How does OS X run on G4 450 MHz?

S

SkarMac

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I've been running my G4 450 MHz with OS 9.2.2 for years now with no major problems, but my new Nikon digital camera software requires OS X.1.5 or higher, so I'm thinking it may be time to upgrade to OS X. However, a friend warns me that OS X.4 will barely run on my 450 MHz model and that earlier versions of OS X had too many bugs. She recommends upgrading to a later model G4.

I'm content to keep the current machine, but I want to install an OS that will cause it to crash. Any advice on what operating system would work best with the current Mac and still run the new software?

Thanks a M.
 
I have osx 10.3.9 running on a 450mhz powermac with 512mb of memory and it runs very well.

I use it for digital audio recording and processing using M-Audio pci audio cards.

Memory is important for OSX.

I would recommend at least 256mb or over.
 
My wife's G4/400 (700 meg and change) runs nicely on 10.3.9,
which is probably the most stable of the OSX flavors.
 
I agree, I got OS 10.3.9 working on my dad's G3 Imac. As macosxuser stated, memory is the most important. If you can get your system up to 512mb, you should have no trouble running OSX.
 
10.3 was 10.4 without the gimmicks. it's almost totally bug free at 10.3.9. i would definately reccomend upgrading to it.

you might want to also look into upgrading your graphics card (only slightly) to the point where it supports Quartz Extreme, which is where it offloads a lot of the GUI flashy gubbins to the graphics card, making it feel a lot snappier.
 
The experts have spoken, and (amazingly enough) they agree!

Thank you all for your advice. I'll look for OS 0.3.9 and maybe some more memory.

SkarMac
 
i have 10.4.5 on my 466, with 1g ram, and it runs very well. about the only time i notice slow downs is if i'm trying to open 6 apps at once, or rendering in imovie. but other then that its great. i would not go less then 512mb ram, but do feel that you should max it out for that computer, and then you'll do just fine for a long while.
 
Tiger was faster for me on the iBook (G3 900, 640MB RAM) than Panther was. Same for my cousin's tower (G4 400, 512MB RAM, sawtooth). If you keep the amount of widgets "opened" or "active" in dashboard to a minimum then it should work just fine.
 
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