[bluedog]

Here's a question:

Does anyone think the BootX modifications for enabling the cache on the G3 upgrade cards for Linux is maintained while booting into OSX?

I've since gotten rid of my LinuxPPC partitions, but I'm thinking that it may be one way to enable the cache and get performance benefits from just using BootX once to enable the cache

And then ditch it to boot into OSX. I'm not confident this will work, because I know BootX loads early in the boot of the MacOS, and can set the openfirmware at that time and not necessarily need persistent changes.

If anyone knows the answer before I do some testing this evening on my home machines, please post your thoughts.

I'll post the results tonight, by testing two seperate computers. I have a 7600 that has less RAM and a slower G3 upgrade card, but performs better with OS9 running within OSX. On my 8500 that has MORE RAM and a faster G3 upgrade card OSX ran pokey when using OS9.

It made me think because I had LinuxPPC installed on the 7600 prior to OSX, that the firmware settings to enable the cache using BootX perhaps the settings stick even after removing BootX.

Can anyone confirm this before I test it?

[bluedog]

The answer from my anecdotal evidence is: NO. I saw NO performance increase from attempting to use BootX to enable the cache on the G3 upgrade card. On another note, I've attached a post I place to another thread about the 'unsupported' G3 upgraded macs

Sad news for anyone with only a 604 processor.

The error occuring during booting of the CD: 'sixty6 not a registry member,' is saying you don't have a G3 with the programming register necessary.

It seems Apple is optimizing to the G3 processor and above. I attempted to put my original 604e processor card back into my 7600 and the same error occurred.

On boot, of a pre-existing OSX installation the boot failed with the same error as mentioned (the test was done on the same machine, but with the G3 upgrade card installed). I'm sure the installation wouldn't be possible either considering it is going to always be specifically looking for the G3 processor.

On another note, I found the BootX and cache settings that I attempted to set to allow my G3 upgrade card to enable ITS backside cache did NOT work. I think it might just be the age of the computers I'm using.

My 8500 is about 4 years old. Even though upgrading in the past 4 years to faster video, U2W scsi, 320MB RAM and a G3/450+mHz, it just doesn't seem to be able to handle the beta. I'm hoping it will be further optimized to run better. As it is, without using the Classic environment everything is fairly snappy. Once booting up OS9 in Classic, its just too slow (kind of like trying to run Quake in Virtual PC or running system 8 on a the slowest processor it could possibly run on).

I think most users will find it better to simply upgrade their machines before trying to do anything but casual use from OSX on these older machines (7300-9600). YMMV.

Time for a new computer!
Vive la Macintosh!