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Best os for G4 350 mhz Agp?

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Reply 20 of 63, by brostenen

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After some testing of different operating systems. I have found OS 9.2.2 to be the one that gives me the most.
Got Quake1 (OpenGL) running at 1024x768 wich lagged a bit. Not much, just slightly.
It is running at 800x600 in millions of colours now. And fluid. Darn' fast machine, as if it was a P3 with Voodoo2.
The gfx card is an Rage128 pro and even Os 9.2.2 reports 2 gigabyte of RAM, When I choose: "About this mac".
So... I am happy for what I have now. A fast retro mac. As I remember mac's from the 90's.
I have installed MS Office 2K1 and some version of Photoshop that came with the machine when it was given to me.

I must say, that even if Mac's are dull compared to what I want with computers (tinkering and having my hands "dirty").
The Mac is a somewhat funny machine. Yes it is locked, yet it has a "personallity" and charme that only Amiga's/C64 have too.
Bottom line is, that I like Mac's. Just that I like IBM clones better, as they permit me to tinker and doo stuff with the
hardware. Something Mac's and Amiga's don't give me the liberty to do.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 21 of 63, by filipetolhuizen

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GLQuake will run a lot better with a faster 3d card. The stock Rage128 Pro is a lot slower compared to the ones you can find for this system. Or you could also try RAVE Quake, which plays a lot faster than GLQuake. Anyway, I would use at least a Radeon 7000 in this system, if gaming is what you want.

Reply 22 of 63, by brostenen

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filipetolhuizen wrote:

GLQuake will run a lot better with a faster 3d card. The stock Rage128 Pro is a lot slower compared to the ones you can find for this system. Or you could also try RAVE Quake, which plays a lot faster than GLQuake. Anyway, I would use at least a Radeon 7000 in this system, if gaming is what you want.

Thanks for the advice, yet the machine is just as I want it right now. No need for me to upgrade anything more.
The machine is as close to the original as possible, just upgraded memory and storage space on it, wich is fine.
If I ever get my hands on a gForce5X series, then I will upgrade it further.
And only if the card is a passive cooled. Right now it is running great, and I am still reading up on GFX flashing.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 24 of 63, by brostenen

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filipetolhuizen wrote:

Remember that the Geforce FX will only work in OS X.

Thanks. That will keep me from making that mistake. 😀

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 25 of 63, by dr.zeissler

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I have a G4-733 but this machine is too loud. I also got a G4-1000 but this was much noiser,
so I went back to the 733er. Is a G4-350 a "silent" machine ?

What about 3dfx, is it a good advice to go for a 3dfx-Card in Order of "lowend" 3D Gaming
under OS9 (no OSX-Drivers for 3dfx-Cards), or is a ATI with RAVE the better Option?

Glide under Windows is far better then anything else for the supported 3dfx-Games.
Unreal looks much better with 3Dfx, then with any other Card.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 26 of 63, by filipetolhuizen

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brostenen wrote:
filipetolhuizen wrote:

Remember that the Geforce FX will only work in OS X.

Thanks. That will keep me from making that mistake. 😀

The fastest OS 9 card is the Geforce 4600ti.

I have a G4-733 but this machine is too loud. I also got a G4-1000 but this was much noiser, so I went back to the 733er. Is a G […]
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I have a G4-733 but this machine is too loud. I also got a G4-1000 but this was much noiser,
so I went back to the 733er. Is a G4-350 a "silent" machine ?

What about 3dfx, is it a good advice to go for a 3dfx-Card in Order of "lowend" 3D Gaming
under OS9 (no OSX-Drivers for 3dfx-Cards), or is a ATI with RAVE the better Option?

Glide under Windows is far better then anything else for the supported 3dfx-Games.
Unreal looks much better with 3Dfx, then with any other Card.

Anything below a Quicksilver is silent. You can also replace the stock cooler in the Quicksilver or MDD. What exactly do you mean by lowend gaming? A Voodoo 3 should work fine in OS 9.

Reply 27 of 63, by dr.zeissler

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PCI or AGP Voodoo3 ? Are there native Mac-Voodoo3's or do I need to flash a PC-Card?
I thought that only the V1/V2 Models were supported by OS9 and therefor no flashing is needed.

Lowend-"3D"-Gaming = 640x480 and below 1Ghz e.g. below 500Mhz.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 28 of 63, by filipetolhuizen

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There are native Mac Voodoo3s. The cards that come in Quicksilver/MDDs and some Digital Audio G4 are better than a Voodoo3. If you have a Sawtooth or Gigabit Ethernet, then a Voodoo3 should be considered a good upgrade. Every G4 since the Sawtooth have an AGP slot, get the AGP version. If you have the later G4s, then it's better keeping the stock card and getting a Voodoo2 or Voodoo Graphics just for Glide instead.

Reply 29 of 63, by bakudd

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The main reason to get a Voodoo card for Mac would be to play 3D games in VirtualPC 3.1 and RealPC. A 1ghz G4 is enough to play 3D games comfortably on VPC when using a Voodoo 2. Mouse support tends to be broken for games in those emulators though... you'll be stuck with keyboard only on many games. I'm not sure if this is an OS 9 flaw or if it also manifests in OS 8.6 as well. Anyway, only Voodoo 1 and 2 cards work in these emulators and only one PCI slot is supported. I would personally like to find an Obsidian2 X-24 card as it is the only way to obtain SLI functionality on the Mac and it would likely work on Virtual PC which would be awesome.

For native Mac gaming you can use a Voodoo 5 for the best framerates. However 3dfx made the V5s unflashable to keep prices for the Mac card up and the Mac V5s are rare. (Mac -> PC flashing works fine, but PC -> Mac requires a hardware mod.) There are a few games which look better in Glide as you have pointed out. For example in UT99 the textures are poor quality and the models have errors in RAVE and OpenGL. There is also a mod which allows you to play the Unreal Mission Pack stages in UT99, and it apparently works quite well on the Mac version (though I haven't personally tried it.) Unfortunately the Mac version of UT99 has an unfixed error where the music cuts out after extended play so you must restart the game every few stages.

Future Cop LAPD and Myth The Fallen Lords are other games that look better in Glide.

There is a wrapper for OS 9 called MacGlide which allows you to use ATI cards, however it is error-prone and your FPS will be slow in Unreal and UT99.

There are also a few problem games. For example Quake 1 requires a Voodoo 1 or 2 for 3D acceleration. Tomb Raider Gold requires a Voodoo 1 to view the movies but in the Tomb Raider Trilogy repack it was updated to work with Voodoo 2. In my experience, Carmageddon has the worst compatibility of all 3dfx Mac games as it only works with the Voodoo 1 and requires a slow (<300 mhz) computer. This has to do with the fact that the developers didn't limit the framerate. As your computer gets faster the delta values of the physics engine become so small that the 32-bit FPU can't store them accurately. So the faster your computer is the more unplayable Carmageddon will be. For example on my 1ghz Powerbook G4 it is completely broken.

Reply 30 of 63, by brostenen

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Nope..... No Voodoo cards for my mac. Not worth it.
As you clearly state. The V5 is way too expensive for what I in reality are getting. And Voodoo3 cards are easy outperformed by eighter geForce3 and 4 cards.
I can get geForce4 cards as low as 8.54 US Dollars and V2 cards are from 22 US Dollars and up. (depends on were I look online)
V5 cards, on the other hand. There is one on ebay right now, think the seller is stating that it is a V5-PCI-Mac edition.
It's in italian, so I can't be shure.
The price is 55 euro (69.95 US Dollars) and 15 euro for shipping (19 US Dollars). And the price is changing (auction).

To bring it back to what I was saying. Is. That Voodoo cards in general, is way too expensive for what it gives.
Shure it's about retro purity and stuff, that people are buying Voodoo cards for. Just... I will only buy at a low price.
The reason is that I can get GF2 and GF4 cards at a much lower price, and they some times outperform V3 cards.
As of today, I am keeping my two V1 cards. Yeah... They are slow. And only because they kickstarted the whole 3D thing.
And because Quake1-GL looks so good on the Rage128Pro-Mac compared to Voodoo2, I am not going to spend more on this mac.
Only when something breaks, I will be buing new stuff for my G4 machine.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 34 of 63, by filipetolhuizen

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dr.zeissler wrote:

a geforce3/4 for mac is very expensive. i never saw cheap mac-editions of gf3/4 cards.

Those are flashable. just follow the guide at http://themacelite.wikidot.com/ and you'll be fine saving some bucks.

Reply 35 of 63, by brostenen

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bakudd wrote:

Interesting that you say GLQuake looks better with a Voodoo 1 than with a Voodoo 2. What do you mean by that? I've only played it using a Voodoo 2 so I can't comment on that...

Who me? I only stated that Rage128pro is the best choice over any Voodoo on G4 Mac's. That if we look at price versus performance.
And that geForce cards are way more cheap than Voodoo cards, and thereby a better choice than Voodoo for G4's at any time.
They are all flasable, and some Voodoo's are not. (V5 cards)

For me, Voodoo cards are for Dos and Windows9X systems. Not G4 Mac's. As I mentioned previously. I keep my V1 cards, just because 3DfX "started" 3D gaming.

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 37 of 63, by brostenen

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bakudd wrote:

Oh, sorry. I completely misread your post. 😅

That is ok. My english is shit anyway. 🙁

Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....

My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen

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Reply 39 of 63, by sliderider

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filipetolhuizen wrote:

Remember that the Geforce FX will only work in OS X.

It will work as a 2D card in MacOS 9, you just won't get 3D acceleration because there are no GeForce FX drivers for MacOS 9 that support it. I think the GeForce 4Ti is the last nVidia card that you can get 3D acceleration out of in MacOS 9.