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I don't specifically remember trying those - though I suspect I gave mpv and qmplay2 a try?

I have regularly pitched the ancient Mplayer against newer compiled versions and FFPlay though and it still has the edge in terms of CPU use (and less audio sync issues) but the newer players have better compatibility.

How ancient btw? What version do you use?
 
Thanks for the clarification I’ll get R15. How do I find out about the ‘cool new projects that were released in the years since’?

There's a special version of Minecraft that someone made a few years back to little fanfare, and it's far better than any of the ones I assembled in the past.


That and Aquafox are the big ones, though there may be one or two more I'm forgetting.

EDIT: I knew I was missing a few, here's another:


Though I'm conflicted on adding it to the App Store due to the broader impact of AI on society, which I personally take issue with... Maybe it can just be a link instead of a feature.

Even 720P will run your CPU hot - better not to torture such vintage hardware and play good quality 360/480P!

For all vintage hardware, I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that it is better to let them shine at what they originally did best rather than make them struggle and wheeze with modern demands. If you use all original peripherals, software, and proxies for period-correct websites, I think time machines are overall more rewarding experiences at this point than sleeper setups.

Seriously. With all the mandatory software subscriptions, ads and tracking, social media integrations, and now AI slop shoehorned into literally everything, who wants to deal with modern technology any longer anyway?
 
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it is better to let them shine at what they originally did best rather than make them struggle and wheeze with modern demands. If you use all original peripherals, software, and proxies for period-correct websites, I think time machines are overall more rewarding experiences at this point

Video and web are perhaps the only two areas where we do have practical constraints that are hard to overcome. Pretty much anything else works perfectly fine with modern software – and in most case better than with the archaic.

P. S. Not that old software makes video and web any better anyway.
 
For all vintage hardware, I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that it is better to let them shine at what they originally did best rather than make them struggle and wheeze with modern demands.
I mostly agree with that. It is fun to push old hardware for the wow factor and tinkering for tinkerings sake but it's also gratifying to get work done in the fashion and pace a computer was designed for.

Good to see you back in the forum btw.
 
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It is fun to push old hardware for the wow factor and tinkering for tinkerings sake but it's also gratifying to get work done in the fashion and pace a computer was designed for.

For sure. While there are some exceptions and this doesn't necessarily apply to everyone, what's really making an impression on me now though is just how much better they are at both offline recreation and productivity in general.

Elaborating further, for games, you don't have to deal with day one updates, microtransactions, DLC, or account logins. Just go to the Garden, download a few titles, install in 2 minutes, and you're ready to go. Likewise, why bother with Office 365 or Adobe Creative Cloud with their aforementioned subscriptions, yet more account logins, and cloud storage when you can simply fire up Office 2008 or Creative Suite 4 (or older) on your classic Mac and be able to do 90% of the same things?

Even when you're trying to get work done on the modern system, most of the time you still have app notifications, automatic updates, email clients, social media, and 100+ other tabs open on the browser all simultaneously competing for your attention. Meanwhile on the classic systems, you are forced to do one thing (or two things) at a time because of their limited resources, resulting in either more engaging gameplay or produce completed faster and more efficiently because you can completely focus on what you're doing for a length of time.

They're just such cleaner environments.
 
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@z970, I couldn't agree more! This is why I prefer to work on my old systems whenever possible... and in fact, it is usually possible, particularly with a G4 or G5.

As I posted a few days ago, I have now "promoted" my G5 Quad to my main desk, where its 30" Cinema HD display, keyboard and mouse share desk space with their Mac Studio peers. I really like my Mac Studio, but honestly, I prefer to work on my G5! It is, of course, running Sorbet Leopard.

1000147869.jpg



1000147860.jpg
 
Since this topic resurfaces every once in a while and I happen to have a vivid illustration today:

I had a few hours after finishing planned work on 10.6 ppc and thought to finally build some more stuff on 10.5. Nothing complex, nothing huge, no vtk or mpich, well-known ports with minimal dependencies which work normally on 10.6. Of a rather random pick of about a dozen ports most failed to build (I do not count dependencies, only what I actually wanted to install). I have fixed a few. Some remained broken. While a couple of issues are specific to ppc64 (which is the only advantage of 10.5 – but good luck getting stuff to work on it), mostly everything was just broken for 10.5 overall.

IMG_6559.png


The difference is not cosmetic. SDK matters.
 
I’m going to give prores 1080p a try. The decoder is far simpler than h264. You just need disk bandwidth. It’s pretty easy to convert any modern video to prores for testing anyway. Not gonna do it as a daily driver.
 
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