Sorry the weekend news is late. I've had some family matters this week that have had to take priority over site work.

More G3 Throttle Praise: Another reader reports that this utility solved compatibility issues:

"In July, there was a message on your site about people having problems with the Personal LaserWriter 300 and G3 machines. I wrote and said that Apple's solution to this was to turn on Virtual Memory.

When G3 Throttle came out, it mentioned that it was designed to correct hardware problems caused by the G3 being too fast. I downloaded and installed it, and then attempted to print, with the wait state set to 5 or greater. It worked without a problem. As a result, I can now print without having to turn on virtual memory (which would require a restart because I like having VM off most of the time--it messes up alert sounds and slows down emulated games).

Shortly after downloading G3 Throttle, I attempted to install Windows NT on Virtual PC 2.1.3. The installer would not recognize floppy disk #2. Thinking that the problem was similar to the printer problem (since installation had gone fine with the 601/100 processor (although agonizingly slow), I tried using G3 Throttle, and it also solved the problem.
Bryan Baldus"

Yesterday's news had a CPU review post from a 6400/Sonnet G3 upgrade system that reported it solved the Geoport modem problem, and a list of other hardware problems with G3 CPUs the utility is said to solve. I've added info on G3 Throttle to my FAQ's Troubleshooting G3 upgrades topic area for future reference.

More VR128 Feedback: I've added some common tips to my Rage128 VR feedback page (working system owner comments). Here is a recent mail on a compatibility issue:

"The comment about disabling the Connectix Quickcam extensions is definitely correct; with these extensions loaded the video player app will not work. Also, I have succeeded in getting the green 'X' through the desktop video icon to disappear at startup by enabling the Appleshare extension. However, I have found no difference in how the video player app works whether the X is there or not.

Anyone else noticed that the ATI control panel reports that the Resource Manager extension is not installed even when it was installed by the installer and is sitting peacefully in the extensions folder where it belongs? Wonder if this could be part of the problem...

What I'd like to know is if there's anyone out there who has gotten the card to run 3D games installed in a 6500? As far as I'm concerned, this card's a dud until ATI can tell me why nearly all my games lock up immediately. I do have a L2 G3 upgrade installed (Sonnet), but I don't think this is the problem because it will still lock up even when I boot with the Crescendo extension disabled and just run off the 603 chip. If no one else is having problems, then it may just be my machine. It would be nice to know if I've got company.
Thanks,
Greg Rickard "

I had a few comments to Greg:

1. The 603e systems like yours needed a special update from ATI for the Orion Rage128 card to avoid lockups - but surely it's included in the VR drivers I'd think. (Check the ATI Mac Support page for a driver/notes)

2. Systems like yours (64/6500's with Sonnet upgrade) have conflicts with Voodoo3 beta 5 extensions as well. 3dfx has fixed this and will be posting a Beta6 update next week.

3. Do you have opengl 1.1.1 installed? It's only available with OS 9 currently - and is required for the card to work in opengl games like quake2, q3test, etc.

Also note unreal, quake2, etc. need a ton of ram. Even with 128MB installed I have to enable Virtual memory. Not sure if 64MB of ram is very reliable with them (he didn't indicate how much ram he had).

Although it's primarily related to the Rage128 Orion and Nexus cards, a reader sent a note that MacGurus has a Rage128 Tech Notes page that summaries many of the issues with those cards (drive updates, system compatibility patches and more). I've added a link to this page and other resources to my FAQ's Video Cards topic area for future reference.

OS 9 Keyboard Macros: A reader answer's the question of why Macs are supported by OS 9's keyboard macro feature:

"Hi
With regards to your piece on OS9 Macros and programmable function keys (Thursday), I have more info below.

For info on which macs can use Programmable Function keys, check this Apple TIL: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n60530 - it says it must be a ROM-in-RAM mac. [B&W G3, G4, iMac, etc.-Mike]

For earlier macs try using SimpleLauncher
http://www.simplemac.com/SimpleLauncher_e.html

Cheers
Andy Mitchell
NoWonder Support "

Of course One-Click and Quickeys commercial software more powerful, but it cost $$ (and Quickeys also saps a bit of performance, as do many of these utilities when running in the background).

OS 9 on Older Macs: In reply to the reader post saying that his older Mac (pre-Apple G3) seemed slower in applications after OS 9, I received a lot of mails from owners that had recently upgraded to OS 9. The majority noted they saw no significant decrease in performance and overall they were very happy with the upgrade. Several owners of G3 upgraded macs reported their systems were more stable after the OS 9 upgrade.

There were a few reports that mirrored the complaints of the original reader's post however. Be aware that the ATI drivers installed by OS 9 (at least on my Rage128 equipped G4/450) were slower than the previous versions. I also suggest trimming or at least examining the OS 9 extensions you have active. OS 9 installed an iMac graphics extension on my G4 that of course was not applicable to that model.

Here's a sample of both ends of the spectrum of OS 9 on older macs I've received recently. First the good:

"I'm running OS 9 on my Power Computing Power Wave 150 with a NewerTech 400/200/1M card and loving life! I haven't been able to crash it. Even when trying. I thought that I might push the envelope to see what it could do and ran PS 5.5, Fireworks2 and Ill. 8 and no problems at all.

It's clean and faster than 8.6. Faster startup and shutdown as well.

Only bugs were Copy/Paste ext had to go. Latest update still won't work. Norton twins need to be updated. On the way now.
Very happy with this OS. Dan"

One common thread in the comments was that OS 8.6 with Connectix's Speed Doubler was much faster than OS 9 without SD, at least on Macs without fast CPUs (where it may have been more noticable). Here's one sample mail on the subject:

"Hi Mike,
I upgraded a 6500 with 8.6 and Speed Doubler to 9.0. I don't know about comparing 8.6 without SD, but OS9 is absolutely slower than 8.6 with SD (some might say atrociously so). AFAICT, the culprit is the age-old problem of Apple's biggest dog - the Finder. I wrote some scripts to repeatedly do a variety of common Finder operations (running over an extended period of time to get accurate timing results) - 8.6 and SD is easily 20-30% faster than OS9 in Finder operations on the 6500 (all other things equal: same disk cache, same hardware, reboot before every test, etc).

In case people think this is nitpicking, I can say I've personally seen people pick Windows boxes over Macs for this very reason. You sit them down in front of a Mac to show it off and what do they do first? Why, exactly what they should do - open a disk or folder! And the first words out of their mouth is "ugh - this is a *lot* slower than my Windows system." Game Over. They don't even want to see what else is cool (or faster!). What's worse, they become convinced that Apple's new "speed marketing" is a lie. I don't blame them one bit.

This result is not different for newer Macs - they are all limited by a dog-slow Finder. I believe only some of the result is due to Apple's insistence on those dumb zooming opens and closes (does *anybody* have a utility that just eliminates the zooming without doing anything else? A switch in the Finder resources, maybe?). [There were several pre-OS 9 compatible versions of utilties to do this - noted on my Performance Basics page several years ago-Mike]

OTOH, I can say that Apple's copy speeds (after years of trying) finally mostly match (or exceed, but *barely*) SD's copy speeds. But alas, Apple still does not have the other features of SD built-in (smart replace and -still- the *best* file synchronizer on the market).

Please consider mentioning this as a brief open letter to Connectix to somehow figure out a way to convert SD to OS9 compatibility. They have a long record of doing it better than Apple, and without it, I cannot see upgrading my other machines to OS9 - so far, OS9 remains little more than a curiosity on just one of my home machines - and when I can't take it no more, I'll downgrade to 8.6, which is where I'm staying on my other 3 home machines. At work, I'm staying with 8.6 on the 4 machines I have control of. Apple can you hear me? *Seven* OS9 upgrades refused! Connectix, can you hear me?
Stefan Jeglinski "

I'm sure Connectix will update Speed Doubler for OS 9 compatibility. They have in the past issued updates for each OS upgrade as needed. As of today, their OS 9 compatibility page noted Virtual PC 3.0 was compatible, and that an update to Ram Doubler was due in January, but no mention of Speed Doubler/OS 9 compatibility (yet).

For a blast from the past see what was on the front page news here one year ago.

Friday's News Summary

• XLR8 Cache Control 1.4.1 Upgrade Issues
• iBench Browser Benchmark
• Beta6 Voodoo3 Drivers Coming
• PS 5.5/Altivec Bug/Update due from Adobe
• Powerlogix announces PF G4/400
• ATI Tech Note on OS 9/ATI Univ. 4.0x Drivers
• Proformance 3 OpenGL Beta
• Rate Your G3 Upgrade, Game Reviews (including Rainbow Six beta report) and Game Framerates databases updated.
• Sonnet G3 upgraded 6400 owner notes G3 Throttle util solves Geoport modem issue
• G3 upgraded PTP225 owner reports ATI Rage128 Orion needed driver update after CPU upgrade.
• Dramatic gains in Photoshop 4 noted by 8100 Nubus Mac owner after G3 CPU upgrade
• PTP 225/PF G3/220 owner reports no audio problems with Turbomax IDE card
• ATI Rage128 VR owners feedback page posted (reports from working systems)
• "Rare Glitch Project" (windows humor article)
• Multiple monitor displays
• TripleDTools Illustrator EPS file converter for ElectricImage
• site wins MyMac Magazine 'site of the month'
• Other Net News

Thursday's News Summary

• Unreal Tournament Mutator Mods
• VR128 Owners Request
• Wired4DVD Update
• Sawtooth G4s & SCSI Cards Compat. notes
• OpenGL 1.1.2 list of extensions/versions
• Softhut lowers prices on Nubus MP340 graphics card
• More on Sawtooth (G4/AGP) RAM Upgrades
• OS 9 Keyboard Macros
• OS 9 on Older Macs (reader comments)
• OS 9 update on G4/450
• Other Net News

Wednesday's News Summary

• Rod Paine on ATTO DC Ultra2 SCSI card issues
• Intech updates CDTools driver
• Quicken 2000 Release 2
• Dual-Channel U2 SCSI Cards: VAR recommendations
• Proformance 3 ROM Update
• Virtual PC 3.0/USB Tip
• The Game News (Mac Rainbow Six/TRIII & TrueX CD issues/workaround)
• Mac 3D Graphics Card Performance Compared (MP960/Rage128/Voodoo3 2000/Voodoo3 3000)
• Other Net News

For a guide to finding answers to questions - see my Site Guide page.

Considering a G3 Upgrade? Check the CPU Upgrade Owner's Survey results and search for owner reports by Mac model and/or card brand. Readers post new entries daily and the database is updated several times a week. I urge any owners that have had problems to report this via the Survey Form. Always give the most weight to recent owner reports (dated in the listing) as in many cases problems are later found to be due to settings errors, slow L2 cache, etc.

-Freq Asked Questions

Apple Related:
Yikes G4 ROM 1.8.1
GV USB Modem 1.02
Firewire v2.1 drivers
ATI Video Update 1.0
Drive Setup 1.7.3
OpenGL 1.0
Int. Modem Scripts
Apple Modem Update
[File Download]
G3 Modem Update (V.90/56Flex)
See VersionTracker's G3 page for others...
Plaintalk Enabler
[For B&W/iMac]

SCSI Related:
Grappler Updates
3940/3944 SCSI
2940U2B v1.2 Firmware
2940U2W v1.1
MagicScan G3
Miles Updates
ATTO SCSI
Formac PowerRaid Updates

G3 CPU Cards:
PPC Checker
XLR8 Cache Cntl 1.41

PowerLogix SW
MAXpowr G3 1.3.9

Misc/General:
Wired4DVD
Proformance3 ROM
Quicken 2000R2
TT Pro 2.5.2
ORB Tools 1.2.3
Outlook Express 5
USB Overdrive
Softraid v2.2
Proformance 3
Rage128/Older Macs Patch
ATI Drivers 4.01
Font Mgr Update
USB Card drv 1.2
GameSprockets
Retrospect Drvrs
Office98 GUID Patch
NAV 5.03
NAV Defs
Logitech MouseWare USB
GV V.90 Flex
 Preferred Script

Games Related:
MesaQuake2
Voodoo3 drvrs
Voodoo2 drvrs
MesaGL 3dfx drvrs
Joyport Update
(InputSprocket fix)
MacMame(emulator)
Descent 3Dfx