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Gamer choosing betwen 10.4.11 & 10.5.8

W

winterlight

6502
Hi guys,

Here's a scenario that only the experienced gurus of the Mac Liberation Army can answer.

I'm using a Quad core G5 for games that span the old  Mac Classic all the way to Mac OS (10.4-ish)

I'm stuck between two setups for the G5:

1 - Mac OS 10.4.11 using Classic mode and playing games that only support up to 10.4

2 - Mac OS 10.5.8 supplemented with Mini V Mac and Sheepsaver to play all games up to Mac OS 9.01 and then OS 10.5.8 for the rest

I've been told that OS 10.5.8 has some optimizations for the G5 that 10.4.11 doesn't

BUT

I've also been told that the universal binary for 10.5.8 runs slower than 10.4.11 which is still PPC oriented

There are some issues with Classic mode also:  can't mount a CD that Classic Mode games can see, for example

If any1 has any experience with this that would be great.

BTW, the G5 has

- Quad Core 11,2 hardware

- 16GB of RAM

-  SATA III SSD (I understand the G5 doesn't have a SATA II interface though)

Please let me know what you guys think.

 
10.4. SheepShaver is pretty unstable especially with anything that goes "outside the box." You can take a chance with SheepShaver in 10.4 as well for apps that don't work properly in Classic.

 
10.4 for sure - Classic is the next best thing to actually running OS9. Were there even that many games for 10.5 that didn't support 10.4?

 
any1 know of a way to mount CDs that Classic Mode can see?

I tried using CD/DVD Mount from MacGarden and it doesn't work.

Makes it difficult to play some of the really epic games in OS 9.

 
OS 9 won't boot a G5 (yet) but dual booting between 10.4 and 10.5 sounds like it would work, at least in theory. I've never tried it, but I imagine dual booting between two different versions of OS X would require at least two partitions given its UNIX/BSD underpinnings.

 
For general use, 10.5.8 on a Quad is a no-brainer, but if you need 10.4 for Classic I'd install another SATA HD in the drive bay and switch over to that when required.  You could also partition a single drive for both, but this would be a simpler solution.

 
Thx again for all the help guys.

Since I'm still pretty nooby around macs...

For the dual booting solution, once I have a drive with two partitions and both versions on them, would I use the Startup Disk utility in System Preferences to switch or is there a boot manager for 10.4 & 10.5?

 
Just hold the Option key (Alt on a PC keyboard) when you turn it on, that will let you select the OS partition you want to boot from.

 
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The option key's not a terribly optimal solution, though - I admit I haven't tried it on a G5, but on G3/G4 Macs it takes forever to scan for all possible bootable volumes before actually letting you choose one. It's more useful in a pinch if one of your bootable drives gets messed up to the point where you can't open the control panel.

 
Also, the Option key method is only temporary-- it won't remember your choice across boots. The preference pane "blesses" (is that still the right term in OS X?) the chosen system so you don't have to remember to use the Option key at startup each time.

 
Just to loop back on the original purpose of the thread.

10.5.8 works MUCH better on this hardware than 10.4.11 (Power Mac G5 11,2)

TenFourFox, web pages in general, system prefs, etc.

Only thing that hasn't changed is Stuffit's crappy performance.

So I guess that answers my question around whether the PPC specific 10.4 is better or worse than the 10.5 universal (but G5 optimized) binary.

Know if only Sheepshaver would cooperate...

Thanks again guys.

 
Try The UnArchiver.  It's got great support on modern OS X systems and I believe there are some older versions that are PPC compatible.

Main Page: https://unarchiver.c3.cx/unarchiver

link to all older versions (not sure which is the last to support 10.5/ppc): http://wakaba.c3.cx/releases/TheUnarchiver/

Change log, maybe it gives some info on last one to run PPC: https://unarchiver.c3.cx/changes

... got bored, read through, looks like there is actually a "legacy" version available, a branch that is kept in sync with the current version... at least as of 3.6.  At any rate, good luck :)

Edited to add: read main page carefully, link to legacy version is just a hyperlink below main download and app store download buttons.

 
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Also, just to add, the unarchiver also works on Windows (through the lsar/unar command line utilities, but don't be afraid of the command line, it works really well!) only problem is it will stomp all over the resource forks.

On Mac OS 10, it will respect the resource forks, and should probably offer better archiving performance than stuffit.

 
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