Dan Knight
- 2007.05.17
Another half dozen readers weigh in on the pros and cons of G3
support in Leopard - and whether Core Image might be such an
important technology that a lot of G4 users will be left out in the
cold. - Tip Jar
The Time of the G3 Is Done?
Tim Larson says:
Dan,
Tell Joseph Burke that if he has any of those B&W G3s that
he thinks can't even be given away, I'd really like to have one. My
main home server is a beige G3/300,
and while the upgrade to a top-end (450
MHz) G3 tower would be noticeable, (to a guy on a shoestring
budget) it isn't worth the $75 I see these things still selling
for.
Tim
World's Fastest G3 Power Mac
Scott Cook writes in response to The Time of the G3 Is Done:
Ha, Mr. Burke just gave me a laugh. I had a 1.1 GHz G3 Yosemite and a 466 MHz G4 Digital Audio sitting side by side. My
Yosemite would run circles around my Digital Audio for everything
except audio/video encoding. For video encoding the G4 was over
twice as fast. For audio encoding the G4 was a little faster. I
mostly do audio/video now, so I just sold the G3 to my friend the
other day and kept the G4.
I used to do a lot of bulk mailing to radio stations from my
huge AppleWorks database. That G3 was by far the fastest computer
I've ever used for doing looong mail merges in AppleWorks, which
isn't AltiVec or multiprocessor aware. The Digital Audio takes at
least twice as long to do the mail merge and create all the print
images so I can address the envelopes.
This has to be the reason God invented computers. I can't even
imagine how they used to do bulk mailing or radio servicing in the
old days. I sold the G3 for $450, by the way. My friend is thrilled
with it so far. I was just talking to him about it today, in fact.
Apparently the world's fastest and (according to Mr. Burke) rarest
G3 is still in demand? ha ha
You don't need to publish this. I just thought you might get a
laugh out of it like I did.
Did I start this G3 on Leopard debate? (laugh) Sorry about that
Dan!
Scott Cook
Reluctant Radio
Thanks for sharing your experience, Scott.
Those who would just as soon see Apple drop G3
support are invariably those who do high-end tasks that need the
horsepower of a G4 or beyond. They fail to recognize that for a lot
of things - the kind of things most of us do most of the time like
email, browsing the Web, and writing - there's no significant
benefit from AltiVec, dual processors, or AGP graphics. CPU speed
and drive speed are more important factors.
So what compelling reason would Apple have for
preventing them from running Leopard and the next versions of Mail
and Safari?
Dan
Scott Cook replies:
I'm sure I needed a G4. I could have continued doing audio work
with my 1,100 MHz G3, but video work was prohibitively slow, even
on short shows. The G4 has truly amazing performance on video
encoding compared to the G3. AltiVec is the difference, of course.
Other than that, they're similar processors.
When encoding video, my 466 MHz G4 was over twice as fast as my
1,100 MHz G3. My 1,100 MHz G3 did everything except
audio/video over twice as fast as my 466 MHz G4, which is right
in line with the difference in processor speed. I did a very
unscientific study encoding audio podcasts one night when I was
bored. I encoded the same one hour MP3 audio podcast on all the
different machines I had available here at that time. This is what
I found:
- 500 MHz G3 = 4.5x
- 600 MHz G3 = 6.5x
- 1,100 MHz G3 = 9.2x
- 466 MHz G4 = 11.4x
- 3,400 MHz P4 = 11.6x
The G3s behaved as I expected. The faster the processor, the
faster they encoded. The G4 and P4 blew me away though. The P4 is
over 7 times as fast as the G4 (clock speed) but just barely
managed to squeak past it. I wasn't expecting that. I remember
hearing people say the G4 was at least 7-8 times faster than the P4
for audio/video, but I confess that I never really believed it
until I did this.
I wished I had the slowest G4, the 350 MHz Power Mac, to test
alongside the fastest G3, the 1,100 MHz PowerLogix upgrade Power
Mac. That would have been fun to see if the slowest G4 could beat
the fastest G3 in audio encoding. Has anyone ever run that test?
I'm quite certain the slowest G4 would beat the fastest G3 real bad
at video encoding, but audio would probably be a good race.
Scott,
Thanks for the additional info. AltiVec indeed
makes a world of difference for audio/video work, but there are
other architectural issues at work as well. The G4 has more
efficient memory access when used on a motherboard that supports
it, which is every G4 Power Mac except for the 350-400 MHz PCI model.
Simple math (350 x 11.4 / 466) estimates a 350 MHz
G4 would score about 8.5x, so the slowest G4 Power Mac would
probably be a bit slower than your 1.1 GHz upgraded G3 - but the
second slowest G4 Power Mac (400 MHz) would probably outperform
it.
As for comparing the G4 and P4, that's a whole
'nother story. There are not only vast architectural differences,
but also different operating systems, different CPU/memory
architectures, different software (iTunes for Mac and iTunes for
Windows may work the same, but under the hood they are different,
and iTunes for Windows may not be nearly as optimized as the Mac
version), and different overall hardware (the PC may have a much
slower hard drive, for instance).
Still, for this particular application, you've
shown the danger of relying on MHz alone to predict how fast a
computer will be: A 466 MHz G4, 3.4 GHz P4, and hypothetical 1.33
GHz G3 would all have about the same encoding speed.
Now imagine how fast a dual 1 GHz G4 system might
be for the same task. And a Power Mac G5/2.5 GHz Quad. And then the
8-core 3 GHz Mac Pro. Of course, at some point you just can't read
and write the files any faster....
Dan
Too Many G3 Macs in Use for Apple to Drop All
Support
Alexander "Sasha" Ivanoff writes:
Dear Dan,
I am a high school student who uses a MacBook Pro. But my mom
still uses an iMac (Summer
2001). Although 10.4 runs a tad bit slow on her iMac, it is
still a reliable workhorse, and some 600/700 iMac G3s still go for
a nice, yet small premium. Many public schools still use iMac G3s
and will continue to do so for the next few years. Also remember
that the iMac G3 sold until March of 2003 and the iBook G3 sold until September of 2003,
which makes them only four years old for the youngest models.
I also strongly oppose Apple's strict requirements for hardware.
I don't see Microsoft restricting which machines can run Vista.
Theoretically you could install Vista Home Premium on an IBM
ThinkPad 600, albeit it would run extremely slow.
I am also hurt that Apple stopped selling the original AirPort
cards in 2004. At-home WiFi was only taking off at that time.
However, some machines are just way past their age, but it would
be cool to see a Blue and White
running 10.5.
That is just my argument, and I still have many of them.
Sincerely,
Alexander "Sasha" Ivanoff
Sasha,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree that
it's too early for Apple to stop supporting Macs they were still
selling in 2003. Let's hope Apple feels the same way.
As for the original AirPort cards, the entire
industry moved away from 802.11b to 802.11g and no Macs made in
2004 supported the original card, so once inventory was depleted,
it made sense for Apple to discontinue it. The downside is that
these cards sell for a premium - often US$70-100 - as they are the
only internal option for those older Macs.
The modern alternative is a WiFi adapter that
plugs into a computer's USB port, most of which don't seem to be
Mac compatible, or the ethernet port, which tend to work with
Windows PCs, Macs, and game consoles.
Google for "wireless ethernet adapter mac" and you should find
several options.
Dan
Best Use of Engineering Resources
Pete Gontier follows up on Leopard's Backward Compatibility:
I should clarify that my main point here is that the effort
involved in offering Leopard for older machines is not just a
matter of clicking a few check-boxes in Xcode. It's a big deal
involving testing and engineering resources which could otherwise
be invested in potentially more profitable activities. Whether this
big deal is worth it to Apple is another question entirely.
I would argue nobody on the outside of the
firewall has numbers good enough to be able to tell Apple what to
do.
I would argue nobody on the outside of the firewall has numbers
good enough to be able to tell Apple what to do. I don't have any
problem with people trying to predict what Apple will do, but I
have to draw the line at "Apple would be stupid not to..." or
"Apple should..." because nobody has better numbers than those
Apple has.
- Pete Gontier
<http://www.pete.gontier.org/>
Pete,
You're right. We're only making educated guesses.
Still, we have every right to call Apple stupid when it does
something stupid - like the firmware block they installed on
existing blue & white G3 Power
Macs to block G4 upgrades and the changes in OS X that
made it incompatible with RAM that had worked perfectly under
OS 9.
Dan
Core Image Hardware Compatibility
Joseph Burke says:
You state in response to my most recent email that 16 MB
graphics cards support Core Image. They do not. My Digital Audio came with an ATI Rage Pro 16
MB card, and when I would click on 'About this Mac' and then video,
it said Core Image, no. When I installed my flashed Radeon 9700, it
said Core Image: yes. Here is the official list of supported cards
from Apple's Core Image page
Hardware Support
ATI and Nvidia logos
When a programmable GPU is present, Core Image
utilizes the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing
the CPU for other tasks. And if you have a high-performance card
with increased video memory (VRAM), you'll find real-time
responsiveness across a wide variety of operations.
Core Image-capable graphics cards include:
- ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
- ATI Radeon 9550, 9650, 9600, 9600 XT, 9800 XT, X800 XT
- Nvidia GeForce FX Go 5200
- Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
- Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, 6800 GT DDL
None of these cards was ever available with less than 64 megs
and some were only available with 128 megs in Mac Edition. There
are no 16 MB video cards that are Core Image capable, onboard or in
a slot. The Radeon 7500 installed on the 900 MHz iBook can't do
it.
I wouldn't count on the Nvidia FX Go5200 or 5200Ultra as being
viable Core Image cards, either. Nvidia touted the 5200 as the only
DX9 compliant chipset in it's price range at one time, but it ran
so slowly that it really wasn't useful for DX9 graphics, even with
256 megs of memory. It was strictly a propaganda move to one up the
Radeon 9200. It probably won't do Core Image well, either. The
Go5200 chipset installed on some Apple machines also uses vampire
video, which will slow performance of those machines attempting to
run Core Image dependent applications even further.
Someone mentioned that the value of G3 machines will plummet if
Apple drops G3 support. Can they plummet any further? You can
already get G3 Power Macs about $50 shipped on eBay, less if you
buy locally. I've already seen them on Freecycle. G3 iMacs aren't
far behind. Only the fastest models are managing to retain any sort
of resale value these days. Snow iBooks can be had for $200-$300,
so most of their depreciating is already done, as well. My advice
to anyone who thinks their G3 may be outdated soon is to grab a G4
Digital Audio, Quicksilver, or a Titanium PowerBook now while the
prices are still falling.
Joseph,
You're right: No 16 MB graphics card supports Core
Image. But you're wrong in claiming I said any did. What I said
was:
"The fastest G3 iMac ran at 700 MHz, and the
fastest iBook at 900 MHz. Each has AGP video with at least 16 MB of
video memory. The iBook G3/900 even has Radeon 7500 graphics on a
2x AGP bus. Yes, it's not supported [emphasis added] by Core
Image, but it works nicely with Tiger, as thousands of users will
attest."
Core Image may be wonderful. I'll never know with
the Radeon 9000 in my dual 1 GHz Power Mac G4. Mac OS X 10.4
runs just fine without Core Image support. For email, browsing the
Web, and writing - the three tasks I do most of the time - there's
no real benefit from Core Image.
Apple has nothing to gain by eliminating any and
all G3 support in Leopard - and a lot of OS X 10.5 sales to
lose if they do.
Dan
Core Image to Determine Leopard
Compatibility
Eytan Bernet writes:
You wrote:
"You make a very important point about testing,
but we can't ignore how sales of Leopard to existing Mac users
impacts Apple. Piper Jaffray estimates that Apple will sell 2.6
million copies of OS X 10.5 during its first quarter and 9
million copies its first year. That points to about 3 million units
sold as upgrades and represents perhaps 20-25% of Mac users who
have compatible hardware.
"There are millions of G3 Macs out there running
Tiger, and the people who upgraded to 10.4 two years ago are likely
candidates to upgrade to Leopard later this year. Apple has to
weigh the income from 1 million more copies of OS X sold
against the cost of testing. I somehow can't imagine them leaving
the bulk of those users behind."
I disagree that the Tiger adoption has been that great for G3s.
Lots of the apps that require Tiger require a G4 or better as well
(the iLife 05 suite, other than iTunes, worked mostly with only G4s
- iLife 06 does not support G3s, Toast 7, let alone 8, etc.)
Add to that, people who don't buy new hardware in that many
years are not about to shell out money on an OS for their aging
hardware. I am sure Apple did the math and realized that for the
number of people who want the G3 support, it is just not worth
it....
Eytan
You wrote:
"Apple would have to deliberately compile the
Leopard installer to prevent it from running on a Mac without a G4
or later CPU and would also have to deliberately compile Leopard
itself to require the presence of a G4 or later to keep hacks like
XPostFacto from working. I can see them doing the first (and hope
they won't), but can't imagine them doing the latter."
I can. So many of Leopard's new features depend on having
vector units for operation. Core
Animation is used throughout Leopard and is an integral part of
the OS. It is nonfunctional without vector units.
Nuff said. I think the wish for Leopard to be supported on G3s
needs to be nixed. Instead of arguing why it should be kept, you
need to argue as to why it should not.
Eytan
Eytan,
We've used Macs productively since 1984 without
computer animation built into the operating system, and as cool as
Core Animation looks, a lot of G4 Macs don't have the processing
power to support it, so Apple would have to raise the bar way
beyond cutting off just G3 Macs.
The question isn't which "whiz bang" technologies
won't run on older Macs, but which essential technologies will.
Core Animation and Core Image are not essentials.
Dan
Etyan responds:
I disagree. Not when core features of the OS (like Time
Machine, for example) need to be rewritten to not use elements
like Core Animation. Core Animation requires a vector unit, OS
features require Core animation.
Etyan,
If you're correct, a lot of G4 owners are going to
be left out in the cold, as lots of older G4 Macs don't have the
graphics processors and video RAM to support Core Image (required
by Core Animation). Here's a list of the oldest Macs that support
Core
Image out of the box:
This eliminates not only all G3 Macs, but all G4
iBooks over two years old, all titanium PowerBooks, first
generation 12" and 17" PowerBooks, and all G4 iMacs except that 17"
and 20" 1.25 GHz model. No G4 Power Macs are supported without a
video card upgrade.
While the rest of us are anticipating that Leopard
may support Macs introduced 4-6 years ago, making Core Image a
required feature would draw the line at 2-4 year old models.
As I've said before, I don't expect Apple to write
off that many Mac users when Leopard ships in October.
Dan
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
