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So I got a Mac Mini G4

scarmullet

scarmullet

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 15, 2014
18
0
And I only got it for $10 at a swapmeet. It runs OSX Tiger...won't be upgrading to Leopard but I am looking for an OSX Tiger disc to wipe the HDD for security, and I want a clean install...but such a task will be daunting since Amazon has used OSX Tiger discs for $80 USD. *grumble grumble*

I was thinking of using it as a classic gaming box to run stuff like Emulators (not banking on PS1 and N64 running at a decent speed in all honesty) as a supplement to my Roku 3 which I use for plex and netflix.

Or I can use it to run OS9 and OSX games, Which I have several of which I have from when I was a wee lad and had a power macintosh before the introduction of the iMac (at which point I ended up going with a Windows XP machine some time later after my Power Mac's video card crapped out in a most spectacular way).

Since the Mac Mini G4 can not boot into OS9 natively...I need to rely on the classic mode...since I have no experience with this...how well does it work for games?

I just hope I don't end up getting bit by the mac bug.
 
Those older Mini's aren't very good at gaming with OS X games. Their GPU is sadly underpowered for much. Some games work well withing Classic mode, others refuse to run. You'd have to try out your older OS 9 games on it to see which ones work best. They should all work fairly well on that Mini.
 
jrsx said:
Man, why does everyone get their PPC Macs so cheap??? :eek:
Happy computing! :)
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In all fairness, the power brick was non functional and I tore it town...replaced a few caps (cleaned some fluid off the pcb) and wham bam thank you ma'am, it booted right up. Resetting the SMC also helped I assume.

So I can't play something like the OSX version of System Shock 2 on this little beast?
 
Upon looking at it again, it was released in 2013 on OSX....I thought it said 2003...ah well, Steam to the rescue for that one and I can play the Original in Classic mode which came out for Classic Mac OS
 
scarmullet said:
Upon looking at it again, it was released in 2013 on OSX....I thought it said 2003...ah well, Steam to the rescue for that one...but my already existing mac gaming library should do fine.
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If your Mac Mini was released in 2013 then you have an Intel Mac and not a PowerPC Mac. That gives you more options, like Lion or Mountain Lion.

But now of course, your thread is in the wrong place.
 
jrsx said:
Man, why does everyone get their PPC Macs so cheap??? :eek:
Happy computing! :)
Click to expand...

I know! I love in ireland where macs have only sold well since like 2010. PPC macs are impossible to get cheap with the import costs...
 
tevion5 said:
I know! I love in ireland where macs have only sold well since like 2010. PPC macs are impossible to get cheap with the import costs...
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This was the first Mac I have seen in the wild, let alone a PPC one. My girlfriend has a g3 iMac which she doesn't use, and I had my old Power Macintosh from back in the day...thats about it.
 
I have a PowerPC Mac Mini as well. Mine runs Tiger and is the only PowerPC G4 Mac I own.
 
The G4 minis are great little computers for certain tasks. I have mine set up as my home and internet-accessable server, and it works absolutely wonderfully :)
 
MultiFinder17 said:
The G4 minis are great little computers for certain tasks. I have mine set up as my home and internet-accessable server, and it works absolutely wonderfully :)
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How does one do that? Can I just put on a USB2 hub, some USB Hard drives, raid them together and have it work?
 
As soon as I can locate a replacement optical drive for my Mac Mini (it seems to be FUBAR), I wana try adding in a 44pin IDE to SATA connection. The connector I have adds only a quarter of an inch to the drive length, but I assume a slight case mod may be in order to get it to fit...that is if it'll boot through the adapter.

I got boxed copies of Tiger and Leopard at a local used book store for cheaper than online (price omitted due to shaky economy), and I was thinking of Dual Booting Leopard and Tiger. Leopard being my main system, running newer software for light web use, and Tiger for the classic environment.
 
InuNacho said:
I thought it'd be kinda neat to screenshare a G4 Mini running Tiger, you'd indirectly be able to run Classic games on Mavericks.
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Actually this is my only Mac, so none of that fancy smancy screenshares.
 
Oy vei...I am having an issue mounting my network drive on this unit. On Win7, I have a network drive that I use to transfer files and folders between computers on my network, so I don't have to deal with USB drives and such. I can not get the drive to mount. I have permissions set where anyone can access it on my network, but when I try on Tiger, it says there is a password when there isn't.
 
@e.....erik....you know that guy that looks a bit like SG1s Daniel Jackson :D

I nthink he meant that game was released in 2013 not his Mini, which still seems to be PPC.


Boxed version of Tiger might not work as some of these units were released after Tiger (and therefore weren't included on the retail disc).

My experience with the IDE on Minis is that they simply won't accept any cabling or adaptors added. That and that a standard 2.5" drive leaves 0 place for an adaptor.
 
Bug-Creator said:
@e.....erik....you know that guy that looks a bit like SG1s Daniel Jackson :D

I nthink he meant that game was released in 2013 not his Mini, which still seems to be PPC.


Boxed version of Tiger might not work as some of these units were released after Tiger (and therefore weren't included on the retail disc).

My experience with the IDE on Minis is that they simply won't accept any cabling or adaptors added. That and that a standard 2.5" drive leaves 0 place for an adaptor.
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Tiger actually works beautifully on this...that is until I did the combo update to the latest version, and now it's running sluggish. What do you expect for 256mb of Ram, and a 1.25ghz processor (PowerPC was RISC so 1.25ghz on a PPC is more like 2ghz on an x86 chip).

When I do the ram, I'll try the overclock up to 1.5ghz
 
scarmullet said:
Tiger actually works beautifully on this...that is until I did the combo update to the latest version, and now it's running sluggish. What do you expect for 256mb of Ram, and a 1.25ghz processor (PowerPC was RISC so 1.25ghz on a PPC is more like 2ghz on an x86 chip).

When I do the ram, I'll try the overclock up to 1.5ghz
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I had that machine when it came out and was nothing but disappointed with it. It was a knee jerk replacement for my 450MHz B&W G3 which had developed a perpetual kernal panic problem (later discovered to be a combo of a bad CPU and bad stick of RAM). I figured it would smoke the G3 which was also running Tiger, and couldn't believe how slow the mini felt. For its time, the thing was terrible. And like Intell said, its little 32MB video card was terrible for gaming. I ended up selling it the following year for an original MBP.
 
Hrududu said:
I had that machine when it came out and was nothing but disappointed with it. It was a knee jerk replacement for my 450MHz B&W G3 which had developed a perpetual kernal panic problem (later discovered to be a combo of a bad CPU and bad stick of RAM). I figured it would smoke the G3 which was also running Tiger, and couldn't believe how slow the mini felt. For its time, the thing was terrible. And like Intell said, its little 32MB video card was terrible for gaming. I ended up selling it the following year for an original MBP.
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Running Classic games, it's not too bad really. I have been playing Diablo II, OS9 version since I installed Classic Mode.
 
Hrududu said:
Ya in classic mode it probably isn't bad. I recall trying to play things like Halo and Unreal 04 were not really doable.
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I'm not looking for a power house gaming machine (I have one already), just a machine to run mac exclusive games, and games that were released on DOS/Win95/Win98 and Mac, that I can't get working well on DOSbox.

I have several other applications in mind that I can use for this. A supplemental emulation machine to work along side my Roku3. A file server/NAS, ect.
 
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You sure got a great deal on it regardless! It's incredible how expensive older Macs have gotten over the last year or so. I saw a VERY uninteresting B&W G3 sell for $72 the other day on eBay with many bidders in the mix. These things have just gotten to the point where so many got thrown away that the one left for sale get too much attention!
 
Hrududu said:
You sure got a great deal on it regardless! It's incredible how expensive older Macs have gotten over the last year or so. I saw a VERY uninteresting B&W G3 sell for $72 the other day on eBay with many bidders in the mix. These things have just gotten to the point where so many got thrown away that the one left for sale get too much attention!
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Well they are quite useful. With the right hardware installed, and the stability of MacOS, you can make a pretty competent file server.
 
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