iBook running Tiger: Good? Bad? Ugly?

divalivingdivaliving
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
long-time reader ... first-time poster.



I've done my share of surfing 'round these forums, and I still can't find a definitive answer for the following:



What is it exactly about Tiger that doesn't work right because of the iBook's video card?



I'm looking into getting an iBook (probably a 14"), and will be using it for (in order of importance, natch):



1) browsing the 'Net

2) word processing

3) iTunes/iPhoto

4) iMovie (every once in a while)



Is it honestly better to spend more money (than I have, really) on a PowerBook just for it's souped-up video card? I see that as being the only reason I'd "need" a PB, y'know? I'm not a gamer, nor am I looking to do a lot of video editing or anything graphics-heavy.



I do want to be able to use most of the cool things about Tiger (i.e. Widgets), seeing as how they're a big reason for upgrading.



ETA: I have a somewhat upgraded PowerMac G4 right now (just don't ask me what it's got inside -- my friend installed everything, he's the Mac genius), running Panther. I plan to upgrade to Tiger soon on this computer, as well as get it pre-installed on my future iBook.



Thanks in advance.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    wingnutwingnut Posts: 197member
    My iBook (see specs in sig') runs Tiger just fine. It just has the basic 32mb Radeon 9200. I don't try to do advanced things on it, since portability and battery life are most critical to me in a notebook. However, internet, iTunes, etc all run just fine. Just make sure you have at least 512mb of RAM.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    mmbarthezmmbarthez Posts: 40member
    You will have no problem running Tiger on an iBook, my iBook runs it great, and there is no problems I have run into with the video card.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    cakecake Posts: 1,010member
    I have the same iBook as Wingnut. I've got 1.25GB of RAM and everything runs fine under Tiger.



    I don't use iMovie, but I do have FCE HD on this machine and although render times are long (as you would expect with a 1GHZ cpu) it really runs great.



    The iBook is a great performer - just load it up with RAM and you'll love it.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    tzallastzallas Posts: 17member
    I've got a 12" iBook 800MHZ 640RAM



    It runs fine for all those things you want to do...it also runs fine for photoshop and iMovie (ok it takes ages on HUGE projects but for 5-7 min videos its fine) struggles a little on iDVD though, but eventually gets the job done. So you can imageine what the 1.2GHz model will do, with decent RAM.



    The only differences that will be APPARENT to you with a better graphics card are:



    1. It will undoubtedly be a bit faster at everything (not such a big deal for the things you wanna do)



    2.Better graphics cards will support Core Image , which apart from making things more efficient and faster (I presume), the only thing you will physically see is the "droplet ripple" effect that you get when you open widgets on dashboards.



    Be aware though Tiger does feed on RAM, so squeeze in as much as you can afford.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    mount_my_floppymount_my_floppy Posts: 913member
    Just to echo a couple of statements here, I just bought the 12 inch 1.2 a couple of days ago and upped the RAM to 768



    The only thing it does not do is the Ripple in Dashboard.



    I was actually incredibly impressed with how it ran. I also have a dual 533 with 1.5GB of RAM and a Radeon 8500. It runs on average as fast or faster depending on what I am doing.



    Just remember get as much RAM as you possibly can. especially in a laptop with a slow HD.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    iBook with Tiger = Beautiful. for your needs, all is sweet. But you MUST add in a 512mb chip once you buy it to bring everything to 768mb.



    1.33ghz, 14", 768mb, all is well.



    personally, i would recommend you BTO to get the extra 512mb of RAM from apple if you can afford it. otherwise crucial.com for cheaper 512mb if you want to tinker a bit and feel like you had some fun.





    After you've got the hang of it if you and your genius friend want to have some more fun, put in a 7200rpm notebook drive in it, possibly risking your warranty.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    joeyjoey Posts: 236member
    Tiger actually runs faster than previous versions of OS X (especially booting)... so you won't have any problem with a new iBook... the only thing I would say is that the iBooks are sort of due for an update... they're actually a little overdue. It's pretty much been decided that the iBooks won't get an update until the PowerBooks do (because that would put their performance too close to the PowerBook line... especially since they should be getting a bumped up video card). If you don't mind the possibility of an update in perhaps a few months... the current iBooks will do the stuff you want just fine. I have an 800MHz G4 and it doesn't have any trouble doing the things you mentioned.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    divalivingdivaliving Posts: 2member
    Thanks everyone ... you've been super-helpful!!



    At the risk of buying something that'll be updated relatively soon, I'm probably going to go ahead and get my iBook in the next couple weeks.



    As others have described in these forums, playing the waiting game just drives you CRAZY -- and, like y'all have said here, I don't need anything fancy on my iBook to do the work I'd like to do with it.



    Thanks again! 8)
  • Reply 9 of 9
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by divaliving



    At the risk of buying something that'll be updated relatively soon, I'm probably going to go ahead and get my iBook in the next couple weeks.



    As others have described in these forums, playing the waiting game just drives you CRAZY -- and, like y'all have said here, I don't need anything fancy on my iBook to do the work I'd like to do with it.



    OK, if you really want to stay away from this indeed torturing waiting game, then go ahead.



    I would like only tell a few words to answer your initial question: "What is it exactly about Tiger that doesn't work right because of the iBook's video card?".



    An iBook will run Tiger just fine, and thanks to several optimizations, you can expect that it will run it at least as well as it runs Panther, if not better. There is however one thing that will not work: anything that has to do with Core Image/Video and Quartz 2D Extreme (Quartz Extreme on the other hand runs perfectly well). The reason is that the iBook video chip (Radeon Mobility 9200) is not programmable. The good news is that Core Image is an API that will let developers write easily applications accessing directly the graphics hardware and there are very few, if any, such applications for the moment (the ripple dashboard effect is an example). So, you won't notice anyway for some time. More on Core Image here.



    The only thing that you would notice, is the speed boost from Quartz 2D Extreme, but this is still disabled by default even on supported systems.
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