Several readers have reported that they are running PowerForce G3 cards with 3Dfx cards with zero problems. Possibly the problem reported earlier today was due to the Catalyst based system or just some other software issue. [12:00 PM Update]

Just a note I tried a new Macintosh driver that was said to allow PC Revolution 3D cards (ticket2ride chip) to work in a Mac. It failed to work in both the Apple G3/266MT and 8600. No video output from the card and the control always had the red "X" through it at startup (not detecting a supported card). As I suspected, apparently a Mac bios on the card is needed. Trying both the VGA enabled and disabled jumper setting on the Rev 3D card made no difference. [12:00 PM Update]

New Site Updates:

• ProRez Review Update: How it Compares to the G3/266MT RageII
• G3 CPU Cards - 1MB vs 512K Cache Tests in Photoshop
• Disk Cache Size vs. Performance

If you missed yesterday's news I've updated the Systems page for a link to two reader's detailed comments on the new Wall Street PowerBook G3 and restored a link on the SCSI Topics page to my Dec 97 Adaptec 2940UW installation tutorial. I'm working on the Fuse video capture card review now - sorry it's late! (It does seem to work fine with the PowerForce G3 cards btw.)

S. David Ahn sent a note on a surprising boost in the onboard RageII video scores after he boosted the CPU and Bus speeds:

" Thanks a lot for your reply. I think I'm gonna get a ProRez within the next couple of months. I was surprised though that the Rage II chipset on my G3 Desktop 266 went up in 2D performance from 305 to 565 on MacBench just by going from a 266/66/33 to 292/83/33. That's an 85% speed increase, compared to a CPU increase of 9.8% and a bus speed increase of 25%. Is a puzzlement, in the words of the King of Siam (The King and I--recently saw it at the Pantages Theater).
David"

Note: modifying the jumper block on the Apple G3 voids your warranty.

PowerForce/Catalyst/3Dfx problems? David Copeland reports problems with his 3Dfx card and this combination:

" Mike -
Things have gone down hill since I last told you of my RailGun raves...

I now cannot use any game (or demos) that utilizes Glide libraries or the Power3D card - I get errors ranging from 'cannot find Glide library - reinstall or disable' to 'cannot switch monitor depths'...I've tried Quake / Hornet / Carmageddon / Myth and they all crap out.

I've reinstalled the GLide stuff to no avail - could this be due to disabling the 7200 Graphics Acceleration extension?

I'm going to call Bottomline and inquire if there is any Catalyst / Power 3D issues I should be aware of...

Thanks in advance!
-David Copeland"

I didn't think the PowerForce cards had a problem with 3Dfx cards normally, maybe this is a Catalyst motherboard issue. If you are running a PowerForce G3 card and a Power3D/3Dfx card - please contact me.

Wanted: 9600/350 CPU Card: I'm still looking for a 9600/350 Mhz card (not a 300mhz clocked up) to modify to 400mhz. If you have one for sale or trade, contact me. I'd be willing to offer this 350mhz Mach 5 card (originally a 300 but runs just fine at 350) and a 64MB DIMM or cash in trade as well.

I've received many requests for to mod. Mach 5 cards for higher speeds and am considering it (with the proper written release).

Macsonly! front page has comments on BYTE Magazine's Demise based on comments from the former editor in chief and CMP employees and a review of Virtual PC 2.0

A Mac only store salesman comments on the reader post in Saturday's news regarding the high retail prices of G3 memory:

" Dear Mike,
Hope the wife is doing better! We all owe her so much for letting you run this site. :)

RAM and VRAM are usually much much cheaper via mail order vs. from a local retail store. You buy from mail order for cheap prices. You buy local for the service and support. If you buy a machine from a local store thinking you're helping them out then buy your VRAM and RAM mail order for the prices, you're really not doing your local store much service at all. Margins on machines are currently around 10% and are often less. This is no problem for mail order where they have little overhead, but for retail, it can kill. Local stores make their money off of the RAM, VRAM, peripherals, and software sales. The actual computer itself barely pays more than the cost of selling it.

If you don't use your local store for support and service and buy mail order, that's great. The local store has nothing to give you and you don't owe them anything. But if you use the support and service of the local store, then by all means give them your business. When you pay more for RAM, you're really paying for the help you receive.
Jon Simon
Salesman at M.A.C. in Berkeley, a Macintosh only store for over a decade. "

I just wish there were Mac stores in this area to support. I have to drive 70 miles one way to see a Mac in a retail outlet. And with Apple cutting back smaller dealers, the few local small business supporting dealers will surely vanish as well.

DC20/Apple G3 Feedback: In the past I've gotten several reports of the DC20 not working in a Apple G3 (w/quotes from Miro tech support verifying this), and several G3 owners saying the opposite. I asked one of the owners who said it worked to try it at resolutions above 320x240. He replied:

" I tried various combinations of capturing settings and this is what I found for MY system:

320x240 works like a charm.

640x480 "works" - that is to say that it will capture video, albeit not very good. Lots of dropped frames, color goes in and out, stuff like that. I found that since I plan to dump it back out to video tape, that 320x240 is not to bad for this, although definitely not up to what it should be, but useful for the limited personal stuff that I have tried since getting the system.

The scsi drive is a Seagate Hawk 7200 RPM drive with Silverlining 5.8 running. It is really a SCSI II drive, but it came with an adapter to change it to a SCSI I interface. I would guess that this is the reason for the slow performance [I think he meant a wide SCSI to narrow SCSI adapter - but a big reason for slow performance is the 5MB/sec G3 onboard SCSI, which some say does 3MB/sec or less-Mike]. I am assuming that if I get a SCSI II card the performance will go up. Hope this all helps in some way.
Mike Jackson
Proud Owner of a Macintosh since 1989.
http://members.aol.com/virtualmaj"

G3/NET Reader Request Feedback: Timothy Jones wrote regarding the Reader Request from Rory Ross:

" If the UNIX machine is using AFP over TCP/IP, ie netatalk with asun patches, then the AppleShare client will try and use TCP/IP to mount the volume, even though it uses AppleTalk to find the server. This is default behavior as most people who have an ethernet AppleTalk connection will also have an ethernet TCP/IP connection. There are a couple of ways to take care of this.

1. When using the chooser to log into a server, click the OK button with the option key pressed and this for force the use of AppleTalk. Aliases of this server will default back to TCP/IP however.

2. Run IP masquerade on the UNIX box and thus using the UNIX box as firewalling packetfilter to the net you will gain TCP/IP connectivity for all hosts on your private lan. There would then be no need for PPP on the mac and thus avoiding the problem.

3. Do the same on one of the Macs using IPNRouter and using the Mac as the firewalling packetfilter, the same as #2 happens with the same core benefits, while being *much* easier to configure, and also has the side benefit (depending on your point of view) of putting the UNIX server behind the "firewall" for added security.
Timothy Jones"

MP Problems Feedback: Two Responses to the Reader Request regarding problems in OS 8 with a MP card and Media 100:

"To Doug,
Regarding the problem of copying info from one bus to another while running System 8 for you Media 100/MP/OS 8 environment.

I also do digital video editing on my Umax s900/Atto Scsi 3/Os 8/Targa 1000pro environment.

After TWO LOST WEEKS of daily trouble shooting and RECALLING ATTO tech support they asked what my FIRMWARE REVISION number was on my Atto card (wish they had asked me two weeks earlier when I first called-of course, in the end i can only blame myself). I had revision # 0100. They emailed me updater # 0111. That did the trick.

I too was trying to run two 9gig Micropolis and thought that it was just the drive's bad performance, so i returned them, took a big gulp and invested in Cheetahs. The performance of these Cheetahs is awesome. I do know that one of my Micropolis drives was definitely faulty and spoke to another video editor fellow who had 7 Micropolis drives and 2 of them died.

So, check your Atto revision number with your Atto Express Pro Tools utility.
Joel Christensen "

"I read about Doug's problem with his Apple MP box and I too have had problems with a 9600/200 MP.

9600/200 MP
4gig Quantum (OEM)
4gig Barracuda (just added in May)
Stock Video Card
64mb DIMM [not a lot of ram for MP, since they can't use Virtual memory-Mike]

plain vanilla, nothing special on this boy

Copying files, running applications,... all at one point or another would crash the machine. I contacted our tech guy for repair since everything I tried (no extensions, reformat of drives with your pick of formatters, diff. ram, basically all the tricks in the book...) would not resolve the issue. The motherboard, memory, HD, and SCSI cable have now been replaced since these problems cropped up back in Oct 97'. It still has had problems. I could swear this machine was haunted (or so my students would tell me) Recently, I installed the Mecurtio patch on the 9600 as a last ditch solution before another motherboard was to be installed. It seems that has solved the problem (maybe). Its been running for 5 days straight without a burp. Its acting as a development server for our web development team. Im gonna give it another week before I give it my final blessing as completely exorcised.

Here is the url for mercutio info:
http://www.digitalalchemy.com/mercutio/GDeviceProblem.html

If anyone comes up with any other ideas, please let me know. Im not sure how long my good fortune may last, and I may have to go back to the drawing board..
Thomas Spicer"

8600 Refurbs: The latest reader feedback:

" Ordered an Apple 8600/250 from Macwarehouse the middle of last week after reading about it on your site. Called them today (Sunday) to get the 4 yr. warranty you mentioned in todays post. They informed me they were out of stock (8600's) and wouldn't be getting any more, and my order (now 5 days old) wouldn't be filled (keep in mind that I was calling them to add a warranty to the order I thought was on the way). I suggested that someone might have informed me sometime within the last 5 days that my order was a no go. They seemed to have a somewhat cavalier attitude about the entire episode, which I wasn't particularly happy about. So I called the Apple store and ordered an 8600/300 refurb.($1599.00). No need for you to respond to this message, just thought I'd let you know Macwarehouse is out of the 8600's.

Keep up the wonderful work, I have great admiration for someone who can manage something as labor intensive as this site must be while having a regular job. Hope ! your wife's doing well (again...don't take the time to respond to this, I'd rather read a few more tidbits on the site).
Jim Deer"

A reader replies a recent reader post regarding the lack of extended Applecare warranties to Florida residents:

" Hi.
I read Neil Max's comments on Applecare in Florida on your news page. It is true "Florida Consumers" can't get Applecare on their machines. You can however get Applecare if you put it under a business or institutions name.
Jeff"

Reclaiming Memory: Yesterday's post about Netscape 4 generated several mails (I should have noted the "quit the finder" trick):

" Hi Mike,
I recently read some reports on your site about people using browsers like IE and Netscape 4 and upon quitting, not getting their memory back. This memory leak has been around for a while and applies to older versions of the browsers too and any other TCP-based apps.

With OS 8 especially, I noticed, back when I used a modem that upon CLOSING PPP connections, I would get back much of the memory. (Mac OS Purge only gives back a couple of megs at most.)

Just to recap, I simply quit Netscape or Eudora, quit the Finder and run any other app that is not TCP based (or just wait) and soon enough, the System will automatically return the RAM to me. By the way, a great way to know exactly how much RAM you have free and when you get it back with the annoying ABOUT THIS COMPUTER is to install RAMGUAGE. This is an amazing little control panel that lets you put an indicator on the menu bar display the free RAM. If you want, I would be happy to e-mail both of these little apps to you. They are shareware.
Regards,
Shervin Shahrebani "

PowerBase flies with PowerForce 220/110:

" Dear Mike
I thought I could add to the large number of Powerforce 220/110 benchmark/Testimonials that you have received.

I have a PCC Powerbase 180 with a 1 Meg cache (upgraded from 256K). Based on the excellent feedback I noticed on your page I thought it worthwhile to purchase the PF 220.

Installation was a snap, only one problem, the powerbase computer (desktop model) doesn't leave enough room between the daughter card slot and the cache dim slot.

The heat sink fins on the PF 220 make it impossible for any dim to be in the motherboard slot (any way around this?). Anyway, my potential L3 cache of one meg is sitting in the PF 220 box awaiting a new home.

But the good news is that the card met and exceeded any expectations I had.

The powerbase 180 has a 40 meg system cache speed so I thought performance might be limited alittle, what I hadn't counted on was the headroom the PF200 allowed. I've been running the card flawlessly at 300/150/40 for two weeks. My Macbench scores (with libmoto) are:

Processor 882
FPU 945
Disk 328 (2 Gig IBM SCSI formatted with Apple's Driver)

Byte Mark Score (Full Test)
Integer Index: 8.956248
Floating Point: 6.452414

My Norton System Info Scores
CPU 712
FPU 702
Disk 372 (4 Meg Disk Cache)
Video 414 (Thousands of colors-ATI Xclaim 3D 8 Meg)

The amazing thing was right out of the box, I set the switches to 300/120/40 and ran right away, it was only after a week of no problems that I increased the cache speed to 150 and to my surprise found it worked perfectly.

This is a truly amazing product.
Regards
Barry Rubin"

That's why I got so excited in my PowerForce 220 review. First G3 card for under $500 and reader feedback has been amazing.

RailGun Feedback: The latest on the Railgun 250 owner reports:

" On the strength of your review, I purchased a Railgun 250/166/1Mb for my PM 8500/150. I am more than pleased with the performance.

Your review left me very confident in the capabilities of the card so I jumped right in at 270Mhz, 45Mz Main bus and the backside cache at 1:1 (They now ship with three cache extensions 1:1, 1.5:1 and 2:1). It is solid as a rock and flies like the wind. MacBench reports processor performance at 1086 and it runs RAMometer all day long. PowerLogix Speedmeter reports it running at 89 degrees F.

So far, all my programs like it just fine. Photoshop cooks! Somewhere along the line I heard that running the Graphing Calculator in full demo for extended periods of time is a fair test of the system. What do you think about that?

Thanks for the extremely informative review.
Craig Patton"

Rhythmic Disk accessing Problems - More Feedback: Here's the latest in our continuing coverage of the problem:

" Hey Mike,
You can count me in on the rhythmic disk access problem. It occurred a few months ago when I upgraded Free PPP. I quickly narrowed the problem to the PPP Menu which places an Icon w/ pulldown menu in the upper right next to the clock. I have an 8500, a 2gig Seagate drive, and numerous 3rd party extensions (no Ram Doubler, Virtual Memory, or custom font on menubar clock). I ended up disabling the PPPMenu and selecting FreePPP Setup in A La Carte which allows me to access it from a pull-down menu in the same location. I'm running OS8.1, w/ a MaxPowr 250, and 256mb of ram.
Hope this Helps,
Mark Magnarella "

" Hard disk rhythmic access . . .
RAM Charger's accompanying utility, "More About This Mac" and the unrelated shareware "About" (both of which are apps that mimic and extend the Finder's "About This Computer" function), write to their preferences file in the System/Preferences Folder very frequently. Normally those writes get buffered to the Memory cdev's Disk Cache, but if one is using St. Clair Software's "CacheSaver" cdev set to flush the cache periodically (I have mine set to once a second, effectively making my Disk Cache a "write-through" cache), one then will experience the hard disk rhythmic accesses.

Furthermore, I also once experienced chronic hard disk rhythmic accesses which I eventually isolated to the shareware Internet launcher/timer, "PPPop." When I contacted the author Rob Friefeld he emailed his answer as follows:

Surprise! The HD grinding suddenly started for me. I traced the operation of PPPop in the debugger and found that just drawing the timer window caused it. Very odd, since there is nothing there which should cause a disk access. Then I found out that it depends which font you use. Any of the fonts Microsoft supplied with Internet Explorer (Comic Sans, Arial, Georgia, Verdana...) cause this behavior. If you have them installed, try selecting them on the line above. The disk goes crazy while you are doing it.

I don't know why they don't cache like other fonts. They look god-awful without ATM turned on, but turning it off does not fix the problem. 

George Machen"

" Mike,
Just thought I'd add my data to the pile. I have a PowerCenter 150/176 mb Ram/ultimate REZ This has occurred with both the stock 604 card and a PF 220/110 card.

No 3rd party extensions. I'm using HD setup 1.4 I have noticed it on two internal seagate drives but not my external Atlas. I have not modified the font in Date/Time control panel. Load when needed has always been checked in the TCP/IP control panel. I have always had OT PPP and FreePPP loaded at the same time. I have Photoshop 4.01: no issues with color pallets

My problem with this disk accessing vanished after configuring OT PPP and connecting to my ISP once with it. Has not occurred again in over a week.

I have removed FreePPP from my system as I believe, in my case, it was somehow conflicting with the shared library manager extensions.
Tim Catlin "

If you do have the problem, please let me know if your system has the following items:

• Catalyst Motherboard (7200, PowerCenter, PowerCenter Pro, or just note model)
• A Seagate Hard Disk (and if it is the boot disk)
• Virtual Memory on?
• Free PPP installed?
• Any non-System fonts used for clock?
• Any other 3rd party extensions (Ramdoubler, etc.)

Contact me with the above info and I'll try to summarize and isolate common factors that may be the root cause.

Reader Requests:

Mike Pitogo asked that I post a request for info on enabling G3 backside caches under Rhapsody. (See a similar request/tip for Linux in the April 28th news page regarding Resedit mods to the Newer extension.).

" Would you please post something about how to enable the L2 backside cache of G3 upgrade cards under Rhapsody DR2. I emailed newertech and am waiting for their response."

If you have any tips/info that may help, please contact me.

Rory Ross is asking for help with a PPP/Networking problem:

" I have recently gotten a G3/300 with a 4Gig UltraWide SCSI at work. We are hooked up to a Unix server via 10 Base-T ether net. I also have a modem for internet connection (no internet through the server, yet). My question/problem. With my TCP/IP set to PPP for my internet connection, when I mount a volume from the server, my internet connection is dialed first. We have an 8100 with the same set-up, and it does not do this. It will just mount the volume. I have tried all the new Ethernet extensions that have been listed and searched everywhere I can think of for other people with the same problem, but have found nothing. Any help would be very appreciated."

If you have any tips, comments or suggestions that would help, please contact me.

Doug still urgently needs help with Media 100/MP/OS 8 problems:

" Dear Mike,
I wouldnít email you normally, but I have become desperate to solve this problem as I am losing business with my Media 100 no longer working properly. After all my testing, I am clearly on the wrong track and donít know where to go next.

I have a 9500 with a Daystar MP processor card. After upgrading to system 8.0, the system freezes whenever I try to copy information from my internal drive to any drive connected to a drive connected to either an ATTO or Adaptec SCSI card (I have both and tried each one separately.) Does anyone know how to fix this?

I have upgraded the Hard Disk drivers to what comes with the PowerDomain software (Diskbasics). I have also tried FWB Raid toolkit 2.0.2. I have also tried the drives striped and non striped.

BTW, the external drives I have tested are some Micropolis 9 gigs and Quantum 4 gigs. All were running fine and furious under system 7.5.5 and my Atto card.
Thanks in advance.
Doug"

If you have any tips, comments or suggestions that would help, please contact me.

This site is 100% Intergraph free - no persons working on this web site have ever been on the payroll of any PC manufacturer.

In case you missed the weekend news here's a summary:

Saturday's News:

• Autostart Worm virus free Eradicator
• Notes on Mach 5 300 to 350mhz mods
• Mac USB notes from Keyspan
• More rythmic disk accessing feedback
• More Diablo Net lag freedback w/G3 CPUs
• 7200 RPM IDE Drive issues
• Farallon sales
• Apple G3 system troubleshooting
• G3 CPU card upgrade troubleshooting tip (disk driver)
• More JazJet SCSI card feedback
• XLR8 G3 upgrade Cache dimm feedback
• Mac Freeware/Shareware links
• Misc Net News (incl. E3 Show news)

Sunday's News:

• More refurbished Mac warranty feedback
• Apple G3 power supply notes
• OS 8.1 upgrade notes on 8600
• IE vs Netscape browser notes
• Bytemark results for Mach 5 350mhz 604E card
• More Sonnet Nubus G3 CPU upgrade feedback
• More rythmic disk accessing feedback
• Newer Tech Nubus G3 CPU upgrade feedback
• News from the Net

Please check your bookmarks - make sure you are using www.xlr8yourmac.com.

3D Column Logo Contest: 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.

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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