Macintosh LC475 upgrades

[Dimitris1980]

I own the following computer:

Macintosh LC475

36mb of ram

4,5gb hard drive

4x Apple external scsi cd rom drive

Roland MT32 midi device (i thank you for the helpful answers in another topic)

Macally mouse

Macintosh Color Display M1212 Monitor

Logitech speakers with subwoofer

I use my computer mainly for retro gaming and i think it might be better (for my taste) than my Performa 6116 (but without the Sonnet G3 at 500 mhz installed). I say that because some old games are very slow on the Performa because they are made for motorola cpus. For instance Monkey Island 1-2, Fate of Atlantis floppy version, Gabriel Knight, King's Quest 7. Also most of Sierra On Line adventure games of this era have problem with the powerpc and all the time a system error comes on the screen. These problems do not happen on the LC475. Of course the Performa 6116 with the Sonnet G3 installed is an amazing machine, so fast and responsive, i really love it. But the essence of the subject is other:

Can you propose me some upgrades that i can do on my LC475? I'v read that it can take an 128mb memory stick but also that maybe there is delay in startup for memory test. Also on some Lucasarts games  there is not the option for graphic smoothing. This option is on all my powerpc computers. Why is that? Do i need to put another video card to see that as an option? And of course i mean also other upgrades like a PPC card etc.

Thank you

Greetings from Greec

 

[MJ313]

You could clock chip the board to 33Mhz (upping it from stock 25mhz). It would require moving two resistors on the board. It works well-- you could probably get away with running the stock 25MHz CPU at the new 33Mhz, or you could just throw in a 33Mhz CPU if you had one lying around (pull from a Performa 630). You could also throw in a full 040 but you would want a heat sink on that guy (and possibly a little fan?).

http://www.applefool.com/clockchipping/q605.html

 

[Cory5412]

More memory won't do anything for those games.

33MHz will probably do some, but moving to a full '040 won't do much for games. It really depends on the particular game or other application. If it's really old stuff that's set up well to work on varying systems, it probably won't improve performance, because it'll be locked into running at whatever speed it needs to. If it's things like loading times, a CPU upgrade won't really help that but, say, a SCSI2SD might.

There isn't much in the way of graphics upgrades for this machine that are any better than what it has onboard. A NuBus-based Quadra has options for different graphics cards, but most of those aren't really faster except at a couple specialized things. If you don't already have it, there is a VRAM upgrade on this machine which should let you run 640x480 at more colors than the stock amount. (or 1152x870 at 8-bit/256 colors.) That might help depending on what you mean by graphics smoothing. (More colors, or certain settings in specific games?)

The thing I'd put in the Ethernet slot if you have an occasion for it is really an Ethernet card.

Other kinds of cards do exist but they are very, very, very uncommon and more or less exist to add functionality to the original LC/LCII and Color Classic that systems like the 475/575/630/580 either don't need or have on their own, or outright can't use in some cases.

 

[Brett B.]

Overclocking it will help.  It made a dramatic difference on mine.  You will not find any benefits from additional memory other than bragging rights.  As Cory said, a VRAM upgrade would be nice if you don't already have it.

Outside of those things... realistic expectations of what it is capable of is the main thing.  Pick a game, check the system requirements... if it's far below them, it may just be impossible to get it running well or at all.  There is just simply no way around that.

 

[Dimitris1980]

Thank you for your answers. I will check sometime the video card to see how much memory there is. Maybe this has to do with the graphic smoothing of some of the Lucasarts adventure games (Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, The Dig) where there is not an option for graphics smoothing. Generally is a nice small and light computer. Most Motorola games run well and it is a very nice retro gaming machine.

 

[ArmorAlley]

I'd like to echo the sentiments expressed above.

Get 2x 512K VRAM chips for a start so that you can use 1024x768 at 256 colours. This is good for games like Civ.

A SCSI2SD takes up less space (which is good for airflow), generates much, much less heat than a spinning disk and uses less electricity. The seek times should also be faster.

Personally, I think that getting a full 68040 at 33Mhz is worthwhile (once you've had your board's clock-speed upped to 33Mhz). Cory may very well be right that it makes little difference. He has been right up to now and I see no reason to contradict him. It's just that a full 33Mhz 68040 *feels* faster than the standard 25Mhz 68LC040. As mentioned above, a passive or active heatsink is a wise idea.

An ethernet card is a godsend if you plan to network.

 

[MJ313]

Was there ever a verdict on whether Sim City 2000 makes use of an FPU?  I recall it being discussed at various points but seems it may still be an urban legend.  :?:

 

[jessenator]

Was there ever a verdict on whether Sim City 2000 makes use of an FPU?  I recall it being discussed at various points but seems it may still be an urban legend.  :?:

I've run it on an LCII and a IIsi. And while it's not buttah smooth, it doesn't crash or fail to load (on the IIsi anyway…*). Not that this anecdote is a verdict of any kind.


*The LCII in question had other issues. Wasn't mine, but a family friend's and I think I put that thing through the ringer, so whatever crashes were incidental to whatever else I was doing to it at the time.

 

[Cory5412]

Outside of those things... realistic expectations of what it is capable of is the main thing.  Pick a game, check the system requirements... if it's far below them, it may just be impossible to get it running well or at all.  There is just simply no way around that.

To add to this:

My understanding of the Mac game market in the '90s and honestly even into the 2000s is that most of the games are designed to play well on what most Mac users have.

In 1993, that was fast 030s and midrange 040s. In 1994, to a certain extent that still meant Performa 630s and 475s. By 1995-1996 that meant PowerMac 6100s and PowerMac/Performa 6200s, and so on.

Few games out there will run meaningfully better on any other 68k than they do on the 475. Those that do (SimCity was mentioned, I've never tried it on machines that old, but) will benefit from a much newer or faster machine anyway, depending on what gameplay is like.

The main exception to this is that the Performa/LC 630 and variants had a different graphics accelerator over what the 475/605 had. It was restricted to a lower resolution, but it had some other graphics boosts that developers could use. It's my understanding that vanishingly few games (as far as I know, it's literally two: Marathon and Marahon and Marathon 2) actually take much advantage of it, so it might not be worthwhile seeking one of those systems out.

It's just that a full 33Mhz 68040 *feels* faster than the standard 25Mhz 68LC040.

I'm curious in what contexts. Like, just navigating around? System 7 or 8? 7.1 or a heavily loaded 7.5.x or 7.6.1 install? Once you've gone into a game or an app? It would seem to me like most super basic system types of operations would benefit a lot from SCSI2SD and not be too dependent on the processor.

I don't have any 25MHz or even 33MHz '040s on hand at the moment, so it's been a while since I've tested. My most frequent daily 68k Mac is an 840av, which has the 40MHz '040. That system's currently running 8.0 or 8.1 and mostly a bunch of Claris apps from the mid '90s, 

I can absolutely see feeling the difference once you enter "heavy" workloads, and admittedly "heavy" to an office or home desktop from 1993 is a lot lighter than what we think of in modern times. It might just be that my sensor for what's "heavy" is calibrated wrong.

 

[ArmorAlley]

It's just that a full 33Mhz 68040 *feels* faster than the standard 25Mhz 68LC040.

I'm curious in what contexts. Like, just navigating around? System 7 or 8? 7.1 or a heavily loaded 7.5.x or 7.6.1 install? Once you've gone into a game or an app? It would seem to me like most super basic system types of operations would benefit a lot from SCSI2SD and not be too dependent on the processor.

I don't have any 25MHz or even 33MHz '040s on hand at the moment, so it's been a while since I've tested. My most frequent daily 68k Mac is an 840av, which has the 40MHz '040. That system's currently running 8.0 or 8.1 and mostly a bunch of Claris apps from the mid '90s, 

I can absolutely see feeling the difference once you enter "heavy" workloads, and admittedly "heavy" to an office or home desktop from 1993 is a lot lighter than what we think of in modern times. It might just be that my sensor for what's "heavy" is calibrated wrong.

Hi Cory,

 While my Performa 475 ran, I ran Mac OS 8.1 on it mostly because I wanted access to HFS+ volumes. I used it primarily for colour 68K games like Civ., Same Game, Armor Alley and the like and the perceived speed boost from 25MHz 68LC040 processor to the 33MHz 68040 processor seemed very real. Now, this was subjective and I may been wanting to believe that this was actually the case. Civ, in particular, impressed me. The screen redraws seemed faster than before. The game also moved faster. It doesn't help that I have another Performa 475 that had a 50Mhz NewerTech Quadra Overdrive and that may confuse things. File management and copying over the LAN under Mac OS 8.1 seemed faster too. My volumess are many times bigger than what was available in 1993.

 Thanks to BadGoldEagle, some of my LC PSUs have been repaired. I'll get around sometime to doing a side-by-side test with a 25MHz 68LC040 LC475, a 33Mhz 68040 Performa 475 and my souped up Quadra 610 (which now has the Quadra Overdrive in it) and I'ĺl see how it really is. I'm curious to see myself, partly to see if I misremembered (and memory is a tricky thing) and partly to be on firmer ground when I make recommendations in the future. I studied science. I should measure things before I make pronouncements.

 As regards 1993, I had just started typesetting with Quark XPress. I think now that I would be too impatient now for the IIsi with 5MB RAM that it had then. Our standards for acceptable performance have changed over time.

 

[just.in.time]

Definitely an edge case, but Space Cadet Pinball (aka Windows 95-XP pinball, Mac version) requires an FPU. (IIRC it requires a 33mhz 030 + fpu, any 040 + fpu, or any ppc). Was quite sad when it wouldn’t open on my PowerBook 540c. Maybe one day I’ll get a donor 550c full 040 cpu card.

That aside, I’ve only heard of Sim City being sped up from an FPU (have not personally tried it). Logically, it makes sense that anything (games, audio, apps, compression/decompression, etc???) working with Float data types would benefit from an FPU, but the degree to which it improves real world experience I’m not sure.

All that said, when I swapped a full 68040 into my LC 575 board it ran toasty. Definitely recommend a heatsink.

I'll get around sometime to doing a side-by-side test with a 25MHz 68LC040 LC475, a 33Mhz 68040 Performa 475

(33-25)/25=0.32... that’s a 32% increase in clock rate. FPU bound tasks aside (pretending both are 68LC040 processors), I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a perceivable difference in overall responsiveness during a side-by-side test. Adding in the FPU on the 33mhz cpu only increases that performance gap, wherever the FPU may be helpful. That said, I’ve never compared a 25mhz and 33mhz 040 side by side. Please share the results of your experiment. It would be cool to know if you felt the extra clock speed was significantly noticeable. Also, if you have the ability to try decompressing the same large-ish StuffIt file on both systems with a stopwatch please do. I’d be curious to see the time difference, if any.

 

[Crutch]

For Space Cadet Pinball ... have you tried SoftwareFPU on your 540c? https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/softwarefpu-307

 

[just.in.time]

SoftwareFPU

I haven’t! Never heard of it before, but I’ll give it a go tomorrow  thank you!

 

[Crutch]

Let me know if it works!  Obviously if something really needs an FPU for performance reasons, SoftwareFPU won’t help it run fast enough.  But as I recall a lot of older apps/games just THINK they need an FPU and run 95% fun without one ....

Oh and thanks for mentioning Space Cadet pinball.  I had no idea there was ever a Mac version of this.  Going to check it out this weekend.

 

[just.in.time]

Unfortunately, it bombs out (type 10) while loading :/  It made it just far enough to show off the splash screen, so definitely farther along than normal (an outright error about requiring a floating point unit).

Going to check it out this weekend.

Definitely check it out.  I grew up playing it on Windows computers.  Had no idea it existed for Mac OS 7 through 9 until a couple years ago, or that there were two additional tables beyond the default Space Cadet table included with the Windows version.  Would have been awesome to have had it back in the day, but better late than never.  Aside from the FPU requirement, it's a fairly lean game in regards to system requirements.

 

[Crutch]

Ah sorry that didn’t work.  I always found SoftwareFPU to be pretty foolproof back in the day, but I never had a 68LC040 Mac and just saw this note on the SoftwareFPU page on Macintosh Garden, I wonder if this is what’s causing the problem:  “Because of a 68LC040 CPU chip bug, some applications crash with SoftwareFPU on 68LC040 Macintosh.”  Boo.