Power Mac G4 Upgrades

[budude2]

I just picked up a Power Mac G4 at VCF and I am wanting to upgrade it. I already put in 1 GB of ram (4x256mb), but I’m curious what can be done for the CPU and GPU. The mac is an AGP sawtooth, with a uni-n of 7 so it appears it should be able to use dual CPUs. I’m not sure how usable OS 10 is on the stock 400 MHz CPU so I was looking for GPUs that are supported by OS 9 (unless I can get a decent CPU upgrade).

What are options that aren’t insanely expensive?

 

[atakioki]

Congrats on your new machine!

This is a great OS 9 machine as is, it can run OS X, but its pretty slow.

If you're looking for a great PowerPC OS X experience for cheap, consider keeping an eye on FB/Craigslist for an air-cooled Powermac G5. It can be had for less money than the upgrades for your G4, and will be much faster (mostly because you can put a lot more RAM in it)

 

[budude2]

That makes sense. I’m thinking I’d just leave my G4 at OS 9, but I would like to get a better GPU than the stock rage 128.

I do have a dual xeon mac pro g5 which I think could probably run at least 10.6 really well

 

[ArmorAlley]

What are options that aren’t insanely expensive?

1. SATA PCI card can be gotten at reasonable rates if you are patient. SSDs are so quiet & fast. @rabbitholecomputing has some at: https://shop.rabbitholecomputing.com/collections/all
2. ATi Radeon 9000 Pro or nVidia GeForce 4 MX will handle any game in Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X 10.2 | 10.3.
3. If SCSI is something for you, Adaptec PowerDomain 29402UW, Adaptec PowerDomain 19160, 29160N, 29160 or 39160, ATTO UL2D, UL3D.
4. mAudio Revolution 5,1 PCI card if you'd like to play around with 5,1 audio. I don't know of any games that support it though.
5. In theory the Creative SoundBlaster cards allows the support of environmental audio. it didn't work for me though.
6. PCI cards which offer more USB ports, more FireWire ports and a combo of the two. Look at manufacturers like Macally, Sonnet & LaCie.
7. ADB Wombat from BigMessOWires [https://shop.bigmessowires.com/] allows you to connect ADB devices to your PM G4;
8. If you keep an eye out, you can a 1000MHz Sonnet Accelerator for USD200. If you are looking to spend that sort of money, keep an eye instead for a 933MHz Quicksilver.
9. Better optical drive: supports more types of CD & DVD, burns more types, has more memory, etc. If it is too new, it may not work. Mine is an IDE drive from 2005.
10. RAID cards: not really necessary but nice to experiment with. HighPoint RocketRAID do one or two that supports Mac OS 9 (I think!), Acard have a couple of IDE RAID cards. One was on sale recently on these fora that I thought long & hard about. Formac has a U40 SCSI card called ProRAID.
11. One or two 1600x1200 LCD monitors. Mine is an LaCie 320. IBM has one too and Eizo surely has at least one.
12. Speakers: Harman/Kardon SoundSticks | xtrememac Tango Bar

I also use a mac mini G4 1420MHz running Mac OS 9 to download software from the Macintosh Garden, burn CDs & DVDs and it is my fileserver as well. You can access the Macintosh Garden with your PM G4 but you will need to be patient.

 

[Franklinstein]

The GeForce 4MX is an example of dishonest marketing: the GPU is basically a warmed-over GF2MX and doesn't have any of the features of the true GF4. Find a GF4 Ti 4200 or 4600 instead if you want to play games.

I've never seen a Creative card work in Classic Mac OS. I have seen some hackintosh-esque drivers for OS X though.

I honestly stay away from any of the harmon/kardon stuff because they tend to break down (specifically the cone surrounds degrade and the adhesives can fail and allow the drivers to move around). I'd look for a Bose or maybe JBL instead if you want speakers. Sony made some bookshelf audio gear that had USB audio inputs and I've used those with my G4 cube without issue.

 

[applesos]

As a fellow G4 AGP owner solid state storage and a better CPU are two of the highest impact improvements that can readily be made. As far as the other stuff I guess it depends on what you plan to use it for but so far everybody's had good recommendations. Mine is still running the 400Mhz but only because its otherwise operational and further work is on the back burner for me right now.

If you want to work with digital audio as the pros did at the turn of the millennium this is a decent machine for it but you'll seriously want that CPU accelerator.

 

[cheesestraws]

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/1lluh76

(via @joshc)

 

[joshc]

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/1lluh76

(via @joshc)

Thankfully this is just something I stumbled on, not something I actually made.

but.... you probably can't do a much cheaper mod, right? it's just some badly cut plywood stuck in there.

nVidia GeForce 4 MX

On a more serious note, the somewhat capable GeForce MX cards are easier to find than the higher end Radeon ones.

I would highly recommend a SATA PCI card, that's an easy upgrade to do. Some people get a PC Adaptec card and flash them to work in the Mac.

 

[campbellashe]

What is the best DVD replacement for the G4, I have a Digital Audio and the DVD drive is not working. I get lost with all the options, but want the most modern DVD options for dual layer and R+ if able.

 

[Byrd]

Anything Pioneer and IDE is the best replacement, DVR-106 and above work amazingly well and cheap to find.

 

[s_pupp]

I agree with Byrd. I use a Pioneer DVR-109 in my MDD G4. It works fine with iDVD. It can write to DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW, and I’m pretty sure it can write to double-layer disks, but I don’t recall putting that to the test.

 

[campbellashe]

Thanks. Went with the pioneer 115 DVD DL Superdrive.