X on a G3

tigerwoods99tigerwoods99
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I have a beige G3 minitower (300 MHz) and am thinking about putting 10.1 on this machine. I am in dire need of a memory upgrade (64 MB currently ) so I will first get some more. For this system, what do you think would be a solid amount to run X on it smoothly? I have heard that 10.1 is still pretty speedy on G3 machines. Just wondering if anyone has any feedback. Thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    katekate Posts: 172member
    [quote]Originally posted by TigerWoods99:

    <strong>I have a beige G3 minitower (300 MHz) and am thinking about putting 10.1 on this machine. I am in dire need of a memory upgrade (64 MB currently ) so I will first get some more. For this system, what do you think would be a solid amount to run X on it smoothly? I have heard that 10.1 is still pretty speedy on G3 machines. Just wondering if anyone has any feedback. Thanks.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I am using 512MB on my G3 B&W and that is much in most fields, but adding another 512MB didn't help much in those fields where I wanted a speed bump. From my experience 256MB is minimum, but while those low RAM prices last go for at least 512 MB. Things seem to be different on G4s though. If you do not activate too much apps the same time even 256MB may be sufficient if you switch off Classic.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    256 is a good amount. Remember if you have 1 gig of RAM and the sytems and apps are only using 200MB then you are wasting 800 MB.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    On my iBook I've got 384MB and it's great with OS X.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    sinewavesinewave Posts: 1,074member
    [quote]Originally posted by Scott H.:

    <strong>256 is a good amount. Remember if you have 1 gig of RAM and the sytems and apps are only using 200MB then you are wasting 800 MB.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Are you saying OS X only uses 200mb of RAM?
  • Reply 5 of 10
    sinewavesinewave Posts: 1,074member
    I think OS X 10.1 on a 350mhz G3 runs just fine. Better than I thought it would. I am impressed.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    bogiebogie Posts: 407member
    Mac OS X loves RAM, the more you have the more it will hold for itself, and it shows in performance. I am running Mac OS X 10.1.1 on my Pismo G3 400 PowerBook with 320MB and Mac OS X Server 10.1 on my Beige G3 400 with 384MB.



    My mother has a Beige G3 300 with 640MB of RAM and to be honest it runs better on my Beige G3 400 - but I don't think this is due to RAM or processor, I have a RAGE128 PCI Orion 16MB video card in my Beige G3 and she does not, I think that gives a massive jump to the responsiveness - although RAM gives the most.



    Regardless it is perfectly usable, she does graphic arts on it, mostly 2D design work.



    She also just picked up a PowerBook G4 550 with 256MB, planning to up it to 768MB soon. Mac OS X 10.1.1 works very well on that but it does not seem as impressive a change from my Pismo as most people say, which is odd since the faster G4 processor, higher MHz rating, and better video subsystem should make it jump. Perhaps I have not toyed with her's enough yet.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    [quote]Originally posted by Sinewave:

    <strong>



    Are you saying OS X only uses 200mb of RAM?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Is that what I said? No. But IME OS X runs in about 200MB of RAM. I have 320 and it sucks up about 200 with nothing else running.





    Poeple who think there's some kind of linear speed up with more RAM are living in a dream world.Going from 512 to 1024 is not going to make OS X any faster. It may run better but not faster.



    OS X was made for the top of line systems and that means G4.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    bogiebogie Posts: 407member
    Mac OS X was [if someone really wanted to fight this out] originally written for a 68K processor [see OpenStep/NeXT Step requirements].



    But I don't. Fact is I have been working on it on both a new PowerBook 550 G4 and on a PowerBook G3 400 Firewire and there isn't THAT big a gap in performance.



    UNIX systems LOVE RAM. Mac OS X *holds* lots of RAM, generally 1/3-2/3. It isn't using it all, it just has it, in case it needs it. And it gives as much to apps as they need at a given time.



    Trying to say that you do not get overall performance improvements by adding RAM just shows that you have not tried to run Mac OS X on 64MB, 128MB, and 512MB next to each other. Massive performance differences.



    If what Scott is referring to is the fact that at a certain point more RAM is not useful to the system unless you place demands on it that use it ... I think that is true to some extent. Less true than it was in Mac OS Classic because of the superior bang for your buck you get using Mac OS X to manage memory. But still if I only surf AppleInsider.com all day and have 1GB of RAM I am wasting that resource by not using it.



    Anyway. A Beige G3 runs OS X very well, video and RAM upgrades should be very high on your list.



    And while we would all love G4s Mac OS X does work very well on non G4 Macs and will continue to do so for some time.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    tigerwoods99tigerwoods99 Posts: 2,633member
    Ok I think I will probably try to get 256 MB. Is crucial.com the best place to get ram from? I think it's $30 something for 256. Depending on how much 512 MB is I guess I would get that. I will upgrade in a couple months if the G5 is introduced so hopefully this will be a temporary experiment. Also the video card issue concerns me. The video card in this computer is just the stock 6 MB ATI Mach64. I don't really wanna have to get a new video card just to run OS X on it. Will X support it? Only way I'd get a Radeon is if it was dirt cheap. On a side note, would a PCI GeForce2 MX work on a beige G3?
  • Reply 10 of 10
    bogiebogie Posts: 407member
    On video



    -if you are upgrading systems within 4-6 months, don't bother updating the video in the Beige G3, it ain't that bad with the stock video but you will notice it.



    -Mac OS X supports the onboard video but gives little to no openGL/3D acceleration.



    -PCI GeForce cards will not work in Beige G3s.



    -if you could find a cheap Rage128 based [Orion/Nexus] card would be good, a Radeon is not worth it with PCI you do not get the performance of the AGP version and the price is the same. Check <a href="http://www.barefeats.com"; target="_blank">www.barefeats.com</a> for comparisons between PCI and AGP performance.



    On RAM



    -I buy most of mine from Other World Computing. The address is <a href="http://www.owcomputing.com"; target="_blank">www.owcomputing.com</a> and they have a memory finder that will show you the different DIMMs that are compatible with Beige G3s, they take standard PC66, 100, and 133 but you have to watch the RAM DIMMs density [size of the chips on the DIMM to make sure it is not too high].



    -256MB DIMMs are just under $30. Not sure about 512MB DIMMs, but Beige G3s do not actually support 512MB DIMMs due to the density issue. You can max it out at 768MB regardless of if its a desktop or tower as long as the DIMMs are not over 1.15" high.



    Anything else you need to know just post, I have done a lot to Beige G3s with a lot of success.
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