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Tiger on a dual 450 G4?

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prophet621

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 31, 2005
86
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I got a dual 450 G4 from work and as the title sugests, I was wondering how well Tiger would run on it. I was thinking of setting it up for my daughter but I'm concerned about constant 'beach balls'. It only has 512 of RAM I think but I can stick more in it.

Is there anything I should leave out of the installation to help speed it up?
 
prophet621 said:
I got a dual 450 G4 from work and as the title sugests, I was wondering how well Tiger would run on it. I was thinking of setting it up for my daughter but I'm concerned about constant 'beach balls'. It only has 512 of RAM I think but I can stick more in it.

Is there anything I should leave out of the installation to help speed it up?
Click to expand...
Well you should definately add more RAM to it but it should run pretty well. It's not going to be a speed demon but it should be able to do whatever your daughter throws at it (assuming she's just doing basic stuff i.e. Safari, AIM, email, etc.).

I'm a little confused by what you mean when you say leave something out of the installation to speed it up. If you just want to speed up the installation process then you could leave out certain printer drivers and the different languages which will save time and space. But if you mean speed up the machine I don't really know if theres anything you can do for that.

Someone else should be able to answer your questions a little better. Good luck.
 
prophet621 said:
I got a dual 450 G4 from work and as the title sugests, I was wondering how well Tiger would run on it. I was thinking of setting it up for my daughter but I'm concerned about constant 'beach balls'. It only has 512 of RAM I think but I can stick more in it.

Is there anything I should leave out of the installation to help speed it up?
Click to expand...

A dual 450 G4 will run Tiger great! OS X is multiprocessor aware, so it will run especially well when multitasking. Don't worry about the RAM, 512MB is plenty! That computer should run pretty well. :)
 
Thanks for the replies so far.

By leaving things out of the installation I mean is there anything I should not install to help Tiger run faster. Anything I wouldn't need that will run in the background.

I was wrong about the RAM, it's only 256 so I will definately get more.

As for the video card, I didn't pull it out to really look at it and read everything but on the back it says ATI Rage 128 pro.

This thing has been sitting in my closet for a few months because the sound had died on it. I was going to play around with it and see what I can do. I'm used to PCs hardware and the basics remain the same. If nothing else I'll try to find a sound card for her.

She has a P4 that she normally uses but either her or her mother keep killing it. Right now it won't connect to the wireless network among other issues so it's in need of a re-install. I'm hopeing this will last a little longer between breakdowns. Which reminds me, I have to try to get this to connect wirelessly also. I really don't feel like trying to run a cable downstairs across the house.
 
256 is a little low, I'm running 10.2.8 which is a lot less RAM intensive on my beige with 224 and it is ok. I would recommend 512 ram as long as she is just doing basic stuff, even some light photoshop would be fine with that.

People automatically assume you need 1gb of ram, and its true, it would be faster, but do ALL computers need to be super fast...answer = no. My mom doesn't care if it takes 3 seconds as opposed to 2 seconds to do something for instance.
 
As others have already said, Tiger will burn brightly on a dual G4 450. Adding RAM is somewhat overrated as a method of speeding up a Mac, IMO. Extra RAM only really helps when you're running RAM-hungry applications that start creating virtual memory swap files. If you make a habit of rebooting or logging out occasionally, even 256Mb is sufficient for most tasks. That RagePro is a real antique though. It doesn't even support QuartzExtreme.
 
I have a Pismo upgraded to a G4/550 and am happy with Tiger's performance...I'm sure your dual 450 will outperform my machine once you get your ram upgraded (I have 1 gig and would recommend the same for you). My video card is only 8MB soldered onto the motherboard and can't do diddly squat to help me, so if you are able to get evena Quartz Extreme videocard you will really be flying (relative to me anyway). As far as speeding up system performance, I limited what parts of my hard drive Spotlight indexes and disabled any widget that I didn't have active on the Dashboard, so that my CPU isn't trying to run them all.
 
prophet621 said:
Thanks for the replies so far.

By leaving things out of the installation I mean is there anything I should not install to help Tiger run faster. Anything I wouldn't need that will run in the background.

I was wrong about the RAM, it's only 256 so I will definately get more.

As for the video card, I didn't pull it out to really look at it and read everything but on the back it says ATI Rage 128 pro.

This thing has been sitting in my closet for a few months because the sound had died on it. I was going to play around with it and see what I can do. I'm used to PCs hardware and the basics remain the same. If nothing else I'll try to find a sound card for her.
Click to expand...
You should be able to find the the type of video card using the "System Profiler" application. That is if you have an OS installed on it. The Rage 128 will be a little pokey using Exposé and the Dashboard. I have a single CPU G4 467 Mhz Digital Audio with 1 GB of RAM. It runs normal applications just fine but the GUI transformations are a bit sluggish compared to the Radeon 7500 and 9000 Pro.
 
Since the dual 450mhz G4 can only use the old 802.11b airport card I would go with a cheaper new 802.11g card. New 802.11g are not always compatible with Macs. But Orangeware makes a great driver that I use without a hitch. Just get one of the cards listed in their compatiblity list. I use the D-Link DWL-G520 rev B in a G5. I know it can use airport express but I picked up a refurb of this card for $15. As for memory just pick up a 512mb stick that will bring you to 768mb, which should suit that G4 just fine. You'll be able to open multiple applications like safari, word etc. and even do some light photo editing in iPhoto or Photoshop.

As for the video card just pick up something between a Radeon 7000 to 9200 or nVidia GeForce 2 to 4 series off ebay in the Mac Components section. The Radeon 8500 or 9000 with 64mb VRAM is a good deal at $50-60. As for the Radeon 7000 32mb or GeForce 2 MX 32mb both show a remarkable boost over that Rage 128 and can be bought for under $35. I've used both the Radeon 7000 and 8500 in a 466mhz G4 and they vastly improved the screen redraw over the Rage 128.
 
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