OSX version recommendations for 2005 eMac?

[peesem]

I recently acquired a 2005 eMac for free (school was gonna throw it out) and it's currently running OSX Leopard 10.5.8. I've heard of the Sorbet Leopard project, and through some searching I've also found Shuriken Tiger. The eMac has a 1.42GHz G4, 80GB HDD and 512MB of RAM (planning to upgrade). What are your recommendations for what I should run? I want to be able to play old games from that era, and maybe RetroArch if I can figure out how to build it.

 

[peesem]

Also, I would prefer to be able to either upgrade or fully replace my current OSX, I've heard that you need another computer to do this with Sorbet Leopard, and I don't know how I would do that (I don't think I have any FireWire cables)

 

[Dronecatcher]

Sorbet is a pre-configured optimised OSX Leopard - anything it offers you can add to Leopard yourself but it does require a little tinkering whereas Sorbet has it already done for you.
You need to establish what it is you want to do that you currently can't and people will help from there?

 

[Doq]

Tiger is the way if you care at all about older gaming titles, but if you plan on emulation (particularly with RetroArch as you mentioned) then you may want Leopard instead. You could probably get away with an older build on Tiger, so perhaps you do this.

My eMac runs OS 9 and Tiger in a dualboot, but my use case is way different from yours.

 

[Ryan Bremer]

Go for Tiger, it still does stuff in 2023

 

[AphoticD]

I use a 1.42GHz Mac mini G4, with 1GB RAM and 80GB HDD partitioned something like;

• 30GB Leopard
• 20GB Tiger
• 10GB Panther
• Remaining ~20GB shared storage

You could compare performance running games across each system to determine which is best for each case.

Panther often surprises me with just how light it feels. App support is not great, but many PowerPC era games ran on Panther just fine.

Personally I would skip the pre-configured community releases, and tinker to my own taste... but feel free to enjoy your eMac however you like!