tiger on 256mb

[gobabushka]

alright, ive got a pismo that i'm gonna be running with 256mb ram and tiger on it, would i be better off downgrading to 10.3, or will tiger be ok?

 

[madmax_2069]

i have 256mb ram in my Yikes right now. it runs ok it does allot of swapping tho. you will see a few beach balls wile trying to surf the net but i dont think it will give you to much hastle. everything should work ok. another thing is that being on a G3 will make things a bit slower

 

[Quadraman]

My G4 had problems with some games with 384megs. I added a 512meg stick to the empty memory slot bringing it up to 896 and have had no problems since then. A lot of others have reported issues with less than 512megs but I guess it depends on what you use your machine for.

 

[bluekatt]

down grading would be better i ran tiger on a mini with 256 mb ram and it ws hell

like vista on 128 mb

 

[The Macster]

like vista on 128 mb

Vista won't even boot with 128

There's not a lot in Tiger to use extra memory than Panther apart from Dashboard, which you should definitely disable completely (Panther and Tiger are pretty similar otherwise). 10.2 and below do use less memory, but are much slower anyway and very short on compatibility with modern software.

 

[bluekatt]

like vista on 128 mb

Vista won't even boot with 128

There's not a lot in Tiger to use extra memory than Panther apart from Dashboard, which you should definitely disable completely (Panther and Tiger are pretty similar otherwise). 10.2 and below do use less memory, but are much slower anyway and very short on compatibility with modern software.

see ? thats what i mean

seriously though i used xp in 128 mb it was awfull

and i used tiger on a mini with 256 it ran but not entirley satisfactionairy

i tend to advocate jaguar for older macs because of its lower requirements ( it runs in 64 mb ...just )

and a lot of aplications stil run in jaguar

its not quite obsolete only barley

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

There's not a lot in Tiger to use extra memory than Panther apart from Dashboard, which you should definitely disable completely (Panther and Tiger are pretty similar otherwise). 10.2 and below do use less memory, but are much slower anyway and very short on compatibility with modern software.

Spotlight also uses a bit of RAM, it also has the insatiable ability to grind any older Mac into the ground when you first install 10.4 because of the initial indexing process.

My biggest concern would be that the Pismo, unless you have upgraded to a modern hard drive, has a slow hard disk with little cache, meaning swapping to and from disk will run it into the ground if you overdo it. Also if the hard drive is original I'd be nervous of that much stress - older laptop drives don't like being accessed constantly - they get very hot and are not built for it (new ones get hot too but they are designed to). It might be worth installing something like a SMART disk monitor to keep an eye on the drive and make sure it isn't going to go bang on you.

Generally speaking it's 'OK' with 256MB. Keep the number of apps you open at once down to a minimum and be concious about what you run on it. Every day stuff like Mail will be ok but even Safari will give it a hard time.

Your best bet is to see if you can find a 512MB SO-DIMM for it (should be PC100 IIRC). It shouldn't be too expensive. All my PowerPC OS X boxes are running on 768MB and all seem perfectly comfortable (in some cases even more so than my Mac Pro with 1GB!)

 

[chris]

I'm using it on an iMac G3, 256 meg RAM, and with Dashboard disabled I don't see ANY difference. Not in speed, not in features, etc. But then I don't use too many apps at a time, so no idea what your experience would be with more apps.

 

[iMac600]

I left Dashboard enabled, because with all the widgets closed it doesn't actually use any RAM. Only if you have widgets open does it really matter.

However, I did disable Spotlight and notice a massive difference, using the following commands in Terminal:

DISABLE & ENABLE SPOTLIGHT
To switch it off:

sudo mdutil -i off / /Volumes/*

To remove existing indexes:

sudo mdutil -E / /Volumes/*

To switch it on:

sudo mdutil -i on / /Volumes/*

Switch it off and remove the existing indexes to disable it. The third command is only if you ever wish to switch it back on again. You will still be able to use Spotlight, but it will do a classic/manual search rather than scan the index.