Need for Speed

[juan123]

I have a performa 6200cd with 64mb RAM, and a 20gb HD. OS 7.6.1. Just wondering, what tips would you suggest to make this machine faster other than just removing unnecessary extensions and control panels? Well thanks a ton!

 

[MacTCP]

Speed Doubler! [] ]'>

 

[gobabushka]

with 7.6.1, it should be running pretty quick as it is!

 

[LCGuy]

If you can, i'd probably upgrade to 8.1, as IIRC, OS 8.1 has more PowerPC native code, and on such a slow PPC, you'll want to use PowerPC native code when and wherever you can.

 

[tomlee59]

Max out the ram. Except in rare cases, I would even go so far as to disable VM (because of your very "need for speed"). It's amazing how much speedier things get with these simple methods.

 

[equill]

The third thing that I do with every Mac that arrives, after kicking out the accumulated crud and replacing the existing battery with a new one, is to maximize the RAM complement. Processor upgrades have to join the queue, but that usually happens too.

It is said that "You can never have too much RAM," although 1GB in a Beige PCI PowerMac gets close to too much. Certainly the Classic AIOs and the early 040 and 60x Macs can use all the help that they can get. VM is for de boids, which a full 12-slot Beige will also give you if you give it a full GB or more.

de

 

[LCGuy]

Thing is though, he's already maxed out the RAM...64 is as high as you can go in a 6200.

 

[MacMan]

RAM Doubler will help a great deal as it is much faster than using Virtual Memory and allows you to run more applications simultaneously. There are a few older copies of RAM Doubler lurking on the net for 68Ks but it will also run fine on PPC machines like the 6200.

 

[tomlee59]

Thing is though, he's already maxed out the RAM...64 is as high as you can go in a 6200.

Has anyone tried an experiment to see if 64MB is a true, hard limit, or just the maximum that Apple supported? In more than a few instances, the published ram ceiling simply reflects the testing that Apple did before releasing the model, and the mac is actually capable of supporting much more ram.

 

[equill]

... Has anyone tried an experiment to see if 64MB is a true, hard limit, or just the maximum that Apple supported?.. .

For those of such an inclination, there are a few tests and some thoughts here, but nothing will be as conclusive as giving it a try for oneself. The reported tests relate to 68K Macs, but the data will have some resonances for early PPC Macs.

de

 

[tomlee59]

Thanks for the link to the faq, equill. It's been a long time since I looked at it -- so long, in fact, that I'd completely forgotten that it had information about ram limits in 68k macs. Now if only we could get updated information about actual ram limits in ppc's...

 

[Franklinstein]

I know my 6100 can support 64MB and 128MB 72-pin SIMMs from experience (for a max of 264MB! Woo!). I never bothered to put more than 64MB total in a 6200/5200-series machine because there's really no point to it - it's still going to be dog slow. Those things were engineered to suck. All they do well is various productivity-related tasks (read: word processing/spreadsheets) or small educational programs (like Math Rabbit, The Playroom, Number Munchers). Their motherboard architecture is waaaaay too crippled to try anything serious. In fact, the 52/6200 machines were what gave such a bad first impression of the 603, an otherwise fantastic processor.

If it's possible, the best speed-boost for a 52/6200-series machine would be to swap in a 53/6300-series motherboard, or higher (preferably a 6500/300, at least a 6400/180). You'd want to make 100% sure that a replacement board would fit in the 6200's case before you order one, though.

Otherwise, max'd RAM, Speed Doubler, and System 7.6 is about the best that little 6200 can do speed-wise.

 

[tomlee59]

I love it -- "engineered to suck."

The term "ETS" will now enter the engineering lexicon.

 

[juan123]

hmm well...its ok but its not that nice to know that I have an ETS mac lol.

 

[LCGuy]

If it's possible, the best speed-boost for a 52/6200-series machine would be to swap in a 53/6300-series motherboard, or higher (preferably a 6500/300, at least a 6400/180). You'd want to make 100% sure that a replacement board would fit in the 6200's case before you order one, though.

Otherwise, max'd RAM, Speed Doubler, and System 7.6 is about the best that little 6200 can do speed-wise.

A 5x00 board will fit straight in without modification, provided that, for a 5400 or 5500 board, you have a 3.3v regulator set up. 6400/6500 boards require, not only a 3.3v regulator, but also the rear backplane to be changed over to the one thats already on the Mac, or else the board won't physically fit in the bay and connect to the connector inside the case.

 

[Franklinstein]

Sorry, I wasn't really going for an insult. They're not bad machines if they're used for light applications (like spreadsheets, word processing, SimCity 2000, Oregon Trail, etc).

However, "engineered to suck" is pretty accurate for those models. The only machines on par, really, are the Quadra 630 and IIvx, which are also engineered to suck, except they mostly just recycle the vast majority of their components from machines several years older (most notably the memory and disk controllers). The IIvx also uses a 16MHz system bus with a 32MHz 68030, while the Q630 uses super-slow IDE hard drives and antiquated 3MB/s SCSI controllers. The LC II isn't exactly a hallmark of quality design, either, with its 32-bit processor hobbled by a 16-bit system bus, no on-board FPU socket, and 10MB RAM max.

The 52/6200 was built to be as cheap as possible, and they sacrificed nothing in their quest for the bottom line. I'll spare you the details, but if you'd like to read about them, go here: http://lowendmac.com/roadapples/x200.shtml

 

[LCGuy]

I know i'm going off-topic, but to be honest, the LC630 can be made into really quite a nice machine, if you know what you're doing. The IDE bus is more of a blessing than a curse, as it'll accept any modern IDE HDD up to 120GB. My Performa has a 40GB, 7200rpm, 2MB cache HDD, and i'm definately not disappointed with its performance. On top of that, regardless of what you may read, I can confirm that the 630's SCSI bus does support SCSI Manager 4.3, or at least mine does, anyhoo, which means that the 630 has no problems at all with talking to a CD burner at full speed. The only real complaint I have, other than the Valkyrie video controller (which is complete rubbish) is that the power supply on my Performa (it was originally a 630, but i put a 5260 board in it) is on its way out, but other than that, although they're not much stock, they can really be made into quite a nice machine, if you know what you're doing. Think of it as a blank canvas...not really all that much in the beginning, but there is a lot you can do with it.

 

[TylerEss]

The only real complaint I have, other than the Valkyrie video controller (which is complete rubbish)

That same Valkyrie video controller is the thing that lets it run Marathon on the full screen with a good framerate, something no other Mac of comparable spec can do.

 

[alk]

Indeed! Marathon was written especially to take advantage of that chip. Gotta get your game on...

http://marathon.bungie.org/story/eWorldtrans1edited.html

FisherD : In the Demo and the real version of Marathon, there is an

option to accelerate the game for a Quadra 630. I've got a

630... what kind of acceleration does it provide, and how

do you do it?

Do you use the new video buffer chip?

BungieCorp : the quadra 630 and similar models have double-

buffered video hardware, and support hardware pixel-

doubling. the demo supports these modes, and lets you run

in 16bit low-res faster than 8bit low-res on an 840AV.

pretty cool. unfortunately this didn't work in the release

version and is being fixed. the patch will be released soon.

yes, we use the valkyrie chip.

FisherD : uh... English please?

BungieCorp : in english "the Quadra 630 rules if you write

directly to it's video hardware).

But on a 6400, it's probably smarter to disable the 630 acceleration as the PowerPC 603e chip can easily handle any quality settings Marathon 1 throws at it.

Peace,

Drew