OSX and G4 500?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
I would like to change over from then OS that I am currently working on 9.1..which runs great by the way to OSX .2.4.. My system is old and slow considering what is currently out there and am wondering what the speed will be like..

My current system is a G4 500 1 gig of ram..dual monitors. Does OSX run in par speed wise wth the older OS 9,,I have heard otherwise here and there. I have a few application that only run on OSX or I would simply stay where I am.



thanks
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 24
    othelloothello Posts: 1,054member
    i have OS X running on a G4 350mhz (version 10.2.6) -- its slow, especially compared to 9. plus that machine is the PCI graphics version. no agp, so no quartz extreme. equals sloooow.



    but you have enough ram to make iot useable, just expect some lag compared to what you are used to. check your graphics card to see its QE compatiability.



    i can't do without my os x apps now though even if i wanted to...
  • Reply 2 of 24
    climberclimber Posts: 130member
    Thanks Othello



    Mine is a 2x agp..where do you look to see if it is QE compatiability?..all ATI drivers..the smaller screen I don't care about but the larger one 22 Lacie is important.
  • Reply 3 of 24
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    People have such vastly different perceptions of speed that answering such a question is difficult. There are reasonable people here that swear OS X is faster while other reasonable people swear it is slower. We have a good handle on OS X's performance but can't really predict your perception of it. Some parts of the interface are more responsive, some are less responsive.



    The good thing is... you can install OS X without messing up your current installation. Simply delete OS X if you find it to be less productive or enjoyable.
  • Reply 4 of 24
    climberclimber Posts: 130member
    [QUOTE]Originally posted by dfiler

    [B]People have such vastly different perceptions of speed that answering such a question is difficult.



    Very true!..I mainly use it for PS and C4D..because it is a SP G4 500..I wasn't sure if OSX to work properly required a starting point in system speed.
  • Reply 5 of 24
    I currently use X on a 333 Beige G3. It is very slow, but pretty reliable. Used to use it on a G3 450 iMac, but it bit the dust. It seemed pretty responsive, and I can only imagine it is much nicer on a G4/500.
  • Reply 6 of 24
    netromacnetromac Posts: 863member
    The lowest spec machine I've used X on was a qs 733 with 256 mb of ram, and that worked great. Your system is not "that much slower" and you have lots of ram so it should be working ok for you.
  • Reply 7 of 24
    jimmacjimmac Posts: 11,898member
    Well I'm using a G4 450 right now and it' plenty fast for most things. High end stuff like new games are just starting to show it's age because I

    changed the video card to a Radeon 8500. The card helps with quartz extreme also ( speed of the GUI ). Same amount of RAM as you. I don't think you'd have any problem. I might add I rarely go back to classic. It runs that well.
  • Reply 8 of 24
    gizzmonicgizzmonic Posts: 511member
    I'm running a PCI graphics based G4, Radeon 7000. OS X can get pretty slow when burning a DVD, or opening a folder with a ton of files in it.



    Navigating the OS is also a bit slower than OS 9. But working within programs doesn't seem significantly slower if at all.
  • Reply 9 of 24
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    I run it on a 450MHz G4 Cube, with a QE-capable Radeon. I'm not going to say that it's lightning-fast, but I have no complaints about its performance.



    The one thing you absolutely must do is stuff the machine full of RAM. I have 1GB in my Cube, and it makes a significant difference.
  • Reply 10 of 24
    timotimo Posts: 353member
    I'm happy with a 500mhz G3 Pismo
  • Reply 11 of 24
    climberclimber Posts: 130member
    I appreciate all the responses..sounds like it should hold up just fine..until the G5's comes along..

    Unfortunately I just realized the the OS that I was going to install came with my PB 12" and it won't allow me to install it..got all my hopes up and bam!!..have to spend more money. This maybe a stupid newbie OSX question but can I just network them together and drag and drop the system from my PB over to my G4?



    Don't yell at me if that would be insane..I am just tired of spending $$$
  • Reply 12 of 24
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by climber

    I would like to change over from then OS that I am currently working on 9.1..which runs great by the way to OSX .2.4.. My system is old and slow considering what is currently out there and am wondering what the speed will be like..

    My current system is a G4 500 1 gig of ram..dual monitors. Does OSX run in par speed wise wth the older OS 9,,I have heard otherwise here and there. I have a few application that only run on OSX or I would simply stay where I am.



    thanks




    OS X should be no problem....but I suggest two things: one is to make sure you have a fast (7200 rpm) HD, since even with 1 GB RAM OS X hits the drive often. The other is to use a video card that uses Quartz Extreme, this means an original ATI Radeon or newer. For dual monitor support, I suggest a Radeon 9000. Note that if you have the original video card that came with your Mac, it is not QE compatible since it's probably a Rage Pro, but I may be wrong on this--check to see if you have a Radeon. System profiler works.



    With a slower HD, OS X is slower on some tasks. Without Quartz, Aqua is excruciatingly slow. You might try it and see if you can handle it, but I personally wouldn't bother without the new video card.



    I'm on a G4 400 MHz Sawtooth, w/ 576 MB RAM and an ATI Radeon 32 MB, and OS X is ok but I wouldn't go any lower in specs. Compared to a G4 iMac, my system is a bit slower overall, but faster on a few operations (I think it's because my HD is faster).



    Hope this helps.
  • Reply 13 of 24
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    In my house we have a G4 400 that, when in OS X, is not used for much beyond itunes and DVD player (it's hooked up to a projector), but it runs fine. No Quartz Extreme, but all that means is that genie's slightly choppy and not as many transparancies. But hey, once you get a working copy of OS X, just install along over 9 and slowly make the transition with the dual boot. The speed difference won't matter much, if at all, except for the UI stuff.
  • Reply 14 of 24
    jdradenjdraden Posts: 89member
    My machine is kind of close in specs to yours. I have a 533MHz DP Digital Audio series 1.2GB Memory. I find Jaguar to be quite responsive & very easy to work with. It is fairly speedy and sweeeet! A little more responsive as WinXP on a 1GHz Celeron.
  • Reply 15 of 24
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Climber it won't let you install from the CD but if you use something called "Carbon Copy Cloner" you might be able to. You could clone to an external drive, DVD-R, over network, I dunno. It would probably have extra drivers for Bluetooth and other PBG4 12" stuff and I'd advise you run software update as soon as you do it and look for updated vid card drivers. My friend has Jaguar on his iMac 400 with 768 RAM and it runs insanely great, I was impressed it didn't seem much slower at all than my PBG4 mini except opening a folder with lots of items. Get OS X the stability is worth it it will save you more time.
  • Reply 16 of 24
    reidreid Posts: 190member
    I've been happy with it on a G3 500 iBook and a G3 233 iMac. Only ever notice occasional spinning cursors in the finder when doing copy/move/delete/etc with large numbers of files, everything else seems to work snappily. And I only have about 300MB of RAM in each of these machines, so your 1GB should provide a noticable improvement.
  • Reply 17 of 24
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    I am running Jaguar on a Beige G3/300 with 198 MB RAM and a TWO MB GRAPHICS CARD!, and I am pretty satisfied. no speed demon, but acceptable.



    i tried running 10.2 on a G4/500 with 128 RAM, and that was perfectly acceptable at normal tasks.
  • Reply 18 of 24
    code mastercode master Posts: 344member
    I have no complaint about X on my G4 400/1GB
  • Reply 19 of 24
    I have a 500Mhz but only 756m ram (but then I only use 1 monitor). I regularly use Photoshop & Final Cut Pro, nothing really to complain about. I'm still probably upgrade either to a revision A or B 970, depending how much money I have when each comes out. I might even make it to a Rev C, who knows. Good luck!
  • Reply 20 of 24
    climberclimber Posts: 130member
    thanks again for all the repsonses..I definitely will get a ATI 9000 for it..need the screen redraw for 3D...other than, that from what I have read it seems that the machine that I have should last awhile longer.



    thanks
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