PM9600 almost ready

[desantii]

I've been building my 9600 for almost 2 years looking for the perfect parts. Finally got hold of a newer version MB from a 9600/350
Has the following now:
1ghz sonnet G4
1.5gb ram
Radeon 9200 PCI
Sonnet 133 IDE controller

Now to get 9.2.2 running with Old World Support and then get Xpostfacto and get maybe 10.4 just for the heck of it.. ssd in the future

Will post pics shortly

 

[bunnspecial]

Great set-up!

9.2.2 runs like a dream on my "stock" 9600/200MP with a 9200 and 300 and some MB of RAM. IMO, Apple in some ways intentionally "handicapped" these machines by stopping them at at OS 9, as 9.2.2 really seems to open up on them. I've seen this with both the 8600 and 9600.

With some work, you can run Leopard on your set-up, and it should run fairly well. It's more involved than installing Tiger(which you can do with Xpostfacto), but you have everything you need to run it. The 9600 is really a better platform for this than the 8600(which I've been dragging my feet on installing Leopard on) with it having more(max) RAM and more PCI slots.

The 9600 actually has two separate PCI buses, which can be an advantage to minimize bus congestion when you're stuffing stuff into them. Enabling Quartz Extreme in OS X with the 9200 will perk OS X up nicely, and it's not as big of a concern as on other computers since-if you spread your cards out correctly-you have more available bandwidth.

I'd suggest adding USB and FW cards(or a combo card). These can make your life a lot easier when it comes to getting files in and out, and the right cards will be plug and play in both OS 9 and OS X. A 10/100 card is also a nice addition if you're going to get on the internet, as the onboard 10baseT can be painfully slow.

 

[dermeister]

The 9600 actually has two separate PCI buses, which can be an advantage to minimize bus congestion when you're stuffing stuff into them. Enabling Quartz Extreme in OS X with the 9200 will perk OS X up nicely, and it's not as big of a concern as on other computers since-if you spread your cards out correctly-you have more available bandwidth.

I heard that enabling QE on a 9600 w/ PCI 9200 would cause a lot of visual glitches or worse due to the bus not being able to handle QE. Are you sure it would work?

 

[tevion5]

Can confirm the handicapping of Mac OS 9.1.

My 8600 has an enormously noticeable speediness increase under 9.2.2 even when in a much more basic configuration.