Finally put my Crescendo G3 in...

[highlandcattle]

In my powermac 6100/66

Doesn't feel that much quicker though..

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Bus is sort of a downer on the x100 systems.

 

[highlandcattle]

It is just for kicks I hope too be able to use classila on it one day. Not for now though I only have 40 MB of ram. My 8200/120 (it's a 7200 in a quadra 800 case) feels much quicker running system 7 then the 6100 with G3 running 8,6

 

[highlandcattle]

Also I forgot to mention it: When I use my AV card the system freezes when It starts to load the crescendo extension, but It works when I turn extensions of on start up.

I thought these two cards could be used together?

 

[ClassicHasClass]

The A/V card in my 7100 is fine with its G3/400.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

There are some things where the G3 makes a huge difference. A good example is emulating Super Nintendo with SNES9X. I remember on my 6100, playing SNES before I got my G3 was absolutely terrible and after the G3 it was like a real SNES.

 

[Unknown_K]

The memory bus and SCSI bus is too slow to make a G3 shine in a 6100/7100/8100 Nubus machine.

 

[Dimitris1980]

For me the best buy for Powermac 6100. I have a performa 6116. Without sonnet nubus G3 at 500Mhz installed somes games are slow like Monkey Island 1 & 2, Fate of Atlantis Floppy version, Gabriel Knight Sins of the fathers, King's Quest 7, Versailles 1685, Hexen & Doom (with high detail graphics) etc etc.

 

[Bunsen]

Doesn't feel that much quicker though..

What are you using for video output? The motherboard (built-in) video output is IMO the worst bottleneck in the system, at least as far as user experience goes. It uses system RAM for video, which is waaaay slower than VRAM. The best choice is an HPV card.

How much cache does your G3 card have?

When I use my AV card the system freezes when It starts to load the crescendo extension, but It works when I turn extensions of on start up.

You may have to force either the Crescendo extension or the AV extension/s to load first, by adding a • to the front of their filenames. If that doesn't work, I would suggest using Conflict Catcher or Symbionts to trim down your extensions & CPs to a minimal working set and then re-add what you want slowly, testing each time.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

I have not tried this but it seems to me that a • (option + 8 ) pushes items to the end of the alphabet and a ° (option + shift + 8 ) or a space pushes it to the beginning.

It might be worthwhile to disable everything but these two extensions using Extensions Manager, including disabling all control panels. If that makes it work, you can then re-enable things until the problem reappears to identify the problem.

 

[highlandcattle]

Thanks for these tips guys. Adding a number would also put them before the rest no? Will try later today or tomorrow. I don't have an HPV card only an AV card surely this must take some of the stress away from the system ram.

In general it feels much slower then my PM8200/110. Which doesn't have any expansions at all except for a cache card and tons of ram.

 

[Macdrone]

8.6 would be why the difference. The higher the system the more resources it uses. I would suggest a true comparison would be to have an external scsi drive to boot from and boot the 6100 into the same OS and I'm sure it will run circles around the 7200 board. Mine does. I bought a G3 card for my 7200 straight from sonnet and they sent me an A series board and their website says the A series doesn't work. Kinda crappy huh.

 

[highlandcattle]

That kinda blows sending you the wrong one. I for the life of me couldn't get the cresscendo drivers working under 7.6.1. Otherwise I would downgrade in an instant. I much prefer 7.6.1 over 8.6 or 9.2.2. So much faster. And for what I do with my systems not much difference in functionality. Except maybe Classila :b&w:

 

[Bunsen]

I for the life of me couldn't get the cresscendo drivers working under 7.6.1

Did you try older versions of the drivers?

RAM would also make a difference to perceived speeds. How much do you have?

 

[Bunsen]

I don't have an HPV card only an AV card surely this must take some of the stress away from the system ram.

It does, but it doesn't necessarily make it seem faster.

The issue with using system RAM as VRAM is not that it "strains" the RAM - it's that system RAM is physically slower than specialized and expensive VRAM - quite a lot slower.

As usual, for everything 6100, I consult kan's guide (selected quotes, links to relevant page):

AV Card / Performance
For starters, the AV card is slow for graphics. With the AV card installed, the Mac uses a 32 bit path to video. With either DRAM-based video or the HPV card, the Mac uses a 64 bit path. This is all confirmed by Apple itself /

In terms of day-to-day usage, my AV card definitely scrolls slower than the on-board video or the HPV card.

HPV Card

The name is a bit of a misnomer / The card is also referred to as the VRAM Expansion card, which is probably more appropriate. /

Despite its name, the HPV card does not have any high-performance hardware. / It's just a repository for VRAM. The reason it's a high performance card is that it's faster than DRAM video. Which isn't saying much. But if you own a 6100 (like me), anything to add a little performance is a welcome addition.

/ I have had absolutely zero compatibility issues with these cards. There are no drivers or additional software to install. / The Mac automatically senses the presence of the card, the amount of VRAM, and makes the appropriate resolutions available.

Conclusions:

• The stock 6100/60 exhibits really slow graphics performance.

• While it doesn't include any QuickDraw acceleration, the HPV card is still significantly faster than the built-in DRAM video. /

• Benchmarks and numbers aside, adding one or both {cache} of the above will result in your machine feeling zippier. It's hard to describe, but you'll just feel better about your machine.

/ a fellow with a 1 MB Level 2 cache, who says that at 640x480/8 bit, the entire video page can be cached, resulting in very fast text scrolling that outperforms the HPV card. I can't duplicate his results, since I don't have a 1MB cache, but it certainly sounds logical.

The latter makes sense, because cache RAM, like VRAM, is physically faster than main RAM. The cache on the G3 card should be even more so. If your G3 has the full 1MB of cache, you might like to try that experiment. If it only has the 512k cache, you might try 640x480/1 bit (b&w) just to see how it goes.