Thread
Assembling the Fastest OS 9 Machine
Sure, and Tukwila is the same way. But Power6 and Power7 both really get starved for data quickly if their caches aren't full, and take a bigger penalty than other architectures in those situations. Look at what TurboCore does to the Power7: it's not just a GHz increase, it takes over even more of the cache since the number of cores in flight is reduced.
IBM is bragging that even the slowest Power7 outpaces a 5GHz Power6, though I imagine that is workload dependent:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/08/ibm_power7_chip_launch/page2.html
IBM is bragging that even the slowest Power7 outpaces a 5GHz Power6, though I imagine that is workload dependent:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/08/ibm_power7_chip_launch/page2.html
Anything involving massive processing of large chunks of DATA is helped by cache.
People used to love the old PPro 200's with 1MB of cache at the core CPU speed for database and other data intensive apps.
I actually still have 4 Compaq 5000 units onlined at the house. Even though they are Quad PPro 200mhz they are all 1meg cache per chip. The memory buss gets saturated before the 4th proc really can be flexed but that was known even way back in 1997 or so.
I run Ubuntu Linux on 2 of them once finally figuring out the correct memmap= line to get them to boot without a kernel panic. The other 2 are running Windows 2000. Been running solid for years now. Keeps the basement warm in the winter too. Today they are my testing vmware farm using vmware server 2.0 under the Ubuntu and Win2k. All of them have the full 4Gig of ram in them and 5 9.3 Gig hd's on the array.
I run Ubuntu Linux on 2 of them once finally figuring out the correct memmap= line to get them to boot without a kernel panic. The other 2 are running Windows 2000. Been running solid for years now. Keeps the basement warm in the winter too. Today they are my testing vmware farm using vmware server 2.0 under the Ubuntu and Win2k. All of them have the full 4Gig of ram in them and 5 9.3 Gig hd's on the array.
I presume the 1.5GB RAM limit in OS9 is why my Sawtooth (AGP graphics G4) with 2GB RAM installed shows Built-in Memory 1.99GB; VM Off; Largest Unused Block 1.45GB; and MacOS using 5548MB? The OS just walls off the "extra" 512 MB? Anyhow, it runs.
Specs: 1.2 GHz PLX G4 with 2 MB level 2 cache, which helps with the 100 MHz system buss, 160 GB and 500 GB ATA drives on the internal controller, a pair of 1TB Barracudas on a PCI SATA card, and ATI Radeon 9700. Snappy machine in OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.4.11. With MacOS ROM 9.5.1, it has no trouble with large hard disks. It's my fastest OS 9 machine, beating the Cube which has an NV FX6200 GPU which is a dog under OS 9.
Specs: 1.2 GHz PLX G4 with 2 MB level 2 cache, which helps with the 100 MHz system buss, 160 GB and 500 GB ATA drives on the internal controller, a pair of 1TB Barracudas on a PCI SATA card, and ATI Radeon 9700. Snappy machine in OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.4.11. With MacOS ROM 9.5.1, it has no trouble with large hard disks. It's my fastest OS 9 machine, beating the Cube which has an NV FX6200 GPU which is a dog under OS 9.
Yep, you're right - no matter what you do, Mac OS 9 and below simply cannot address any more than 1.5GB of RAM, its a limitation built into the OS, and short of rewriting the Mac OS (which Apple already did with Mac OS X), there's nothing that can be done about it. Like it matters anyway - 1.5GB is heaps, and I do mean heaps for OS 9.
Do the ATI OS 9 drivers properly support the 9700? I thought the 9200 (RV250) was the last card officially supported by ATI for OS 9, but I would be delighted to be wrong.
No 3d support anymore. That´s why the G-force is still the fastest OS 9 card in existance.
I don't know if it is "properly" supported, but it works for me. All resolutions and color depths are available, and 2D seems pretty fast. I don't run 3D games, so I can't say whether that's accelerated or not. The ATI extensions load except there was one I had to trash to get the system to boot. Apple System Profiler reports it as Card Model ATY, R350; Card ROM# 113-A07525-130. It's an AGP Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB flashed for Mac.
You know that´s not true
Keith Stattenfield and his team did a lot of work at OS 9 already, until Steve Jobs forced them to abandon it (and never release it) and go on with his former NeXT, ...X is an improved NeXT but not a improved MacOS!
As far as I know Macs never got the 9700 and the ones flashed were flashed with modded 9800 ROMs. Macs did get the 9600 but it did not go well with OS 9 either.
That's what I thought. Too bad, an RV3x0 card would have been nice.
ClassicHasClass said:
" I posted this over at PPCMLA, but since we're talking about it here too, I got one of the Sonnet dual 1.8s (1833MHz 7447A) over the weekend. Not cheap. But it sure is zippy! Virtual PC, for example, runs at a howling pace.
Classilla doesn't build a great deal faster, but admittedly its compilation is largely diskbound and the step processing is driven by Apple Events, which are slow.
With that, this system has a Radeon 9000 Pro, the dual 1.8s, 2GB RAM (1.5GB in OS 9) and of course the 167MHz bus, 2MB L3, etc. So that's definitely a big bruiser for the old OS. "
I'm very intereted in to know how much speedy is your MDD whith Sonnet 1833MHz 7447A than my MDD single overclocked to 1.667Mhz.
Can you put please your Cinebench 2003 test results?
Thats mine G4 MDD 1.667Ghz Single:
Cinebench 2003
Rendering 1 CPU 154
Rendering 2 CPU ----
C4D Shading 189
OpenGl SW-L 498
OpenGl HW-L 486
Thanks.
Sorry for my English.
" I posted this over at PPCMLA, but since we're talking about it here too, I got one of the Sonnet dual 1.8s (1833MHz 7447A) over the weekend. Not cheap. But it sure is zippy! Virtual PC, for example, runs at a howling pace.
Classilla doesn't build a great deal faster, but admittedly its compilation is largely diskbound and the step processing is driven by Apple Events, which are slow.
With that, this system has a Radeon 9000 Pro, the dual 1.8s, 2GB RAM (1.5GB in OS 9) and of course the 167MHz bus, 2MB L3, etc. So that's definitely a big bruiser for the old OS. "
I'm very intereted in to know how much speedy is your MDD whith Sonnet 1833MHz 7447A than my MDD single overclocked to 1.667Mhz.
Can you put please your Cinebench 2003 test results?
Thats mine G4 MDD 1.667Ghz Single:
Cinebench 2003
Rendering 1 CPU 154
Rendering 2 CPU ----
C4D Shading 189
OpenGl SW-L 498
OpenGl HW-L 486
Thanks.
Sorry for my English.
A cursory search for Cinebench 2003 was unsuccessful. Do you have a link? It has to be OS 9, because this machine obviously no longer has OS X.
This is a link of the Mac version.
http://personal2.redestb.es/emilioemilio/CINEBENCH 2003.sit
It works on Mac Os 9 and Mac Os X.
I'm only interested on the Mac Os 9 results.
Thanks.
http://personal2.redestb.es/emilioemilio/CINEBENCH 2003.sit
It works on Mac Os 9 and Mac Os X.
I'm only interested on the Mac Os 9 results.
Thanks.
Just downloaded it. StuffIt Expander gave me a funny error about "unable to verify resource fork of Cinebench 2003" and when I started it, it bombed to MacsBug with an illegal instruction. :O The archive doesn't *seem* corrupt and the resource fork looks okay, but it definitely won't run on this machine. Do you have another one you want to try to compare against?
edit: Actually, now that I examine it, it does look like a corrupt archive ... maybe binhex it as a safety measure?
edit: Actually, now that I examine it, it does look like a corrupt archive ... maybe binhex it as a safety measure?
Sorry. I don't know where is the error.
In any case, please try this other. It seems to work.
http://personal2.redestb.es/emilioemilio/CINEBENCH 2003.img.hqx
Thanx
In any case, please try this other. It seems to work.
http://personal2.redestb.es/emilioemilio/CINEBENCH 2003.img.hqx
Thanx
Hi all - I have been away for a couple of years, but am back at my old Mac antics.
Last week I bought what looks like the fastest PowerBook, a 1GHz Titanium. These machines appear to be finicky but this one looks quite good. It was cheapish. Only problem was that the audio out doesn't work at all. That kind of sucks because I mostly do audio and video work. I figured it wasn't too bad, since I like my quiet firewire audio interface. Then I was horrified to discover that firewire didn't work either... I actually got it running by scrubbing the logic board with 90% isopropyl alcohol and letting it dry. Still no onboard audio but now the firewire works. Going to max the RAM. I replaced the 60 GB stock drive which was noisy and very slow with a 160 GB Seagate which is silent and quite fast. When I can afford a second 1 GHz TiBook I am going to try to fix the audio on here - I suspect it's the output opamps.
My main machine for years has been my MDD G4. I bought a partial MDD, and a partial 1.42 GHz FW800 machine and combined them with the 167 MHz FW400 logic board. Has anybody used XServe CPUs in these? I have heard that they are somehow based on the MDD logic board. 1.33 GHz XServe CPUs seem to be cheaper and easier to find than the 1.42. It's got 1.75GB of RAM, GeForce Ti 4600, and Stealth serial port. It is decent in MacOS 10.4.11 but screams in 9.2.2. A few things to look out for: it is picky what version of the 9.2.2 system it uses. It needs one of the later 2002-2003 versions which were distributed with macs on the gray discs. This means it needs an OS X install first and then browse to the hidden cd folder "images", I think it's called classicbasic or some such thing. Also, these machines run damn hot. They have noisy fans which annoy, and they run hot besides. Mine averaged around 140-160 degrees Fahrenheit! It ran flawlessly for about five years, but then I put it away for a couple of months, and once I brought it out again it just kernel panics (X) or hangs (9). It broke from lack of use? Seems to have a serious bus problem now.
Consider that there is the fastest an OS 9 mac can be, and the fastest an OS 9 mac can be without needing special version of the OS and drivers. For instance, an MDD, eMac, or TiBook DVI won't run with a regular retail version of 9. It might require some fiddling and be slightly less convenient than running the next fastest, probably a Quicksilver.
Off to try to fix my MDD...
Last week I bought what looks like the fastest PowerBook, a 1GHz Titanium. These machines appear to be finicky but this one looks quite good. It was cheapish. Only problem was that the audio out doesn't work at all. That kind of sucks because I mostly do audio and video work. I figured it wasn't too bad, since I like my quiet firewire audio interface. Then I was horrified to discover that firewire didn't work either... I actually got it running by scrubbing the logic board with 90% isopropyl alcohol and letting it dry. Still no onboard audio but now the firewire works. Going to max the RAM. I replaced the 60 GB stock drive which was noisy and very slow with a 160 GB Seagate which is silent and quite fast. When I can afford a second 1 GHz TiBook I am going to try to fix the audio on here - I suspect it's the output opamps.
My main machine for years has been my MDD G4. I bought a partial MDD, and a partial 1.42 GHz FW800 machine and combined them with the 167 MHz FW400 logic board. Has anybody used XServe CPUs in these? I have heard that they are somehow based on the MDD logic board. 1.33 GHz XServe CPUs seem to be cheaper and easier to find than the 1.42. It's got 1.75GB of RAM, GeForce Ti 4600, and Stealth serial port. It is decent in MacOS 10.4.11 but screams in 9.2.2. A few things to look out for: it is picky what version of the 9.2.2 system it uses. It needs one of the later 2002-2003 versions which were distributed with macs on the gray discs. This means it needs an OS X install first and then browse to the hidden cd folder "images", I think it's called classicbasic or some such thing. Also, these machines run damn hot. They have noisy fans which annoy, and they run hot besides. Mine averaged around 140-160 degrees Fahrenheit! It ran flawlessly for about five years, but then I put it away for a couple of months, and once I brought it out again it just kernel panics (X) or hangs (9). It broke from lack of use? Seems to have a serious bus problem now.
Consider that there is the fastest an OS 9 mac can be, and the fastest an OS 9 mac can be without needing special version of the OS and drivers. For instance, an MDD, eMac, or TiBook DVI won't run with a regular retail version of 9. It might require some fiddling and be slightly less convenient than running the next fastest, probably a Quicksilver.
Off to try to fix my MDD...
Sorry for the lag, I was away from my workstations this weekend. The second image you posted, Tron, works fine. Here are the numbers:
CINEBENCH 2003 v1
****************************************************
Tester : CHC
Processor : G4 7447A
MHz : 1833
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : OS 9.2.2
Graphics Card : Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB
Resolution : 1920x1080
Color Depth : Millions
****************************************************
Rendering (Single CPU): 163 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 309 CB-CPU
Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.89
Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 181 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 473 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 474 CB-GFX
OpenGL Speedup: 2.62
****************************************************
It's interesting that the Shading was a hair slower. However, the rendering results are what I would have expected for a small bump in MHz (1667 -> 1833) with everything else being equal (MDD architecture and bus). What graphics card is in your overclocked MDD?
CINEBENCH 2003 v1
****************************************************
Tester : CHC
Processor : G4 7447A
MHz : 1833
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : OS 9.2.2
Graphics Card : Radeon 9000 Pro 128MB
Resolution : 1920x1080
Color Depth : Millions
****************************************************
Rendering (Single CPU): 163 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 309 CB-CPU
Multiprocessor Speedup: 1.89
Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 181 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 473 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 474 CB-GFX
OpenGL Speedup: 2.62
****************************************************
It's interesting that the Shading was a hair slower. However, the rendering results are what I would have expected for a small bump in MHz (1667 -> 1833) with everything else being equal (MDD architecture and bus). What graphics card is in your overclocked MDD?
Ummm...there were CPU upgrades for MDD/Xserve
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/XG4D1800/
That's the Sonnet one and I am sure there was another I saw a while back, maybe by Newertech.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/XG4D1800/
That's the Sonnet one and I am sure there was another I saw a while back, maybe by Newertech.
Yup, the Sonnet dual 1.8 in my MDD is Xserve-compatible.
ClassicHasClass said:
"
What graphics card is in your overclocked MDD?
”
A standar Mac Radeon 9000 Pro 64 Mb.
ClassicHasClass said:
“... It's interesting that the Shading was a hair slower...”
The test results may have some vary from once to another try.
This is what I obteined for several trials:
Cinebench 2003 Min Max
Rendering 1 CPU 154 157
Rendering 2 CPU -- --
C4D Shading 188 190
OpenGl SW-L 498 503
OpenGl HW-L 486 510
This are my graphics card related extensions and his version numbers:
ATI 8500 3D Accelerator v 7.0.9
ATI Graphics Accelerator v5.6.9
ATI Resource Manager v3.2.1
ATI Video Accelerator v4.8.7
QuickDraw™ 3D RAVE 1.8.1
OpenGLEngine v1.2.4
OpenGLLibrary v1.2.5
OpenGLMemory v1.2.4
OpenGLRenderer v1.2.4
OpenGLUtility v v1.2.4
OpenGLRendererATI v1.3.5
But I think this may be a CPU related cuestion.
By the way we already know two things:
- The Os 9 uses the second processor of the sonnet MDX dual the same way it uses other dual CPU cards.
- And the faster Os 9 machine is the MDD whith sonnet MDX 1.8 Ghz.
We just need to know if a Quicksilver whith MAXPower® G4/7448 dual 1.8 or single 2.0 will perform better.
Sorry for my bad English.
"
What graphics card is in your overclocked MDD?
”
A standar Mac Radeon 9000 Pro 64 Mb.
ClassicHasClass said:
“... It's interesting that the Shading was a hair slower...”
The test results may have some vary from once to another try.
This is what I obteined for several trials:
Cinebench 2003 Min Max
Rendering 1 CPU 154 157
Rendering 2 CPU -- --
C4D Shading 188 190
OpenGl SW-L 498 503
OpenGl HW-L 486 510
This are my graphics card related extensions and his version numbers:
ATI 8500 3D Accelerator v 7.0.9
ATI Graphics Accelerator v5.6.9
ATI Resource Manager v3.2.1
ATI Video Accelerator v4.8.7
QuickDraw™ 3D RAVE 1.8.1
OpenGLEngine v1.2.4
OpenGLLibrary v1.2.5
OpenGLMemory v1.2.4
OpenGLRenderer v1.2.4
OpenGLUtility v v1.2.4
OpenGLRendererATI v1.3.5
But I think this may be a CPU related cuestion.
By the way we already know two things:
- The Os 9 uses the second processor of the sonnet MDX dual the same way it uses other dual CPU cards.
- And the faster Os 9 machine is the MDD whith sonnet MDX 1.8 Ghz.
We just need to know if a Quicksilver whith MAXPower® G4/7448 dual 1.8 or single 2.0 will perform better.
Sorry for my bad English.
Interesting that the Shading numbers vary that much from run to run. I'll run it a few more times when I get a spare moment.