[lazza72]

I have just googled "leopard system requirements" and this came up.
Would the system requirements of the developers preview be different to the actual OS?

This is what I found:
You must have a Macintosh computer with:
an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 or G5 processor
a DVD drive
built-in FireWire
at least 256 MB of RAM for a Power-PC based Mac and 512 MB for an Intel-based Mac (additional RAM is recommended for development purposes)
a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer
at least 6 GB of disk space available, or 8 GB if you install the developer tools

here is the link:
Mac OS X Leopard Developer Preview System Requirements | ThePlaceforitAll.com

[Big Mac]

Most likely no difference.

[shinykaro]

Probably not. And I find it hard to believe this thing would run on 256MB Ram. That's just silliness.

[Buck_W]

I was wondering if my old TiBook would keep up. I agree with your assessment about the minimum RAM. I expect my 768 MB will have its hands very full. . . we'll see.

[Hanul]

It would be great, if the requirements do not change, because it means, Leopard can run on a PowerMac G4 PCI Graphics (Yikes!). Has someone with access to Leopard tried to run it on a 8 year old system?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by shinykaro 

Probably not. And I find it hard to believe this thing would run on 256MB Ram. That's just silliness.

Tiger can. I don't see why Leopard wouldn't. It would probably start swapping after you had a few apps open, but it would certainly run.

[JKT]

It's worth pointing out that Leopard could very well run better than Tiger on 256MB RAM if it makes e.g. more use of the GPU for screen drawing, unless the overheads for everything else have increased.

[jeannot]

Originally Posted by lazza72 

at least 256 MB of RAM for a Power-PC based Mac and 512 MB for an Intel-based Mac (additional RAM is recommended for development purposes)

Why would it require more ram on intel macs ?

[JKT]

For Rosetta and non-universal apps.

[OreoCookie]

Also, Intel binaries tend to be larger than PowerPC binaries.

[mduell]

Also, all Intel Macs came from the factory with at least 512MB RAM, so setting a system requirement of 256MB would be kind of silly.

[- - e r i k - -]

It's a little-known fact that Intel macs simply require more RAM. Not just for Rosetta, but for general applications.

[brokenjago]

That would be because they're compiled for speed, not size, correct?

[OreoCookie]

Nope, that's because of the somewhat more primitive architecture of x86 systems. I won't bore you with the details, though.

[mduell]

Isn't it the other way around, that CISC code usually smaller than RISC code? A quick Google search suggests so, and that would explain why they could change the complier optimization target from size (which ends up getting you speed on cache-limited chips) to speed.

[Big Mac]

When we transitioned to PPC, the PPC binaries were definitely larger than 68K binaries. That doesn't seem to be the case at all this time around.

[Targon]

why would you think a Complex Instruction Set Chip (CISC) would be smaller than a Reduced Instruction Set Chip (RISC). PPC code is RISC, as mentioned the code will be smaller hence the "Reduced".

[chabig]

You're confusing the name. A CISC processor has many more instructions that a RISC machine, most of which can perform rather complex operations. A RISC machine, on the other hand, has fewer instructions, each of which does less (hence the name--Reduced Instruction Set Computer). This makes it easier to design the CPU to run fast, but code for a RISC machine will compile to a larger binary because it need more of the simple instructions to do what the CISC machine can do with fewer instructions.

[Eug]

From this post:

To run Mac OS X Leopard, you must have a Macintosh computer with:

- An Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 (800 MHz or faster) or G5 processor
- A DVD drive
- Built-in FireWire
- At least 512 MB of RAM (additional RAM is recommended for development purposes)
- A built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer
- At least 7 GB of disk space available, or 12 GB of disk space if you install the developer tools

Basically, that leaves out:

A ton of G4 Power Macs
A ton of G4 TiBooks
The bottom of the barrel G4 iMacs and eMacs

[olePigeon]

What about dual CPU G4s like the dual 533?

[Eug]

I'm not sure, but my guess is that dual 533 is still not enough.

P.S. I wonder if they're restricting this based on Mac model number if it's purely a specs analysis. It'd be nice if my upgraded Cube @ 1.7 GHz was supported. My guess is not though, considering that it shipped with a max of 500 MHz.

[Sherman Homan]

I don't think that is so bad, the last G4s that would fail this test were released in April 2002, that was more than five years ago! Considering that they all can still run Tiger that is a pretty good stretch!

[OreoCookie]

I've merged the two threads, just in case somebody is wondering what happened … 

[tiger]

So no more G3 support huh, the iBook G3's were still around well into '04. Too bad, I wonder if my MacBook will lag hence all the eye candy in leopard and i've got it hooked up to a 23 inch display.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Sherman Homan 

I don't think that is so bad, the last G4s that would fail this test were released in April 2002, that was more than five years ago! Considering that they all can still run Tiger that is a pretty good stretch!

I think that 800 MHz requirement is very disappointing, even if it does have some justifications. There are several apps out there that will require Leopard. One that comes to mind is Delicious Library 2.

The really annoying part is the fact that many people have reported that previous versions of the Leopard betas run just fine on older G4s.

However, I'm confident XPostFacto will save my behind.

[tiger]

Apple went Intel because of the PPC's inability to deliver faster and better processors without excess amount of Heat. The top of the line laptop at the time the PPC's were discontinued was a 1.67 G4 which I used and was really disappointing in comparison to the bottom of the line 2.3 Dual G5 powermac and the single 1.9 iMac. Now we have faster processors with a faster OS, although they should not stop supporting a Power PC keep in mind that Vista doesn't support PC's much older than 5 years either without some serious upgrades, and an 800Mhz G4 is much faster than a sluggish 800Mhz P3.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by tiger 

So no more G3 support huh, the iBook G3's were still around well into '04. Too bad, I wonder if my MacBook will lag hence all the eye candy in leopard and i've got it hooked up to a 23 inch display.

Even though G3s were sold until about 3-4 years ago, from a technological point it makes more sense to retire the G3s. The lack of Altivec support must really suck with Leopard.

However, can the difference between a 700 MHz iMac and an 800 iMac be all that significant in Leopard?

iMac G4 700: iMac G4 800:



Both machines come with a GeForce 2 MX, and only a 100 MHz bus, and no L3 cache. That gives me hope... My 1.7 GHz G4 7447A Cube is probably gonna work, even if it means I have to transfer a PowerPC install from another machine, or use XPostFacto.

One difference between the iMac 700 and iMac 800 though is that the 700 apparently has the G4 7441 while the 800 has the G4 7455. I don't know if that really makes a difference in the real world though, other than with the clock speed.

[tiger]

Interestingly I've used the 700 iMacs (as a matter of fact I've used quite a bunch of computers...) for a short period of time and I burned a disc and the 700 iMacs were the most sluggish G4's I've ever used... although I do not know why. Even my old TiBook worked better than that. The other set of G4 iMacs I used were the 1ghz G4 almost last gen and it was quite a noticeable speed increase. I still hope the bring back the G4 design... I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

[Eug]

The 700 MHz G4 iMacs have 256 KB L2 cache and no L3, and the same is true for the 800 MHz G4 iMac.

Most of the Power Macs have a large chunk of L3, as did the later TiBooks.

The later G4s like in most of the aluBooks don't have L3, but they have much more L2. The G4 7447A has 512 KB L2, which is twice that of both the 700 and 800 MHz G4 iMacs.

[Stratus Fear]

Originally Posted by chabig 

You're confusing the name. A CISC processor has many more instructions that a RISC machine, most of which can perform rather complex operations. A RISC machine, on the other hand, has fewer instructions, each of which does less (hence the name--Reduced Instruction Set Computer). This makes it easier to design the CPU to run fast, but code for a RISC machine will compile to a larger binary because it need more of the simple instructions to do what the CISC machine can do with fewer instructions.

Not to mention thata CISC ISA like x86 supports variable length instructions. In some cases, instruction lengths can be shorter than in something like the PPC ISA, where instructions are always of a fixed length. This does make things more complicated, but should lead to technically smaller binaries if compiled with the same optimizations.

[tiger]

Originally Posted by Eug 

The 700 MHz G4 iMacs have 256 KB L2 cache and no L3, and the same is true for the 800 MHz G4 iMac.

Most of the Power Macs have a large chunk of L3, as did the later TiBooks.

The later G4s like in most of the aluBooks don't have L3, but they have much more L2. The G4 7447A has 512 KB L2, which is twice that of both the 700 and 800 MHz G4 iMacs.

That explains why my TiBook was much faster than the G4 iMacs even at a faster clock speed. 1mb L3 it is, that's quite a bit for a laptop back in 02.

[Eug]

Yeah, my GF has a 1.07 GHz iBook, with G4 7447A (which has 512 KB L2). I think the speed on that thing is reasonable. It's not exactly fast, but it's definitely very usable and more peppy than the 800 MHz iMac I've tried for some stuff.

Mind you, she complains about the speed of her iBook now, after using my Core Duo 2.0 MacBook. The MacBook screams in comparison at most stuff.

[himself]

I think Leopard will run just fine on the older G4's (probably even better than Tiger, overall), we just shouldn't expect those machines to take full advantage of Leopard's new features... after all, those are most likely recommended system requirements. And I don't think Apple will "lock out" the G4's that fall just short of the requirements.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by himself 

I think Leopard will run just fine on the older G4's (probably even better than Tiger, overall), we just shouldn't expect those machines to take full advantage of Leopard's new features... after all, those are most likely recommended system requirements. And I don't think Apple will "lock out" the G4's that fall just short of the requirements.

Nowhere has anyone said those are just "recommended" requirements.

I think Apple will lock out the early G4s, just like they lock out other machines with previous versions of Mac OS X. Apple has a long history of doing this. Why do you think they would change now?

Hopefully XPostFacto will be updated to allow Leopard installation on those older G4s, earlier rather than later.

[himself]

Nowhere does it say that these are "absolute" requirements either.

My guess is that Leopard won't be significantly more demanding than Tiger, except where all of the extra eye candy comes into play. In those cases, those effects may only be activated where the graphics card supports it (like the ripple effect in Dashboard, for example). But, that's only a guess.