I'm not a mac guy but got a G4 MDD few years ago for gaming.
I knew it had OS9 compatibility mode, didn't know you could dual boot between the 2 with a 2nd HDD/partition so that's my first recommendation.

I haven't actually got around to installing any games but this list is good place to start.
Which games are better on a Macintosh?

no, don't use gf2mx! stick to the rage128, it's a fantastic card. It's supported on various apps like "geomame".
you can also use morphos with the ati, with nvidia no support on morphos.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-01-15, 10:00:

I'm not a mac guy but got a G4 MDD few years ago for gaming. I knew it had OS9 compatibility mode, didn't know you could dual bo […]
Show full quote

I'm not a mac guy but got a G4 MDD few years ago for gaming.
I knew it had OS9 compatibility mode, didn't know you could dual boot between the 2 with a 2nd HDD/partition so that's my first recommendation.

I haven't actually got around to installing any games but this list is good place to start.
Which games are better on a Macintosh?

Awesome! Looking at the list of games now, thank you.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-01-15, 11:28:

no, don't use gf2mx! stick to the rage128, it's a fantastic card. It's supported on various apps like "geomame".
you can also use morphos with the ati, with nvidia no support on morphos.

Hmm.

Well the rage128 is pretty shite, at 1280x1024 some of the animations in OS-X like bringing up the dashboard lag on it. It's fine if I knock it down to 1024x768 but the screen I'm using for now is native 1280x1024.

Are you talking an Mac specific version of MAME when you mention geomame? If so that will never be run on this machine, I have a dedicated PC I use for all my emulation. Is MorphOS worth switching to from OS X?

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-01-15, 11:28:

no, don't use gf2mx! stick to the rage128, it's a fantastic card. It's supported on various apps like "geomame".
you can also use morphos with the ati, with nvidia no support on morphos.

I second this.

Here's some pics, I've also added a 4 port USB 2.0 card to have a more usable amount of ports.

Yes geomame is an old version of mame that runs on 9.04 which is my OS on the cube.
The r128 plugin works fine for fullscreen and look pretty nice on my 15" ADC monitor.

Morphos has some fantastic amiga-demos. You should check them out.
Go for 15" TFT and use 1024x768 for Desktop and 640x480 for games.

dr.zeissler wrote on 2021-01-15, 23:17:

Yes geomame is an old version of mame that runs on 9.04 which is my OS on the cube. The r128 plugin works fine for fullscreen an […]
Show full quote

Yes geomame is an old version of mame that runs on 9.04 which is my OS on the cube.
The r128 plugin works fine for fullscreen and look pretty nice on my 15" ADC monitor.

Morphos has some fantastic amiga-demos. You should check them out.
Go for 15" TFT and use 1024x768 for Desktop and 640x480 for games.

I'm really not much for the demo scene, I am going to try some old Mac games eventually though. As for the screen, the one I'm using is the smallest one I have and if anything I'm going to go larger, 15" is way too small for me these days.

If you're going to want to play games from this era of Mac I'd definitely recommend a graphics card upgrade. I'm saying this as someone who struggled with Quake 3 + mods performance on my ATI Rage 128 Pro 450 MHz G4 Cube back in the day. Since you've got the full-size PowerMac tower form factor, you'll have a great range of AGP video cards at your disposal. I recommend sticking to MacOS 9.2.2. and moving to an SSD if you're going to install MacOS 10.4/5. Video card selection will need to take into consideration the operating system, as the latest MacOS 9.2.2 will support is a Radeon 9200 or a Geforce 4 Ti (Mac versions of course). A good resource for compatibility are the forums at http://macos9lives.com/

Edit: Additional tips: Dual boot into MacOS X 10.4 (if you have to) but don't use its Classic mode (MacOS 9 running from within MacOS X); it's sluggish and nowhere near as satisfying as a native boot into MacOS 9. If you're going to use MacOS X, upgrade your CF card to a modern SATA SSD and use a SATA->PATA/IDE adapter as MacOS X is IO heavy. For a list of flashable PC video cards, check out this page: http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2
Edit2: Install MacOS 9.2.2 via the "2013" edition, it will include up-to-date drivers for a lot of things (USB, video, etc.) https://www.macintoshrepository.org/126-mac-o … 9lives-edition-

umamibeef wrote on 2021-01-16, 00:07:

If you're going to want to play games from this era of Mac I'd definitely recommend a graphics card upgrade. I'm saying this as someone who struggled with Quake 3 + mods performance on my ATI Rage 128 Pro 450 MHz G4 Cube back in the day. Since you've got the full-size PowerMac tower form factor, you'll have a great range of AGP video cards at your disposal. I recommend sticking to MacOS 9.2.2. and moving to an SSD if you're going to install MacOS 10.4/5. Video card selection will need to take into consideration the operating system, as the latest MacOS 9.2.2 will support is a Radeon 9200 or a Geforce 4 Ti (Mac versions of course). A good resource for compatibility are the forums at http://macos9lives.com/

Edit: Additional tips: Dual boot into MacOS X 10.4 (if you have to) but don't use its Classic mode (MacOS 9 running from within MacOS X); it's sluggish and nowhere near as satisfying as a native boot into MacOS 9. If you're going to use MacOS X, upgrade your CF card to a modern SATA SSD and use a SATA->PATA/IDE adapter as MacOS X is IO heavy. For a list of flashable PC video cards, check out this page: http://themacelite.wikidot.com/wikidownloads2
Edit2: Install MacOS 9.2.2 via the "2013" edition, it will include up-to-date drivers for a lot of things (USB, video, etc.) https://www.macintoshrepository.org/126-mac-o … 9lives-edition-

This is interesting info, thank you! I’m definitely going to read up on how to dual boot with OS 9 and the graphics card info is much appreciated.

So far moving around OS X on the CF card is pretty reasonably quick, I’ll probably just leave that for now, also I already had those parts so it was a free upgrade from the turd hard drive it came with.

The thing that worries me about OS X running off of the CF card is that it's very IO intensive (due to virtual memory and paging), so you might see the CF card wear out pretty quickly. Modern SSDs are pretty good about endurance with controllers that effectively wear the non-volatile memory.

Play solitaire on it.

umamibeef wrote on 2021-01-16, 03:08:

The thing that worries me about OS X running off of the CF card is that it's very IO intensive (due to virtual memory and paging), so you might see the CF card wear out pretty quickly. Modern SSDs are pretty good about endurance with controllers that effectively wear the non-volatile memory.

Good points for sure, when the CF card dies I'll replace it with something else. These days I do try to limit my spending on these old machines a bit more, so the priorities right now are a new battery for the motherboard and a better graphics card.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-01-16, 03:22:

Play solitaire on it.

Brought this to mind.

For Q3 and games that used that engine, it's too slow. Thats right. If you would use it as an OS9 machine, go for a 3dfx-voodoo card. Use a V3-3000 PC-card (PCI) and flash the Bios. Then you can use excellent fast 2D and OpenGL/RAVE/Glide 😀

Well I installed some more ram in the G4 today and when I opened the side I found something a but surprising. I figured the clearance between the CF card and the bottom of the case was tight but I think it was a little too tight, clearly some pressure was being applied to the socket and it broke right off the CF adapter. 😁 So now I have a G4 with 1.5GB of ram and for now no internal storage.

So I've ordered an el-cheapo CF card adapter that stands up vertically from the ide port to replace this one, also I think I might go with a Mac compatible Geforce 6200 agp card for a decent graphics upgrade.

Cool machine, reminds me of my own G4.
Upgraded it to ~1GB RAM, added Dual-CPU board, Voodoo 2 and a flashed Geforce 2MX or 4MX (I forgot).
Currently, it runs Tiger and OS9 nicely. On an old Deathstar HDD..
OS9 also ran via CF card a few times, too.
Leopard also ran fine on an SSD via SATA-CF converter. Thanks to XPostFacto..
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM_rzw6WcXib … search?query=G4

Edit: Some manga artist also used that other MDD model for his works.
Re: What recent hardware has the best chance of becoming "retro" in the future?

I posted this question to Apple community forum once.

"I Purchased an Apple computer Now what am I suppose to do with it ?"

I did not get much in replies only that "what ever I want."

Steve Jobs said "What Apple is is a computer to bring together the worlds people to solve world problems. "
Video: https://youtu.be/5zqrR93eO-8?t=351

I have not seen a computer manual yet that tells you exactly what you are suppose to be doing with a computer.

But there are allot of MacOS games on ebay for old Macs.
and online.

Get your old Mac online an download some games.
Allot of PC games are on Mac too.

Nice. How do we know which GPU's support the ADC powered monitor on this generation Mac? I heard there are different pin assignments on the later graphics cards. I want to retain my CRT studio display yet still upgrade the GPU. (it is only powered by the ADC port on the video card)

Edit, nevermind.. It appears Apple makes a DVI to ADC adapter for this which integrates an AC adapter inverter. I didn't realize this device existed haha. Time to go shopping. 😁

Edit 2: Well, after more reading, it appears the DVI to ADC adapters only work with the Apple Cinema LCD's and don't supply enough power for the CRT (also no analog video passthrough).. so back to square one to figure out what graphics card would be best for this. It looks like the ATI Radeon 9000 Mac Edition might be the last/best card to work with the ADC CRT display natively. Other newer cards are AGP 4x/8x compatible and require disabling pins on the slot interface which kill ADC power support for the CRT.

wiretap wrote on 2021-01-28, 11:37:

Nice. How do we know which GPU's support the ADC powered monitor on this generation Mac? I heard there are different pin assignments on the later graphics cards. I want to retain my CRT studio display yet still upgrade the GPU. (it is only powered by the ADC port on the video card)

Edit, nevermind.. It appears Apple makes a DVI to ADC adapter for this which integrates an AC adapter inverter. I didn't realize this device existed haha. Time to go shopping. 😁

Edit 2: Well, after more reading, it appears the DVI to ADC adapters only work with the Apple Cinema LCD's and don't supply enough power for the CRT (also no analog video passthrough).. so back to square one to figure out what graphics card would be best for this. It looks like the ATI Radeon 9000 Mac Edition might be the last/best card to work with the ADC CRT display natively. Other newer cards are AGP 4x/8x compatible and require disabling pins on the slot interface which kill ADC power support for the CRT.

No idea about that ADC stuff, the graphics card in this Mac has VGA and DVI and I doubt I'll ever buy any screens with that weird ADC connector.

Run some Unreal and Q3 benchmarks and compare them to a Pentium 3!

Apple kept touting how PowerPC is superior, but actual direct benchmark comparisons are a rarity.