Bob Snow sent a report of using the Pioneer SCSI DVD drive in his 8600:
"Mike,
I got my Pioneer internal SCSI DVD model 303S and mounted it in my 8600 with
little difficulty. It does use the newer type audio plug, so I needed to
make a small adapter. I am using a hacked version of Apple's CD/DVD driver
and it seems to work perfectly. I can boot from this drive by holding down
the c key. I can play Audio CD's using the Apple player and SoundJam. I
cannot however play DVD movies using the beta "DVD Player" software decoder
I downloaded. In all cases, I get a series of errors reported while trying
to play three different movies. I hope the rumors being circulated that
QuickTime will eventually incorporate Mpeg2 software decoding are true.
Until DVD ROM titles become more widely available for the Mac, I must be
content seeing my DVD movie disks mount on the desktop. For $129 from
onsale.com, this is a pretty nice setup. The drive is a 32x CD and 6x DVD.
I really like the slot-in trayless loading. This type of loading would be
fantastic for a PowerBook or iMac if they could get it small enough.
Bob Snow"
Although he didn't mention it, I think I remember Versiontracker listing a DVD software
decoder awhile back. For those looking for a hardware decoder - check wiredinc's web site for their Wired4dvd PCI card and/or my FAQ CDROM section for links to DVD Drive/Decoder card bundles (SCSI and IDE). [Update - the Video articles page, DVD section has a review of the Wired4DVD decoder card.]
I've just received a link to an Apple TIL that may explain what the 5 tones I heard at boot
in the B&W G3 (w/ROM update) and G4 CPU upgrade mean. This TIL on Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) Power On Self Test Beep Definition shows that: "5 beeps = processor is not usable". A link to Apple's recent TIL updates is always in the lower sidebar here. [Note - XLR8, Newer Tech and others have firmware patchers with their G4 CPU upgrades to allow G4 CPUs to be used in B&W G3s with the version 1.1 firmware. See the G4 reviews page for links to the XLR8 G4/400Z review which has an install page covering how the patch is applied.)
Making .SMI Files: A reader replied to the request for info on making self-mounting image files with a tip on a freeware utility:
"I don't know how to create the things from scratch, but there is a
freeware drag-and-drop utility called "File Smiler" that works through Disk Copy 6.3.
Luigi Mattera"
Thanks to all readers that replied!
Yikes First Impressions: Several readers have said they've received their 'Yikes' (G4 system based on B&W G3 motherboard). Here's one reader's comments:
"Hello Mike,
Ordered a "Yikes" G4 for my school the Wednesday after introduction, and
was absolutely amazed to receive it yesterday. Knock on wood, but it seems
that the bad old days of 3 month delays when ordering from Apple appear to
be finished.
The first thing that hit me was how awesome the case looked. The blue
G3's never really struck me as very cool, but the new "platinum" and
translucents really hit me as being professional yet still distinctly
"Apple-ish." The desktop picture it ships with is also absolutely
incredible, much cooler than the lame ones Apple's been shipping for years.
Unfortunately, the presence of the hockey-puck mouse and keyboard spoiled
the first impression for me. Methinks Apple's been thinking a little bit too
differently lately and have forgotten the basic theories of ergonomics.
Speedwise, the G4 feels a bit faster in the Finder than the blue G3's,
but not by much. I'll run FPS tests in Unreal tomorrow and put the results
in the FPS database, but my hunch is that the ATI card is a big bottleneck there for frame-rates and it wouldn't be much faster than a similar G3 for games not optimized for Altivec. [I agree and have commented on this here previously. No CPU can force more frames-per-second from a video card that
is already saturated even with a slower CPU-Mike]
As reported, Adobe's Altivec optimised Photoshop plugins are included on
the hard drive. I didn't get a chance to try them, but will try to do a few
Photoshop benchmarks to see what difference they make.
Hope this gives your readers a better picture of what to expect. The
Yikes G4 is a great deal for schools at $1439 (educational pricing) and I'm
looking forward to seeing what Sawtooth brings to the table in a couple of
weeks.
Ted Swinyar"
The Adobe plugins on the G4 CD are labeled AltiVecCore (version 5.5) and LightingEffects (5.5.1) according to another reader. I've got a Sawtooth G4/500 on order and can't wait for it to arrive for tests. I wanted the AGP motherboard and 500MHz CPU since the G4s are not likely clockable (at least not reliably from what I've seen) and I wanted to get the latest G4 stepping (CPU revision). I'll be dropping in a Voodoo3 AGP Card as well to eliminate the bottleneck on the video. Too bad you couldn't order the Rage128 in PCI slot version, as it would have made it useable if you used the AGP slot for another video card. The other option is to get a Voodoo3 3000 PCI card perhaps (and keeping the Rage128 in the AGP slot).
Note that unless 3Dfx revises the ROM code, even though the PC Voodoo3 3000 normally runs at 166/166 MHz (Chip/Memory clock), the card would run at 143/143 MHz (std Voodoo3 2000 speed) with the current Mac Voodoo3 2000 ROM.
As reported here last week, I have one confirmation the Beta 2 ROM does work in a AGP Voodoo3 3000 AGP card in a new G4 system.
Speaking of the Voodoo3, Carsten wrote that German Magazines MacUp and Macwelt had ads from Villagetronic showing new MP760 and MP950 cards based on the Voodoo3 chip. The prices were about equal to the Voodoo3 cards from Mactell Carsten said. As of today, I didn't see anything on these new cards at the Villagetronic news page.
The service manuals for the G4s must be out based on the pictures at
PowerMacintosh.com's G4 page. There are pictures there of the AGP motherboard details, modem, and also a picture of the Yikes jumper settings for 400 and 450MHz. I've not had time to compare these settings to those listed on my page of B&W G3 Jumper Settings.
I had a real scare during testing last night of video cards with the B&W G3. During an Unreal timedemo test (w/Orion card) the machine locked up. A forced reboot resulted in only a flashing disk icon (meaning the mac could not find a bootable disk). Booting with the Disk Warrior CD repaired two cross-linked files (unreal.log and an inputsprockets prefs file) and Disk First Aid said the disk was OK. It still would not boot. Booting from the OS 8.6 CD and testing with Disk First Aid again said the boot HD was fine. Still no boot. I then did the old trick of moving the System/Finder file out of the System folder and back again and also installed the Apple Drive Setup 1.7.3 driver (just to 'refresh' it ). This resulted in a bootable disk finally.
This is the 2nd report I've had in the last month or so from a Miles SCSI card owner indicating they had to revert to a previous version of the Miles SCSI card firmware (previous posts indicated it may be MacOS version related):
"Dear Mike,
after upgrading a 8500 (in a PC big tower chassis) with the RG
300/150 1mb - Carirer Card Bundle i had
serious disk problems (Initio UW SCSI, Cheetah 4.5 gig, IBM DDRS 4.5
gig, Softraid driver ver. 2.17):
- Increasing # of files with damaged resource fork
- TechTool Pro 2.51 reporting damaged volume headers (incorrect
dates), after fixing and restarting the errors reoccurred
- Fireworks 2 trial installer repeatedly couldn't finish the
installation because of "problems with your disk" (smi images
mounted fine though).
After lowering the RG to default values (300/150) problems persisted.
No L3 cache, Ram deinterleaved.
Downgrading the Initio firmware from 1.10 to 1.06 solved the problem.
Running fine now at 352/176, 44mhz bus.
Thanks for all the valuable information on your site.
Cheers
Ravi Jethani
VeetVision Communications"
I've asked him what OS version he was running as I seem to remember past posts here where this was a factor.
For owners of Macs with video input capability, there is a 3.1.0 update to BTV that might be of interest. BTV is $15 (US) shareware. For more details see http://www.btv.org.uk/
If you don't check every day's daily news (updated several times a day normally) you might miss something valuable. Check the summary list below for highlights of the last few day's news and the archives page for older new page links. For a blast from the past, read what was on the news page here exactly a year ago.
Weekend's News Summary
Friday's News Summary
- Macgaming interview with game developers on G4 impact
- Gov't Shifting to Mac Web Servers?
- More comments on Rage128 Pro/ACD bundle
- More reader comments on OWC 400MHz ZIFs
- Pentium III 500MHz MP3 Encoding Rates added to G4 Upgrade Perf. article
- More comments on Apple and BeOS
- Apple has G3 Owner's Survey online
- OS 9 Special Offer from Bottom Line
- Mac Game FPS database updated
- Rate Your Mac Games database updated
- Rate Your G3 Upgrade database updated
Thursday's News Summary
- Reference Motherboads/Sheepsaver Feedback
- Cost of migrating to Windows 2000 article at Cnet
- My windows 2000 beta 3 experience
- G4 Performance Editorial (realistic expectations)
- More TrueX SCSI CDROM drive Feedback
- Falcon 4 Pilots Wanted
- Reader comments on Sheepsaver MacOS util for BeOS
- USB/Clean OS Install Tip
- PTP 250/XLR8 MAChCarrier 450 owner comments
- CarrierZIF Setup Guide revised for speed settings chart tips
- Internet Exporer 5 for Mac delayed
- Mac Game Framerates database updated
- Rate Your G3 Upgrade database updated
- Rate Your Mac Games database updated
Systems
