Low End Leopard Performance

[Appleuser201]

I got some questions for those who run Leopard on low end G4 machines or upgraded to G4, G3 machines (under 1ghz)...
I know of people who upgraded beige G3s to leopard by installing a G4 card.

How is overall performance on a low end G4 doing daily tasks such as web browsing (leopard webkit, arctic fox)
and how does YouTube perform on your low end G4 using webkit? (i have seen it run okay at 1ghz)
Is the OS generally fluid and stable and most importantly.. usable?
I like seeing OS's running on unsupported hardware.

 

[z970]

I've tried Leopard WebKit on my 800mhz iMac G4 before.

From what I recall, it's usable, though not as fast as you'd think, given that it's WebKit. The rest of the system was doable, but still on the slow side.

It all depends on how much patience you've got. From years of using PPCs, I've got droves.

 

[Appleuser201]

I've tried Leopard WebKit on my 800mhz iMac G4 before.

From what I recall, it's usable, though not as fast as you'd think, given that it's WebKit. The rest of the system was doable, but still on the slow side.

It all depends on how much patience you've got. From years of using PPCs, I've got droves.

Is the Youtube performance at 360p watchable without too many dropped frames?
As for the rest of the browsing, ive got patience from years of using android devices.

 

[z970]

Is the Youtube performance at 360p watchable without too many dropped frames?
As for the rest of the browsing, ive got patience from years of using android devices.

I don't think I tried, though I wouldn't count on it, considering relative video performance on stronger machines.

It's in pieces now awaiting a complete overhaul, so I couldn't test.

 

[Appleuser201]

I don't think I tried, though I wouldn't count on it, considering relative video performance on stronger machines.

It's in pieces now awaiting a complete overhaul, so I couldn't test.

I'm looking for a reason to ditch webkit anyways... (we have TenFiveTube for youtube) Im hoping to make Arctic Fox and Iceweasel my main browsers soon enough. Webkit hasn't had an update in 1 year, it's safe to assume it's pretty much abandonware. Plus it's kind of unstable. I love arctic fox I wanna see where it goes.

 

[z970]

Webkit hasn't had an update in 1 year, it's safe to assume it's pretty much abandonware.

...I'd give it two.

Try combining Iceweasel with the Universal Ultimate Prefs. See how fast it gets.

 

[Appleuser201]

...I'd give it two.

Try combining Iceweasel with the Universal Ultimate Prefs. See how fast it gets.

It's funny, it's been nearly 15 years since any PPC Mac has been sold... But we can only expect things to get better and better for these old macs. Great things for PowerPC are all happening all at once! MintPPC Linux, arctic fox ported to OS X, new YouTube solutions for Tiger, Linux and openbsd. As well as ten4trim, ten5trim and the newest Firefox Quantum working on 64bit Linux (32 bit version in the process of being ported. Who knows what 2020 has in store for our beloved macs.

 

[z970]

It's funny, it's been nearly 15 years since any PPC Mac has been sold... But we can only expect things to get better and better for these old macs. Great things for PowerPC are all happening all at once! MintPPC Linux, arctic fox ported to OS X, new YouTube solutions for Tiger, Linux and openbsd. As well as ten4trim, ten5trim and the newest Firefox Quantum working on 64bit Linux (32 bit version in the process of being ported. Who knows what 2020 has in store for our beloved macs.

As far as I'm concerned, the whole industry is really looking up. ARM support & development is on the rise, POWER support & development is growing (thanks in large part to RaptorCS), RISC-V is making great strides, people are looking increasingly down on their security-compromised, hot-running, energy-guzzling Intel CPUs, people are rapidly growing more aggravated with Windows 10's BS (Windows 7's fast approaching EOL is no help to their plight), and digital privacy is getting a hotter topic by the month, with digital security being right on its heels.

As icing on the cake, free and open-source software is just getting better and better.

For a multitude of reasons, I think I'm gonna like the 20's.*

*Providing no governmental idiots declare war and send all of us spiraling off into hell, of course.

 

[KawaiiAurora]

I got some questions for those who run Leopard on low end G4 machines or upgraded to G4, G3 machines (under 1ghz)...
I know of people who upgraded beige G3s to leopard by installing a G4 card.

How is overall performance on a low end G4 doing daily tasks such as web browsing (leopard webkit, arctic fox)
and how does YouTube perform on your low end G4 using webkit? (i have seen it run okay at 1ghz)
Is the OS generally fluid and stable and most importantly.. usable?
I like seeing OS's running on unsupported hardware.

I own a PowerBook G4 17” 1GHz (Aluminium) and my experience with OS X Leopard is pretty good. Provided you have some patience and blocks ads via HOSTS, browsing works pretty well on Leopard WebKit (I’m aware it’s a tad old but it’s not like I’m trusting it with my banking details). Some tips I’ll share to make the experience better are:

* Put in 1.5/2GB RAM if you plan on doing some degree of multitasking
* Use ShadowKiller to remove shadows - this helps a lot
* Use the 2D dock rather than the 3D one - It’s not as pretty but it makes animations work much better
* Disable Dashboard unless you’re using it
* Use CorePlayer for any video needs
* Install a Core Image-capable graphics card if possible

As for 360p YouTube, it runs very well on my PowerBook but I feel like it uses every ounce of power so an 800MHz might not cut it. That being said, downloading 480p and even 720p clips and play them with CorePlayer might be a better way to go.

 

[Hrududu]

I've got a few machines running Leopard that are under the official spec. A 500MHz Cube, 500MHz TiBook, and both VGA and DVI 667MHz Tibooks. On the 500MHz machines, the Cube is a better experience with a Radeon 7500 + 1.5GB of RAM. The 500MHz TiBook's downfall is primarily the graphics card. The 667MHz Tibooks are much better with the DVI model being quite good. The Radeon 7500 coupled with the 1MB of L3 cache help quite a bit.

 

[Appleuser201]

I've got a few machines running Leopard that are under the official spec. A 500MHz Cube, 500MHz TiBook, and both VGA and DVI 667MHz Tibooks. On the 500MHz machines, the Cube is a better experience with a Radeon 7500 + 1.5GB of RAM. The 500MHz TiBook's downfall is primarily the graphics card. The 667MHz Tibooks are much better with the DVI model being quite good. The Radeon 7500 coupled with the 1MB of L3 cache help quite a bit.

Could you try webkit desktop youtube on any of them?

 

[Hrududu]

On the 667MHz TiBooks (I have a recent upload playing on my 667MHz VGA right now), YouTube through LeopardWebkit is just fine. Some dropped frames, but absolutely watchable. Haven't tried it on a 500MHz system in a hot minute, but as I recall it was pretty bad. Older SD videos typically don't cause any issue. Right now I pulled up an iPhone 11 Pro review uploaded this month to see how a new video looks, and its not bad. Once the ad is over and the comments/up next bar loads, there really isn't any problem watching at all at 360p.

 

[Appleuser201]

On the 667MHz TiBooks (I have a recent upload playing on my 667MHz VGA right now), YouTube through LeopardWebkit is just fine. Some dropped frames, but absolutely watchable. Haven't tried it on a 500MHz system in a hot minute, but as I recall it was pretty bad. Older SD videos typically don't cause any issue. Right now I pulled up an iPhone 11 Pro review uploaded this month to see how a new video looks, and its not bad. Once the ad is over and the comments/up next bar loads, there really isn't any problem watching at all at 360p.

I found when watching youtube, dont be messing around in the comments or clicking anything else on screen and the video will play fine. Im shocked it works fine on at 667mhz!

 

[z970]

I found when watching youtube, dont be messing around in the comments or clicking anything else on screen and the video will play fine. Im shocked it works fine on at 667mhz!

All the more reason to use Tonvid over mYouTube. Far lighterweight, with not as many scripts going about.

I've also found performance to be slightly better with Autoplay / Annotations off. Of course, pausing, going into the settings menu, and choosing a set resolution also buys you some buffering time as well.

That's why I'm in favor of the 'pause, switch, set' method of watching video, on basically any machine I'm on.

 

[z970]

* Disable Dashboard unless you’re using it

Not launching Dashboard yields the same effect as disabling it.

 

[Raging Dufus]

Not launching Dashboard yields the same effect as disabling it.

There's also DashQuit, a nifty little widget that kills Dashboard when you don't need it. I use it on all my lower-spec Macs, it works just like it says.

 

[z970]

There's also DashQuit, a nifty little widget that kills Dashboard when you don't need it. I use it on all my lower-spec Macs, it works just like it says.

That's an absolute essential for any Dashboard use at all. Great little widget.

 

[Project Alice]

Leopard for me is great on low end G4s. The thing that makes the most difference is having a decent graphics chip.
For example, my G4 upgraded Pismo (thanks dosdude1) has a rage 128, which doesn't have Core Image, or Quartz Extreme. Leopard does not run very well on it. It can handle everything just as well as Tiger for most part but the sluggish UI makes it seem slower than it is.

I have a Mystic G4, dual 500Mhz (previous setup was identical in a sawtooth with a dual 450Mhz before I found the mystic) SATA card with probably a combined total of 2TB of storage, 2GB of ram, and it has a Geforce 6200 GPU. Leopard flies on it. It's got Tiger installed on one of the other drives but I seldom use it. The GF6200 is full QE/CI.
Similar story with my B&W. It's a G4 550Mhz, 1GB ram and a Geforce 5200. Leopard runs very well on it. The boot drive in it is running off an ATA133 card.

I also have a G4 Cube that runs Leopard. It's mostly maxed out as much as I can afford. 500Mhz, 1.5GB ram. It has a Radeon 7500 in it. The 7500 does not have Core Image, but it does have QE. I have had zero problems running Leopard on it and I find it quite smooth. When it had the factory Rage 128 you'd think it was a completely different computer.

I'm one of the few that stick Leopard on everything I can. Contrary to popular belief it is not slower than Tiger. It is a very modern OS even by todays standards. It uses a bit more memory, but thats really it. I've never boarded the "Leopard is slower than Tiger bandwagon" because frankly it's just false.

Playing YouTube on any PPC mac is chore, even on a G5. This is because youtube is utter garbage and our older operating systems have basically zero browser support. Youtube runs like crap on my Windows 7 based 2.6Ghz Pentium 4 IBM PC. It obviously has a modern browser, but youtube still sucks on it. If you're trying to play it in-browser, unless you've got a G5 I suggest you stop. The only reliable way I've found is to download the youtube video and play it in VLC or coreplayer. I'm able to play it in 1080 on my 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4 (smoothly) that way, and 720 on the Mystic G4 plays okay.

 

[z970]

Playing YouTube on any PPC mac is chore, even on a G5. This is because youtube is utte garbage and our older operating systems have basically zero browser support. Youtube runs like crap on my Windows 7 based 2.6Ghz Pentium 4 IBM PC. It obviously has a modern browser, but youtube still sucks on it.

Which is all the more reason we should all be switching to Tonvid...

It's a win-win-win. We get to keep the same vast libraries of content YouTube already had without switching to a new platform altogether, Google doesn't get money from our traffic and viewership, and Tonvid doesn't take anywhere near the same resources to load desktop YouTube. Thus, enabling usage on a much broader range of machines than previously allowed.

This stuff should be a no-brainer.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Playing YouTube on any PPC mac is chore, even on a G5. This is because youtube is utter garbage and our older operating systems have basically zero browser support. Youtube runs like crap on my Windows 7 based 2.6Ghz Pentium 4 IBM PC. It obviously has a modern browser, but youtube still sucks on it. If you're trying to play it in-browser, unless you've got a G5 I suggest you stop. The only reliable way I've found is to download the youtube video and play it in VLC or coreplayer. I'm able to play it in 1080 on my 1.5Ghz PowerBook G4 (smoothly) that way, and 720 on the Mystic G4 plays okay.

This paragraph suggests to me you haven't used Youtube on PPC for a long time. Any 1GHz plus machine with Leopard/QuickTime 7.7 can watch it in browser with Webkit - then there's YewtubePPC and various other alternatives for lower spec machines down to a G3.
You say you can download and watch 1080P on your Powerbook but Youtube hasn't supplied 1080P mp4 for a few years now - 1080P is supplied as webm and without sound - so you'd have to download video along with the sound file and then mux them together.

 

[Project Alice]

This paragraph suggests to me you haven't used Youtube on PPC for a long time. Any 1GHz plus machine with Leopard/QuickTime 7.7 can watch it in browser with Webkit - then there's YewtubePPC and various other alternatives for lower spec machines down to a G3.
You say you can download and watch 1080P on your Powerbook but Youtube hasn't supplied 1080P mp4 for a few years now - 1080P is supplied as webm and without sound - so you'd have to download video along with the sound file and then mux them together.

False.
I know all about that. And I've been doing this for years. Youtube in webkit is useless for a couple reasons. First, it won't enter full screen. Secondly it limits at 720 and doesn't handle it well. If I'm taking the time to watch something on youtube it better be in full screen.

Using this website, 1080 videos download directly as MP4, audio and all. I don't often play youtube on PPC but I've downloaded a few random videos from there just to say I could.

Also, If I download a 1080 video on my Mac Pro using one of the firefox extentions, it also downloads directly as MP4 too. So either both the extention I use and the linked webpage does the conversion themselves (which is entirely possible and probably likely), or youtube supplies MP4. Now 4K on the other hand does not. I have yet to find a simple way to download that. Realistaclly I watch youtube on my mac pro or my phone. But I've done it, exactly as I said above on PPC macs just to prove I could.

Edit: It's been a few months since I used that linked website. At this time, I can't get it to download anything, including a video I've used to test before (the Star Trek Picard trailer).

However, I figured out the my firefox addon does indeed parse the audio and video automatically if it's streamed separately.

 

[Dronecatcher]

False.
I know all about that. And I've been doing this for years. Youtube in webkit is useless for a couple reasons. First, it won't enter full screen. Secondly it limits at 720 and doesn't handle it well. If I'm taking the time to watch something on youtube it better be in full screen.

Ok, Youtube download sites do the heavy lifting for you - they also do the same with low res video that is available as separate files and obviously you are talking about personal preferences regarding full screen - that's not the same as saying available methods are "unreliable."

 

[Project Alice]

Ok, Youtube download sites do the heavy lifting for you - they also do the same with low res video that is available as separate files and obviously you are talking about personal preferences regarding full screen - that's not the same as saying available methods are "unreliable."

I didn’t say they were unreliable. I said the method I use is easier and more worthwhile

The entire point of what we do in the PPC community is to make these old systems work for us. What you prefer might not be the best way for me or vice versa. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Youtube is not the end all be all for computing; especially “vintage” computers. There are far better things to do.

These forums have many helpful ways to do things on PPC macs. And many different ways to do those things. Some people may prefer others. What works for you is great.

if I choose to take an extra minute downloading the file to watch it full screen and let the hardware render the video instead of dedicating all the resources to running a bloated interface on a browser that already uses probably 20% of those resources just by running... I’m not wrong by doing that. We’re all free to choose which way works best for us.

 

[Dronecatcher]

I didn’t say they were unreliable. I said the method I use is easier and more worthwhile

Quote, "The only reliable way I've found is to download the youtube video and play it in VLC or coreplayer."

And this wasn't a discussion about whether or not, "Youtube is not the end all be all for computing," I simply addressed your statement of, "If you're trying to play it in-browser, unless you've got a G5 I suggest you stop."

I do this for accuracy to counter misleading information.

 

[Appleuser201]

Quote, "The only reliable way I've found is to download the youtube video and play it in VLC or coreplayer."

And this wasn't a discussion about whether or not, "Youtube is not the end all be all for computing," I simply addressed your statement of, "If you're trying to play it in-browser, unless you've got a G5 I suggest you stop."

I do this for accuracy to counter misleading information.

I thought there was a way to play youtube full screen in webkit by using the Safari 11 UA? the older UA's in webkit won't allow certain features like full screen. I can't remember where to find switch UA's but I've known other people who have watched youtube in fullscreen using webkit, including the user MrPilot on here who claimed to do it perfectly at just 1ghz.