PowerPC Macs Are Useless...

[redheeler]

It doesn't surprise me at this point.

Apple started with the Mac. They make money when they sell Macs. No surprise then that they want to keep selling you Macs so they adjust software minreqs to profit from that.

iOS and the iDevice is entirely different. People who would never own a Mac own an iPhone or an iPad. It's an entirely different product requiring a different approach. Notice though how Apple gives you incentive to use an iDevice with a Mac.

People are holding on to their phones longer because the market is saturated and these devices generally all do the same thing. The Mac/PC market however is still in flux enough that Apple can get away with forcing hardware upgrades because software is still the driver here. iOS and Android do pretty much the same thing, just differently.

You are right that forcing upgrades isn't necessary. But profit margins are. That's one reason Apple took a stab at seeing if people would pay more for iDevices. So far it seems it hasn't worked out as well as they hoped.

All of us here do not generally drink the Koolaid that drives these other Apple users. If we did, we wouldn't be in this sub-forum. That particular Koolaid is strong and it drives loyalty to the exclusion of common sense.

Both the iOS / Android and Mac / PC markets are mostly saturated at this point. Both have much longer typical upgrade cycles than they used to. Mac vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android is a matter of preference or cost where both operating systems can do most of the same things with some exceptions.

And regarding the price increases, we've seen that happen with the Mac as well.

 

[DearthnVader]

Even the fastest PPC Macs are showing their age, 13 or 14 years is forever in computer years. I mean compare a 2005 G5 Quad to a 1992 Mac.

Old computers just don't age like wine.

 

[Project Alice]

Even the fastest PPC Macs are showing their age, 13 or 14 years is forever in computer years. I mean compare a 2005 G5 Quad to a 1992 Mac.

Old computers just don't age like wine.

Sorta. Computer technology from the mid 80s to mid/early 2000s boomed exponentially. Since then, we've reached a point where computers have not changed at all aside from higher clock speeds in different areas and more cores here and there. In other words, there have been 0 advancements in the last 10 years IMO. What has happened is that we've gotten sloppy with software. Even this forum runs slow on my 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4. 10 years ago, I could happily run this site along with 10 other tabs on my 500Mhz iBook G3.

Almost like the economy. Higher wages = more expensive everything.
Faster computers = Heavier software for the same tasks we've accomplished with less.

 

[DearthnVader]

Sorta. Computer technology from the mid 80s to mid/early 2000s boomed exponentially. Since then, we've reached a point where computers have not changed at all aside from higher clock speeds in different areas and more cores here and there. In other words, there have been 0 advancements in the last 10 years IMO. What has happened is that we've gotten sloppy with software. Even this forum runs slow on my 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4. 10 years ago, I could happily run this site along with 10 other tabs on my 500Mhz iBook G3.

As far as single threaded performance, we really haven't seen the kind of gains we saw in the past. I think it takes 10 years or so for software to catch up with hardware. Try and run 4k video from the web on a G5 Quad, you'll likely bring the system to it's knees.

I'm still running a MP3,1 as my daily driver, and it's plenty fast. Apple never optimized the macOS for the G5 Quad. The three major arch shifts from 68k>PPC>X86_64 left behind a lot of legacy systems. I often wonder what a modern 68k could do had we never shifted arch.

10Ghz 68k?

 

[Project Alice]

As far as single threaded performance, we really haven't seen the kind of gains we saw in the past. I think it takes 10 years or so for software to catch up with hardware. Try and run 4k video from the web on a G5 Quad, you'll likely bring the system to it's knees.

I'm still running a MP3,1 as my daily driver, and it's plenty fast. Apple never optimized the macOS for the G5 Quad. The three major arch shifts from 68k>PPC>X86_64 left behind a lot of legacy systems. I often wonder what a modern 68k could do had we never shifted arch.

10Ghz 68k?

Right, the key word there is Web. in 2005 I could play 1080P video from the web on a 1.2Ghz G4. Now, I can barely accomplish that on a Core 2 Duo.

The PowerPC arch is far from dead. Freescale still makes multicore G4 types. Not to mention IBM's POWER9 Series.

I'd imagine a 10Ghz 68k would just be a rather fast 68k? That's more or less what X86 is. It started out just as slow as 68k systems then just kept moving forward. Maybe there would have been lots of instruction set extensions similar to what we have in X86 now?

 

[DearthnVader]

Right, the key word there is Web. in 2005 I could play 1080P video from the web on a 1.2Ghz G4. Now, I can barely accomplish that on a Core 2 Duo.

The PowerPC arch is far from dead. Freescale still makes multicore G4 types. Not to mention IBM's POWER9 Series.

I'd imagine a 10Ghz 68k would just be a rather fast 68k? That's more or less what X86 is. It started out just as slow as 68k systems then just kept moving forward. Maybe there would have been lots of instruction set extensions similar to what we have in X86 now?

The G4 had real trouble with h.264, basically anything above 240p is a no go, and it was back in '05 '06. It could have been offloaded to the GPU, but Apple choose to switch to x86, and that really killed off the GPU upgrade path for PPC.

I haven't look into GPU hardware acceleration in the open source NVDA or Radeon drivers on PowerPC, but, I mean it's doable.

There is a project to try and make a new consumer laptop based on PPC:

https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/en/

I really want one, basically just to see if I can get the Mac OS running on it via Qemu/KVM.

Anyway, the cost of a single G4 vs the cost of a Core2 and the price to performance ratio just made it hard for Apple not to switch. The G5 had no legs in mobile systems, by the time you added the needed chipset, and made them both fit the TPW needed, the G4 would out perform it. IBM had more interest in the Cell processor as they had a fixed market for Game Consoles.

Spilled milk, anyway.

I still have a G4 iBook I use for really light web browsing, but it's dog slow compared to a Core2 Duo Thinkpad that runs Windows 10 just fine.

 

[Project Alice]

The G4 had real trouble with h.264, basically anything above 240p is a no go, and it was back in '05 '06. It could have been offloaded to the GPU, but Apple choose to switch to x86, and that really killed off the GPU upgrade path for PPC.

I haven't look into GPU hardware acceleration in the open source NVDA or Radeon drivers on PowerPC, but, I mean it's doable.

There is a project to try and make a new consumer laptop based on PPC:

https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/en/

I really want one, basically just to see if I can get the Mac OS running on it via Qemu/KVM.

Anyway, the cost of a single G4 vs the cost of a Core2 and the price to performance ratio just made it hard for Apple not to switch. The G5 had no legs in mobile systems, by there time you added the needed chipset, and made them both fit the TPW needed, the G4 would out perform it. IBM had more interest in the Cell processor as they had a fixed market for Game Consoles.

Spilled milk, anyway.

I still have a G4 iBook I use for really light web browsing, but it's dog slow compared to a Core2 Duo Thinkpad that runs Windows 10 just fine.

I have no trouble playing h.264 in 480p on G4s. Some of my faster ones will do 720 but thats hit or miss depending on the video. But yeah, even 480p on h.264 taxes the CPU. I think that's more of a software limitation of the abandoned platform than hardware though. I installed linux on a G5 and it had no problem with h.265 1080p. More recent optimizations for a video player to more efficiently decode that compressed crap. I should try playing these types of files on a Pentium 3 PC and see how it does...

 

[Dronecatcher]

The G4 had real trouble with h.264, basically anything above 240p is a no go

Why are people still saying this? Even a scant amount of looking on this forum alone shows a G4 can play 720P h264 with ease.

 

[gsahli]

I feel Gentoo is the best modern OS solution for 32bit PowerPC right now. The problem for most people though is that Gentoo is one of the least user-friendly Linux around.

It's the best solution because you have to compile virtually everything yourself. Once you're at that user level though it shouldn't be a problem.

I tried gentoo just last month. No go. Some required files not available for download. Anybody else have success?

 

[filmbuff]

Why are people still saying this? Even a scant amount of looking on this forum alone shows a G4 can play 720P h264 with ease.

Yes all you have to do is download the video, convert it to some low bitrate copy, and open it in a special PPC app that you downloaded. I've tried every solution to get good video playback on my G4 iBook and the best I can do with acceptable playback is a 480p. Better hope it's in the right codec for quicktime or coreplayer because VLC is unusable.

Now as others have said it's mostly a software problem. I can tell because Tiger with Safari runs great. I can actually use it for web browsing pretty comfortably as long as I stick to mostly text sites. The problem is I come to a site that's https only so I have to switch to TFF, then I have to disable scripts otherwise the whole thing will grind to a halt. Not ideal. If Safari was still supported with security updates (or even a little bit more recent) I wouldn't have an issue.

So what is the purpose of a PPC Mac? I don't think it's a bad thing to say we use them just for fun. What is wrong with admitting that we make some sacrifices on usability just to enjoy using an old machine? There's no need to try to convince people that they're just as fast and good as a brand new machine.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Yes all you have to do is download the video, convert it to some low bitrate copy, and open it in a special PPC app that you downloaded. I've tried every solution to get good video playback on my G4 iBook and the best I can do with acceptable playback is a 480p. Better hope it's in the right codec for quicktime or coreplayer because VLC is unusable.

I'm sorry but this is nonsense. Coreplayer, Mplayer and VLC all play h264 fine - even my 800Mhz Powerbook plays 720P h264 with MPlayer.

Anything online is another matter and not my focus of this thread - I was simply saying a Powermac G5, that had colossal potential for audio production when it was released, still has using the software that was originally designed for it.

 

[1042686]

What is wrong with admitting that we make some sacrifices on usability just to enjoy using an old machine? There's no need to try to convince people that they're just as fast and good as a brand new machine.

That’s what I was thinking, then again I assume most older folks here use them in this way. There’s always a few diehards as there should be but for most, I assume our professional adult needs require newer hardware/software & windows. I know mine does.

My ppc user experience circles heavily around music recording & production & a lesser extent photography. Very occasionally I’ll pull out one of my PMG4s to play online with, record a few tracks & remember why my PMG5s are so much better or my early Intel MP1,1 even more so. Still, these are great boxes that are incredibly productive with era correct software & certainly deserve this forum of passionate enthusiasts & talented techno Wizards.

It’s a Fun place with loads of fun-retro Apple stuff. Folks here are passionate about their gear & what they can squeeze out of it. It’s THE best rabbit hole to get lost in, so while I’m totally on board with your point, I also totally get why these folks are so poignant to point out all the amazing stuff they can still do and how they did it. That drive to shun the new & the passion behind making irrelevant old tech relavent for as long as possible is what makes this subforum & it’s ppl the most interesting, entertaining, intelligent/educational & fun subforum on MR.

I’m a fan

 

[timidpimpin]

The user is just as responsible as the hardware for creating a good experience on any hardware. Anyone can get by with modern hardware and software on their computer, but that is not the case with older hardware and software. You need a good sense of purpose, and a lot of ingenuity to use older hardware to do modern things.

My main computer is a 2.26GHz C2D MacBook, which is 9 years old now. I also use a PowerMac G4 and a 12" PowerBook G4 quite a bit.

 

[YaBe]

I really see no point in updating as long as I do not need a specific feature only avaiable on newer HW/SW.

As long as my PDF, DOC, AI, EPS, PSD remains compatible with todays version, I am all set, as said earlier, the CS version of Adobe i use daily is 100% compatible with today's standards, it might not have all the newer tools but if you know your way you can still make everything that the new version allows (minus very very little).

Also, while newer hw will eventually slow down (due to software) the speed of my G5 will remain the same forever , yes you could not upgrade the SW on your newer hardware and attain the same, but would lose the purpose of having a pricier and newer machine.

For everything internt the iPad is a nice machine .

 

[tigerintank]

I'm sorry but this is nonsense. Coreplayer, Mplayer and VLC all play h264 fine - even my 800Mhz Powerbook plays 720P h264 with MPlayer.

Anything online is another matter and not my focus of this thread - I was simply saying a Powermac G5, that had colossal potential for audio production when it was released, still has using the software that was originally designed for it.

I'm really interested in this, as I can see many agree with you, yet on my iMac G5 2.0GHz i found it struggled with 720p at least some of the time. 1080p was a complete no go.

In terms of players;

My experience of VLC (both versions) was that they were poor in relation the others below - with 720p.

I found Coreplayer wasn't as good as I anticipated from what others on MR had said, although it was better than VLC. I adjusted the settings many times and never managed to get consistently good 720p performance

In fact the best player I found was XBMC - but even that was unreliable with 720p some of the time.

I did try the others - Quicktime, MPlayer etc tbh I dont remember how they related to VLC, but they were worse than both Coreplayer and XBMC.

Everything was h264 afaicr.

So the question i'm left with is - what am I doing wrong?

My assumption here is that if a G4 will play 720p fine, then a G5 will play it with no problems at all - or am I missing something?

 

[Dronecatcher]

I'm really interested in this, as I can see many agree with you, yet on my iMac G5 2.0GHz i found it struggled with 720p at least some of the time. 1080p was a complete no go.

There may be a problem in the OSX install?

For me Coreplayer is the most efficient but because it is years old now, it wont be as compatible - some easy to play files are completely corrupt.
I've also had success with XBMC and VLC - though VLC does need tweaks in the settings.
Mplayer is also very good (using frame droping arguments etc) and the updated version from @Lastic on here even plays h265 video, so is very compatible.
But yes, your iMac should comfortably play 720P certainly.

 

[Traace]

A PowerMac G5 can now play Original Xbox and some very-early alpha Xbox 360 .xex. I'm not joking..

You can see how useless this ppc macs are... (not)

Back in the days, Microsoft used PowerMac G5 for their early 360 development. Now some smart guys found out how to create our own "FrankenAlpha" and just released the image.

Read careful if you interested, many stuff is needed. https://www.xenonwiki.com/FrankenXenon

Here is the image: https://xbox-archive.obscuregamers.com/projectxenon.html


Merry Christmas.

 

[swamprock]

A PowerMac G5 can now play Original Xbox and some very-early alpha Xbox 360 .xex. I'm not joking..

You can see how useless this ppc macs are... (not)

Back in the days, Microsoft used PowerMac G5 for their early 360 development. Now some smart guys found out how to create our own "FrankenAlpha" and just released the image.

Read careful if you interested, many stuff is needed. https://www.xenonwiki.com/FrankenXenon

Here is the image: https://xbox-archive.obscuregamers.com/projectxenon.html


Merry Christmas.

Damn. I have everything but the proper video card.

 

[Project Alice]

Damn. I have everything but the proper video card.

Same, out my three G5s I have one early 2005 dual 2.0Ghz. No X800 variant though. Those are pretty hard to come by. And finding a fire GL that is the compatible one to flash is a shot in the dark I'd say.

 

[nglevin]

Some fellow has uploaded footage of what this alpha Xenon looks like on YouTube.

The sound issues would be a deal breaker if you really tried to play Xbox Halo this way. Nice to see the old "blades" UI again.

 

[netsrot39]

I think the PowerPC based Macs are not entirely useless in 2018 which is for the most part due to the thriving community that wants to keep the older Macs alive. My PowerBook G4 15" still rocks today and I really enjoy playing around with it. YouTube is thanks to PPC Media Center no problem. Webkit and Tenfourfox do a great job when it comes to displaying modern web pages correctly even though it is not as fast as on a modern machine but then again these computers are older than 10 years. I dual boot my PowerBook with Tiger and Leopard and I still can get university stuff done quite well on it (web browsing as mentioned, Word, Pages, recording lectures, etc.). Over WiFi, Ethernet and Firewire I can share files on both operating systems with my Intel macs and continue working on one of my modern Macs if I wish so in my opinion the PowerPC-Macs can still be good for light to medium demanding tasks.

Playing videos in 720p usually works on my PBG4 with Core Player. Apart from VLC and Quicktime I use Elmedia Player which I can also recommend but you have to use an early version (I believe I use on from 2011). I forgot to mention I like my PBG4 for watching films also since it is my only 15" notebook

Older games from my childhood (Rayman 3, Harry Potter 1 & 2, James Bond Nightfire, etc.) work great on it and occasionally when there is free time I like to fire up a game or two.

Is it only my experience or is 10.4 Tiger way faster than 10.5 Leopard – especially when it comes to video playback and gaming? I recently purchased a 12" PowerBook (highest configuration, 2005 model) for around 50 euros from a british guy which will be arriving the next days. I can't wait to see how it performs and what I still can make of it.

But as people have mentioned in this thread working on PowerPC-Macs is for enjoyment and nostalgic reasons. To have one as an only and therefore primary machine would not be reasonable in my opinion since they will slow down your workflow but as an additional machine I think they do a great job

 

[eyoungren]

But as people have mentioned in this thread working on PowerPC-Macs is for enjoyment and nostalgic reasons. To have one as an only and therefore primary machine would not be reasonable in my opinion since they will slow down your workflow but as an additional machine I think they do a great job

Again, I must disagree.

I am perfectly capable of getting work done on a Quad G5 with 16GB ram and 6 monitors. Adobe CS4 works just fine. So does Acrobat 9 and Suitcase Fusion 2.

There was a point in time where my coworker at work used a 450Mhz PowerPC G4 with 1.75GB ram to do the same tasks I was doing and other than being a bit slower it got the job done.

Now I wouldn't use my G5 for high end video production to create major movies or for sophisticated online security work or things of that nature that are more common now than they used to be. However, several of the Macs I use at home are entirely capable.

I know. I've used them. Hell, my old 1.67Ghz 17" PowerBook G4 filled in for an entire week and a half while my boss got around to replacing the work G5. And my old 400mhz TiBook served for a year as a production Mac.

So, again…disagree.

 

[netsrot39]

Again, I must disagree.

I am perfectly capable of getting work done on a Quad G5 with 16GB ram and 6 monitors. Adobe CS4 works just fine. So does Acrobat 9 and Suitcase Fusion 2.

There was a point in time where my coworker at work used a 450Mhz PowerPC G4 with 1.75GB ram to do the same tasks I was doing and other than being a bit slower it got the job done.

Now I wouldn't use my G5 for high end video production to create major movies or for sophisticated online security work or things of that nature that are more common now than they used to be. However, several of the Macs I use at home are entirely capable.

I know. I've used them. Hell, my old 1.67Ghz 17" PowerBook G4 filled in for an entire week and a half while my boss got around to replacing the work G5. And my old 400mhz TiBook served for a year as a production Mac.

So, again…disagree.

I've never used a G5 Mac so I don't know how fast they are in comparison to G4 Macs. It's great that an old PowerPC still does the job for you but I think 4 cores do make a lot of difference in comparison to a single core processor like the G4 so I understand what you mean. There is still great software out there for PowerPC but unfortunately I do not know a single mainstream company or developer that still offers universal binaries. It's also a pity that no PPC Mac will ever see an major OSX Update from Apple again so that would be a deal breaker for me (in the sense of using it as an ONLY machine without another Intel Mac). The lack of modern software does make it obsolete for me unfortunately – again I love my PBG4 but only as an additional Mac that I like to play around with. When I really need to get things done pronto I'd rather use an Intel Mac.

 

[eyoungren]

I've never used a G5 Mac so I don't know how fast they are in comparison to G4 Macs. It's great that an old PowerPC still does the job for you but I think 4 cores do make a lot of difference in comparison to a single core processor like the G4 so I understand what you mean. There is still great software out there for PowerPC but unfortunately I do not know a single mainstream company or developer that still offers universal binaries. It's also a pity that no PPC Mac will ever see an major OSX Update from Apple again so that would be a deal breaker for me (in the sense of using it as an ONLY machine without another Intel Mac). The lack of modern software does make it obsolete for me unfortunately – again I love my PBG4 but only as an additional Mac that I like to play around with. When I really need to get things done pronto I'd rather use an Intel Mac.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that PowerPC is entirely capable of still performing. But, neither is it entirely useless for certain jobs.

What I used these Macs for at work is ad design, newspaper layout, classifieds, legals, etc. Something that they are still capable of doing. There's no difference between an Adobe CS4 PDF submitted for a press run than a Adobe CC18 PDF. Even if you want to stick with just a G4, then a late model MDD with 2GB ram is still entirely capable of doing what I do.

But for jobs requiring more power, yeah, I don't deny their inability. Your job requires more power and that's fine. I just don't think they are useless for other less intense jobs that people get paid real money to do.

 

[latweek]

Wish it were so simple. The power of a modern CPU is for extremely low latency required by today's much improved, complex, native plugins during recording and playback for pro music production (in the box).

No way to use these old CPUs, although we made much great music on them (keeping external cards like TDM/Pro Tools out of this).