You Can/Can't Still Use PowerPC Macs in 2020!

[z970]

I want to attempt to replicate a situation of what an "average" user would be willing to do in order to use their system.

Even for the average user, there is a difference between wanting to "use" their system, and get the most out of their system. And the difference between the two realistically takes very little effort, all in a span of less than five additional minutes total. If they are not willing to get the most out of their old system and just use it how Apple would have wanted you, then Web-wise, it's frankly a waste of time and they will almost always be disappointed.

Often, the user only needs to simply be aware of a certain Firefox patch and be supportive of the idea of making browsing faster, and they will have no trouble spending an additional five minutes to achieve faster Web speeds, because said patch strives to make the entire installation experience as absolutely user friendly as possible. Simple as that.

My guess is it's down to the javascript that OSX Tiger/Leopard gets bogged down with rather than GPU assisted acceleration, hence my observation about older user agents speeding things up by presumably not loading new script driven features.

Even for very basic sites on my G5 (in TFF), I've seen evidence that the GPU is always inactive, regardless of what the user has done. For instance, scrolling isn't as smooth as it could be. CPU activity briefly shoots up every time you make an action. On heavy sites, the CPU fans are prone to spinning up because the load-bearer is the CPU, NOT the graphics processing unit.

Contrastingly, I have not been able to replicate these results on a Linux distro using something like Arctic Fox. Maybe that doesn't go for every platform due to GPU support, but that's the case I've consistently seen.

So yes, the Web's addiction to JavaScript makes a bad situation much worse, but it's quite evident that it's not the sole root of all said browsing problems.

And when I've done benchmarks to establish any merit to config file acceleration tweaks I found none.

I just tried running the linked benchmark on stock TFF vs on foxPEP 1.8.1. Keep in mind TFF can only get a portion of foxPEP's effect as so many integral technologies to help alleviate Web 3.0 are disabled or outright missing, severely hampering the Web experience right out the gate. So, it's likely the results below are not in fact the full picture, especially as I have not run this tool on any other OS or browser.

Stock:

foxPEP 1.8.1:

Strangely, the demos for foxPEP 1.8.1 ran slightly smoother than on stock, and yet it still got a lower score.

This will be (attempted to be) remedied once and for all for version 1.8.2. But whether another noticeable browsing difference springs from that remains to be seen, as it's entirely possible that could simply amount to higher numbers, but lower real performance.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Even for very basic sites on my G5 (in TFF), I've seen evidence that the GPU is always inactive,

But how do you establish this? By what means are you monitoring what the GPU is doing? My understanding is that it's very active handling everything drawn on the screen - if not, what is a GPU for?

I still think my javascript theory hold up as presumably the PPC Linux distros are better equipped to handle modern script than the dated framework in OSX?

My experience is every browser hits the CPU loading a site and then settles but yes, TFF more than others but again mitigated by what content you choose to load.

 

[z970]

But how do you establish this? By what means are you monitoring what the GPU is doing? My understanding is that it's very active handling everything drawn on the screen - if not, what is a GPU for?

I don't have a PowerPC Linux distro readily available to compare with at the moment, but if you go to about:support on TenFourFox, the GPU Accelerated Windows box will always report 0/1 Basic Blocked for your operating system version.

Going off of memory, Arctic Fox or SpiderWeb or what have you should report in Linux something among the lines of 1/1 OpenGL, like every other normal browser. And this is always verified by the real world performance improvement seen only there, even in stock Firefox 45 or 52 ESR.

For OS X, my theory is that while the GPU is drawing the page contents onscreen, as it does everything else, it isn't actually doing the intensive math and computing required to render said elements from the bottom-up, which it is always faster at than the CPU.

That, I have no basis for, but it's what so far makes the most sense as to how exactly a browser window can't be "GPU-accelerated"... yet still display a picture.

 

[defjam]

Javascript is the main issue that brings PowerPC to it's knees during web browsing. A lot of JS is used by third party analytics and advertising. Even MR, which has ads, is heavy on JS despite it's minimal theme.

Using either of these addons allows you to stop that JS cold from places you don't want it coming from. Which gives the CPU time to process all the stuff you do want it to process.

You can use just my prefs but without stopping the Javascript by using either addon, it doesn't really matter.

And it would explain why you have so many issues with T4Fx.

In the past I have disabled JavaScript on my G5's and I did noticed a significant improvement in performance. I thought it was an ideal solution until I had problems with a number of sites I like to visit.

It seems with using a G5 there are too many compromises one has to make in order to get an acceptable browsing experience. I don't want to seem ungrateful to those who have offered their suggestions on improving the experience but there have been so many different, and sometimes conflicting, pieces of advice given that it seems significantly more complicated than what an average user would do. Especially compared to picking up an inexpensive Intel system which is essentially plug and play. For enthusiasts, those who elect to or have no alternative but to use them then this advice is helpful. However the advice given by the YouTuber in the first video of the OP is sound: If you don't fall into one of the previous categories an inexpensive, which might be less (and sometimes a lot less) Intel system would be more suitable.

 

[sparty411]

I assume you'd like me to perform this benchmark with the Mini? I did so and it completed the transcode in 44 seconds.
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I appreciate the information, as well as that provided by other members in this forum. However I am attempting to keep things simple. I want to attempt to replicate a situation of what an "average" user would be willing to do in order to use their system. There have been a lot of good suggestions on how to optimize a PPC system to improve performance but the majority of them are, IMO, beyond what an average user would be willing to do. Contrast this to the experience on the Mini which requires no optimization in order to have what is, IMO, an acceptable browsing experience. I'm not sure why browsing on the PPC is so slow as I cannot see the Core 2 Duo used in a 2009 Mini as being so much faster than the G5 as to explain the difference.

From an IPC stand point, Core 2 absolutely wipes the floor with the G5. A G5 probably has IPC on par with Netburst, but with much lower clockspeeds. I'd be willing to wager that a Conroe C2D chip running at 2.33GHz or so, would demolish a quad G5.

 

[defjam]

Even for the average user, there is a difference between wanting to "use" their system, and get the most out of their system. And the difference between the two realistically takes very little effort, all in a span of less than five additional minutes total. If they are not willing to get the most out of their old system and just use it how Apple would have wanted you, then Web-wise, it's frankly a waste of time and they will almost always be disappointed.

Approximately two weeks ago I received numerous suggestions on how to improve my PPC based browsing experience. I have tried some of those suggestions and passed on others. The one's I passed on weren't because I didn't feel they would have benefit but rather it seemed like I would try something and when, due to some issue or another it wasn't deemed viable, I would receive another suggestion and another and then another. At some point I had to say that, IMO, enough was enough.

Contrast this with my having purchased a 2009 Mac Mini for a total of $66.00 (since I decided to upgrade the RAM to 4GB, it was initially $60.00) which required that I merely turn it on and use it. IME the 2009 Mini is a much more usable system compared to most (I say most as I have not used a quad nor the 2.5GHz / 2.7GHz models) PPC systems, at least for web browsing (and, it appears, transcoding).

I am not against the PPC systems. I like them and I wish they were more usable browsing the Internet. But the evidence is clear: An inexpensive Intel Mac is most likely a better fit for those who are not PPC enthusiast or have constraints keeping them on PPC.

 

[Dronecatcher]

For OS X, my theory is that while the GPU is drawing the page contents onscreen, as it does everything else, it isn't actually doing the intensive math and computing required to render said elements from the bottom-up

My understanding is that's exactly what Tiger introduced Quartz 2D Extreme for?

You're right about TFF indicating Accelerated Windows as being not implemented but how that translates into real operations I don't know - subjectively, I haven't experienced greater perfromance under PPC Linux.

 

[eyoungren]

In the past I have disabled JavaScript on my G5's and I did noticed a significant improvement in performance. I thought it was an ideal solution until I had problems with a number of sites I like to visit.

It seems with using a G5 there are too many compromises one has to make in order to get an acceptable browsing experience. I don't want to seem ungrateful to those who have offered their suggestions on improving the experience but there have been so many different, and sometimes conflicting, pieces of advice given that it seems significantly more complicated than what an average user would do. Especially compared to picking up an inexpensive Intel system which is essentially plug and play. For enthusiasts, those who elect to or have no alternative but to use them then this advice is helpful. However the advice given by the YouTuber in the first video of the OP is sound: If you don't fall into one of the previous categories an inexpensive, which might be less (and sometimes a lot less) Intel system would be more suitable.

Advice on improving the browsing experience is conflicting, yes. Why?

Because none of us browse the same way, even if we use the same browser. Let's take me and @Dronecatcher for instance. Both of us use T4FX, but he is a very big advocate for NoScript while I am a very big advocate for uMatrix. Both addons do much of the same thing but it's preference and choice. Now @z970mp advocates for foxPEP because he's invested a lot of time in optimizing both T4Fx and and other engines to make performance optimal.

But he and I do not browse the same way. His browsing and Dronecatcher's are much more media-oriented than mine. I'm browsing for news-content and forum use. So, what we all use is different - hence different advice.

All of this said, I'm just going to present the following. You tried disabling JS and this was a problem for you because it's an all or nothing type thing. What the addons I and others propose allow is SELECTIVE JS blocking. You can allow certain JS to run and certain JS to be blocked. This way sites don't break and you block the garbage.

Below are two screen shots. You can see my DNS entires. That's for a DNS service (free) that blocks ads. I used to use uMatrix because it blocks third party ad sites. In this particular setup I don't need that anymore because of these DNS entries. So, I use NoScript again because all NoScript does is block JS and that's all I need now.

The second screen shot shows you the third party sites that are making demands on MacRumors. Why do I need these to load? I don't, so they are blocked. Yet MR continues to work because I haven't blocked that JS.

We've discussed compromises before. For me, this stuff is not a compromise. I block the garbage I don't want and still get to browse the net reasonably. That said, everyone has their own idea of what's acceptable or not. All I am doing is presenting you with ONE option.

And yes, that option is different. The problem is that no one solution works anymore because our Macs are as old as they are. You have to find your own solutions and your own workarounds, which is why so many things we find are posted here - so others have options they didn't previously know about. If you want to use this option, fine, if not that's fine too. I'm not here to push my opinions on people, just to help if I can.

 

[Amethyst1]

I still think my javascript theory hold up as presumably the PPC Linux distros are better equipped to handle modern script than the dated framework in OSX?

Then a possible benchmark could be loading and navigating some websites on the same machine, once using OS X and one of the Firefox-derived browsers available for it, and once more using Linux and one of the Firefox-derived browsers available for it, but with all JavaScript turned off in both settings. We'd need to find sites that still work without JS of course.
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Just my 2 cents, but TFF is not a good browser to compare to anything. Under ppc Linux I'm using what's comparable to Firefox 68 on a Mac mini g4 and it runs circles around TFF on osx on the same machine. I can't explain it, but it is what it is.

What are your settings with regards to JavaScript - are they the same across OS X/TFF and Linux/~FF68? It's quite intriguing that your experience is vastly better (as in faster) on Linux than on OS X while @Dronecatcher sees no difference, and I'd love to know what's going on.

 

[Dronecatcher]

It's quite intriguing that your experience is vastly better (as in faster) on Linux than on OS X while @Dronecatcher sees no difference, and I'd love to know what that's all about.

Don't forget my experience is on a Powerbook, @wicknix talks of his Mac Mini.

 

[Amethyst1]

Don't forget my experience is on a Powerbook, @wicknix talks of his Mac Mini.

Which PB is it, as I remember you have both a 12in as well as 15in and 17in DLSDs?

 

[defjam]

Advice on improving the browsing experience is conflicting, yes. Why?

Because none of us browse the same way, even if we use the same browser. Let's take me and @Dronecatcher for instance. Both of us use T4FX, but he is a very big advocate for NoScript while I am a very big advocate for uMatrix. Both addons do much of the same thing but it's preference and choice. Now @z970mp advocates for foxPEP because he's invested a lot of time in optimizing both T4Fx and and other engines to make performance optimal.

But he and I do not browse the same way. His browsing and Dronecatcher's are much more media-oriented than mine. I'm browsing for news-content and forum use. So, what we all use is different - hence different advice.

All of this said, I'm just going to present the following. You tried disabling JS and this was a problem for you because it's an all or nothing type thing. What the addons I and others propose allow is SELECTIVE JS blocking. You can allow certain JS to run and certain JS to be blocked. This way sites don't break and you block the garbage.

Below are two screen shots. You can see my DNS entires. That's for a DNS service (free) that blocks ads. I used to use uMatrix because it blocks third party ad sites. In this particular setup I don't need that anymore because of these DNS entries. So, I use NoScript again because all NoScript does is block JS and that's all I need now.

The second screen shot shows you the third party sites that are making demands on MacRumors. Why do I need these to load? I don't, so they are blocked. Yet MR continues to work because I haven't blocked that JS.

We've discussed compromises before. For me, this stuff is not a compromise. I block the garbage I don't want and still get to browse the net reasonably. That said, everyone has their own idea of what's acceptable or not. All I am doing is presenting you with ONE option.

And yes, that option is different. The problem is that no one solution works anymore because our Macs are as old as they are. You have to find your own solutions and your own workarounds, which is why so many things we find are posted here - so others have options they didn't previously know about. If you want to use this option, fine, if not that's fine too. I'm not here to push my opinions on people, just to help if I can.

I fully understand what you're saying. But in the end a $66.00 Mini handles almost every browsing situation and generally without compromise. That's why the YouTuber in the first video of the OP made the general recommendation that an Intel based Mac would be a better option then a PPC based system for the average user (i.e. those who are not enthusiasts or have restrictions that necessitate their continued use). Even compared to the higher end PowerMac G5 based systems as they tend to cost more than the entry / base models. Unless you purchase locally shipping alone on PPC based systems tends to cost more than an older Intel based Mac.

 

[eyoungren]

I fully understand what you're saying. But in the end a $66.00 Mini handles almost every browsing situation and generally without compromise. That's why the YouTuber in the first video of the OP made the general recommendation that an Intel based Mac would be a better option then a PPC based system for the average user (i.e. those who are not enthusiasts or have restrictions that necessitate their continued use). Even compared to the higher end PowerMac G5 based systems as they tend to cost more than the entry / base models. Unless you purchase locally shipping alone on PPC based systems tends to cost more than an older Intel based Mac.

On Wednesday I spent the day upgrading my 2008 MBP and my 2009 Mac-Mini (same model as yours) to Mojave. I have spent the last day and a half tweaking browsers. I was using Opera on my Intels until I noticed CPU spikes under Mojave. So I switched back to Chrome, but I hate the lack of customization. Last night I found Vivaldi and have spent some time delving through it's deep allowance for customization. I'm very pleased with this new discovery (for me, I know it's been around since 2016). Vivaldi is fast and seems to have a light touch on CPU. It's Opera the way I remember it being before Opera stopped allowing customization. And you can still add Chrome extensions to it.

May be something to look into for your Mini.

The Intels will always be faster, despite all the work everyone does here to try and speed things up for PowerPC. And, yes, with my Quad and it's extreme maxing out of RAM and hardware I am an outlier and cannot be considered a 'normal' user. But that's one of the reasons I do what I do - so that I can get as close to Intel performance as I can.

I respect your choice as we all have our preferences.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Which PB is it, as I remember you have both a 12in as well as 15in and 17in DLSDs?

It's the 15" DLSD - it's the only PPC portable I have now.

Just done some crude benchmarking launching sites between ArcticFox on Tiger/Lubuntu 12 plus TFF on Tiger, AF in all instances is using FoxPEP prefs and TFF is using my own. Each timing was done three times then averaged.

 

[TheShortTimer]

That's why the YouTuber in the first video of the OP made the general recommendation that an Intel based Mac would be a better option then a PPC based system for the average user (i.e. those who are not enthusiasts or have restrictions that necessitate their continued use).

Except that he went as far as to declare that "There is no reasonable way to use a PowerPC Mac in 2020." Which is absolute balderdash and he deserved to be called on that.

Even compared to the higher end PowerMac G5 based systems as they tend to cost more than the entry / base models.

A higher end PM G5 tends to cost more than an entry level/base model Intel Mac? I'm honestly surprised by that as I paid £20 GBP for my PM G5. I think it depends on where you look because eBay has become illogical and ridiculous for anything computer related that's perceived as holding retro value or interest.

Unless you purchase locally shipping alone on PPC based systems tends to cost more than an older Intel based Mac.

Really? Again I'm surprised. Wouldn't it cost the same to ship a PM G5 and an older Intel based Mac like the cMP as they share an almost identical case design, weight and dimensions? I can't recall the delivery costs for my 1st Sawtooth being more expensive than that of my Intel Macs.

BTW: @defjam and anyone else that I've disagreed with in this thread, I respect your opinion and personally I find discussions such as these to be useful for sharing perspectives and experiences.

 

[defjam]

May be something to look into for your Mini.

This Mini is unlikely to see a lot of use while in my possession. At some point I'll probably end up giving it to someone else.

The Intels will always be faster, despite all the work everyone does here to try and speed things up for PowerPC. And, yes, with my Quad and it's extreme maxing out of RAM and hardware I am an outlier and cannot be considered a 'normal' user. But that's one of the reasons I do what I do - so that I can get as close to Intel performance as I can.

I hope that I'm not coming off as anti-PPC with this discussion because I am very much a fan of these systems.

I respect your choice as we all have our preferences.

It's not so much as a preference as it is a necessity. The reality is browsing the Internet on a PPC system is an exercise in patience at best and frustration at worst. I am OK with certain tasks, such as transcoding, taking longer on my PowerMac G5 except that I can't browse the web while doing so. I wouldn't really care that it might take 4 hours to transcode something as long as I could browse the web at the same time. Unfortunately, even without anything else running, browsing the Internet is very frustrating. I've tried to accept that it is slower but it is so slow that I can't tolerate it and end up using another system. I reason that if I'm am going to have to use two systems (one to transcode and one to browse the web) I may as well use a single system which can perform both tasks and complete the transcode much faster.

I really am not anti-PPC. Until recently I had an iBook G3, and iBook G4, and a dual 2.3GHz PowerMac G5. I ended up giving them away because I wasn't using them. Why wasn't I using them? Because they were slow, relatively speaking, to perform offline tasks (such as transcoding or image processing) and exceedingly slow to browse the web without doing anything else let alone when performing other batch work. I can't even say that I attempted to browse the Internet with either iBook as my experience with the PowerMac G5 was so bad.

All that said I will try some of the other suggestions people have made. I've got the system and I really would like to at least make the browsing experience tolerable.

 

[Amethyst1]

The reality is browsing the Internet on a PPC system is an exercise in patience at best and frustration at worst.

Your expectations are way too high. Unless you have browsed the web on a 100 MHz Pentium with 16 MB RAM, you haven't browsed the web. That blog is, for lack of a better word, fascinating.

 

[defjam]

Except that he went as far as to declare that "There is no reasonable way to use a PowerPC Mac in 2020." Which is absolute balderdash and he deserved to be called on that.

It depends on what you consider reasonable. Eric already touch on this a week or so ago. IMO it is unreasonable to expect a non-PPC enthusiast or someone who has a constraint tying them to the PPC to use a PPC based Mac in 2020. The Mini has made that point exceedingly well.

A higher end PM G5 tends to cost more than an entry level/base model Intel Mac? I'm honestly surprised by that as I paid £20 GBP for my PM G5. I think it depends on where you look because eBay has become illogical and ridiculous for anything computer related that's perceived as holding retro value or interest.

Like it or not Ebay is where many people go to buy these systems.

Really? Again I'm surprised. Wouldn't it cost the same to ship a PM G5 and an older Intel based Mac like the cMP as they share an almost identical case design, weight and dimensions? I can't recall the delivery costs for my 1st Sawtooth being more expensive than that of my Intel Macs.

I can't say for certain but I'm fairly confident the Mini I just purchased cost a lot less to ship than a PowerMac or Mac Pro.

BTW: @defjam and anyone else that I've disagreed with in this thread, I respect your opinion and personally I find discussions such as these to be useful for sharing perspectives and experiences.

I hold no ill will towards anyone (unless they start personally attacking me). This forum is filled with great people who are quite knowledgeable. It's the participants which made me state (earlier) that this was the best forum on MR.

We're all here to have a discussions. I'd also like to say that while I have been "advocating for" Intel based systems this does not mean I prefer Intel based systems. I was disappointed to see Apple move away from PPC back in 2005. At that time I thought hard about buying a quad as I knew it was the last, most powerful PPC Apple would release. I would very much like to have seen where PPC would be had Apple kept with it. But I can understand why they did not. I am excited, yet cautious, about Apple releasing ARM based systems (should that ever happen). I like technology, I like different architectures, and there's also some nostalgia mixed in. I remember the 68K to PPC days fondly, my PPC 8100/80 was a great system and I wish I still had it. I currently have a 7300/180 with a PPC G3 upgraded processor. But the reality is for most users PPC is a non-starter. My experience with the Mini over the past week really brought that home. I could not, in good conscious, recommend a PPC based system to anyone but an enthusiast who is interested in older systems / technology.
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Your expectations are way too high. Unless you have browsed the web on a 100 MHz Pentium with 16 MB RAM, you haven't browsed the web. That blog is, for lack of a better word, fascinating.

Many years ago, circa mid-2000's, I decided to perform an experiment to see just how low of a configuration I could go to browse the Internet. I purchased an old 80386 system and installed a copy of Linux on it. Linux ran OK but wow, browsing the Internet was horrible. I can't even imagine what it would be like today (I'm trying to replicate that experiment by attempting to purchase another 80386 based system but sellers an Ebay are being unrealistic).

 

[AphoticD]

Interesting, that's half the time of my Mac Pro despite your Mini having roughly 50% of the CPU horsepower - you did use the bundled MPEG Streamclip?

I can confirm similar results on my C2D 2.0GHz MacBook5,1 @ 46 seconds under El Cap.

El Capitan has been very enjoyable for me on my MacBook 5,2 with a spinner.

El Capitan is my favourite x86_64 OS X. It’s a highly optimized, solid performer and a pleasure to run on 2008-2010 hardware, especially with an SSD and at least 8GB of RAM.

All the main browsers are still fully supported - including Brave which is a new favourite. The new MS Edge for Mac however requires Sierra, which is a shame as all other Chromium based browsers including Opera are happy on Yosemite or later.

 

[TheShortTimer]

It depends on what you consider reasonable. Eric already touch on this a week or so ago.

For him to declare that "There is no reasonable way to use a PowerPC Mac in 2020" is patently false and simply does not stand up to the most basic of scrutiny and evidence. I can't take his statement seriously because it involves a suspension of critical thinking.

IMO it is unreasonable to expect a non-PPC enthusiast or someone who has a constraint tying them to the PPC to use a PPC based Mac in 2020. The Mini has made that point exceedingly well.

Conversely, I could argue that the aforementioned case of my G5 effortlessly outdoing my Core Duo - long after refinements had been made to the performance of Intel based Mac OS X and software had been tailored for the platform, equally makes a point exceeding well. As does the fact that I can put someone in front of my PPC Macs and they can easily carry out an extensive list of tasks - with no performance gain to be had if those same tasks were carried out on my Intel Macs.

To elaborate briefly, if someone wanted to come over and transfer their reel-to-reel or vinyl collection to a 24bit 96khz digital format, that could be accomplished on my 1999 Sawtooth with its M-Audio 2496 card. As could the archiving of DATs or the bit-perfect capture of the PCM audio from Laserdiscs - both of which can be undertaken on my PM G5 without the need for a card because Apple included the TOSLink interface. An optical cable from my box and they're away. None of this would ask of them anything more unreasonable than if they were using an Intel Mac.

When I showed a best friend my iBook G3 accessing the Internet via the 4G data plan from my smartphone, courtesy of the HoRNDIS tethering driver - he immediately asked for the soccer results and a Google search with TFF gave him the answer. This involved a relatively quick and straightforward process that didn't require anything unreasonable of him. There was no frustration or trying of patience.

I would very much like to have seen where PPC would be had Apple kept with it.

Likewise.

On that note, you might find the following of interest. Quoted from an engrossing and astoundingly well written paper by F.W. van Wensveen:

Microsoft has also begun to sell their own gaming hardware with the release of the Xbox gaming console. The reason
that Microsoft is getting into games is not readily apparent. Their explanation that they wanted to save the world from
Playstation domination is of course not to be taken seriously. As far as domination is concerned, it's an interesting fact
that IBM was Apple's sole supplier of Power-PC chips, on which Apple's hardware architecture was based, and which
IBM produces in limited quantities. The Xbox uses several of these IBM Power-PC chips. Now convincing IBM that it
would be more profitable to do business with Microsoft than with Apple was not very difficult. Fortunately for Apple
the company proved agile and resilient enough to adapt, and it continues to thrive after a timely but forced switch to
Intel chips. Still the way in which the Xbox forced Apple through a major change in hardware platforms is an
interesting one

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Many years ago, circa mid-2000's, I decided to perform an experiment to see just how low of a configuration I could go to browse the Internet. I purchased an old 80386 system and installed a copy of Linux on it. Linux ran OK but wow, browsing the Internet was horrible. I can't even imagine what it would be like today (I'm trying to replicate that experiment by attempting to purchase another 80386 based system but sellers an Ebay are being unrealistic).

There's bound to be someone who has a 386 in their garage and would probably gift it to you. Apart from the 2011 13" MBP that I snagged recently, it's been years since I bought any computers from there. The prices are too absurd. :O

 

[alex_free]

Wanted to circle back on my progress with the Mini I purchased. AS a refresher it is an early 2009 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo model, 1GB of RAM, 120GB SATA HD, and GeForce 9400M GPU. It came with the power adapter and mini DVI to VGA adapter. Total cost, including shipping, was $60.00. I purchased this unit for a couple of reasons:

• It can run OS X El Capitan where as earlier Intel models were limited to OS X Lion
• It was the lowest cost, complete system I found on Ebay at the time. I could have purchased just the Mini for lower cost but not having a power adapter was a non-starter as I'd have had to buy that too negating the lower cost.

The reason for acquiring this system was simple: I wanted to compare a low cost Intel Mac with my PowerMac G5. That system configuration is: Late 2004 1.8GHz G5 processor, 2GB RAM, 80GB SATA HD, and GeForce FX 5200 GPU. I did little benchmarking with it limiting the comparison to two tasks that I regularly do: Transcoding and web browsing. The first I am able to provide objective numbers for. The latter I can only provide subjective measures. With this said here are my observations:

Handbrake transcode of Scooby Doo Season One DVD, Handbrake 0.9.4, normal preset, PowerMac was running OS X 10.5.8, the Mini was running OS X 10.6.8 (I wanted to use Leopard but the Mini requires 10.5.6 to install and all I have on hand is 10.5.0). To transcode the entire DVD to MP4:

• PowerMac: 14 hours and 11 minutes at an average frame rate of 5.4 fps
• Mini: 2 hours and 52 minutes at an average frame rate of 26.9 fps

Times were calculated by dividing the number of frames processed by the frame rate. It is clear the Mini is considerably faster than the PowerMac. Converting the PowerMac numbers to represent a dual processor, 2.0GHz PowerMac results in a transcode speed of 6 hours and 23 minutes at a frame rate of 12 fps. While not perfect I think this adjustment is reasonable. The clear winner in this test is the Mini, by a considerable margin.

For the web browsing test I decided to install El Capitan. Unfortunately El Capitan requires 2GB of RAM and the Mini had only 1GB. Since I had a spare 1GB module laying around I decided to install it. The process was rather straightforward but not as easy as previous Mini's nor the PowerMac. Some might note that the initial $60.00 did not include this upgrade and they would be right. To which I'll respond that I purchase 4GB of RAM for $6.00, including shipping. So let's adjust the cost of the Mini to $66.00, still quite reasonable.

After (finally) getting El Capitan installed I have been using the Mini to browse the Internet. First with Safari and then with Firefox (latest version). All I can say is there is no comparison between the two. Even though this is a subjective measure for which I cannot provide metrics all I can say is the difference is night and day. No longer does the system hang when I scroll down the page. Pages load quickly with little delay. Browsing on the Mini is slightly slower than using a current Mac. Slight delays can be observed but browsing is not an exercise in patience and frustration as it is with the PowerMac. With the Mini I just started the browser and began browsing. No optimizations were needed.

So what purpose do I have for posting all of this? I can tell you what it is not: It is not to try and convince anyone here that PPC systems are unusable. Nor is it intended to convince anyone here their decision to use one is in error and they're a fool for doing so. This is a PPC forum and everyone here has decided, for whatever reasons they have, to use one.

Now that I've explained what the purpose was for not posting here's why I did. The YouTuber in the first video of the OP stated that a low cost Intel system would be a preferable system to a PPC based system. This statement was intended for the average user and not for hobbyists, enthusiasts, or those with specific needs / constraints which would prohibit using an Intel based system.

Some final thoughts:

• This should not be taken to mean there are no benefits to PPC systems. Especially the higher end G5 systems.
• The only optimization made were to use Eric's preferences file for TenFourFox (no cache entry). Without these optimizations then the browsing experience on the PowerMac is even worse.
• I used TenFourFox on the PowerMac as it seems to be the most compatible / supported browser.
• I made no attempt to optimize the Handbrake transcode as my train of thought was to do what the "average" user would do. If someone has recommendations to decrease the PowerMac Handbrake numbers I'd be happy to make them. However they need to be done in the context of what can be done with version 0.9.4 which is the final version that supports PPC.
• There is a notable difference in performance between Snow Leopard and El Capitan on the Mini. This might be due to the 2GB RAM installation (which is why I purchased the 4GB upgrade).
• Installing El Capitan requires one set the date back to some time in 2017 in order to install it. This is due to an expired certificate.
• Oddly the processor usage on the PowerMac is at a constant 100% when browsing the web. On the Mini the threads routinely went to idle. I can't imagine the Core 2 Duo is so much more efficient than the G5 that it idles most of the time. This leads me to suspect software is the cause. Specifically TenFourFox. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

If you have any questions feel free to ask. Want me to perform some kind of test? Happy to do so (within limits).

You can throw Catalina on it too...

Edit: link is here

macOS Catalina Patcher

It’s pretty insane that 60$ hardware can run the newest Mac OS.

 

[wicknix]

@z970mp @Dronecatcher you mean like this? (taken from spiderweb on the PB)

 

[z970]

@wicknix You need to actually turn the feature on. For starters, set layers.acceleration.force-enabled to true. Or put foxPEP in, which does it for you.

The key difference is that Linux distros will at least allow GPU acceleration, while TFF does not support it under any circumstance.

Case in point, notice the lack of ...

 

[Amethyst1]

IMO it is unreasonable to expect a non-PPC enthusiast or someone who has a constraint tying them to the PPC to use a PPC based Mac in 2020.

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it all depends on what you want to use the machine for. I bought a Mac mini G4 to run OS 9. It does that with flying colours. I have no intentions of ever browsing the web or doing transcoding on it.

Many years ago, circa mid-2000's, I decided to perform an experiment to see just how low of a configuration I could go to browse the Internet. I purchased an old 80386 system and installed a copy of Linux on it. Linux ran OK but wow, browsing the Internet was horrible. I can't even imagine what it would be like today (I'm trying to replicate that experiment by attempting to purchase another 80386 based system but sellers an Ebay are being unrealistic).

A friend of mine used a 33 MHz 486 with 32 MB RAM running Windows 3.11 to browse the web on dial-up well into the 2000s. I've never seen it, but I can imagine how slow that must have been - on the other hand, the browsers (IE 5, Netscape 4, Opera 3.something) the "OS" was stuck with probably couldn't deal with complex websites anyway, constraining him to simple ones that may have been on the verge of tolerable.
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It's the 15" DLSD - it's the only PPC portable I have now.

I see - what happened to the others?

Just done some crude benchmarking launching sites between ArcticFox on Tiger/Lubuntu 12 plus TFF on Tiger, AF in all instances is using FoxPEP prefs and TFF is using my own. Each timing was done three times then averaged.

Thanks - so AF on Lubuntu is indeed faster than AF/TFF on Tiger, except for MR with JS on, that's just brutal.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I see - what happened to the others?

Too many Macs - down to just 3 PPCs now.

Thanks - so AF on Lubuntu is indeed faster than AF/TFF on Tiger, except for MR with JS on, that's just brutal.

So it seems from those launch times