how will my g4 733 w/384mb ram perform?

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terush142

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i just found a great deal on a used powermac "quicksilver" g4 733mhz with 384mb of ram. i pulled the trigger and my 1st ever mac is on the way! ive read a lot about people saying OS X needs a lot of ram, ive even seen people claim 1gb to run smoothly.

i really cant afford to buy a stick of ram at the moment so im wondering how well my new mac will perform "out of the box"

ill mainly be doing web browsing email IM and irc although i would also like to try reason or maybe ableton live to do a bit of music work. anyways thanks again any tips or suggestions are welcome!
 
384 is sufficient for running OSX and web browsing, listening to music, chatting, etc, but I would highly recommend at the least 512mb. If you're going to do media work, it would be best to max it out. I know that maxing out your ram may not be possible right now, but at least get in there are much as you can. 768mb is a good place to be at(that's how much is in my G4 iBook), I run Photoshop CS2 and work with 50mb+ TIFF images and everything runs smoothly for me.
 
I've run Panther on older G4 systems with Panther and Tiger and they had 256 MB. Personally, I thought they still ran quite well (as well as they can on those older Sawtooth G4 towers with that much memory). I would definitely upgrade if all you had was 128 MB (which some iMacs have at the school I work at...tend to lag a lot). I would say 256 Mb would be your bare minimum if all you wanted to do was browse the web and do some light data processing with pictures, text, etc. Of course, the more memory, the better.

For the record, I have an iMac G5 with only the 512 MB that came with it, and it's quite snappy for me. Of course, the 2 GHz PPC970 also makes a difference. :p But I think you'll be OK for now.
 
As for music work, if you are going to be sequencing with GarageBand you'll be OK. Any type of digital audio, however, will most likely require more memory, as well as probably more storage space.
 
cool guys thanks for the quick replies im gonna get a 512mb chip to slap in there asap although money is pretty tight so its nice to know ill be able to enjoy the experience without it! thanks!

been getting into linux lately and was thinking i might have to install a ppc flavor on here until i could afford and upgrade.
 
I have a G4 733 Quicksilver with 640 megs of ram.

It's enough ram, but the speed leaves something to be desired. OS X won't feel nearly as responsive as you'd like.

As far as linux goes, you'll be blown away. To the point of anger :)
 
mixed signals! i geuss ill just have to wait and see how i like it.
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i do hear linux is a pain in the rear to get going on ppc so heres to hoping im satisfied with OS X performace :)
 
I would have to disagree with the naysayers on Linux/ppc. I have installed Linux on New World Macs without any problems. The only issues you'll have are software support. Linux/x86 has much more support than does Linux/ppc currently. But it's not as bad as others are making it out to be.

The only time it gets difficult is if you're installing on Old World Macs, which are all PowerPC Macs up to the beige G3 on desktops and the WallStreet II series of PowerBooks. You can get it installed, but it requires more work than on New World Macs (which are any PowerPC Macs released after the ones I mentioned).

I recommend trying out Ubuntu Linux if you like Gnome or Kubuntu if you prefer KDE. If you're used to Fedora (Red Hat) on the x86 side, Fedora Core 4 now has PPC support. Then there's the old tried-and-true Yellow Dog Linux. You might also want to try Debian with it's new installer, but Ubuntu is a bit more friendlier than Debian. (Even though Debian's new installer is the same one used on Ubuntu. Ubuntu, btw, is based on Debian but for desktop users).

Regardless, on new Macs like that I would stick with OS X because of the better software support. Increasing the memory and getting PCI expansion cards should make the OS X experience much better for you. :)
 
terush142 said:
i just found a great deal on a used powermac "quicksilver" g4 733mhz with 384mb of ram. i pulled the trigger and my 1st ever mac is on the way! ive read a lot about people saying OS X needs a lot of ram, ive even seen people claim 1gb to run smoothly.

i really cant afford to buy a stick of ram at the moment so im wondering how well my new mac will perform "out of the box"

ill mainly be doing web browsing email IM and irc although i would also like to try reason or maybe ableton live to do a bit of music work. anyways thanks again any tips or suggestions are welcome!
Click to expand...

If you got a great deal than 2 gb of ram should probably cost as much as the computer... 2gb rocks
 
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