[Koralatov]

I'm currently fighting an exceptionally strong temptation to bite the bullet, lay down £80 on Leopard and installing it on my iMac G4 (exact specifications in my signature).

I'm still concerned about performance though. Reports of performance on similar machines have been... conflicting at best. Some people have had performance as good as, or better than, Tiger, whereas it's dragged ass for others. Anyone know definitively whether or not it's going to run well or not? Ideally, I'd like to hear from people using iMac G4s with similar specs, or at least something close. That said, any information on G4 performance would be appreciated.

I suspect to get the best performance, I'd be better served by upgrading my RAM to the full 2GB that the iMac supports. Any other suggestions to get the best performance out of Leopard?

[Warbrain]

I have a 1.42 GHz iBook with 1.5 GB of RAM. Leopard runs fine if not better than Tiger. There have been some minor slow points, but I'm chalking them up to Leopard being fresh before blaming them on my hardware. RAM seems to be the deciding factor when it comes to how Leopard runs on your G4. If I had the stock 512 in my iBook, I'd be crippled.

[slpdLoad]

I'm running a 1 GHz PowerBook with 512 MB and Leopard. I think performance is pretty great, considering how old this machine is. When I get a lot of programs running, some of the fancier affects like Spaces start to stutter a bit, but overall it runs great. I think you'll be happy with the performance, especially if you have more RAM. Does your iMac have Core Image support? A good GPU makes a big difference in how many of the effects Leopard can give you.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by Warbrain 

I have a 1.42 GHz iBook with 1.5 GB of RAM. Leopard runs fine if not better than Tiger. There have been some minor slow points, but I'm chalking them up to Leopard being fresh before blaming them on my hardware. RAM seems to be the deciding factor when it comes to how Leopard runs on your G4. If I had the stock 512 in my iBook, I'd be crippled.

I suspected that putting on on the G4 without maxing out the RAM would be a stupid idea. I'm not expecting blistering performance on my iMac, but I don't want to trade in a perfectly good OS for one that's newer and then have a system that takes forever to do anything. I'm not a poweruser by any means on my Mac, but I do value useable performance. I think I might follow your lead and whack in the full 2GB before I take the plunge. The other advantage is that the Leopard install process might be slightly smoother by then too...

Originally Posted by slpdLoad 

I'm running a 1 GHz PowerBook with 512 MB and Leopard. I think performance is pretty great, considering how old this machine is. When I get a lot of programs running, some of the fancier affects like Spaces start to stutter a bit, but overall it runs great. I think you'll be happy with the performance, especially if you have more RAM. Does your iMac have Core Image support? A good GPU makes a big difference in how many of the effects Leopard can give you.

How's Finder and Safari's performance on you PB? Do they respond as well as they did in Tiger, or do they suffer from slowdown?

The iMac's graphics card does support Core Image, thankfully. It's a GeForce FX 5200 with 64MB of VRAM. I don't imagine that Time Machine will fly whilst I'm using it, but hopefully it will work well enough to be usable.

Thanks to both of you for your input!

[mac redneck]

I installed leopard on my G4 imac 1.25ghz with 1.5GB ram. I have had no problems. Safari and Finder run fine. I'll let you know if there are any snags. How did your bluetooth install go? You could upgrade that internal ram module while you're in there if you haven't done it yet.

[swiz]

Running it on my 1.2ghz iBook with 1.25gb of ram.
Really all I do on this is Finder, Safari, Mail, and Excel and I have no complaints.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

The iMac's graphics card does support Core Image, thankfully. It's a GeForce FX 5200 with 64MB of VRAM.

(my) 2003 1,25 GHz MDD's GPU doesn't support Core Image… too much for a 'pro' machine, oh the irony… yeah, I know at least Power Macs can get a PU upgrade, but that equals more money to spend and that's not funny

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by mac redneck 

I installed leopard on my G4 imac 1.25ghz with 1.5GB ram. I have had no problems. Safari and Finder run fine. I'll let you know if there are any snags. How did your bluetooth install go? You could upgrade that internal ram module while you're in there if you haven't done it yet.

Thanks for the response--I was keen to hear back from someone who was running the same setup as me (more or less), and you fit the bill. I haven't got around to doing the Bluetooth upgrade yet; I don't have the extension cable yet, and funds which should have been used to upgrade the iMac have been funneled into other ventures (namely buying a Cube. Oops).

I'm basically planning on getting a new hard-disk, RAM for the engineer slot and the Bluetooth extension cable and installing everything in one go. Whilst the internals of the iMac aren't particularly complex (when you have a service manual in hand), but I don't really fancy cracking it open more than once...

Originally Posted by swiz 

Running it on my 1.2ghz iBook with 1.25gb of ram.
Really all I do on this is Finder, Safari, Mail, and Excel and I have no complaints.

Thanks for the feedback--much appreciated. Hopefully, I'll have similar success with the iMac!

Originally Posted by angelmb 

(my) 2003 1,25 GHz MDD's GPU doesn't support Core Image… too much for a 'pro' machine, oh the irony… yeah, I know at least Power Macs can get a PU upgrade, but that equals more money to spend and that's not funny

It is rather ironic that a 'pro' machine of similar vintage to my iMac has a less-capable graphics card. That said, I don't think Core Image had even been invented then, so it's somewhat understandable... (Cash permitting) perhaps your should investigate the GeForce 6200 as a replacement for your current card--Core Image support, 256MB of RAM and quite cheap.

Edit: That 6200 I linked to is perhaps not the best example--it's from Hong Kong, and I'm always incredibly suspicious of eBay items being sold from China. There's a seller called "mac_geniuses" who gets good press from the denizens of CubeOwner, so if you did decide to take the plunge, he might be a safer bet. Also, he uses the CubeOwner-preferred fan on his fanned 6200s, which apparently is extremely quiet (always a plus in my book).

Either that, or you could just stick with Tiger. It is a truly fantastic operating system, after all...

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

It is rather ironic that a 'pro' machine of similar vintage to my iMac has a less-capable graphics card. That said, I don't think Core Image had even been invented then, so it's somewhat understandable...

Yes, that was my point, than in the long run the 'non pro' machine suits better the latest and newest operating system than the by then a 'pro' machine… anyway and being honest it (MDD) was kind of the OS 9 bootable pro machine when G5 Power Mac were the top notch Macintoshes. So far all we had by then was… Quartz Extreme?

I have no issues sticking to Tiger if I find 10.5 too heavy for my MDD, it runs great and is compatible with all my software & hardware, I would hate e.g. Freehand not being Leopard friendly…

Thanks for the advice about the GPU, I would prefer the ATI 9600 Mac / PC Edition since it could drive Apple's 30 inches display, but hell, I would like to have a nVidia inside my Mac

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

Yes, that was my point, than in the long run the 'non pro' machine suits better the latest and newest operating system than the by then a 'pro' machine… anyway and being honest it (MDD) was kind of the OS 9 bootable pro machine when G5 Power Mac were the top notch Macintoshes. So far all we had by then was… Quartz Extreme?

I think your card likely does support Quartz Extreme. The MDD, from all accounts, is still a very capable machine, and if OS9 is a requirement for you, then it's a fantastic computer. That said, Classic isn't supported by Leopard, so you'd probably either need a second drive or partition if you still wanted to still use OS9 in 'The Age of Leopard'.

I have no issues sticking to Tiger if I find 10.5 too heavy for my MDD, it runs great and is compatible with all my software & hardware, I would hate e.g. Freehand not being Leopard friendly...

I think it would be best to wait a little while before upgrading then--reports will start to come in about whether Freehand and your other software is compatible with Leopard; the same goes for your hardware. Also, as I mentioned, the lack of Classic might be a major stumbling block for you.

Thanks for the advice about the GPU, I would prefer the ATI 9600 Mac / PC Edition since it could drive Apple's 30 inches display, but hell, I would like to have a nVidia inside my Mac

I would love a 30" Cinema Display, but sadly they're way too expensive for me just now--I don't earn nearly enough to afford one. I can but hope...

Personally, I would go for one of the big ADC LCDs, even with the requirement of buying a ADC-to-DVI adaptor. They are truly beautiful displays, very much from (what I consider to be) Apple's best design period, and they would complement your MDD perfectly. That said, you might not be quite as shallow as I am when it comes to these things!

Just purely out of interest, what are the specs of your MDD? (Pure nerd pr0n question.)

[real]

Using Leopard on a ver. A 12 " PB (thats a 867mhz) gig of ram. Runs very well, just a fast as Tiger.

Stacks runs slow and sometimes doesn't even work.

[slpdLoad]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

How's Finder and Safari's performance on you PB? Do they respond as well as they did in Tiger, or do they suffer from slowdown?

Safari is just as fast as it was in Tiger (Safari 3 beta). The Finder only slows down occasionally on larger files while in CoverFlow, but I think that's because I'm using a 4200 RPM laptop drive.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

I think your card likely does support Quartz Extreme. The MDD, from all accounts, is still a very capable machine, and if OS9 is a requirement for you, then it's a fantastic computer. That said, Classic isn't supported by Leopard, so you'd probably either need a second drive or partition if you still wanted to still use OS9 in 'The Age of Leopard'.

I couldn't agree more. Mac OS 9 (which I have installed on a second drive) couldn't be faster and OS X is not that slow, a pity it is too loud but I am working trying to solvent that.

I would love a 30" Cinema Display, but sadly they're way too expensive for me just now--I don't earn nearly enough to afford one. I can but hope...

Yes, too expensive for me also but one can always dream

Personally, I would go for one of the big ADC LCDs, even with the requirement of buying a ADC-to-DVI adaptor. They are truly beautiful displays, very much from (what I consider to be) Apple's best design period, and they would complement your MDD perfectly. That said, you might not be quite as shallow as I am when it comes to these things!

Sure they are beautiful to say the least… only 'but' is that I find the vertical resolution of the 23 inches model too low… 1200 pixels as vertical resolution is too little, that's like an old good quality 19 inches CRT. BTW, I wouldn't need an adaptor since ADC comes supported as standard.

Just purely out of interest, what are the specs of your MDD? (Pure nerd pr0n question.)

single 1,25 GHz, 1,25 RAM, 80+80+80+160 GB (four) hard disks, and three PCI cards like an AlchemyTV DVR and two PCI USB2 cards…

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

I couldn't agree more. Mac OS 9 (which I have installed on a second drive) couldn't be faster and OS X is not that slow, a pity it is too loud but I am working trying to solvent that.

I thought it was just the Quicksilvers that suffered from 'windtunnel' syndrome. Obviously I was wrong. I think perhaps your best bet would be a nice, high-quality fan with a low dB count, and a new PSU--I think that was one of the major causes of noise with the QS and is likely a problem with the MDD too. It's a shame these models were marred with noisy components, especially seeing as the iMac G4 of a similar vintage is almost silent. I think the tower case is probably partly to blame--sound has more room to echo about in there.

Sure they are beautiful to say the least… only 'but' is that I find the vertical resolution of the 23 inches model too low… 1200 pixels as vertical resolution is too little, that's like an old good quality 19 inches CRT. BTW, I wouldn't need an adaptor since ADC comes supported as standard.

Personally, I'm aiming for a 22" (they're more common than the 23") for use with my Cube. I intend to upgrade the Cube hugely and use it as a media centre. Unfortunately, the 22" has a 'mere' 1024 vertical resolution. To be honest, seeing as it will be used for watching TV shows and films, that's perfect, but if you're doing real work on it, I imagine it could get a bit cramped. That said, it is at a 16:10 aspect ratio, whereas the CRTs are usually 4:3, so the vertical height can seem a touch misleading...

I apologise for not clarifying what I meant with regards to the adaptor: I had meant that you'd need the adaptor if you planned on using a newer card. ADC ports are, sadly, discontinued now, and more powerful cards (like the GF 6200 and the ATI 9600 you mentioned) only come with DVI ports, necessitating the use of the adaptor. The card your Mac has just now likely has the ADC port. It's a shame the ADC was discontinued--it was a truly elegant solution, and very 'Apple' in my opinion.

single 1,25 GHz, 1,25 RAM, 80+80+80+160 GB (four) hard disks, and three PCI cards like an AlchemyTV DVR and two PCI USB2 cards…

Thanks for sating my curiosity. Sad as it is, I do like to know about the various set-ups people use. It's quite a machine you have there!

Originally Posted by real 

Using Leopard on a ver. A 12 " PB (thats a 867mhz) gig of ram. Runs very well, just a fast as Tiger.

Thanks for your reply. It looks like I should be okay, then. Just to be on the safe-side, I think I'll upgrade the RAM to at least 1.5GB (using the engineer slot, when I go inside to install my Bluetooth) before I upgrade. A new hard-disk with a clean install might not be a bad idea...

Stacks runs slow and sometimes doesn't even work.

That's disappointing, and irritating I imagine. I quite like the idea of Stacks, especially the download stack. Hopefully, that'll be fixed in 10.5.1...

Originally Posted by slpdLoad 

Safari is just as fast as it was in Tiger (Safari 3 beta). The Finder only slows down occasionally on larger files while in CoverFlow, but I think that's because I'm using a 4200 RPM laptop drive.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Personally, I'm slightly skeptical of Cover Flow. It certainly looks good, but I suspect I probably wouldn't actually use it that much... Swapping out your stock drive for a 7200RPM one would probably solve your issues, as you observed. It would also likely give you an overall performance boost too.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

I thought it was just the Quicksilvers that suffered from 'windtunnel' syndrome. Obviously I was wrong. I think perhaps your best bet would be a nice, high-quality fan with a low dB count, and a new PSU--I think that was one of the major causes of noise with the QS and is likely a problem with the MDD too. It's a shame these models were marred with noisy components, especially seeing as the iMac G4 of a similar vintage is almost silent. I think the tower case is probably partly to blame--sound has more room to echo about in there.

If you don't mind me asking… how hot becomes your dead silent iMac CPU?, we share the same single-GHz CPU and the heat-sink inside the MDD is HUGE, no way it would be inside the G4 iMac's beautiful case, MDD's CPU is 32º C as daily basis, which is really cold (& nice).

When I firstly replaced the CPU fan with a 120*120*25 (instead of 120*120*50) the CPU temp skyrocketed to 40º C i no time.

Personally, I'm aiming for a 22" (they're more common than the 23") for use with my Cube. I intend to upgrade the Cube hugely and use it as a media centre. Unfortunately, the 22" has a 'mere' 1024 vertical resolution. To be honest, seeing as it will be used for watching TV shows and films, that's perfect, but if you're doing real work on it, I imagine it could get a bit cramped. That said, it is at a 16:10 aspect ratio, whereas the CRTs are usually 4:3, so the vertical height can seem a touch misleading...

Did the 22 inches come with the silver logo anytime? cause that's really good looking to say the least

I apologise for not clarifying what I meant with regards to the adaptor: I had meant that you'd need the adaptor if you planned on using a newer card. ADC ports are, sadly, discontinued now, and more powerful cards (like the GF 6200 and the ATI 9600 you mentioned) only come with DVI ports, necessitating the use of the adaptor. The card your Mac has just now likely has the ADC port. It's a shame the ADC was discontinued--it was a truly elegant solution, and very 'Apple' in my opinion.

And I apologize for not realize that you meant almost no actual GPUs come with ADC, a pity for sure, all work to free your desktop of wires is always greatly appreciated.

Thanks for sating my curiosity. Sad as it is, I do like to know about the various set-ups people use. It's quite a machine you have there!

Thanks I really like it, I would like to add the newer keyboard which is awesome and a BT mighty mouse. That would make it even better. But firstly I have to make it as much silent as possible.

[cspuryear]

I've got the exact same 1.25 GHz iMac G4 w/ 768 MB of ram....

I'm getting the impression that if I upgrade the ram to 2 GiG's I should be good to go? My machine runs well, but chugs in 10.4 right now on my HUGE iPhoto and iTunes libraries....

Would this suffice?

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by cspuryear 

I've got the exact same 1.25 GHz iMac G4 w/ 768 MB of ram....

I'm getting the impression that if I upgrade the ram to 2 GiG's I should be good to go? My machine runs well, but chugs in 10.4 right now on my HUGE iPhoto and iTunes libraries....

Would this suffice?

From what I've read so far, I think it should help. You must have a pretty mammoth iTunes and iPhoto library though--I have a reasonably small iPhoto library, but about 10GB of iTunes songs, and I have no speed problems with Tiger...

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

If you don't mind me asking… how hot becomes your dead silent iMac CPU?, we share the same single-GHz CPU and the heat-sink inside the MDD is HUGE, no way it would be inside the G4 iMac's beautiful case, MDD's CPU is 32º C as daily basis, which is really cold (& nice).

Unfortunately, there's no concrete way of measuring the G4 iMac's CPU temperature--it doesn't support any widgets for measuring the chip's temperature.

In a very unscientific test, I can say that it does seem to run very cool; putting my hand above the vents on the top of the 'bubble', even when it's under a heavy load, it still seems very cool. The air that comes out doesn't seem to be any warmer than the surrounding air.

When I firstly replaced the CPU fan with a 120*120*25 (instead of 120*120*50) the CPU temp skyrocketed to 40º C i no time.

I'm not really sure what to do about that, but 40ºC is a pretty low temperature for a CPU to run at. You could always try going for a really high-quality, silent fan. From what I've gathered in my reading over at CubeOwner, you'll want an all-copper one, because they seem to conduct heat away better than plastic ones. Also, using a really decent thermal adhesive (one of the Arctics) would probably help a bit too. As I say, though, 40ºC is really not something to worry about.

Did the 22 inches come with the silver logo anytime? cause that's really good looking to say the least

I don't know about that, to be honest. Looking at this photo here, it would appear that the Apple logo on the front is graphite, and the one on the back is silver.

And I apologize for not realize that you meant almost no actual GPUs come with ADC, a pity for sure, all work to free your desktop of wires is always greatly appreciated.

You get an almost similar result with an ADC-to-DVI adaptor, but it's still not quite the same. That said, it does take strain off the computer's PSU. This is probably more important for the Cube than a MDD, but it may make your machine run slightly quieter.

Thanks I really like it, I would like to add the newer keyboard which is awesome and a BT mighty mouse. That would make it even better. But firstly I have to make it as much silent as possible.

Newer as in the aluminium one, or the white one? Personally, the aluminium one looks fantastic, but really wouldn't go with the 'all-white' look of my iMac, so I'm going to stick with a white BT keyboard. I'm personally a big fan of the Mighty Mouse, though I do seem to be in a minority around here...

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

In a very unscientific test, I can say that it does seem to run very cool; putting my hand above the vents on the top of the 'bubble', even when it's under a heavy load, it still seems very cool. The air that comes out doesn't seem to be any warmer than the surrounding air.

No doubt, the iMac G4 was quite an achievement.

As I say, though, 40ºC is really not something to worry about.

Sure, I have tested a MacBook and it gets really hot, OK that's portable but if it can cope with let's say almos 70º C, then 40º C would be like peanuts to such a tower like a MDD…

Newer as in the aluminium one, or the white one? Personally, the aluminium one looks fantastic, but really wouldn't go with the 'all-white' look of my iMac, so I'm going to stick with a white BT keyboard. I'm personally a big fan of the Mighty Mouse, though I do seem to be in a minority around here...

Newer aluminium model, it is fantastic, you type like it was a Pismo (best keyboard I had ever typed on). Firstly (when it was released) I didn't find the Mighty Mouse comfortable at all, but actually I am kind of addicted to it

[cspuryear]

I've got about 450+ albums which is in the neighborhood of 40GB or so. It has a delay in scrolling and loading sometimes

[Pierre B.]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

Unfortunately, there's no concrete way of measuring the G4 iMac's CPU temperature--it doesn't support any widgets for measuring the chip's temperature.

Temperature Monitor does not work with this machine?

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

Sure, I have tested a MacBook and it gets really hot, OK that's portable but if it can cope with let's say almos 70º C, then 40º C would be like peanuts to such a tower like a MDD…

Absolutely. Modern processors generate an insane amount of heat, so 40ºC is very cool. I wouldn't worry about it.

Newer aluminium model, it is fantastic, you type like it was a Pismo (best keyboard I had ever typed on). Firstly (when it was released) I didn't find the Mighty Mouse comfortable at all, but actually I am kind of addicted to it

The new keyboard is very attractive, though I can't comment on the ergonomics as I haven't used it for any length of time. Sadly, I don't think that the new iMac is as appealing as its keyboard. The MM is a fantastic mouse--I love the shape of it, and the Expose squeeze, and the scroll-ball. The ball isn't fantastically designed (it gets mucky and is hard to clean), but otherwise it is a fantastic mouse.

Originally Posted by cspuryear 

I've got about 450+ albums which is in the neighborhood of 40GB or so. It has a delay in scrolling and loading sometimes

That would probably explain it. It'll have to pull all the album art off the hard-disk and render it in the coverflow view, which is going to take a little time, even on a new machine.

Originally Posted by Pierre B. 

Temperature Monitor does not work with this machine?

It works in that I can measure the temperature of my hard-disk, but the G4 processor in the iMac doesn't have a built-in thermometer (or whatever they use to measure temperature with on CPUs). As such, running Temperature Monitor tells me my HD is running at 32ºC, but nothing else.

[angelmb]

I have to say than I am astonished at how great Leopard runs on my single 1,25 GHz MDD, really. Even Finder's Coverflow is more than OK, I would dare to say 'smooth' such a compliment for my old crappy Radeon 9000… In all honest I didn't expect this performance.

On a side note mostly aimed to Koralatov, I have kind of upgrade my display, still a 17 incher hence the 'kind of upgrade' wordiness but the Studio Display is really cool, is one of the latest being built (comes with silver Apple logos much like the MDD optical doors), so at last my MDD got an ADC display it is so cool to be able to start up the Mac from the display tactile button…

[Andrew Stephens]

We have Leopard running on my wifes 867Mhz 12" PB and it's fine. Obviously it won't handle the core image stuff but it makes a decent fist of it, she notices no real speed difference over her old Tiger install. It handles the new style dock fine and even stacks works, but then you can't have everything!

With the small screen she's happy with spaces so in fact Leopard is far more productive for her than Tiger.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

I have to say than I am astonished at how great Leopard runs on my single 1,25 GHz MDD, really. Even Finder's Coverflow is more than OK, I would dare to say 'smooth' such a compliment for my old crappy Radeon 9000… In all honest I didn't expect this performance.

I'm glad it's worked out for you. If nothing else, the lack of smoothness in Cover Flow gives you a good excuse to upgrade your graphics card! That said, it doesn't seem like a hugely useful feature, with the exception of browsing folders of photos...

On a side note mostly aimed to Koralatov, I have kind of upgrade my display, still a 17 incher hence the 'kind of upgrade' wordiness but the Studio Display is really cool, is one of the latest being built (comes with silver Apple logos much like the MDD optical doors), so at last my MDD got an ADC display it is so cool to be able to start up the Mac from the display tactile button…

Good stuff! The SD and MDD go together like bacon and eggs, especially if it has the silver logo on it. Yours must be a later model than the one I have--mine has the graphite logo on it. And yes, starting up a computer by touching the 'button' on the monitor is supremely cool, and very 'Apple'. Luckily, these things are built well (and fading backlights can be replaced reasonably easily), so it should give you years of use yet. Well, at least until you get your 30" Cinema Display!

Originally Posted by Andrew Stephens 

We have Leopard running on my wifes 867Mhz 12" PB and it's fine. Obviously it won't handle the core image stuff but it makes a decent fist of it, she notices no real speed difference over her old Tiger install. It handles the new style dock fine and even stacks works, but then you can't have everything!

With the small screen she's happy with spaces so in fact Leopard is far more productive for her than Tiger.

I'm glad it worked out for her! The 12" display definitely makes Spaces a fantastic feature--you can use your screen space more effectively with it, and have fewer overlapping windows. It's not such a concern with a 20" monitor, because I can just use Expose, but with a smaller monitor it is a definite boon.

Having had a peep at the specs of your wife's machine on Every Mac, I really shouldn't have any problem with Leopard--I've got a better graphics card (with Core Image support) and a faster FSB.

Just out of interest, though, how much RAM does she have? I'm planning on upgrading at least the engineer slot RAM to the full 1GB before I install Leopard (which would give me 1.5GB). I'll upgrade the user-slot later.

[Andrew Stephens]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

Just out of interest, though, how much RAM does she have? I'm planning on upgrading at least the engineer slot RAM to the full 1GB before I install Leopard (which would give me 1.5GB). I'll upgrade the user-slot later.

I think she's got it maxxed out at 1.25 GB. Coverflow's not so bad either. All in all a pretty good experience given that it's pretty much at the bottom of the list of supported Macs.

I'd say go for it on your machine. My only concern at all with Leopard is Mail. Both me and my wife find it a bit flakey.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by Andrew Stephens 

I think she's got it maxxed out at 1.25 GB. Coverflow's not so bad either. All in all a pretty good experience given that it's pretty much at the bottom of the list of supported Macs.

Thanks for the info. I'm glad it's worked out for you, especially seeing that you barely scrape into the bottom-end of the system requirements. I'm quite surprised that Cover Flow works passably on her PB; I'd expected it to demand a much beefier machine for decent performance. I have read (on another thread here, somewhere) that it doesn't cache the previews, and subsequently has to remake them every single time you Cover Flow inside a folder, which seems both stupid and intensely irritating...

I'd say go for it on your machine. My only concern at all with Leopard is Mail. Both me and my wife find it a bit flakey.

I'm definitely going to go for it once I've pushed up the RAM a bit.

Could you be a bit more specific about the problems you're having with Mail? As it's one of my most-used apps, I'm kinda keen to have it work properly...

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

Could you be a bit more specific about the problems you're having with Mail? As it's one of my most-used apps, I'm kinda keen to have it work properly...

Feature-wise, Mail is a dream… you don't deal with smtp this imap that mumbo jumbo… you just write your e-mail address and password down, and you're set… then I was looking for a replacement to the RSS reader of my choice -PulpFiction Lite-, Mail comes perfect, there is no need for me to look any further… and I just love the new progress indicator, it was about time to get it 'there' where it belongs, I was sick and tired of pressing command+zero to know how Mail was doing its business…

Don't know if your issues -Andrew- could be related to the e-mail accounts themselves, mine are gmail and AOL and both work quite well.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

Feature-wise, Mail is a dream… you don't deal with smtp this imap that mumbo jumbo… you just write your e-mail address and password down, and you're set… then I was looking for a replacement to the RSS reader of my choice -PulpFiction Lite-, Mail comes perfect, there is no need for me to look any further… and I just love the new progress indicator, it was about time to get it 'there' where it belongs, I was sick and tired of pressing command+zero to know how Mail was doing its business…

I'm actually quite looking forward to getting my hands on Mail 3. As it's about the second-most used application on my Mac (after Safari), any and all improvements are always appreciated. It also means I'll actually have a feed-reader on my Mac now. I was always too lazy to install one before now...

Returning to our previous discussion, have you considered one of the Formac displays instead of a Studio Display? I saw them for the first time in the flesh today, and they are really nice displays. The 20" has a resolution of 1600x1200, which should come reasonably close to meeting your needs. It's just a shame that they don't use ADC...

[angelmb]

I had the same issue with feed readers, while PulpFiction Lite still did the work, once I see myself upgrading to 10.5, that app looked too dated, it even looked outdated within 10.4 but I just didn't care about it by them… so I was looking for a new app… NetNewsWire seemed to have everything I would hope for… I just realized than the free version (Lite) lacked the search feature… there are certain feeds I don't delete so the ability to perform a search is a killer -ymmv- and to pay for just a search field was out of my purpose… for some weird reason I never liked RSS being integrated inside the web browser, (to my taste) it is like playing boxing versus not one but two opponents, being punched twice so to speak… and I wanted to move from relying on a bunch of internet apps… one for mail, one for websites, one for rss, one for chat… by analogy with our desktops it's like having a bunch of wires over the table… So once I tried Mail I knew I wouldn't need to look further… I hope this works the same way for you

As for Formac displays, yes, they are cool, anybody surprise since they almost look like a clone from Apple's ADC, I can remember the first 'Apple-like' Formac models sporting an ADC connector, I don't know how expensive -or not- they are nowadays though…

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

I had the same issue with feed readers, while PulpFiction Lite still did the work, once I see myself upgrading to 10.5, that app looked too dated, it even looked outdated within 10.4 but I just didn't care about it by them… so I was looking for a new app… NetNewsWire seemed to have everything I would hope for… I just realized than the free version (Lite) lacked the search feature… there are certain feeds I don't delete so the ability to perform a search is a killer -ymmv- and to pay for just a search field was out of my purpose… for some weird reason I never liked RSS being integrated inside the web browser, (to my taste) it is like playing boxing versus not one but two opponents, being punched twice so to speak… and I wanted to move from relying on a bunch of internet apps… one for mail, one for websites, one for rss, one for chat… by analogy with our desktops it's like having a bunch of wires over the table… So once I tried Mail I knew I wouldn't need to look further… I hope this works the same way for you

I imagine it will meet my needs. To be honest, I quite liked having the RSS reader built-in to Safari. The only thing that bothered me was that I started running out of space underneath my address bar, and I really didn't want to start having dropdowns there. I think Mail 3 might have come along in the nick of time!

I'm definitely a believer in minimising the number of apps I have to use; as such, my internet 'pack' consists of Safari, Adium and Mail. I love the fact Adium can connect to basically every IM protocol going.

As for Formac displays, yes, they are cool, anybody surprise since they almost look like a clone from Apple's ADC, I can remember the first 'Apple-like' Formac models sporting an ADC connector, I don't know how expensive -or not- they are nowadays though…

Oh, there's no doubt about where they draw their inspiration from. None whatsoever. They're still not as attractive as the original Studio Displays, though, and the lack of widescreen option slightly puts me off, to be honest, seeing as I would mainly use it for a media-centre.

But for professional use, and if you've got one of the G4 Power Macs, it's a very tempting buy, especially if you throw a better, (sadly) DVI-only graphics card in there. There's a 19" one for £95.99, plus £15 postage, which is a hell of a buy. I'm not sure about the ADC-equipped models. I imagine they're growing increasingly rare these days...

Edit: I can't resist showing off. This is my new baby, and I am totally, totally smitten with it. I haven't had the time to take some photos of it myself, so these are the ones the eBay seller I bought it from took. Besides, he does it more justice than I ever could.

[Koralatov]

The temptation became too much. I finally bit the bullet on Leopard and upgraded to it. So far, I'm pretty impressed. It's a tad slower than Tiger was, but not unbearably so, and I'm still planning on upgrading the RAM in the near future, so I imagine that will help a fair bit. All in all, I'd say it was a worthwhile upgrade. The only issue I'm having now is with Mozy, which appears to be playing silly buggers about its backing up...

[angelmb]

Nice… another Mac user who upgraded to Leopard with a far from stellar Mac hardware and yet impressed with its performance. In all honest I think it is even better than 10.3 as best OS X update ever…

Apologies if this comes as silly question but… what is Mozy?

BTW Koralatov, I have added a pict of my MDD to the Power Mac Picture Thread

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

Nice… another Mac user who upgraded to Leopard with a far from stellar Mac hardware and yet impressed with its performance. In all honest I think it is even better than 10.3 as best OS X update ever…

Fiend! How dare you insult my iMac! Pistols at dawn, sir.

But it is true--our Macs are slightly underpowered for an operating system of the size and complexity of Leopard, so getting such fantastic performance from it is quite an achievement on Apple's part. Seeing how well it performs with 768MB of RAM, I can't wait to see it in action with my iMac's full 2GB. It should fly.

Apologies if this comes as silly question but… what is Mozy?

Mozy is an online backup utility. You get 2GB for free, and it uses Spotlight to keep track of changes to files and uploads only the changed files each time it synchronises. It's a bit like Time Machine in that respect. It's quite good, if somewhat slow at times. Once I get another external HD, I'll start using Time Machine in place of Mozy. In the meantime, I can highly recommend Mozy--it saved my bacon on one occasion already.

BTW Koralatov, I have added a pict of my MDD to the Power Mac Picture Thread

Very nice. As the exceptionally proud owner of a G4 Cube and 22" ADC Cinema Display, I would strongly recommend getting a bigger ADC display to complete your look!