The machine I was thinking of was a Mac where the whole computer was built into the monitor. The monitor only accepted 1024x768 max. So the computer hardware was limited to 1024x768. Therefore MOS was limited to 1024x768. This is what I was told.
The monitor in the eMac was a 17" CRT one, and IIRC (it was a long time ago I used a 17" CRT), 1024 x 768 was actually preferred/recommended resolution on those. They weren't particularly big after all, and higher resolutions could make text too small and difficult to see, so most people didn't use resolutions like 1280 x 1024 on 17" monitors even if the monitor could actually support it, which not all did (19" and 21" was of course a different matter).
However, when it comes to the monitor used in the eMacs (and I quote from everymac.com):
"The 17.0" flat CRT display has a 16.0" viewable area, a 0.25mm dot pitch, and supports "640 by 480 pixels at 120 Hz, 800 by 600 pixels at 120 Hz, 1024 by 768 pixels at 89 Hz, 1152 by 870 pixels at 80 Hz, [and] 1280 by 960 pixels at 72 Hz" resolutions."So while the eMac *obviously can* display resolutions higher than 1024 x 768, I'm quite sure that few people would actually want this on that 17" monitor, and this has nothing to do with 32MB/64MB/128MB VRAM, but simply the size of the screen! (If you search online you can find some articles/guides from people who modded it by removing the CRT and put the eMac motherboard in a normal tower, using an external monitor with much higher resolutions, so that's possible even though it would of course be much easier to simply get another Mac instead!)
The GFX card of the
eMac G4/1.25 (USB 2.0) was a 9200 with 32MB.
The GFX card of the
eMac G4/1.42 (2005) was a 9600 with 64MB.
Neither of these GPU/VMEM combos are per se limited to 1024 x 768 on MorphOS, read
Fab's post again:
"MorphOS deals relatively efficiently with video ram, so even with 32MB, you can have a big 32bit hd resolution without slowdown and open as many screens/windows as you like." Practically all games work on 32MB, even 3D ones. And I'm sure a new and truly "awesome" game would deal with different HW setups in an intelligent way, right?
Anyway, the eMac is probably very rare among MorphOS users, despite it's virtually none-existing price to purchase, and my guess is the limitations of the monitor is the explanation to this.
However, here are some experiences from Clusteruk (of AROS fame) in the shape of two Youtube videos featuring a presentation/statement of his opinions (on a mere 1.25GHz G4 with
32MB VRAM in
1024 x 768 resolution):
Clusteruk's MorphOS 2.5/eMac experience, Part 1:
[youtube]TomrykR0AIc[/youtube]
Clusteruk's MorphOS 2.5/eMac experience, Part 2:
[youtube]lBl_yfGHm34[/youtube]
Please note that this was
3 years ago, and on MorphOS
2.5!
A lot of things has happened with MorphOS since then, what he thought was great then has gotten far better, and so many better machines (of different flavors) has become available, as I have tried to picture in this thread!
