OS X, AltiVec, and G4 Upgrade Card |
September, 25, 2003 9:43 PM |
frankbendrick |
When I first installed OS X 10.2.3 on my PPC 8600, the machine had been upgraded with a G3 card. I am now up to 10.2.6 and I have recently replaced the G3 with a G4. Somewhere in the back of I mind I seem to recall reading that the OS X installer only installs the AltiVec software if it detects a G4 processor. Hence, I assume that the AltiVec s/w has not been installed on my 8600. This assumption is given credence by the fact that although the machine is generally faster and snappier, I have not seen the speed improvement on the graphics side that I had expected. There must be a way to get the AltiVec s/w loaded on my machine without going through the agony of a clean install. Any help that any of you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Frank Bendrick |
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ext. DVD Patch 10.2 |
September, 27, 2003 10:47 AM |
lyonsdj88 |
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http://www.macmagna.net/public/MBToolKit.sit ............::::::::::::::: I too get choppy DVD PlayBack in 10.2 only hope 10.3 fixes this. |
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RE: OS X, AltiVec, and G4 Upgrade Card |
September, 27, 2003 12:56 AM |
chibi_delenn |
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DVD used to be find for my using my Pioneer DVD-106S internal IDE DVD-ROM drive in 10.1.x, but as soon as I upgraded to shaguar, the DVD was choppy as hell. No difference at all with QE "enabled". Real frustrating. Even though the G4 does bring in Altivec to the DVD player, it's just not smooth, at all. Skips galore. 10.1.x was smoother than OS 9's DVD player even! For shame Apple! - Chibi Delennâ„¢ |
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RE: OS X, AltiVec, and G4 Upgrade Card |
September, 26, 2003 5:16 PM |
jseibyl |
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"Right now I am stumped, waitng for an "ah-ha" moment." yeah, me too. BTW, you have that patch for os9 and external DVD players?? I have a Pioneer A03 firewire. Runs great for burning in X and 9, but no DVD in 9. Plese email me the link, or info...THANKS....I would appreciate that. I do my major video editing in 9 still, and I most certainly agree. As much as I love Jag, it still falls short on video when using these machines. |
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RE: OS X, AltiVec, and G4 Upgrade Card |
September, 26, 2003 4:57 PM |
frankbendrick |
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I do have a Radeon 7000 card with the latest firmware and drivers. I have considered PCI Extreme, but decided against it because of the developer note that under heavy load, performance falls off drastically rather than improving. That has kept me away because, as you said, DVD puts a pretty heavy load on the system. Under other conditions, all seems well. I have run the AltiVecFractalDemo, and I get numbers in excess of 2K with AltiVec enabled and around 200 when AltiVec is disabled. I have OS 9.2.8 loaded on another partition. I have patched the Apple DVD Player so that it recognizes the firewire DVD player. Under OS 9 the DVD works like a champ. No dropped frames, no skips, fine synchroniztion between the audio and the video. DVD under OS 9 was running ok even with a G3 and before AltiVec and the Radeon card. The way I look at it, OS X should be at least as good if not better. Right now I am stumped, waitng for an "ah-ha" moment. Regards, Frank Bendrick |
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RE: OS X, AltiVec, and G4 Upgrade Card |
September, 26, 2003 3:08 PM |
jseibyl |
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"I use VLC with my firewire drive/burner, and it works fairly well." Clarification- I play VCD's on it NOT DVD's. The stream of a VCD is half that of a DVD. |
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DVD |
September, 26, 2003 3:06 PM |
jseibyl |
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regarding the playback, what video card, the 7000 radeon I assume?? I use VLC with my firewire drive/burner, and it works fairly well. I assume you have tried PCI Extreme?? This enables Quartz Extreme on PCI vid cards, but DOES have some issues. I have tinkered with it it on and off, and have it enabled for now, without it, QE is NOT enabled. With a DVD, it gives my some garbage when it first starts to play in VLC, but clears up after the stream starts. This is one of the "oh well" points on these machines. The overall bus speed of these legacy boards ~50 mhz can get a little slow with video stream, ESPECIALLY mp2 or DV streams, the standard formats for DVD. No real solution, Video uses a TON of bandwidth, and here is where these machines show their age. Everything else works great, I even use my 9500 for some video editing in Premiere, but only for web stream stuff. I am still amazed I can do so much with my trusty 9500, considering it is 8 years old.... |
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RE: OS X, AltiVec, and G4 Upgrade Card |
September, 26, 2003 2:50 PM |
frankbendrick |
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After posting the note that started this string, I made two discoveries. I found AltiVec Fractal Demo on xclr8yourmac.com and the note in the Sonnet users manual on OS 9 installing AltiVec only if a G4 is detected. I installed AltiVec on my OS 9 partition and ran the Fractal Demo on both systems. You are right on both counts. Thanks. But I stilll have a small challenge, and that is with playing DVDs. I have an external DVD drive and Apple's DVD Player will not recognize it. I have found a patch for OS 9, so now I can play DVDs using that OS. However, I have not found a suitable patch or alternative DVD player for OS X. I have had no luck with either the patch DVDPlayer3.2noDVDCocoa or the Unix player MPlayerOSX2. VideoLANClient will recognize the DVD player, but it is painfully slow and far from satisfactory. Any leads or suggestions you can offer? Frank Bendrick |
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RE: OS X, AltiVec, and G4 Upgrade Card |
September, 25, 2003 9:57 PM |
chibi_delenn |
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I too had a G3 when I installed OS X, and recently upgraded to a G4. But unless my AltivecDVDDriver.bundle in my /System/Library/Extensions folder is lying to me, Altivec stuff (that was just an example, BTW) is installed by OS X regardless of CPU. It's OS 9's installer that doesn't install Altivec w/ a G3. OS X just slaps it all in and loads whatever needs to be loaded at bootup. I noticed this because AltivecFractalDemo worked like a charm in OS X, albeit about 2/3 the speed of the OS 9 version of that app. So to answer your question, yes, Altivec is there. Try ripping with iTunes and encoding. You'll definitely see a vast improvement over your G3. - Chibi Delennâ„¢ |
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