future, as I'm always intrigued by others' differing experiences. There may have been something that I may have missed, forgotten, or just plain didn't explore when I did try it out.
 
Project Alice said:
For me, if it has a G4, and at least 768MB of ram it gets Leopard. Although there is one exception I prefer Tiger, and that is anything that has a Geforce4mx. Right now I have two of those, a 1GHz iMac G4, and an 867Mhz 12" PowerBook. For whatever reason there are all sorts of graphic glitches all over the place with that particular GPU. The dock is dreadful unless you set it up like Tigers dock.

Other than that, I mostly agree. I will respectfully disagree with Jordan XP here; I discourage Tiger unless its a G3. Leopard is not as slow as it is made out to be. It's become one of those things that people just automatically assume and think without actually using it. Sorta like the Rumor that Windows Vista sucks. After all the updates it literally became Windows 7 with an older style taskbar and perfectly stable. People just hop on the Anti vista/Anti Leopard bandwagon.

I run Leopard on a Dual 500Mhz G4 and I could use that as a daily if I really wanted to (sometimes I do). It's also on my B&W G4. And my G4 upgraded Pismo (yeah the rage 128 sucks but it is still usable). These machines run fantastic with Leopard.

I use either a 15" or 12" 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4 as my main portable, all of the time. They work beautifully today. Keeping them on Tiger is like having a V8 running 4 Cylinders, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Or an unsupported GG
 
Dronecatcher said:
@556fmjoe pointed to the Wiki definition. If you haven't come across it yet in your PowerPC research, PPCs with OSX were/are perfect audio production machines - OSX came with Core Audio - a rock solid audio subsystem, so even G3s can reasonably handle production tasks....even now.
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I hear that's true even for OS 9. Lots and lots of audio hardware exclusive to OS 9 and earlier, I think? All I know is the many subforums and users involved with DAW in MacOS9Lives.
 
All of my formative studio experiences in the late 90s included a DAW - usually Deck/Edit Pro w/ protools 1.1 over os9 is what memory recollects. Something like that - Mac was a beige box, like a IIc iirc. then a buncha badass analog I/o patched in.
 
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