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InterfaceGuy · Jun 9, 2003, 11:53 AM

I was able to get a really good deal on a G3 300 at a garage sale over the weekend. I want to use it as an extra gaming box and install OSX on it. What are the suggested upgrades to bring it up to par? Anyone here try the Powerlogix 800MHz upgrade? I guess I should add a Radeon PCI and also a bigger hard drive. It has 192MB RAM but I guess I could take those out and replace with one 512MB PC133. Any other ideas?

LegendaryPinkOx · Jun 9, 2003, 12:23 PM

To be honest, I don't think the B&W would make a good gaming box. Even with the major cpu upgrade the best video card that will fit would be the Radeon Mac Edition, which has only 32mb of ram.

But still, I know I couldn't pass up a deal on another mac, especially a G3 that still has some life in it.

Sonnet is coming out with a 1ghz G4 upgrade for ZIF based boards (right now this upgrade is only available for beige g3s), so if you have the money, I'd wait for that instead of getting an 800mhz.
Stick with PC100 ram as it would be cheaper, and the B&W only has a 100mhz bus anyway. Good luck!

InterfaceGuy · Jun 9, 2003, 01:15 PM

Thanks for the info. I already have two gaming machines, I just want to add this as a third for friends to play network Quake on. So, it doesn't have to be capable of high res graphics. Also, this is the only Mac I have right now, I sold my G4 a few months ago and have just been using a custom built PC. I want to be able to run OSX 10.3 when it comes out and this will be the only machine I have to run it on so I want to make sure its fast enough for that.

InterfaceGuy · Jun 9, 2003, 01:24 PM

Originally posted by LegendaryPinkOx:
Even with the major cpu upgrade the best video card that will fit would be the Radeon Mac Edition, which has only 32mb of ram.

Do you mean physically fit? It looks the same size to me as the G4s I've had. Can I not just buy a PC Radeon 7500 64MB PCI edition and flash it to work on the Mac? I sure hope so cause the Radeon 7000 Mac Edition is still selling for over $100 and thats just nuts.

Lizard7 · Jun 9, 2003, 04:08 PM

My B&W G3 450 that was recently upgraded with the 32 meg Radeon Mac Edition PCI is still pretty solid for some games. Ghost Recon runs extremely well... even at 1280x1024. Jedi Knight II is acceptable at 800x600 (under 10.2.5 and up) but the framerate drops outdoors and in complex areas.

Older games like Quake III and Unreal Tournament run great as well. Your 300 MHZ might have more of a problem with newer games but I bet Quake III would still run well.

cocamix · Jun 9, 2003, 06:42 PM

I have one of the G3 800 cards in my B&W and a Radeon PCI I get about 90 FPS in Quake 3. Jedi Knight 2 gets 40-80 FPS.

It's viable as a gaming rig, but probably won't be for the next batch of games.

InterfaceGuy · Jun 9, 2003, 07:06 PM

Originally posted by cocamix:
I have one of the G3 800 cards in my B&W and a Radeon PCI I get about 90 FPS in Quake 3. Jedi Knight 2 gets 40-80 FPS.

It's viable as a gaming rig, but probably won't be for the next batch of games.

How well does it handle OSX and Quartz? Have you did the hack to turn on Quartz Extreme?

drHo · Jun 10, 2003, 02:45 AM

Originally posted by InterfaceGuy:
Do you mean physically fit? It looks the same size to me as the G4s I've had. Can I not just buy a PC Radeon 7500 64MB PCI edition and flash it to work on the Mac? I sure hope so cause the Radeon 7000 Mac Edition is still selling for over $100 and thats just nuts.

People have tried to flash the PC 7500 PCI to work for the mac and have not yet done it. Some guy I think in Germany has flashed a Radeon 7000 64mb, but its the same sh1tty card as the 32MB Radeon 7000 You dont want the Radeon 7000. Its a neutered version of the original Radeon Mac Edition. Check xlr8yourmac.com for comparisons.

cocamix · Jun 10, 2003, 12:22 PM

Originally posted by InterfaceGuy:
How well does it handle OSX and Quartz? Have you did the hack to turn on Quartz Extreme?

It handles Quartz very well. The interface is quite responsive.
I thought about enabling QE with the hack, but I figured there was a reson why Apple had minimum requirements for QE, so I didn't bother.

InterfaceGuy · Jun 11, 2003, 02:42 PM

What do I need to watch DVD video on the G3 300?

OreoCookie · Jun 11, 2003, 04:11 PM

Use it as a server box. Gaming server perhaps. Don't invest too much into it.

tooki · Jun 11, 2003, 06:35 PM

1. 512MB DIMMs do NOT work in the blue and white G3. 256MB DIMMs are the biggest, and some of those (the ones made with the highest-density chips) won't work, either.

2. Quartz Extreme does not like running over PCI. Even if you enable it, the PCI bus will act as a bottleneck, negating and overall speed benefits of QE.

tooki

InterfaceGuy · Jun 11, 2003, 07:51 PM

Thanks for the info, guys. Right now I have 9.2.2 running on it and all seems ok. I might get adventurous and buy that PowerLogix G3 800MHz upgrade so that I can run 10.

In case anyone was wondering how good my deal was... The guy said this computer didn't boot anymore and he wanted $20 for someone to take it and maybe they could fix it. So, I took it home and sure enough you push the power button and nothing happens, as if its not getting poweer. So, I unhooked everything and tested the power supply with my ATX tester and it showed it was good. I hooked everything back up and it worked and has worked since. Maybe it just needeed a little boost? The CD drive was bad but I replaced it with an old drive from a PC and it works fine. So, new Mac for $20 aint bad! Now I just have to get an old 17" Studio Display off eBay to match and I'll be set.

tooki · Jun 12, 2003, 12:27 AM

$20 for it was a fabulous deal. People buy empty Power Mac cases on eBay for that much!

Probably one of the connectors you fiddled with needed nothing more than to be reseated.

tooki

DrBoar · Jun 12, 2003, 07:17 AM

The B&W is a very nice computer the major shortcoming is no AGP. I have seen a lokal vendor selling the original ATI Radeon PCI the problem is that they ask close to 500 dollars for it

With a 800 MHz G3 the CPU limitation should be lifted up quite a bit and if You run games in 640x480 or less the old ATI 128 is quite fast actually. I would not bother with G4 upgrades in it.

Seamus · Jun 12, 2003, 05:46 PM

Originally posted by InterfaceGuy:
Thanks for the info, guys. Right now I have 9.2.2 running on it and all seems ok. I might get adventurous and buy that PowerLogix G3 800MHz upgrade so that I can run 10.

In case anyone was wondering how good my deal was... The guy said this computer didn't boot anymore and he wanted $20 for someone to take it and maybe they could fix it. So, I took it home and sure enough you push the power button and nothing happens, as if its not getting poweer. So, I unhooked everything and tested the power supply with my ATX tester and it showed it was good. I hooked everything back up and it worked and has worked since. Maybe it just needeed a little boost? The CD drive was bad but I replaced it with an old drive from a PC and it works fine. So, new Mac for $20 aint bad! Now I just have to get an old 17" Studio Display off eBay to match and I'll be set.

You could also overclock your machine. The B&W is the most recent mac you can buy that does not require soldering to overclock. All you have to do is change the jumper settings (check XLR8 for the settings). I overclocked my B&W from 350 to 450, and it has been running at the speed for 3 years. I have not had a hard system crash since I installed Jaguar. It's a great machine, and plenty fast with Jag (Don't let people tell you otherwise).

kbata · Jun 16, 2003, 07:43 AM

All you need to get it to play DVD's is an ATI 7000 or Radeon card and a DVD drive. I got a Toshiba SD-R 1312 and it plays DVD's and also works with iTunes and Disk burner.

tooki · Jun 17, 2003, 03:55 PM

Actually, the stock Rage 128 (even if it doesn't have the DVD decoder daughtercard) will play DVDs in a blue and white under Mac OS X. (I know, I've done it!)

tooki