[vvedge]

Sadly, today I came home from watching the keynote with iChat AV installed and ready to plug in a camcorder and BAM...

It hits me. My computer isn't fast enough to use iChat video conferencing. If any of you have tried, it requires a 600 mhz G3,G4 or G5...

Me with my seemingly outdated iBook 500 and iMac 400...

My iBook is only 2 years old (had it for only 1.5) and already I'm feeling the clench of the bottom line getting closer.

Already, I dont have Quartz Extreme, so my OSX experience has been sluggish but bearable. (Expos'e in Panther uses QE, bet it'll run real slow on this thing or maybe not at all)

Back to iChat... maybe, just maybe (but knowing apple they wont) they'll make the video conferencing efficient enough to run on my machine (I'd settle for Lo-Res!).

Yes, I know what you're thinking. Blah blah, old age, quit whining. sell your ibook.

Yea, I am whining, and no I wont sell my iBook. It's an emotional thing

But hey... maybe an overclock in the future?

[willed]

I'm in the same boat - the one feature I might actually use often is Exposé, and that won't work on my 500 I expect as it's powered by QE. Bugger eh? I have no chance of upgrading this until I leave Uni, and that's in Summer 2005! I think Jaguar is the latest OS worth installing on here from what I've seen.

[joltguy]

My sad realization about iChat AV was that it only supports FireWire cams. I've got an iRez Kritter USB which I fairly recently purchased an OS X driver for (from IOXperts) which I won't be able to use with this.

I'm in Canada, and I can't justify spending $219 on the iSight just yet... gotta save my pennies for Panther.

[rozwado1]

Originally posted by vvedge:
But hey... maybe an overclock in the future?

I'm with you on the iBook situation, but I don't think an overclock will do it. I'm pretty sure all of us with 500s are stuck with the 8MB ATI Rage video card - which does not support QE. The 600s shipped with a 16MB vid card (my buddy got one of these - now he's laughing at me). I think the iChat Video would need more breathing room in the video card rather than just an overclock. As far as I know the vid card is not replaceable either.

Somebody please prove me wrong...

[sniffer]

Originally posted by vvedge:
Sadly, today I came home from watching the keynote with iChat AV installed and ready to plug in a camcorder and BAM...

It hits me. My computer isn't fast enough to use iChat video conferencing. If any of you have tried, it requires a 600 mhz G3,G4 or G5...

Me with my seemingly outdated iBook 500 and iMac 400...

My iBook is only 2 years old (had it for only 1.5) and already I'm feeling the clench of the bottom line getting closer.

Already, I dont have Quartz Extreme, so my OSX experience has been sluggish but bearable. (Expos'e in Panther uses QE, bet it'll run real slow on this thing or maybe not at all)

Back to iChat... maybe, just maybe (but knowing apple they wont) they'll make the video conferencing efficient enough to run on my machine (I'd settle for Lo-Res!).

Yes, I know what you're thinking. Blah blah, old age, quit whining. sell your ibook.

Yea, I am whining, and no I wont sell my iBook. It's an emotional thing

But hey... maybe an overclock in the future?

Don't forget it's a beta. Thought I haven't seen the requirements for it yet. We can only hope it gets better. Or perhaps it'll run smoother under panther. I am quite sure Apple have managed to improve a lot of touches that we found just barely usable to day.. Like I.e. finder, quicktime and pdf viewing. Can't hardly wait for those in panther!

[sniffer]

Originally posted by willed:
I'm in the same boat - the one feature I might actually use often is Exposé, and that won't work on my 500 I expect as it's powered by QE. Bugger eh? I have no chance of upgrading this until I leave Uni, and that's in Summer 2005! I think Jaguar is the latest OS worth installing on here from what I've seen.

The funny screen animation is powered by QE. Not the actual user switch. I am more worried that the ram requirements gets a dramatic jump. (At least we can buy machines with 8 gb now. )

[bleee]

Originally posted by sniffer:
The funny screen animation is powered by QE. Not the actual user switch. I am more worried that the ram requirements gets a dramatic jump. (At least we can buy machines with 8 gb now. )

you can only get 8GB on the dp 2ghz the two other models can only take 4gb also 8gb of ram costs more than the base price of the actual dp 2ghz powermac =)

[sniffer]

Originally posted by bleee:
you can only get 8GB on the dp 2ghz the two other models can only take 4gb also 8gb of ram costs more than the base price of the actual dp 2ghz powermac =)

Ohh damn.. Hehe. But at least it'll take more users at ones.

[SupahCoolX]

Originally posted by rozwado1:
The 600s shipped with a 16MB vid card

Correction: The first round of 600's have only 8MB (like mine).

[SeSawaya]

Worst yet, it isnt working for "any" G3s

just read it on their site and I lost it.
I hope they fix this soon

[vvedge]

Originally posted by SeSawaya:
Worst yet, it isnt working for "any" G3s

just read it on their site and I lost it.
I hope they fix this soon

I wonder if someone could hack the system requirments, lowering the minimum.

hmm.

[jokell82]

DV Cams do not work with iChat on G3's, and I'm not so sure this is something that they're going to fix. iSight will work on them just fine, as will other firewire based webcams. It's just the DV Camcorders that do not work...

Also, you do not need a 600 Mhz G4 to run iChat AV's video chat, as I've done it on a TiBook 550 (which also only has 8mb video ram IIRC), and it worked great.

[rozwado1]

You're using iSight on a TiBook 550 G3, correct? If so, we have hope...

[jokell82]

Originally posted by rozwado1:
You're using iSight on a TiBook 550 G3, correct? If so, we have hope...

No, there's no such thing. I'm using a Sony DV Cam on a TiBook 550 G4 and it runs iChat AV just fine. The same DV Cam on my iBook 700 (which I perceive as noticeably faster) will not work.

[vvedge]

I guess it meant 600 mhz g3, any G4 and any G5...

ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh..

[passmaster16]

Originally posted by vvedge:
I guess it meant 600 mhz g3, any G4 and any G5...

ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh..

Correct. Any G4 or G5 OR a 600mhz+ G3. The video card should have no impact on ichat. If you want to use it on your ibook, an overclock to 600 should do it. Expose and other quartz enabled features are another story because they rely on the graphics card more than CPU.

[ccsccs7]

Originally posted by bleee:
you can only get 8GB on the dp 2ghz the two other models can only take 4gb also 8gb of ram costs more than the base price of the actual dp 2ghz powermac =)

Well, actually the 4GB limit is only on the 1.6GHz Power Mac which is also slow (PC2700 vs PC3200). It is also the only only one without PCI-X.

[Mac Guru]

Expos'e in Panther uses QE

No it doesn't... Exposé works flawlessly on my iBook 500 G3. Fast user switching is also flawless granted we are missing the cute cube effect but I don't care about that...

Mac Guru

[gonadman]

I think I'll try to summarise the correct points in this thread, so we've got it all in one place.

To use the video function of iChat AV you have to have at LEAST a G3 600 or above. Any G4 or G5 will work.

If you have a G3 however, a DV-Camcorder will NOT work with iChat AV. Only firewire webcams like the iSight or iBot will work with a G3. (Even if your DV-Cam is supported in iMovie)

Audio should work fine with all configurations.

I hope that DV support for G3s will be added in the future. My cam works fine with iMovie and my iBook 800!

[tooki]

Exposé works fine on my Blue and White G3/350. It's FAR from silky-smooth, but it does work.

tooki

[cww]

Originally posted by rozwado1:
I'm with you on the iBook situation, but I don't think an overclock will do it. I'm pretty sure all of us with 500s are stuck with the 8MB ATI Rage video card - which does not support QE. The 600s shipped with a 16MB vid card (my buddy got one of these - now he's laughing at me). I think the iChat Video would need more breathing room in the video card rather than just an overclock. As far as I know the vid card is not replaceable either.

Somebody please prove me wrong...

My iBook 600 has the 8 MB ATi. Sad but true.

[pat++]

This really makes me sick.

1/ Jaguar, no QE support for iBook 500
2/ Panther, no Video Chat

Any 5 years old 500mhz Pentium III can do video conferencing with MSN messenger.

And Apple tells me my 2 years old iBook can't ?

[willed]

Originally posted by pat++:
This really makes me sick.

1/ Jaguar, no QE support for iBook 500
2/ Panther, no Video Chat

Any 5 years old 500mhz Pentium III can do video conferencing with MSN messenger.

And Apple tells me my 2 years old iBook can't ?

Yeah, but MSN video conferencing is small and blocky, not 640*480 full screen with live-resizing.

[andretan]

Originally posted by pat++:
This really makes me sick.

1/ Jaguar, no QE support for iBook 500
2/ Panther, no Video Chat

Any 5 years old 500mhz Pentium III can do video conferencing with MSN messenger.

And Apple tells me my 2 years old iBook can't ?

I hate to say this, but then why are you still using a Mac?

These days, technology comes and goes. It's inevitable for hardware to get slow and stuff like that. Just look at the Wintel market.

Cheers.

[pat++]

Originally posted by willed:
Yeah, but MSN video conferencing is small and blocky, not 640*480 full screen with live-resizing.

I don't expect my iBook to support full screen video conferencing. But they should definitely support video with 320x200 or 160x100. I'm pretty sure any G3 can handle this. I'm not asking for miracles. Only some consideration from Apple for people who buy their products.

Btw, Yahoo messenger can do video conferencing on my iBook. Why hell IChat can't?

[vvedge]

More bad news for any iBook (or Powerbook G3) owner:

http://apple.com/finalcutpro/specs.html

System Requirements
- Macintosh computer with 350MHz PowerPC G4 processor and AGP graphics card

This thing can support the first G4 (released in 1999), but no consumer machine up to the emac/imac (2002).

Well, saves me $1000 if I ever wanted to get this.

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by vvedge:
More bad news for any iBook (or Powerbook G3) owner:

http://apple.com/finalcutpro/specs.html

System Requirements
- Macintosh computer with 350MHz PowerPC G4 processor and AGP graphics card

This thing can support the first G4 (released in 1999), but no consumer machine up to the emac/imac (2002).

Well, saves me $1000 if I ever wanted to get this.

Well final cut pro is not exactly a consumer product.

[cnladd]

Quartz Extreme isn't necessary for basic functionality -- for example, Expose and Fast User Switching works just fine on older hardware without a problem. Quartz Extreme is only used to speed up rendering (composting is done with OpenGL), and with certain special effects (like the cube rendering on Fast User Switching.)

Without it, you'll just find that certain effects either aren't available or are very slow.

With that said, you can enable Quartz Extreme on lower-end iBooks if you'd like. Go and edit the /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Configuration.plist file and change the value of GLCompositorMinimumVRAM from 16 to 8. This will enable Quartz Extreme for boxes with just 8 MB of VRAM. (Some of you may recognize this as part of the instructions for enabling monitor-spanning on the iBook 600 MHz (16-VRAM) or newer.)

This little hack only affects composting, and won't enable rendering features such as the Fast User Switching cube. You can enable those with another setting. Composting works just fine with 8 MB VRAM boxen, just so long as you don't have a lot going on at once.

[pat++]

Originally posted by cnladd:

With that said, you can enable Quartz Extreme on lower-end iBooks if you'd like. Go and edit the /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Configuration.plist file and change the value of GLCompositorMinimumVRAM from 16 to 8. This will enable Quartz Extreme for boxes with just 8 MB of VRAM. (Some of you may recognize this as part of the instructions for enabling monitor-spanning on the iBook 600 MHz (16-VRAM) or newer.)

This little hack only affects composting, and won't enable rendering features such as the Fast User Switching cube. You can enable those with another setting. Composting works just fine with 8 MB VRAM boxen, just so long as you don't have a lot going on at once.

Wrong. This won't do anything for IBooks with Rage Mobility 128 (8Mb). This has been discussed here in the past...

[cnladd]

Originally posted by pat++:
Wrong. This won't do anything for IBooks with Rage Mobility 128 (8Mb). This has been discussed here in the past...

Sorry, my mistake. I didn't think the chipset would make a difference with this particular setting. Thanks for the correction.

[vvedge]

Our prayers have been answered (almost):

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/VT/20203

This program enables USB cameras to work with iChat AV. The latest version also overrides the minimum requirments for video conferencing. (don't forget to download Aplication Enhancer when you're installing it)

I got right ahead to trying it, but it only ended up not working. The Video panel no longer says my machine is not supported, but judging by the slow down it caused when I plugged it in, it may be just not powerful enough to do it.

Anyone with a USB cam and a weakass G3 wanna try this?

[pat++]

Originally posted by vvedge:
Our prayers have been answered (almost):

Anyone with a USB cam and a weakass G3 wanna try this?

I did try it on my 500mhz iBook (without any cam), and I'm still not able to receive others people video. I guess the < 600mhz fix does not work yet...

[Matt K]

Anyone tried to use iMovie after installing iChat AV on an iBook? I just noticed that my Canon DV cam doesn't work on my iBook 900 anymore. Once I revert back to the old iChat, iMovie recognizes the cam fine.

This is sad, I just bought the latest iBook and my DV cam doesn't work in iChat AV... hopefully they fix that in the final release.

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by Matt K:
Anyone tried to use iMovie after installing iChat AV on an iBook? I just noticed that my Canon DV cam doesn't work on my iBook 900 anymore. Once I revert back to the old iChat, iMovie recognizes the cam fine.

This is sad, I just bought the latest iBook and my DV cam doesn't work in iChat AV... hopefully they fix that in the final release.

iChat AV broke my DV camera's working with iMovie on my G3 and my G4.

It's just a bug.