[halogen8]

I recently purchased a used B&W G3 350mhz Power Mac off ebay and eagerly await it's arrival. I don't want to put a lot of cash into this machine, but if it's fast enough as it is, it will end up replacing by current AMD K7 Windows box as my machine machine. I plan to use this machine until I can afford a new iBook or Power Book, sometime later this year.

The machine's current specs:

350 Mhz G3
256 MB RAM
DVDROM drive
100 MB zip drive
16 MB ATI Rage video card with DVD Decoder daughter card
OS 8.6

The main uses of this machine will be web surfing, email, iTunes, photo editing, and digital art.

First I plan on upgrading to OS 9.2, and download some apps. I'll borrow the USB CD burner we have at work and backup the software that is installed on the machine. After poking around the hard drive and getting a feel for the speed of the machine, I'll probably wipe the drive and do a fresh install of the OS.

I'd like to run OS X on it, will this be possible without doing any hardware upgrades?

I'd also like to play around with iLife. Will Garage Band, iPhoto and iMovie run well on this machine?

Finally, will I be able to use the CD burning features of iTunes and the DVD burning features of iDVD on a G3 if I swap out the DVDROM with a DVDR/CDRW combo drive? Apple's site state that a G4 is required for these features, but are there any G3 users out there who have sucessfully burned CDs using iTunes on their G3?

Thanks.

[duboy]

halogen, that's almost identical to my B&W, except i don't have a DVD drive, just CD-ROM. last night i just installed Panther on it. and actually, i had Panther server running on it for a short while. it's not fast, but usable definitly. i think more RAM, and a faster harddrive/ATA card would do wonders. but without upgrades, it's not bad. better than i expected. i tunes runs just fine on mine, i don't want to TRY to run iPhoto, even on my G4 12"PB iPhoto 4 is not that fast (a LOT faster than previous iphotos though), i thought iMovie required a G4? i could be wrong though. that's all i can offer for now. OSX will install on it, and it runs it acceptably. but if you're used to OS8-9 on it, you'll be pretty shocked by the speed difference though.

yep, i was wrong....G3's can run it, i was thinking of iDVD which only runs on G4s.

[rhogue islander]

As the previous poster mentioned, adding more ram would be a good idea. An additional 512mb would help immensely with OS X.

An ata controller card will noticeably speed up your disk i/o.

You could also consider one of these cpu upgrades. They drop right in.

http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgr...=Show+Upgrades

[Cadaver]

BTW, the video card has only 8MB of VRAM on it. Only later AGP-based Rage128s had 16MB.

Edit - I stand corrected... The PCI Rage128s did have 16MB. My mistake.

[angelmb]

Originally posted by Cadaver:
BTW, the video card has only 8MB of VRAM on it. Only later AGP-based Rage128s had 16MB.

B&W comes with an 16 MB ATI Rage 128, under Mac OS X there is not need of the dvd decoder, it is done by software, but you will need the decoder under Mac OS 9.

[halogen8]

For OSX, it's my understanding that I will need a Quartz Extreme compatible video card which includes Radeon and Geforce 2mx and up.

Can ANY card based on the Radeon or Geforce 2 chipsets be used(i.e. non-ATI brand and OEM cards)? Does OSX have a standard set of drivers included?

BTW, is the video card in the B&W an AGP or PCI card?

[voodoo]

OS X runs fine on a 8 MB Rage 128 mobility. That is not a powerful card. You'll be fine. The Processor speed is the major bottleneck.

[halogen8]

Originally posted by voodoo:
OS X runs fine on a 8 MB Rage 128 mobility. That is not a powerful card. You'll be fine. The Processor speed is the major bottleneck.

Actually, I believe it's a 16 MB Rage 128. Will having a Quartz Extreme compatible video card give me faster performance?

[drHo]

no, quartz extreme requires an AGP based graphics card with 16MB of vide memory minimun (or 32MB??)...the B&W doesnt have an AGP slot..BUT you can do the Quartz Extreme hack on the B&W to be able to use the QE for PCI based cards. you will need a 32MB PCI grphics card though....Radeon Mac Edition or the ($hitty) Radeon 7000 will do. just do a search for Quartz Extreme Hack

[bbales]

What don't you like about the Radeon 7000? I'm looking at that for my 400 MZ APG graphics G4 desktop. And I don't know much about video cards, so I really do want your opinion! My mac is still using its 128 Rage pro, or something like that.

[Lateralus]

First off, the Radeon 7000 for Mac is PCI only. You need an AGP card, so the Radeon 7000 is a no-no.

That said, the Radeon 7000 is basically a serverely neutered Radeon with performance just a notch above the Rage 128. Simply, the Radeon 7000 does not deserve the name Radeon.

[tooki]

Originally posted by halogen8:
I'd like to run OS X on it, will this be possible without doing any hardware upgrades?

I'd also like to play around with iLife. Will Garage Band, iPhoto and iMovie run well on this machine?

Finally, will I be able to use the CD burning features of iTunes and the DVD burning features of iDVD on a G3 if I swap out the DVDROM with a DVDR/CDRW combo drive? Apple's site state that a G4 is required for these features, but are there any G3 users out there who have sucessfully burned CDs using iTunes on their G3?

I have a B&W with identical hardware specs to yours, other than that I added more RAM.

OS X: runs OK on it. Not exactly a speed demon, but eminently usable as long as you have enough RAM (I agree with the other guy above: add 2x256 to give you a total of 768MB). I also agree that a fast, modern hard drive will noticeably improve performance.

GarageBand: will not work, requires 600MHz G3, or a G4. But even on a 1.25GHz G4, it's easy to bog it down.

iPhoto: iPhoto 2 runs fine. I haven't even tried iPhoto 4 yet, but it should be a great deal faster.

iMovie: runs fine.

iTunes CD burning: should work fine. Try to find a combo drive model that Apple themselves used; that'll guarantee compatibility. My external FireWire CD burner works great, until I got my iPod, I used to burn mix CDs for the car all the time.

Do bear in mind that when I say that things run fine, I mean that they are usably fast, if not necessarily super-speedy. Remember, though, that if OS X runs out of RAM and starts swapping to disk, you will see massive slowdowns. OS X alone uses over 250MB if it can, so with just 256MB of RAM, opening just one big application will slow things down a lot. I think that, especially if you're going to be doing any kind of even halfway serious digital imaging, you're going to want 768MB or more.

tooki

[bbales]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
First off, the Radeon 7000 for Mac is PCI only. You need an AGP card, so the Radeon 7000 is a no-no.

That said, the Radeon 7000 is basically a serverely neutered Radeon with performance just a notch above the Rage 128. Simply, the Radeon 7000 does not deserve the name Radeon.

OK, so what card WILL work in place of the Rage 128, in a 400 MZ, gigabit-ethernet G4 tower? I took the Radeon 7000 from OWC's site, which lists the different processor and other upgrades possible, depending on your model. And this was one of 3. SO now I'm quite confused. And I'm not sure how much benefit I'll get anyway -- some people say just go for the processor, others say do both.

[rhogue islander]

The best card for this computer is the original 32 mb Radeon Mac Edition PCI. If I'm not mistaken, it even takes advantage of the 66 mhz PCI slot intended for video card use.

[bbales]

Originally posted by rhogue islander:
The best card for this computer is the original 32 mb Radeon Mac Edition PCI. If I'm not mistaken, it even takes advantage of the 66 mhz PCI slot intended for video card use.

It looks like that same card (almost) comes in an AGP version. (Found it on ebay.) Would that be better? and by the way, I've tried looking on the accelerate your mac site and by now am thoroughly confused.

[halogen8]

I received the Powermac to and immediately opened the case.

Edit:
The video card appears to be PCI. The remaining slots are empty and longer than the standard PCI slot. Are these some other PCI format?

[philzilla]

Originally posted by tooki:
GarageBand: will not work, requires 600MHz G3, or a G4.

incorrect.

[Peder Rice]

There is a "hack" that allows users of the PCI Radeon 7000 to use Quartz Extreme.

I don't know where it exists, though.

[rhogue islander]

Here's an ebay auction link for an original 32mb Radeon Mac Edition.
There's a good picture of it.

I didn't notice at first, but the card shown is AGP. B&W's are PCI only so you would need the PCI version.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=40158

[rhogue islander]

And here's another link to lowendmac detailing specs and history of the B&W Powermacs.

http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/g3c.shtml

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Peder Rice:
There is a "hack" that allows users of the PCI Radeon 7000 to use Quartz Extreme.

I don't know where it exists, though.

PCI Extreme

Works splendidly and it is quite easy to install.

The Radeon 7000 is barely up to the task of Quartz Extreme, it 'stuttered' a little when I had one in my B&W with PCI Extreme enabled. I later replaced it with a genuine Radeon Mac Edition and Quartz Extreme functions were as smooth and fluid as they were on my old Power Mac G4 533 with a 64MB GeForce 3.

If you're going to get good results from the PCI Extreme hack, it will be on the B&W G3. The 66MHz video PCI slot in the B&W has a lot of bandwidth, from what I have seen it is not too far behind AGP 2x.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by bbales:
OK, so what card WILL work in place of the Rage 128, in a 400 MZ, gigabit-ethernet G4 tower? I took the Radeon 7000 from OWC's site, which lists the different processor and other upgrades possible, depending on your model. And this was one of 3. SO now I'm quite confused. And I'm not sure how much benefit I'll get anyway -- some people say just go for the processor, others say do both.

No Radeon would be a good choice.

I say that because:

1) The Radeon 7000 is PCI only, you have AGP.
2) The Radeon Mac Edition AGP has been out of production for quite sometime and it is getting harder and harder to find. And G4 Cube owners eat the things up on eBay, same with GeForce 3s, so they sell for a lot more than they should.
3) The Radeon 9000 is nice, but it costs too much new.
4) The Radeon 8500 has also been out of production for quite sometime, but since it is faster than the Radeon 9000, it sells for more than it should on eBay as well.

My suggestion to you would be a GeForce 4MX card from the Apple section on eBay. They sell for quite cheap, usually under $100, and offer performance nearly as good as the Radeon 9000 for 1/2 the price. If you can, snag one with 64MBs of RAM instead of 32MBs, it can make a visible difference.

I am in the group of people that recommend you get both a processor upgrade and a new video card. You really cannot beat this upgrade for the price. 1.3GHz, 2MBs of L3 cache, $395... My friend has one of these too, he is running it at 1.5GHz overclocked.

So, in short, for $500 in total you could give your machine another year or two of life.

[tooki]

Originally posted by bbales:
OK, so what card WILL work in place of the Rage 128, in a 400 MZ, gigabit-ethernet G4 tower? I took the Radeon 7000 from OWC's site, which lists the different processor and other upgrades possible, depending on your model. And this was one of 3. SO now I'm quite confused. And I'm not sure how much benefit I'll get anyway -- some people say just go for the processor, others say do both.

Any retail AGP Radeon for Mac will work. Of the ones out now, the Radeon 9000 is a good buy (and gives you two video outputs that can each handle an analog or digital display).



For the blue and white, an original Radeon PCI or a Radeon 7000 are the only ones available. But finding an original Radeon will be very difficult, and probably expensive.

And only worth buying for games, since Quartz Extreme doesn't run on PCI (even with the hack, the overhead of using PCI negates any speed improvements that Quartz Extreme could have brought).

tooki