I've realised that my 6100 is rubbish... :-(

[The Macster]

Have any of you ever returned to an older Mac having got used to a newer one and found the older one to be a lot worse than you remembered?

Since I got my G3 I've been setting up and playing around with that quite a bit, and haven't been at home that much so haven't had time to have a go with my other Macs much. When my 6100/60 was the fastest Mac I owned, I really liked it and thought is was a great Mac, and actually enjoyable to use. I never once felt that it was a rubbish or slow machine.

However, I had a little go on it yesterday, just after having used the G3, and it suddenly struck me as not being a pleasant experience, nor an especially good Mac. The first thing that struck me was how bad its display output is: before I got the G3 I used an old Apple Colour Display with the 6100, so assumed that the monitor was what limited it to a low resolution (640x480) and that with a better one the 6100 would do anything you might expect of it. However, since getting the G3 I now have the spare Studio Display for my other Macs, and found that the 6100 will actually only do something like 800x600 (actually some non-standard resolution slightly greater than that), despite the LCD's native resolution of 1024x768! Worse still, it can only do that resolution at 256 colours; if you want thousands you have to go all the way down to 640x480.

Secondly, after getting used to the speed of the G3, it just feels so slooooooow Obviously I know it's not going to be as fast as the G3, but I just don't remember it being an unpleasant experience to use it. Even Tiger on the G3 is so much faster than just 9 on the 6100 In fact, I can't imagine a Mac much faster than Tiger is on the G3. The OS itself is fine in terms of responsiveness on the 6100 (though is very slow booting, again slower than Tiger), but as soon as you load an application it feels so slow. I loaded Photoshop just to quickly change the resolution of my wallpaper to the higher resolution on the new monitor (OS9 was scaling it especially badly) and it felt horrible I also went on the web, and browsing is just so slow (though I don't know whether that's IE5's fault as well as the Mac's), and then IE crashed with a Type II error (again, could also be the fault of IE or the OS).

I suppose this is why some of you think that G3s are awfully slow whereas I absolutely love mine, as a lot of you are used to G5s etc, whereas I've never used anything newer than the G3 for more than about one minute.

PS if I was to ask on Freecycle for 32 MB+ 72-pin SIMMs, would I get what I need, or is there more to the memory that these machines take than just being 72-pin ie it needs to be special Mac stuff or something? Just thought that might make it feel slightly speedy again (it has some cache already I think)

 

[Quadraman]

If your VRAM isn't maxed out already, you might want to try that or find an AV/HPV video card if you don't mind losing the PDS slot.

If you need speed for apps, then try downgrading the OS to 7.6.1. The Nubus Powermacs fly under that OS. 8.1 has a few more features, and is a little slower than 7.6.1, but still faster than 9.

There's not going to be much you can do with the internet access. It is a 10baseT connection, so that is going to be a bottleneck. There is a good side to that, though, in that you can have several older Macs on a broadband connection without any of them hogging all the bandwith.

According to LEM, it might be possible to use 64 or 128mb SIMMS in the 6100, but they aren't officially supported, so if you try it, don't pay too much for them in case it doesn't work. Also, up to 1meg cache memory is supported, but from tests I have seen, cache memory in amounts over 512k sometimes have the opposite effect and slow the system down as the time needed to load and clear the cache and search through it for a hit becomes noticably greater at 1meg.

 

[Patrickool93]

If you want to keep enjoying the use of your G3, for god sakes, don't use a new Mac! You will be blown away with the speed and you G3 will feel slow! Usually any 72 pin SIMMS should work.

 

[LCGuy]

I hate to say this, but its not surprising that you're finding the 6100 slow withi 40MB of RAM and OS 9.1. with 40 megs OS 9 would be using Virtual Memory a lot, which would slow the system down majorly. I find that the best OS to run on those sorts of systems is 8.1. Its still modern enough to run a lot of software, but it will be a LOT faster than 9.1. The only way to make 9.1 run quickly on there is to stuff it with RAM and get a G3 upgrade.

Also, you can improve your graphics output by installing a NuBus video card (if you can find the Nubus -> PDS adaptor) or installing an AV card, which has a monitor port and 2 megs of VRAM, allowing for 24 bit (millions) colour at 640x480, 800x600 and 832x624, and 16 bit (thousands) colour at 1024x768 and 1152x870.

 

[MacTCP]

I think you should downgrade the OS to either 7.6.1 or 8.1, whichever one you prefer. A nubus video card with the pds adapter would make the video improve. RAM makes everything improve if it's still slow, although I ran OS 9 off of 32mb RAM on my 4400 at one time without noticing any slowness at all.

 

[The Macster]

If your VRAM isn't maxed out already, you might want to try that or find an AV/HPV video card if you don't mind losing the PDS slot.

Is there a slot for Vram for the built-in video port then, as well as the option to use a card? Mactracker just says that it has no Vram, or 2 MB if an AV, but the memory in the AV model is presumably on the AV card.

Also, you can improve your graphics output by installing a NuBus video card (if you can find the Nubus -> PDS adaptor) or installing an AV card, which has a monitor port and 2 megs of VRAM, allowing for 24 bit (millions) colour at 640x480, 800x600 and 832x624, and 16 bit (thousands) colour at 1024x768 and 1152x870.

Is either card better or are they both the same except the AV has extra ports as well as display? I was shocked to find it couldn't output a decent resolution - it really needs 1024x768 thousands of colours to be pleasant to use. They must have assumed everyone used really rubbish displays when these were new!

The only way to make 9.1 run quickly on there is to stuff it with RAM and get a G3 upgrade.

Just out of interest, with a G3 card is it actually as fast as a real G3 Mac (with the same amount of Ram)? A G3 card, decent video card, 128/256 MB of memory and a front bezel could make it such a great machine again; such a shame these things are impossible to find :'(

If you want to keep enjoying the use of your G3, for god sakes, don't use a new Mac! You will be blown away with the speed and you G3 will feel slow!

Yes, I definitely want to avoid using newer Macs! I haven't touched one since I got the G3, and it's a good thing I don't have ready access to any ie I would have to go to a shop or somewhere to see one. At the moment I really can't see how any Mac could be much nicer to use than my G3, it's just so smooth and fast - that's why I think G4s are pointless when G3s are so good! The 6100 really feels so different after using the G3, and I wouldn't want the G3 to feel slow.

 

[LCGuy]

1. The amount of VRAM for the onboard video is fixed, it cannot be upgraded. It uses system memory for VRAM, much like the integrated graphics subsystems on a lot of modern economy PCs.

2. If you can find one, you can get a Nubus video card that is a lot better than the PowerMac AV card. I imagine the Power Mac AV card will be easier to find though.

3. A G3 card will definately speed things up. However it will not make it as quick as a real Power Mac G3 as the rest of the system, the system bus, the RAM, the SCSI bus, etc, is still on a 6100. No G3 upgraded Mac can ever be as fast as a real, honest to God G3 of the same specifications.

 

[Unknown_K]

I have a 7100/66 and in stock configuration it is slow as hell. You are lucky to get a few MB/sec from the SCSI built in, and without a PDS video card you are stuck with slow video using the slow built in RAM.

Even with a PDS video card , g3-250 and 128MB RAM I think its still too slow for OS 9 (which is what was loaded on it when I got it), mostly because of the lame SCSI bus.

If you install OS 7.6.1 on the same system it is much faster.

I find my 81/110 to be a much faster system overall.

 

[Quadraman]

Then the 6100 must have two cache slots. The boards in one of mine look very different from each other, so I thought one of them was VRAM.

 

[LCGuy]

One of those slots is a ROM SIMM slot, the other is a cache slot.

 

[MultiFinder]

Never use anything with a G4 in it. You will start a thread like this, just replacing "6100" with "G3" and "G3" with "G4"

 

[The Macster]

Never use anything with a G4 in it. You will start a thread like this, just replacing "6100" with "G3" and "G3" with "G4"

I will make every effort to ensure that I never ever even see anything with a G4 inside it, let alone use one At the moment I really don't see how a Mac could be much better than this G3, it just feels so insanely fast! Moving from the 6100 over to the G3 feels like going on to a brand new Mac, even though the 6100 is only running 9.1 and the G3 has the latest and greatest. Really, I don't know if I've got some strange G3 that's super-fast whereas all of you have normal ones, from the way that a lot of you don't think that much of them but it really does feel like a brand new Mac to me! Just goes to show the importance of what you're used to I suppose...

 

[Blessed Cheesemaker]

Have any of you ever returned to an older Mac having got used to a newer one and found the older one to be a lot worse than you remembered?

I think the problem is as you described. The 6100 was rubbish...

I remember bringing it home, setting it up (I bought a Performa 6116) and after playing around with it for a day or two, I put my Classic II side by side with my spankin' new 6100, and booted them simultaneously, to see "how fast" my new PPC was....

....weeeeell, the Classic II with a 68030 and OS 7.0.1 booted up about a second slower than the Performa 6116 with a PPC 601 and OS 7.5.1. So much for speed!

In its defense, I will say that the Performa 6116 allowed me to play Marathon in color (I had a PowerBook 5300--no c, no cs, a greyscale...there was a hack to run Marathon on it in greyscale) and I could play Dark Forces on it (if you turned off *every* extension except the CD player). I could not have done that on a Classic II...

So, while the previous author was correct, in general, about comparing old computers to newer ones....when you compare your new computer and prefer the old one, then the new one is rubbish!

 

[LCGuy]

Really, I don't know if I've got some strange G3 that's super-fast whereas all of you have normal ones, from the way that a lot of you don't think that much of them but it really does feel like a brand new Mac to me! Just goes to show the importance of what you're used to I suppose...

I think very highly of them! Considering that i live in a place where Macs and Mac stuff are rarer than hens teeth, and OS X capable Macs are made of pure unobtanium, i think very highly of the ol' Beige G3s. I think it probably also has a lot to do with the fact that yours has always been looked after and has been heavily upgraded, where a lot of others' would probably be old and crusty, if you get my drift.

 

[quinterro]

Somewhere at CyberExchange I have a 6100/66 with a NewerTech NuPowr G3/245 PDS card, the A/V PDS card, 72MB RAM and a 4GB hard disk. When I was using it the speed was similar to my iMac Rev B at the time or at least it felt like it. The upgrades made it a pretty nice machine.

After having my B/W G3/400 for a while, I'm sure it wouldn't compare as nicely, but at least it would fit underneath my LCD panel...

 

[LCGuy]

With the upgrades they are quite a competant machine...before my 8100 died it had an AV card, and 88MB of RAM, as well as the faster onboard SCSI bus, and it handled 9.1 beautifully. However i can imagine a 6100 with its integrated graphics, and low RAM like Macster's would have problems.

 

[alk]

The 6100 is not rubbish, you just have to know what to expect from it. Consider that it is essentially an '040 Mac with a PPC 601 grafted to it, and you'll understand what it can do much more realistically.

For video cards, you have several choices. The first three require the use of a PDS right angle adapter or a PDS G3 accelerator.

1) Power Mac x100 AV PDS card. These have 2 MB of VRAM and composite & s-video input and output. They also have a 32-bit data path.

2) Power Mac 7100 "High Performance Video" card. These have 1 MB of VRAM on board and can accept four 256 kB SIMMs for expansion to 2 MB. They have a 64-bit data path.

3) Power Mac 8100 "High Perfomance Video" card. These have 2 MB of VRAM on board and can accept four 512 kB SIMMs for expansion to 4 MB. They have a 64-bit data path.

4) EXCEEDINGLY RARE 6100 NuBus adapter with 6 - 7" NuBus video card. Performance will probably be greatest in this configuration, but short NuBus video cards that are _better_ the on-board video may be hard to find. The 6100 cannot accept a full-length NuBus card.

5) PDS G3 or G4 upgrade with 1 MB L2 cache. This will give you the best performance because the 640 kB or so of VRAM/DRAM is completely cached in the 1 MB L2 cache of the G3, so screen draws are much faster and limited solely by the on-board speed of the video subsystem as opposed to all the bridge chips and system architecture between the video subsystem, CPU, and DRAM.

6) PDS G3 or G4 upgrade with any of the first three video cards. This will not enhance your graphics speed any, but overall system performance will be enhanced, and the G3 or G4 accelerator allows installation of a PDS video card without the use of a right angle adapter (in fact, the G3 or G4 serves that purpose).

I note the bandwidth of the data path on the PDS cards because the "HPV" card can technically move more data per cycle than the AV card. So if performance is very important to you, use the HPV card. If the AV features are important, use the AV card. I've got both, and I've never really noticed a difference. Mind you, none of these cards is "accelerated" in the traditional sense. They just provide a fairly massive frame buffer. Only the NuBus video cards offered 2D acceleration.

The x100 Power Macs are severly limited by their 68k heritage. They have at most a 40 MHz data bus, and they have all sorts of bridge chips to adapt the PPC to the 68k I/O bus. Plus, they don't offer DMA of any sort, so all operations have to pass through the system bus and CPU to get to DRAM and back. At 30 MHz on a 6100/60, that can be pretty time consuming. On the other hand, adding an L2 cache (even if just 256 kB) can dramatically increase overall system performance. If you can't find a G3, you should try looking for some L2 cache. A single 256 kB L2 cache SIMM can be bought for about a buck from OWC right now.

I've personally used lots of x100 Power Macs from the barebones 6100/60 to the relatively high-end 8100/110. We used to set up LAN parties in a computer lab at my university to play Marathon, and the machines installed at the time were x100 Power Macs of all three flavors. I own two 6100s (60 & 66 MHz) and an 8100/80. The 6100/66 has a G3 (266 MHz), and the 8100 has a rare G4 (320 MHz or something). Both feel about the same speed until I rip a CD in iTunes. The 8100 puts the 6100 to bed. Without dinner. Also, it rocks for Marathon. (Which, honestly, is the whole reason I bought the G4 and the 8100.) I've got a 1 MB HPV card and an AV card that I have used in the 6100. Both allow me to play Marathon quite well with no noticable difference between them. The AV card has more features, so that is the card that has lasted. The 6100/60 has a DOS card, but that thing is pretty useless. The only redeeming value it has is the novelty of running DOS/Windows on your Mac. Otherwise, any old cheap 486 would be better. (Personally, I can't stand the 7100. It's a boring Mac in an ugly case with nothing to offer that can't be done better by either a 6100 or an 8100. Therefore, I don't have one in my collection.)

Avoid Virtual Memory and RAM Doubler like the plague. Using your hard drive for RAM or even just for swap space is the single most foolhardy thing you can do on a Mac of that vintage.

Run, don't walk, to the nearest 8.1 installer. System 7 of any variety on the x100 is asking for trouble (except, maybe 7.6.1). If you have enough RAM, 8.5 or 8.6 is ideal as they offer the best compromise of modern, PowerPC native code with minimal bloat. 9.1 is alright if you have at least 72 MB of RAM and don't expect to be doing much else. But, in my opinion, you are best served with 8.6 and at least 40 MB (preferably 72 MB) of RAM. Anything less than 8.5 runs significantly more 68k code which most be emulated on the PowerPC, and as numerous speed tests and benchmarks have shown, all the NuBus Power Macs are slower than Quadras when executing 68k code.

Peace,

Drew

 

[Quadraman]

Apple sucked in those days. They modded a lot of old 68k hardware to PPC when they should have designed fresh computers from the start. I always said they had a lot of spare parts leftover and created new computers based on their remaining inventory. The 5x00 and 6x00 models before the 5400 and 6360 are pretty good proof of this.

 

[The Macster]

The 6100/66 has a G3 (266 MHz), and the 8100 has a rare G4 (320 MHz or something). Both feel about the same speed until I rip a CD in iTunes. The 8100 puts the 6100 to bed. Without dinner. Also, it rocks for Marathon. (Which, honestly, is the whole reason I bought the G4 and the 8100.)

A G4 in a Nubus PowerMac? That's surely insane!

The 6100 is not rubbish, you just have to know what to expect from it.

The main issue that makes it seem "rubbish" to me is that it cannot output any more than 800x600/256-colour in its stock state - I had just assumed that it would do something reasonable eg 1024x768/thousands of colours! Sadly getting a video card, G3 card, adapter etc would most likely be difficult or expensive, probably both Also my example is starting to look a little rubbish compared to the perfection of the G3, what with its yellowed front, missing bezel, and wrong label (says 66 but it's a 60).

I think it came to me with 256kb cache already inside - hopefully adding some more memory than the current 40 MB would deal with some of the slowness. OS 9.1 itself feels fine on 40 MB, it only feels slow once you've loaded in some apps (especially Photoshop, which I suppose the 6100 is not really intended for anyway!), so presumably the older OSes are only better with low Ram, given that it is slowing down when VM is being used (ie when apps are loaded) while it's fine with just the OS running? I tend to think of 9.1 as the PPC OS (and 7.6.1 as the 68k OS) and it's my favourite Classic OS, so I'd really prefer to stick with it. Hopefully I will be able to scavenge some 32 MB 72-pin sticks and see what they do for it, though with the abysmal screen resolution it'll still not be very nice to use :'(

One thing - to defrag the disk, which may or may not help performance, which version of Norton Utilities should I use? Just that I've heard that using the wrong version can cause big problems, so I don't want to just guess! Which version is right for OS7.6/HFS/68k, and which is right for OS9.1/HFS+/PPC?