PPC and Leopard as Daily Driver

[MacSoftware3]

Hello everybody,

I am new to this forum, and I was suprised to see an active PPC community. But I am wondering, do people here still use PowerMac G3s, G4s and G5s as a daily driver for tasks like webbrowsing/YouTube? How does that still work on a machine like a PowerMac G3 and an older OS like Mac OS X Tiger or Leopard? I myself have an eMac G4 700MHz, it isn't the fastest machine, but I wonder if I could still use it for some tasks.

I know my English is not the best, so please excuse me for that.

 

[redheeler]

@eyoungren still uses a Power Mac G5 Quad as his main Mac. But despite not being Intel, it is quite a bit faster than a 700 MHz eMac.

On a 700 MHz, web browsing is doable, but slow, and you're pretty much limited to 480p on YouTube. It works much better for word processing, older apps like CS2, and playing games released in the early 2000's. The one advantage it has over the later PPCs is being able to natively boot Mac OS 9, and there's a lot of old software / games for that as well.
[doublepost=1498484986][/doublepost]Oh, and welcome to the forum.

 

[amagichnich]

myself have an eMac G4 700MHz, it isn't the fastest machine, but I wonder if I could still use it for some tasks.

Welcome to the forum
eMacs have good speakers, combined with an equalizer environment eMac serves as a good jukebox.
With the display colour set to Adobe rgb or srgb you could even use Photoshop. But as a daily driver I think it's too slow with it's 700mhz

 

[Dronecatcher]

The CPU threshold for running Leopard is 867Mhz and it requires a core image compatible GPU - so at 700Mhz you're below the Apple recommendation plus Leopard will be asking the CPU to do graphics chores as your video card isn't compliant.
The might find Tiger a better fit.
Regarding browsing, your main enemy is bloated, java script ridden web pages - you can get around this by blocking java script or using a mobile device user agent so the browser sees a compact, simple version of the website.
For Youtube in browser, you'll definitely need to use a mobile user agent and get a lower quality video.
There's various other methods to watch Youtube too:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/youtube-on-a-g3.2022464/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/youtube-options-in-2016.1986056/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mactubes-in-2017-or-alternatives.2029860/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-youtube-player-downloader-even-for-g3.2031523/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ninjakit-safari-extension.2030842/

Apart from browsing, use your eMac with period correct software and you can't go wrong.

 

[eyoungren]

But I am wondering, do people here still use PowerMac G3s, G4s and G5s as a daily driver for tasks like webbrowsing/YouTube?

Oh boy.

Talk about asking the Pope if he believes in God!

Yes.

I have been PowerPC since 2001, Leopard since about 2010.

We have a G5 at work that has done production tasks for a weekly newspaper since it was bought in 2005. Still working. A G4 we have served for that task for a few years as well.

I own exactly ONE Intel Mac and it is not my daily Mac. Snow Leopard max on it too.

@Dronecatcher can set you up for Youtube.

As far as web browsing TenFourFox, which is a fork of Firefox for PowerPC Macs.

See my tweak thread for that app either stickied at the top of this forum or in the link in my signature.

PS. Dropbox continues to work for us as well. We have Czo who keeps updating it.

Welcome to the forum. If you stick around long enough you'll catch the bug and it's you that will be typing welcome messages next year.

 

[MysticCow]

It's doable. I can go with my 733 MHz Digital Audio G4 (with Ye Olde GeForce2 in there) as my daily...even under OS 9.

Do I do it? At work, yes, because I can run Word on that particular Mac (I use Word tons and tons of times). Not as much at home due to issues with Flash sucking tremendously.

 

[MacSoftware3]

@eyoungren still uses a Power Mac G5 Quad as his main Mac. But despite not being Intel, it is quite a bit faster than a 700 MHz eMac.

On a 700 MHz, web browsing is doable, but slow, and you're pretty much limited to 480p on YouTube. It works much better for word processing, older apps like CS2, and playing games released in the early 2000's. The one advantage it has over the later PPCs is being able to natively boot Mac OS 9, and there's a lot of old software / games for that as well.
[doublepost=1498484986][/doublepost]Oh, and welcome to the forum.

Thanks I have a copy of Microsoft Office 2004 which I can use for some work, and I can watch some movies. I will try in the next few days.

Welcome to the forum
eMacs have good speakers, combined with an equalizer environment eMac serves as a good jukebox.
With the display colour set to Adobe rgb or srgb you could even use Photoshop. But as a daily driver I think it's too slow with it's 700mhz

Thanks for your reply. Isn't the eMac too slow for Photoshop? It only has a 700MHz processor and 768 MB of RAM.

The CPU threshold for running Leopard is 867Mhz and it requires a core image compatible GPU - so at 700Mhz you're below the Apple recommendation plus Leopard will be asking the CPU to do graphics chores as you're video card isn't compliant.
The might find Tiger a better fit.
Regarding browsing, your main enemy is bloated, java script ridden web pages - you can get around this by blocking java script or using a mobile device user agent so the browser sees a compact, simple version of the website.
For Youtube in browser, you'll definitely need to use a mobile user agent and get a lower quality video.
There's various other methods to watch Youtube too:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/youtube-on-a-g3.2022464/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/youtube-options-in-2016.1986056/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mactubes-in-2017-or-alternatives.2029860/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-youtube-player-downloader-even-for-g3.2031523/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ninjakit-safari-extension.2030842/

Apart from browsing, use your eMac with period correct software and you can't go wrong.

Thanks for the reply. My intention was not to put Leopard on it, I just wondered how Leopard was as a daily driver these days. I checked the requirements for Leopard, and I think my eMac will be too slow indeed. I have never thought about using the mobile website by changing the user agent, so I will try that. Thanks!

Oh boy.

Talk about asking the Pope if he believes in God!

Yes.

I have been PowerPC since 2001, Leopard since about 2010.

We have a G5 at work that has done production tasks for a weekly newspaper since it was bought in 2005. Still working. A G4 we have served for that task for a few years as well.

I own exactly ONE Intel Mac and it is not my daily Mac. Snow Leopard max on it too.

@Dronecatcher can set you up for Youtube.

As far as web browsing TenFourFox, which is a fork of Firefox for PowerPC Macs.

See my tweak thread for that app either stickied at the top of this forum or in the link in my signature.

PS. Dropbox continues to work for us as well. We have Czo who keeps updating it.

Welcome to the forum. If you stick around long enough you'll catch the bug and it's you that will be typing welcome messages next year.

Thanks, I am looking to buy a G4 MDD, and I will put Tiger or Leopard on it. TenFourFox will be very usefull I think.

It's doable. I can go with my 733 MHz Digital Audio G4 (with Ye Olde GeForce2 in there) as my daily...even under OS 9.

Do I do it? At work, yes, because I can run Word on that particular Mac (I use Word tons and tons of times). Not as much at home due to issues with Flash sucking tremendously.

Thanks for your reply. Do you only run Mac OS 9 on that Digital Audio G4?

 

[amagichnich]

Thanks for your reply. Isn't the eMac too slow for Photoshop? It only has a 700MHz processor and 768 MB of RAM.

Not necessarily, it depends on the speed of your hard-drive and the filesize. I have a copy of Photoshop 7 on my Powerbook 1400 with OS 8.6 and even on that thing I work a bit out of fun with a moderate resolution and not many layers it's possible on these old machines

 

[Dronecatcher]

Isn't the eMac too slow for Photoshop?

Definitely not - go with a version from the eMac's time period, it will run great

 

[redheeler]

I have a copy of Microsoft Office 2004 which I can use for some work

Office 2004 is definitely something your eMac can handle, good use for it.

and I can watch some movies.

DVDs and DVD-quality movies should work fine as well. (Not HD, though.)

Isn't the eMac too slow for Photoshop? It only has a 700MHz processor and 768 MB of RAM.

As I mentioned, Adobe Photoshop CS2 (or older versions) should work fine, as long as you're not doing anything very intensive. Wouldn't go newer than that, though (and actually Photoshop / Illustrator CS2 are still quite capable despite being 12 year old software).

 

[MysticCow]

Thanks for your reply. Do you only run Mac OS 9 on that Digital Audio G4?

I dual boot 9 and 10.5. It's nicely workable and anything I can't do in one I tend to be able to do in the other.

 

[1042686]

Welcome to the forum

My PPC DD's are a PMG5 dual2ghz & a PMG4 dual1ghz (quicksilver). My QS with its stock 733mhz CPU & 512mhz pc133ram running Tiger was way too sluggish For my tastes to do normal daily driver tasks. Upgraded to a dual1ghz CPU & 1.5gb ram (even with its CI unsupported stock GPU) & tasks like surfing & YouTube are completely doable via tweaked TFFx - much zippier. Also leopard becomes a reality. If you can get to leopard while maintaing acceptable-to-you performance, I highly recommend it. As always IMHO & YMMV.

As is, your eMac has tons of stylish potential as has already been discussed above. FYI I found this article inspiring in terms of maxing out & pushing your eMac to its absolute best performance.

http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/eMac/eMac-upgrade.html

Have fun & watch out for these guys on here. Before you know it, you'll be collecting & upgrading PPC macs like RhianB packing it in @ the all you can eat pizza buffet.

 

[SuperKerem]

All of this is possible. It just requires dedication.

 

[Hrududu]

My powerhouse is a quad core G5 with 12GB of RAM and a Radeon X1900. I also used several other slower systems and a few PowerBooks daily. However, If you hadn't noticed, the running theme here is many of us still can get by with PowerPC Macs, but nearly all of us are going with high end dual or quad processor systems with a fair amount of RAM and a leopard install. If you were thinking of going full-time PowerPC with a 700 MHz eMac with less than a gigabyte of memory, you're going to have an unpleasant experience in 2017.

 

[wicknix]

Up until a week ago i'd been using my ibook g4's and powermac g5 daily for the last 7-8 years. I recently picked up an imac core2duo running el capitan for a good price, but i am typing this from my ibook which is still my go-to machine. Leopard is still my favorite version of OSX, and still does most everything i need it to do quite well.

 

[MacSoftware3]

Thanks for all the replies. I understand that it will not be easy to use the eMac as a daily driver. Yesterday, I purchased a PowerMac G4 MDD DP 867MHz with 1.5GB RAM and a GeForce 4 MX graphics card. I did it because iT wasn't expensive and iT will be faster and more upgradeble.

I will upgrade the Mac to Leopard in the coming days. Does anyone know if I can use my GeForce FX5200 from my Dell PC?

 

[eyoungren]

Thanks for all the replies. I understand that it will not be easy to use the eMac as a daily driver. Yesterday, I purchased a PowerMac G4 MDD DP 867MHz with 1.5GB RAM and a GeForce 4 MX graphics card. I did it because iT wasn't expensive and iT will be faster and more upgradeble.

See? It's already starting! Between your first post and this post you bought another PowerPC Mac.

See how that works?

I will upgrade the Mac to Leopard in the coming days. Does anyone know if I can use my GeForce FX5200 from my Dell PC?

It would have to be flashed with a Mac ROM. Don't know if that is possible for this card or not. @LightBulbFun could tell you.

But generally, PC graphic cards are not interchangeable with Macs.

 

[0248294]

The CPU threshold for running Leopard is 867Mhz and it requires a core image compatible GPU - so at 700Mhz you're below the Apple recommendation plus Leopard will be asking the CPU to do graphics chores as you're video card isn't compliant.

Where did you get "requires a core image compatible GPU" from? No Apple documents I know of reference the need for a CI-compatible GPU.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Does anyone know if I can use my GeForce FX5200 from my Dell PC?

Since its a PC Video card you will have to replace the firmware on the card with one thats compatible with Macs this process is called "Flashing"

most NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Graphics cards can be flashed to work in Macs i recommend you check out this website for a good overview on it all http://themacelite.wikidot.com/start

couple notes on the FX 5200, the FX 5200 only partially supports Core Image but its still better then no Core image, (and it is faster then your GeForce4 MX) with the FX 5200 you will get the ripples in Dashboard for example but the menu bar will still be opaque

also getting DVI to work on the FX 5200 can be fun, VGA will work from any port (DVI ports via a VGA adapter for example) but getting DVI it self working may require some ROM editing

 

[Dronecatcher]

Where did you get "requires a core image compatible GPU" from? No Apple documents I know of reference the need for a CI-compatible GPU.

Do I really need to explain that?

 

[0248294]

Do I really need to explain that?

No, I get what you're saying, I'm just asking where you get the CI requirement from. Because nowhere does Apple state you need a CI compatible GPU to run Leopard. Unless I'm missing something, which I'll gladly correct if you can give me the right documentation

 

[LightBulbFun]

Do I really need to explain that?

Yes

because last I checked Leopard does not even "require" a GPU at all (im looking at you Xserves) on top of that there are several officially supported macs that have non core image GPUs

 

[Dronecatcher]

You both go ahead splitting hairs...you're both absolutely right and I'm wrong. OP - Leopard uses Core Image graphics which unless there's a Core Image compatible GPU, it uses the CPU to execute.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Leopard uses Core Image graphics which unless there's a Core Image compatible GPU, it uses the CPU to execute.

so does Mac OS X Tiger for that matter... are you implying then that Tiger "requires" a Core image Graphics card?

I still dont see how any of this is a "requirement" for leopard

its especially important to get your facts straight when we are guiding/helping someone who is new to PPC...

 

[SuperKerem]

so does Mac OS X Tiger for that matter... are you implying then that Tiger "requires" a Core image Graphics card?

I still dont see how any of this is a "requirement" for leopard

its especially important to get your facts straight when we are guiding/helping someone who is new to PPC...

True, Leopard doesn’t ‘require’ Core Image support...

...but it pretty much does. Let’s be realistic here, especially ‘when we are guiding/helping someone’ who plans to use PPC as a daily driver.

EDIT: Or maybe it would be better to say that the GPU ‘requires’ Core Image support in order to be truly effective.