Tiger on 500mhz iMac G3?

tomorristomorris
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Hi,



I have an iMac G5, so I gave away my old iMac G3 500mhz (DV SE) to a friend. She uses it for email, web, typing, watching DVDs. Nothing huge really. I was wondering if anyone had any idea if running 10.4 on the iMac DV SE would be a reasonable proposition? . . . does it tend to run faster or slower than Panther on an old G3? Panther runs pretty well on it.





-- Tomorris

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    homebrewsolutionshomebrewsolutions Posts: 15member
    From what i have seen with the few previews i have been able to get my hands on, tiger has vast speed improvements. If you can run panther on it, then you can run tiger. My only recomendation is to get as much ram as possible in the machine. On my dual g5 i noticed about a 15% increase in speed before i put more ram in. Then when i upgrades from 512 to 1024, about another 5% on top of the origional.



    also, i noticed a speed increas on my g4 powerbook as well, just not as much.
  • Reply 2 of 17
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    wow... tomorris.. took 2 years to do your first post?



    Anyway, as homebrew said... get ram. At least 512 for an old iMac like that.
  • Reply 3 of 17
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tomorris

    She uses it for email, web, typing, watching DVDs. Nothing huge really.



    I'll ask the question:



    If that's all she does with the machine, why upgrade at all? It doesn't sound like her search needs are so extensive that she needs spotlight. Seemingly she doesn't need Automator or Konfab -- I mean, Dashboard.



    If you still want to upgrade it, I'd say take your time. Read around and see what others' experiences are with Tiger on similar machines.
  • Reply 4 of 17
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    well, I'd say that Spotlight is a good reason.



    For someone that does lots of email, documents, etc, it could be a good enough reason.



    Otherwise, I agree, the upgrade really isnt that important for that kind of class of user.



    By the time "Tiger only" apps come out, that iMac will probably die off and she can get a Mac Mini v2 or v3 by then.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    ibook911ibook911 Posts: 607member
    Reasons she might want to upgrade



    -Spotlight



    -The new mail, which incorporates spotlight. If you have thousands of emails, this can be fantastic.



    -Widgets, useful to anyone



    -Safari 2, faster, RSS, etc.



    -Some speed improvement



    I think, for even mild computer use, Tiger is still a great upgrade!
  • Reply 6 of 17
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    I would not expect much of a speed increase on older hardware. There will probably be some, but not a lot. The big jumps are going to come for the newer computers that have the graphics hardware to take advantage of the big new "Extreme" sections.



    Also note that 10.4 will be more memory hungry (and the rumor is that the absolute min will move up to 256), so factor that in.
  • Reply 7 of 17
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    I'm sure Jaguar was faster than Panther on my iMac G3 600MHz, now I'm on my PowerBook and I'm awaiting Tiger with my 128MB graphics card and 1GB RAM. I'd upgrade if you want the features. Speed is probably not an issue for the use; so upgrade if you want the features - don't expect a big improvement if at all.
  • Reply 8 of 17
    miggs97miggs97 Posts: 87member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacCrazy

    I'm sure Jaguar was faster than Panther on my iMac G3 600MHz



    My friend has a 500Mhz G3 iBook, it came pre-loaded with 10.0. Panther was the first OS X he could actually use. He'll have to test Tiger before his new iMac comes.
  • Reply 9 of 17
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    My old iBook 600MHz with 8MB vram and 382MB ram became a new computer when I installed Panther on it from Jag.



    If I was still stuck on that old thing I would've jumped onto Tiger like a fly on...



    I say the 500MHz iMac will run fine with a nice heap of ram.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    Also, if you want to do some extra minor upgrade, get a 7200rpm hard drive and replace the old one. Even just a 40-80GB drive that you can pick up for a few dollars somewhere.



    A faster HD will make a significant difference in the "snappiness?" factoring.
  • Reply 11 of 17
    kcmackcmac Posts: 1,051member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ZO

    Also, if you want to do some extra minor upgrade, get a 7200rpm hard drive and replace the old one. Even just a 40-80GB drive that you can pick up for a few dollars somewhere.



    A faster HD will make a significant difference in the "snappiness?" factoring.



    Absolutely correct about the drive. We have a 400 DVSE iMac with a 7200 rpm drive and 1 gig of RAM. For what we use it for, it is more than snappy enough using Panther.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    tomorristomorris Posts: 2member
    Hi,



    thanks for the advice everybody. BTW, it has 784 MB RAM and Airport, so that is pretty good. I thought about getting a CPU upgrade to 550MHZ G4, but it was $200...and I figure that money would be better spent towards the purchase of a Mac Mini.....the iMac DV SE works for her needs (Safari, Mail, iChat AV, DVD Player, MS Word, iTunes). I put ichat USBcam on it to let it do video in iChat. however, the iChat AV on it acts strange, it makes this crazy motorboat sound on her end when trying to do an audio or video chat. hopefully tiger will fix that.



    lol...and it took me 2 years to post cuz I only registered so i could search forums....i tend to just lurk and then ask a question if i have some computer problem....i just watch everyone else argue!



    --- tomorris
  • Reply 13 of 17
    vox barbaravox barbara Posts: 2,021member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tomorris

    ...



    lol...and it took me 2 years to post cuz I only registered so i could search forums....i tend to just lurk and then ask a question if i have some computer problem....i just watch everyone else argue!



    --- tomorris



    now, you gonna watch yourself too.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    nanonano Posts: 179member
    What do you al think about running tiger on my original Imac Bondi Blue?. It has 4 gigs (of HD space for you G5 smartasses) and 128mb of ram. Let me think, I think it has 2 or 4 mb of graphic memory.



    Now im serious I currently run panther, do you think tiger would slow it down or make it faster. Any speed gain would be a plus because im going to get tiger for my new imac anyways and no one really uses the old peice except when someone is on the new one and desperatly needs to look something up online.
  • Reply 15 of 17
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    Im willing to bet it will work.



    Especially if you do a clean install it will feel as fast if not slightly faster than Panther.
  • Reply 16 of 17
    maccrazymaccrazy Posts: 2,658member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Nano

    What do you al think about running tiger on my original Imac Bondi Blue?. It has 4 gigs (of HD space for you G5 smartasses) and 128mb of ram. Let me think, I think it has 2 or 4 mb of graphic memory.



    Now im serious I currently run panther, do you think tiger would slow it down or make it faster. Any speed gain would be a plus because im going to get tiger for my new imac anyways and no one really uses the old peice except when someone is on the new one and desperatly needs to look something up online.



    Wow, that's gonna be slow. I had a 233MHz iMac G3 and that was awful - in 8.6! You're gonna struggle - but it shouldn't be much slower than Panther - apart from 256MB RAM is needed apparently.
  • Reply 17 of 17
    vox barbaravox barbara Posts: 2,021member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Nano

    What do you al think about running tiger on my original Imac Bondi Blue?. It has 4 gigs (of HD space for you G5 smartasses) and 128mb of ram. Let me think, I think it has 2 or 4 mb of graphic memory.

    ...



    Well. The original Bondi is still a terrific machine. But i would

    give it much more Ram, the baby is starving.



    My second Computer an iMac G3 350mhz runs Panther

    pretty good. Well it lacks the Firewire port, so it doesn't

    qualify for Tiger. What A PITY.
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