Number Nine has announced a new version of the Ticket 2 Ride chip that claims three times the performance of the original. Not sure if the Formac and Mactell cards will use the new chip in the future, but it sounds very promising. For more information and the chip specifications, read the press release at: http://www.nine.com/press/may26_98.html.
[12:00 PM Update]
A reader responded to today's post about Diablo having much slower Net play performance, saying that the Apple G3 systems are also affected:
"
While playing over a 10baseT ethernet network using Appletalk, we noticed
this same problem being caused by Apple's 266MHz G3 Minitower. The lag
from the G3 was worse than that caused by a PowerBook 1400 117MHz trying
to play the game.
-Nathan Taylor"
That rules out bus speed as the culprit at least.
[12:00 PM Update]
Since several readers have written asking, I thought I'd post again that the PCI SCSI card in the Apple G3 systems is and OEM ATTO (ExpressPCI I believe) card.
[12:00 PM Update]
John Cooper wrote in reply to yesterday's post regarding Adaptec's firewire capture card not working with G3 CPU upgrades:
"
Mike,
One of your readers noted an inability to capture via Firewire with
a G3 board installed as well. If it is a Firmax 2 board, or any of the
other variations on the Adaptec 8945, it's a combination of their 8920
Firewire and 2940 Ultra SCSI. Although I don't have a G3 upgrade it may
be possible that G3 boards could work with just the 8920 (which is OEMed
by ProMax as the Firemax-C.)
One problem with any of the Firewire
options from Adaptec is that they fail to record back to your DV device
if they are installed in an 8500. So far no one seems to know why.
However, capturing is very clean, without any dropped frames.
Once again thanks for the great site!
John W. Cooper, Jr.
ShadowWeaver Studios"
Bill Fox of MacsOnly has post a review of Funnel Web v1.7.1 analysis tool at:
http://www.macsonly.com/fweb17.html
John Akin writes with a problem he's seen playing Diablo with a G3 CPU upgrade:
"
I have an interesting and frustrating experience. I have a PowerCenter Pro 240 which I have upgraded with an XLR8 275/183 G3 card. When I play Diablo over my modem on battlenet the others I am playing with get terrible lag (their characters freeze for a second every couple of steps) whereas my gameplay is fine. If I switch back to my 240mhz 604e chip (everything else being the same) everything is fine and the lag is gone. Blizzard says this may be due to a timing issue between the G3 card and my 7200 based motherboard. Diablo multiplayer uses UDP packets.Have you ever heard of this or have any explanations or suggestions? I have tried PowercComputings PCI Timing Update Extension without any noticeable change. I'm bummed because I'm having to use my 604e while my XLR8 sits in the closet.
Thank-you,
John Akin
"
If you have a fix or comment on this problem, please contact me. Note that there have been reports of slower on-board video in the
PowerCenter/Pro machines with G3 cards, due to lower bus speeds some say. That's odd as the 8500
on-board video got a big boost in my tests with the PowerForce 250 with only a 45mhz bus speed. I suspect the lower performance is due to disabling the 7200 graphics accel. extension, which is said to help reliability of G3 cards in the Powercenters.
Rhapsody DR2 Feedback:
"
Hello Mike -
Love your site; visit it at least once a day.
In regards to the Rhapsody postings: I installed Rhapsody DR2 last week
on a 7500/604e/200 with two internal hard drives (SCSI IDs 0 & 4) & an
external IBM HD with no problems... (three other items on the external
chain; a Zip, a CD, and a CD-R, BTW). I used the IBM external as the
target volume, and the entire installation process was pretty
straightforward. No problems with the two internal drives, and the only
quirks are that it doesn't like my XLR8 video card (have to switch off
the NEC XV17+ before booting off the Rhap HD), and Blue Box & Rhapsody do
not support SCSI-2 hard drives (in Blue Box, I have all my Mac-formatted
HDs mounted, but no sign of my internal IBM SCSI-2 HD...
Best,
("Anon")"
"
Hey again,
After seeing that others have been running DR2 with G3, I stuck the
PowerLogix card back in [9500] and guess what? It ran fine!
Some crazy voodoo because I haven't changed anything about my setup.
Anyway, nice to be able to use the G3 for everything now. I also have
BeOS R3 installed and it works ok - haven't done much testing with it
though. Rhapsody is where it's at for PPC machines.
Later, hope Kay is feeling better!
Anonymous"
"
I recently installed DR2 on a PowerBook G3, and I kept getting the root
drive error as well. Once I installed the multi-booter application I was
able to select the root drive in the MacOS and restart. This has solved
my boot problems entirely.
Josh
"
Frank Mccart sends a note about Newer Tech's 64MB simms for 6100 owners:
"
Mike,
Please check out http://www.newerram.com/int_6100.html. Perhaps your
readers would like to know. I took the plunge and ordered Newer's 64meg
sims for my 6100/66. As I write this, (with over 72 hours of use), I can
say IT WORKS! Its really nice having the extra ram. I work in prepress,
and many times bump up against the formerly (Apple Specs) 72 meg limit.
ONE happy camper! My only complaint, is that it seems that the price
($188 per 64meg) is higher than other 64meg sims. The chips are coded
MSM416100BJ first line, and 6436DO8-6 on the second. I couldn't find
this number at Mitsubitshi's web site. Proprietery chip, hence the
higher cost? Perhaps someone can figure out the type, and procure a
better price elsewhere.
Imagine this, In Dec of '93 I bought a Quadra 660AV 8/230 In '96
upgraded the motherboard to a PPC 6100/66 and now in '98 upgraded 1) the
ram to 136 megs. 2) the PDS slot to a Newer G3 card(6-98) 3) the hard
drive to a 4.5gig Quantum Viking 7200rpm...
NOW thats ACCELERATING YOUR MAC!
PS. Love your site, Daily reading, and I will say a prayer for your
wife's health.
Frank
http://www.voicenet.com/~fmccart
"
Thanks Frank.
Shared Lib Extension/SCSI disk accesses: I've received several responses to the post regarding constant rythmic disk accesses one user reported when the shared library extension was active. Here's a sample of
some replies on the issue:
"
Tim, are you sure your frequent disk accessing is not the Autoworm Virus???
Sure sounds like it to me
Check the VIREX Home page for details:
http://www.drsolomon.com/vircen/valerts/mac/
A quick check is to see if you have an invisible file called DB (that's all,
just DB) in the root of your hard drive(s) and other media.
A quick note, I'm in NYC and this virus made it to one of my clients here.
Made me look like a hero! I guess a virus can do some good too! :)
- Miguel Chavez"
"
I thought I was nuts. I get this rythmic disk access too, and it never goes
away. I always have to reboot. I didn't catch the previous thread, but it
sounds the same. On my 8500/120, I never had it happen until I put in a 604e
180 card in. Now it happens at random intervals. How could putting in a card
have any effect? could it be a flaw in the system software related to the
604e?
Dave S."
"
Hi Mike,
Thank goodness someone else has this issue! I was beginning to think I
was losing it. I recently acquired a used PowerMac 8500/120 from a
friend (replaced an ailing Centris 650, so it was a real step up!)
However, after a couple of days, I noticed a strange noise which at
first I couldn't identify. After listening closely and playing around
with the system a bit, I concluded just what your other reader did when
he wrote "That rhythmic disk accessing is back".
"Rhythmic hard drive access" really is the best way of describing it -
it's a constant "*chunk* chunk, *chunk* chunk". There are two "chunks"
per second - the initial "*chunk*" and the concluding "chunk" (pretty
technical, huh?) ;)
If you do anything which would normally interrupt the system (like
pulling down a menu), the access stops, only to resume when you let the
system go back to idle.
I had discovered on my own that disabling all extensions solved the
problem, but had no idea which ones might be responsible. However,
based on your reader's post, I disabled just the Shared Library Manager
and the Shared Library Manager PPC. Sure enough, on the next restart,
no rhythmic disk access. I then put the two extensions back in the
System folder and restarted again - rhythmic disk access returned.
I'm running a fairly standard setup - 8500/120 with 80 megs RAM,
standard 2 GB SCSI harddrive (original), System 8.1, few 3rd party
extensions. The only significant, non-standard hardware detail I can
think of is a 1 GB third-party SCSI drive (was in the computer when I
got it). It's an older, non-Apple-standard drive formatted with FWB
utils. Unfortunately, I don't have the expertise to determine if it's
this drive or the default 2 GB drive (or both) which is being accessed
every second. Startup disk is set to the original 2 GB drive.
As with the original poster, I am also running FreePPP (v2.53), although
I cannot say if I noticed this problem before or after it was
installed.
With an illness in the family, don't knock yourself out with this one.
Just wanted to contribute my experience.
Keep up the best site on the 'Net!
-- Erik A. Giberson
PS - Accelerate Your Mac - makes a great home page!
www.xlr8yourmac.com"
Peter Kasik writes that the shared library extension caused another problem:
"
I can't offer any advice towards this, but I have a problem that I have
not been able to solve or decipher between the Shared Library Extension and the continuous
building of color conversion tables with Adobe Photoshop 4.0 and
Equilibrium's Debabelizer 1.6.5 at launch of either program. When the
Shared Library Extension loads, both programs launch quickly only to
spend sometimes up to 10 seconds building "color conversion tables".
The program then runs normally as far I as I can see. I have
reinstalled, reinitialized, redone everything and have not been able to
figure out what is causing the problem, as it not always present....but
since occurring has not been correctable. I have tried innumerable
application preference settings, and can't solve the problem there
either (neither has anyone at Adobe). Any help or similar experiences
would give me vast more peace of mind... My System:
233mhz G3 MT
128megs ram , 6megs sgram
Hitatchi 7517 RasterOps Monitor(converter settings all on "off")
Apple/Gv k56 Modem
Internal Zip Drive
(Base extension/control panel settings, numerous other settings for
optimizing functions)
I'm running OS8.1. I just can't understand the problem at
all...seems that whatever the Shared Library Extension does, it is
interfering with something...hopefully someone can help...thanks again.
Need I say you have the BEST mac site on the net...you already know this!
Yours is #1.
Peter Kasik
"
If you have a fix or comment on this problem, please contact me.
Mike Kramer replied to a post recently regarding slowdown of network copying speeds when
the Newer Tech G3 extension was loaded, compared to speeds without it running Netdoubler
and SpeedDoubler. Mike found that Netdoubler seemed to be the culprit of his slowdown (he
does not own a G3 card):
"
Copy speeds and web downloads crawled with net doubler installed on my machine. When I
de-installed, the whole shebang sped up.
Mike"
Reader Requests:
"
I stumbled across something strange in my quest to get Rhapsody DR2
installed on my PCC PowerTower. I'm trying to get my machine to bring up the
Open Firmware dialog at startup by holding down 'command-option-O-F'. On my
machine, I get the startup chime, and then nothing. The screen is completely
black, no video signal at all. Nada. I get the same result when I tried to
use the DR1 Rhapsody Control Panel to set the Open Firmware boot parameters.
When it tries to boot into Rhapsody, I get the black screen again. Any ideas
on this? Thanks.
PowerTower, 250Mhz 604e, 96MB ram, Adaptec 2940UW, Teac 32x CD
-Peter Loron
"
If you have a fix, workaround or comment on this please contact me.
Net News:
3D Column Logo Contest: I've gotten about 7 offers so far, but I'm still asking for all 3D artists out there to submit their creations for our new 3D Column Logo/Banner.
The winner (and any other interesting entries) is also invited to write an article
(complete w/screen captures if poss.) showing how it was done. I'd like to have all entries by June 15. Resolution should be
200H x 500W (Maximum size - smaller is fine). GIF (animated OK, but try to keep file sizes small) or JPEG format for the final image.
If you'd like to submit a 3D Logo design (full credit given of course), please contact me.
If you missed this weekend's news here's a summary:
Sunday's News:
- Build Your Own 3DFx Fan
- MacsOnly DC User Group Meeting
- Unreal Screen Shots
- Lightwave 5.6 Patch
- Portdoubler/Epson Printer FB
- Rhapsody DR2/G3 CPU/SCSI Disk Problems
- Sonnet Cresendo (Nubus G3) FB
- PowerForce 220/Apple Drive Setup FB
- Voodoo II News/Carmageddon 2
Saturday's News:
- ProRez Review Posted
- Mac Speedup Tips (IE4/Duo/ramBunctious
- Newer Tech G3/DIMM Buffering Issues
- Apple Refurbished Warranty Story
- Shared Lib. Extension Notes
- 8600/250 Refurb Notes
- G3 A/V and CU-SeeMe
- Compaq FB
- Bungie Myth II
- (almost) Free Macs
- UMAX loss ($$) Comments
Please check your bookmarks - make sure you are using www.xlr8yourmac.com.
PowerBook Duo System for Sale:
- PowerBook Duo 270c with 2300 logic board upgrade (100mhz 603e)
- 16MB RAM/240MB HD (OS 8.1 installed)
- 14.4 internal model
- Apple MiniDock
- External Floppy drive
- Dual Charger and AC adapter
The Duo needs a motherboard battery replacement (battery is included) and the 3 included batteries don't have a lot of life in them but otherwise it's in excellent condition. If you're interested,
make me an offer. (Top Offer so far is $525)
We need your G3 info! Reader "Oz" has offered to help with collecting data on Apple G3 system compatibility issues (hardware and software) of all types. Please send him any Apple G3 system compatibility info/issues you have
or are aware of at: oz@bbdoperu.com
Search Tip! For searches on product names with mixed capitalization, use keywords like PowerBoost Pro (not Powerboost Pro or powerboost pro) and MaxPowr (vs maxpowr or Maxpowr). It seems that capitalization within the word on the site pages is throwing off the engine. Keep that in mind when searching for some of the odd product names.
Need Help? Before you send email for tech support, please check the Troubleshooting page or try searching the site (use quotes for exact matches! i.e. "mach 5" vs mach 5 which will match machine, 5, etc.) and to check the FAQ, Performance Basics, Links, and Forums for solutions to your problems or answers to tech support questions. They have a lot of good info and are a great source of help.
Yesterday's News
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