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kirktalon · Jun 25, 2002, 12:15 AM

I just bought a PB g3 on ebay as described above and wanted to know if it was good for doing graphics? I currently have a iMac 400mhz DV SE and would be happy if it was at least as good as that in doing graphics. I haven't goten it yet from the seller.

icruise · Jun 25, 2002, 12:28 AM

What do you mean by "doing graphics" -- are you asking about its performance in games?

Daniel_R · Jun 25, 2002, 02:41 AM

The G3 powerbooks were as good if not better than their iMac equivalents of the day MHz for MHz.

If you're happy with how the iMac performs with graphics (I take it you mean Photoshop etc), you won't be disappointed with the PBook.. plus you get a LCD screen. The only thing the PB G3 "Lombard" will be missing over your iMac 400 DV is a FireWire port (they first appeared in the "Pismo" I think... but you can easily add one with a PCMCIA(actually cardbus) FireWire card.

You would notice a difference if you put up a G3 400 PBook against a G4 400 PowerMac though... but the reasons are obvious there.

kirktalon · Jun 25, 2002, 01:49 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Icruise:
What do you mean by "doing graphics" -- are you asking about its performance in games?<hr /></blockquote>I was talking about Desktop Publishing and the like.

kirk

kirktalon · Jun 25, 2002, 01:53 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Daniel_R:
The G3 powerbooks were as good if not better than their iMac equivalents of the day MHz for MHz.

If you're happy with how the iMac performs with graphics (I take it you mean Photoshop etc), you won't be disappointed with the PBook.. plus you get a LCD screen. The only thing the PB G3 "Lombard" will be missing over your iMac 400 DV is a FireWire port (they first appeared in the "Pismo" I think... but you can easily add one with a PCMCIA(actually cardbus) FireWire card.

You would notice a difference if you put up a G3 400 PBook against a G4 400 PowerMac though... but the reasons are obvious there.<hr /></blockquote>Yes, that is what I mean and it is coming with one of those PCMCIA cards.
I was just thinking about Australia today. How are things there?

msykes · Jun 25, 2002, 05:02 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by kirktalon:
I just bought a PB g3 on ebay as described above and wanted to know if it was good for doing graphics? I currently have a iMac 400mhz DV SE and would be happy if it was at least as good as that in doing graphics. I haven't goten it yet from the seller.<hr /></blockquote>Well, I think good is relative here. For desktop design/publishing it will be an okay machine, but it's really just not very fast, especially under OSX. Things like Photoshop really seem to take advantage of a G4 processor. That said, the only real disadvantage is speed. If it's all you can afford, it should get the job done okay, just not as fast.

Also, if you use OSX, make sure you get 10.1.5, the latest version, since this version has some basic 2D hardware accelearation for the rage pro chips.

Moderator · Jun 25, 2002, 08:44 PM

I have a 400 MHz Pismo and it handles everything from Indesign to Photoshop to Flash and Dreamweaver quite well (although not like it did in OS 9)

.....nevertheless...the G4 upgrade will be much appreciated.

I'm not sure why you'd get a Lombard when a Pismo probably wouldn't have cost you much more..with firewire..and fewer lbs.

May I ask how much you paid??

Moderator · Jun 25, 2002, 08:46 PM

..actually..Photoshop 7 does tend to drag quite a bit..sometimes worse than others....but its bearable.

Daniel_R · Jun 26, 2002, 01:31 AM

Kirktalon...

How is Australia... its a great place

So you want to do a bit of DTP work. To give you an idea of what you should be able to achieve, I have an G3 iBook 600, with 384MB ram. I do not as of yet do any Desktop publishing under OSX, but all of it under OS9 as I have not upgraded my software.

Using Photoshop 5, and PageMaker 6.5.2, I have in the last week finished a DTP job that I was doing (I do it part time to make some $$$ while studing at Uni)

The job was 128 pages, 8 pages full colour, stacks of photos, articles etc. Like a year book of sorts. Total data size came to about 4.5GB as a linked Pagemaker file, with covers in Photoshop 5 format, illustrator graphics etc. iBook didn't at once look like that it was too much for it, so I'd say you'll be fine for something like the above with a G3 400. I'd stay away from using photoshop for X like suggested above - I think it would be a bit taxing on it.

With the FireWire PC-card, just remember that if you attach an external FWire drive to it, that you will not be able to boot from it because the card is third-party... see a few other posts about stuff like that in this forum

Good luck.

kirktalon · Jun 26, 2002, 05:42 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by msykes:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by kirktalon:
I just bought a PB g3 on ebay as described above and wanted to know if it was good for doing graphics? I currently have a iMac 400mhz DV SE and would be happy if it was at least as good as that in doing graphics. I haven't goten it yet from the seller.<hr /></blockquote>Well, I think good is relative here. For desktop design/publishing it will be an okay machine, but it's really just not very fast, especially under OSX. Things like Photoshop really seem to take advantage of a G4 processor. That said, the only real disadvantage is speed. If it's all you can afford, it should get the job done okay, just not as fast.

Also, if you use OSX, make sure you get 10.1.5, the latest version, since this version has some basic 2D hardware accelearation for the rage pro chips.<hr /></blockquote>Well speed is important and the latest software is important and yes this is a step in the right direction because of costs. Also staying with OS9 software gives me plenty of tools to offer my potiental and as yet unfilled out average joe cliental.

kirktalon · Jun 26, 2002, 05:51 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Moderator:
I have a 400 MHz Pismo and it handles everything from Indesign to Photoshop to Flash and Dreamweaver quite well (although not like it did in OS 9)

.....nevertheless...the G4 upgrade will be much appreciated.

I'm not sure why you'd get a Lombard when a Pismo probably wouldn't have cost you much more..with firewire..and fewer lbs.

May I ask how much you paid??<hr /></blockquote>I still don't have the computer from the guy. Some glitch with PayPal's new payment policy so as time goes on I'm thinkin maybe . . . . . .
Still, as I read it Pismo and Lombard weigh around the same 5.9 lbs and like somebody else said a firewire PC card does everything but boot the thing up.

duboy · Jun 26, 2002, 10:15 AM

Hey, I've got a Lombard which i used every single day and was on constantly (i only slept it to fly) for probably 3.5 years straight. I just replaced it two weeks ago, so it's finally getting a rest. But i did everything with it, Photoshop (5.5 was the last version i had on it), Illustrator (8), I even had Quark on it too, they all ran well. But it needs RAM, the stock 64 was a nightmare. I bumped it to 320 and it's happy now. It's a good machine overall, can definitly be used for 2D desktop publishing. 3D stuff however......yeah....

Moderator · Jun 26, 2002, 12:15 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by duboy:
Hey, I've got a Lombard which i used every single day and was on constantly (i only slept it to fly) for probably 3.5 years straight. I just replaced it two weeks ago, so it's finally getting a rest. But i did everything with it, Photoshop (5.5 was the last version i had on it), Illustrator (8), I even had Quark on it too, they all ran well. But it needs RAM, the stock 64 was a nightmare. I bumped it to 320 and it's happy now. It's a good machine overall, can definitly be used for 2D desktop publishing. 3D stuff however......yeah....<hr /></blockquote>Photoshop / Indesign performance in OS X is much slower than OS 9

kirktalon · Jun 26, 2002, 09:09 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by duboy:
Hey, I've got a Lombard which i used every single day and was on constantly (i only slept it to fly) for probably 3.5 years straight. I just replaced it two weeks ago, so it's finally getting a rest. But i did everything with it, Photoshop (5.5 was the last version i had on it), Illustrator (8), I even had Quark on it too, they all ran well. But it needs RAM, the stock 64 was a nightmare. I bumped it to 320 and it's happy now. It's a good machine overall, can definitly be used for 2D desktop publishing. 3D stuff however......yeah....<hr /></blockquote>When you say 3D stuff do you mean CAD or what?

kirktalon · Jun 26, 2002, 09:13 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Moderator:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by duboy:
Hey, I've got a Lombard which i used every single day and was on constantly (i only slept it to fly) for probably 3.5 years straight. I just replaced it two weeks ago, so it's finally getting a rest. But i did everything with it, Photoshop (5.5 was the last version i had on it), Illustrator (8), I even had Quark on it too, they all ran well. But it needs RAM, the stock 64 was a nightmare. I bumped it to 320 and it's happy now. It's a good machine overall, can definitly be used for 2D desktop publishing. 3D stuff however......yeah....<hr /></blockquote>Photoshop / Indesign performance in OS X is much slower than OS 9<hr /></blockquote>So are you saying that Photoshop 7/Indesign 2 are slower on an older mac running OS X then when it is running in OS 9?

duboy · Jun 26, 2002, 11:09 PM

kirktalon,

Yeah, about the 3D thing. Just rendering stuff for example in Vue d'Espirit takes forever. it does it, just slowly. Yes, in my experience, on an older comp like the Lombard, OSX and it's apps seem a bit sluggish. But as i mentioned, it gets it done. just in due time :-)