Q: I'm looking to supercharge my G4. What are my options?

Hi, I'm the proud owner of a Power Mac G4 FW800, the dual 1.42GHz one. I just had the power supply repaired, and it runs wonderfully, other than it's starting to show its age. I'd like to know what I can do to maximize performance.

Here are my slight problems:

- Slower than desired file transfers

- Extremely slow video rendering

- iWork '09 complains about Core Image not being supported

- Minecraft 1.5.2 not exactly playable (~4 FPS, at least 15 FPS desired)

I also have the full CS4 Design Premium suite, and I'd like to get better performance out of that.

My budget is around $200, what are my options? Thanks!

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), FW800 1.42GHz

Posted on Dec 2, 2014 3:32 PM

I have this question too

Solved

kahjot

Level 4 (1,342 points)

Desktops

Photoshop CS4 is never going to be anything but sluggish on that machine, no matter what you do with the graphics card. InDesign might be a bit better, but I haven't tried it. I had Photoshop CS4 running on a pretty decent G5 for a while, and found it painful to use. CS2 is very functional and a much better fit for your MDD.

You may be able to find a Radeon 9600 Pro on eBay or through the LEM Swap list.

An SATA card might help some, and lots of HD space will help, too, but not enough to make CS4 happy.

You love your MDD: I can sympathize, because I still have my 2002 MDD 867 and fire it up once in a while to deal with really old files. But your budget of $200 would be much better spent to get a first-generation Mac Pro. For close to that amount, you could get one with a decent amount of RAM already in it, and run Tiger through Lion on it. And you wouldn't be fighting a losing battle trying to coax marginally acceptable performance out of the trusty MDD.