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Operating System Specific Discussions => MorphOS => MorphOS -- Hardware requirements and availability discussion => Topic started by: mt12345 on March 27, 2011, 11:33:34 PM
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Hi everyone!
I'm going to buy an old powermac g4 (400 mhz, 512 ram,radeon 9xxx) and give MorphOS a try.
What performance should I expect? Will I be able to watch divx movies at fullscreen? And play 3D games ? Would you compare it to running gnome/linux on, let's say, 1ghz pentium3 box?
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400MHz might be a little slow for video playback, but I'll let someone who owns a machine at that speed comment on their own.
All PowerMacs are very, very cheap, though, so I think you'll get the most bang for your buck by picking up one of the later models (1.25GHz or 1.42GHz).
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Hi everyone!
I'm going to buy an old powermac g4 (400 mhz, 512 ram,radeon 9xxx) and give MorphOS a try.
What performance should I expect? Will I be able to watch divx movies at fullscreen? And play 3D games ? Would you compare it to running gnome/linux on, let's say, 1ghz pentium3 box?
Fullscreen or not won't be the issue here, since the video player (mplayer) uses overlay and scaling/stretching is entirely done by gfx card hardware in this case.
As for the codecs & resolution, you can easily play 640x360 h264 on such a machine, and 640x480 divx/xvid as well.
On the other hand DVD playback will be a bit too much (except if done from hard disk), and obviously any more demanding stuff like 720p h264 files and co will be too slow.
As for 3d games, i guess quake3 shouldn't behave too bad. To be checked.
And compared to a gnome/1GHz PIII, well, the PC has a clear advantage about raw cpu power, but the linux UI (gnome in this case) is way less responsive, so i'd say MorphOS would win on the responsivity anyway, but you'll have to try and see for yourself. :)
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400MHz might be a little slow for video playback, but I'll let someone who owns a machine at that speed comment on their own.
All PowerMacs are very, very cheap, though, so I think you'll get the most bang for your buck by picking up one of the later models (1.25GHz or 1.42GHz).
I agree with Matt, don't buy that 400MHz G4 PowerMac, until you shop around, as you can probably find a faster G4 model for the same or less money. I got a Dual 1.25GHz G4 model (the MDD model) for less than $40 and was able to pick it up locally, so I didn't have to pay any shipping either.
The 400MHz model will run MorphOS2.7 okay, but don't expect to playback any video content smoothly.
Shop around.
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And compared to a gnome/1GHz PIII, well, the PC has a clear advantage about raw cpu power, but the linux UI (gnome in this case) is way less responsive, so i'd say MorphOS would win on the responsivity anyway, but you'll have to try and see for yourself. :)
I should rather compare it to fluxbox/linux on 600-700Mhz PC I guess.
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I agree with Matt, don't buy that 400MHz G4 PowerMac, until you shop around, as you can probably find a faster G4 model for the same or less money. I got a Dual 1.25GHz G4 model (the MDD model) for less than $40 and was able to pick it up locally, so I didn't have to pay any shipping either.
The 400MHz model will run MorphOS2.7 okay, but don't expect to playback any video content smoothly.
Shop around.
Yep, I'd agree with both Matt and David. Recently I saw a 733 Powermac sell for $20. That would be about the minimum I'd recommend.
I purchased a 733Mhz Quicksilver model that wasn't supposed to be functional on Ebay for about that much plus S&H. I reseated the processor card and its been working fine since (upgraded later to a 933Mhz processor and now to a 1.8Ghz processor).
You can do better.
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I agree with Matt, don't buy that 400MHz G4 PowerMac, until you shop around, as you can probably find a faster G4 model for the same or less money.
Few years ago I bought Pentium II 300Mhz 256 RAM for £1 just to show my friends that we don't really need 3GHz Pentium4 to do internet, office and even divx playback. I love old, slow and limited computers. There is always something to squeeze out of it. Besides it's challenge. New hardware is boring. :lol:
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I should rather compare it to fluxbox/linux on 600-700Mhz PC I guess.
Rather, compare it to AROS running on that 600 MHz PC and you will get a very good idea of how fast MorphOS will be on a 400 MHz G4.
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Recently I saw a 733 Powermac sell for $20.
Here, in the UK, for $20 you could get merely powermac G3 CASE. And you're lucky if you find PSU inside.
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Here, in the UK, for $20 you could get merely powermac G3 CASE. And you're lucky if you find PSU inside.
I bought a 1.25 GHz G4 eMac with 1GB RAM for £27 on ebay the day MOS was released for that model.
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eMac is bulky and ugly. Not sexy at all. ;)
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Hi everyone!
I'm going to buy an old powermac g4 (400 mhz, 512 ram,radeon 9xxx) and give MorphOS a try.
What performance should I expect? Will I be able to watch divx movies at fullscreen? And play 3D games ? Would you compare it to running gnome/linux on, let's say, 1ghz pentium3 box?
Hi,
Seeing that it is a MAC, darn I hate MACS, don't listen to me.
but
I doubt it would play movies, a 400mhz cpu could barely get out of its way.
It might play some 3d games like doom, heretic, etc.
Didn't know anyone still used 1ghz pentium3 boxes???
smerf
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I doubt it would play movies, a 400mhz cpu could barely get out of its way.
smerf
Depends what kind of movie you play. Even an efika could deal with 360p divx/xvid movies, on MorphOS (forget that on linux :)). And as i said earlier, A 400MHz G4 can deal with 360p H264 (which is typical youtube resolution), and 640*4x0 divx/xvid (typical tv rip stuff).
I could only suggest a 1.25/1.42GHz machine, but don't underestimate what a 400MHz machine can do anyway.
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If you dont use application that need a heavy usage of cpu maybe 400mhz are enough, the bad side of the powermac g4 400mhz is the ati rage.
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If you dont use application that need a heavy usage of cpu maybe 400mhz are enough, the bad side of the powermac g4 400mhz is the ati rage.
I think he mentioned that it had a Radeon 9XXX video card. An ATI Rage128 would be pretty painful (no 3D), but I understand the 2D driver works pretty good.
When compared to an Efika, a 400Mhz Powermac with 512MB of memory would definitely be superior.
And there's always the possibility of adding a CPU accelerator card.
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Yes, I was wondering how efica runs morphos having only 128mb and 400mhz
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Didn't know anyone still used 1ghz pentium3 boxes???
smerf
Well I'm using pentium3 laptop as (headless) router + downloader + file server
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I think he mentioned that it had a Radeon 9XXX video card. An ATI Rage128 would be pretty painful (no 3D), but I understand the 2D driver works pretty good.
When compared to an Efika, a 400Mhz Powermac with 512MB of memory would definitely be superior.
And there's always the possibility of adding a CPU accelerator card.
I'm going to buy Digital Audio model - 533 MHz on faster bus than older 400 Mhz models.
It has Geforce video card. I understand It won't work at all?
I want to change it to Radeon 7000 as it's cheap and easier to find than 9xxx models.
On MOS website Radeon 7000VE is listed as compatible. What is 'VE'? Will standard 7000 (non-VE) work?
(I mean Mac edition, I don't want to flash PC cards).
I'm not actually big fan of 3D games and I used to have R7000 on i386 linux laptop and I was pleased with its performance.
http://www.morphos-team.net/hardware.html
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Forget it. I'll go for 8500/9000 :)
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Forget it. I'll go for 8500/9000 :)
Good pick. :)
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Quote:
Didn't know anyone still used 1ghz pentium3 boxes???
Well I'm using pentium3 laptop as (headless) router + downloader + file server
Currently I'm trying to resurrect Pentium II 400MHz SONY VAIO 10inch notebook :biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh:
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Forget it. I'll go for 8500/9000 :)
Yep, much better performance than the 7000. Right now probably the two best options.
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Well after reading this I am now tempted to try MorphOs. I just won an ebay 1.42 dual G4 so will be tying it soon!
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Well after reading this I am now tempted to try MorphOs. I just won an ebay 1.42 dual G4 so will be tying it soon!
Nice system, I hope you got a good price.
Since trying MorphOS is free, you've got nothing to lose.
What video card is installed in the MDD you bought?
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I got it for $95
Has a Radeon 9000 pro
Looking forward to it
Nice system, I hope you got a good price.
Since trying MorphOS is free, you've got nothing to lose.
What video card is installed in the MDD you bought?
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I got it for $95
Has a Radeon 9000 pro
Looking forward to it
Yep, great price, good video card for MorphOS, you did well.
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I have a 500 MHz "GigaBit Ethernet" PowerMac with R9000. It is magnitude faster than Efika + I have 1152 MB RAM in it instead of 128, which does make a difference :-). Youtube movies play smoothly in overlay mode. I've not tried some higher resolution movies however.
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I just won an ebay 1.42 dual G4 so will be tying it soon!
Does MorphOS make use of dual processor?
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Off topic a bit, but I used to play full screen standard 700mb DVDrips on a 266mhz P2 mobile processor with just 192mb RAM. It did have the Mobility Rage Pro ATI mobile chipset however but this is far inferior to any desktop machine's GPU card in 100s of Mhz CPU speed.
That was with Windows 98.
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Does MorphOS make use of dual processor?
nope
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Off topic a bit, but I used to play full screen standard 700mb DVDrips on a 266mhz P2 mobile processor with just 192mb RAM. It did have the Mobility Rage Pro ATI mobile chipset however but this is far inferior to any desktop machine's GPU card in 100s of Mhz CPU speed.
That was with Windows 98.
I went from my former 400 MHz K6 processor to a nice faster 1GHz Athlon when I saw how it played DVD rips, and you're arguing that a 266 MHz mobile P2 would have been enough? Please don't go on kidding: in order to play movies encoded at decent bitrates without loosing frames, you need power.
On the other hand, my old G3/400 iBook performed enough well with DivX videos, but it skipped frames too. I should remove a little dust from it and try it again...
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I went from my former 400 MHz K6 processor to a nice faster 1GHz Athlon when I saw how it played DVD rips, and you're arguing that a 266 MHz mobile P2 would have been enough?
He said he had a Mobility Rage Pro GPU - it has hardware video decoding support. Makes all the difference.
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He said he had a Mobility Rage Pro GPU - it has hardware video decoding support. Makes all the difference.
Well, I've owned a few Rage 128 pro cards (including a couple of the relatively rare higher clocked ones) and I've got to agree that a 266MHz PII would be pushing it.
It wouldn't take much to see dropped frames on that type of system.
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[Originally Posted by mt12345]
[Forget it. I'll go for 8500/9000]
Yep, much better performance than the 7000. Right now probably the two best options
9000 or 9200?
I heard that 9000 works better but 9200 has 128MB...
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9000 or 9200?
I heard that 9000 works better but 9200 has 128MB...
Identical except the 9200 is an AGP8X part (and therefore is found in PCs and requires flashing and taping pins 3 and 11).
The 9000 is available as a 128MB card too.
The 8500 is faster and with its slower derivative the 8500LE/9100 also has more texture units and vertex shaders.
However, the Apple 8500 only has 64MB so any PC card flashed with an Apple BIOS will also be limited to 64MB (regardless of the built in memory).
Avoid the 9200SE or the 9250 which has a 64bit memory bus and is slower.
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When compared to an Efika, a 400Mhz Powermac with 512MB of memory would definitely be superior.
What is Efika's CPU, actually? I read somewhere that it's comparable to (or based on) 603e.