Hi all,

I have two questions about CPU daughterboard cards G4 for PowerMac G4 in MorphOS 2.6:

1) In original Apple daughterboard CPU cards G4 of PowerMac G4 FW800 and MDD there are CPU G4 PowerPC 7455 with 64Kb L1, 256Kb L2, 2048Kb L3 in G4@1420 and with 1024Kb L3 in G4@1250.
Is full supported the cache L3 of these PowerPC 7455 in MorphOS 2.6 ?

2) I think there are no problems with these Sonnet G4 cards in MorphOS 2.6, right ? (all cards with single or dual G4 7447A model)
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/encore_stg4.html
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/encore_st_duet.html
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/encore_mdx_duet.html

thanks
regards


[ Edited by Divinity on 2010/9/12 12:22 ]

I don't know for sure Divinity, but we've had several negative posts on third party CPU card support. For right now, if you want a really fast G4, the best bet seems to be an overclocked 1.42Ghz processor.
The developers seem to have enough on their hands without having to support all the possible combinations of Apple and third party hardware.

Oh, and the differences in L3 cache size should be transparent to the OS.

1) Why wouldn't it be supported?

2) Feel free to be the first one to test once 2.6 comes out. We are not testing these at least.

@jacadcaps
Hi,
I was not sure if It was at low level the support, thanks a lot for the answare
Ok, I'll be the first one to test it

thanks for the support

> we've had several negative posts on third party CPU card support.

There was lack of positive posts on that, but that doesn't equal negative posts. So far, only MPC7448 3rd party cards were said to be probably not supported, but that was months ago, so I don't know if that's changed meanwhile.

It's a pity that the most powerful cards (based on the 7448 processor) may not be supported.

Will a 1.7Ghz 7447 (with no L3 cache) be significantly faster than a 1.42Ghz (or faster if overclocked) 7455?

> Will a 1.7Ghz 7447 (with no L3 cache) be significantly faster than a
> 1.42Ghz (or faster if overclocked) 7455?

I don't know, but going by what Divinity said, a 1.42 GHz 7455 is (about, I presume) the same performance as a 1.6 GHz 7447A:

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6925&forum=11&post_id=76621#76621

I don't know what benchmark test he ran, though, or if it's rather a matter of "felt" performance ;-)

Unless money is not a factor (meaning you have more of it than you know what to spend it on) I don't see how spending the amount that it would take to purchase any of those third party CPU cards would be cost effective. The increase in performance is most likely to be so small that the relative cost of the upgrade (which will most likely cost more than an entire MDD G4 PowerMac) will make no sense to purchase.

MorphOS2.6 should run plenty fast enough on a 1.25GHz to 1.42GHz G4 PowerMac, and unless you are doing dozens of Lightwave3D renders every day (in which case you should be doing it on a PC or Intel Mac anyway), using a 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz G4 upgrade CPU in your PowerMac won't make a huge difference on most other applications. By the time some new MorphOS application is created, or ported from another platform to MorphOS2.x that needs more computing power than we currently have, we should be well on the way to having the 1.67GHz PowerBooks supported, and/or possibly the 2.0GHz to 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac. As many people have stated already in other threads, there is little to no software for MorphOS that needs more power than the currently supported G4 computers at up to 1.5GHz already provide.

Of course I am all for having more power and faster G4's and eventually G5's supported, but not at the expense of overclocking my 1.25GHz G4 PowerMac, or 1.5GHz MacMini. I will gladly wait a year or two for support of the G5 to get more power than we have right now.

[ Edited by amigadave on 2010/9/12 20:16 ]

> using a 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz G4 upgrade CPU in your PowerMac won't
> make a huge difference on most other applications.

So you vote for a 2.0 GHz upgrade? ;-)

> By the time some new MorphOS application is created, or ported from another
> platform to MorphOS2.x that needs more computing power than we currently have
> [...]
> there is little to no software for MorphOS that needs more power than the
> currently supported G4 computers at up to 1.5GHz already provide.

We do have such applications already: MPlayer replaying 1080p video content (not saying that any G4 Mac with or without CPU upgrade could possibly manage that) or OWB/Swfdec running certain Flash games for instance (some more examples there). But maybe that's only me :-) I think the mantra-like "We don't have applications that could need more CPU power yet" is a myth.

> not at the expense of overclocking my 1.25GHz G4 PowerMac

That's exactly why some are discussing 3rd party CPU upgrades here, I guess.

My vote is for more MorphOS native software that will encourage all of us to want G5 PowerMacs to run MorphOS on in the future. I just don't see the cost/price efficiency to pay for a 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz upgrade CPU, or risk over clocking.

If you are saying that there is currently software that runs on MorphOS at 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz that will NOT run, or not run well enough at 1.42GHz to 1.5GHz, then point out which programs and I will test them out.

When the cost of a 1.25GHz to 1.42GHz G4 PowerMac is around $50 to $100 and the cost of the same computer with a 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz CPU upgrade is $250 to $400, or more, I don't think the extra speed is worth the cost.

There are a few 1.4Ghz 7455 based Sonnet CPU upgrades floating around that might be useful on older Powermacs (and these usually sell for less than 1.6-2.0 Ghz upgrades).
If you can get a third party CPU upgrade (poss. via Ebay) at a good price, then I can see their utility on Quicksilver and older Powermacs.
Other than that, you might be right Dave. There isn't that much advantage over a 1.42 Ghz MDD processor.

> My vote is for more MorphOS native software that will encourage all of us
> to want G5 PowerMacs to run MorphOS on in the future.

Yes, the more native software the better. I hope the MorphOS software developers don't see your vote as an encouragement to start writing unoptimized software ;-)

> I just don't see the cost/price efficiency to pay for a 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz upgrade CPU

Again: With a 2.0 GHz upgrade you see this efficiency?

> If you are saying that there is currently software that runs on MorphOS at
> 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz that will NOT run, or not run well enough at 1.42GHz to
> 1.5GHz, then point out which programs and I will test them out.

No, I'm not saying that. While the applications I named definitely don't run well enough on 1.5 GHz G4 I don't know if they would run well enough for my liking on 1.8 or even 2.0 GHz G4. In fact, as I wrote, 1080p is probably not even possible with 2.0 GHz G4. But maybe the Flash games I hinted at (example) and the native games I named could run well enough (which is a rather subjective term of course) on that. Feel free to test them out.

I was/am under the impression that the 2.0GHz G4 upgrade CPU's might have an even lower chance of being MorphOS compatible than the 1.6GHz & 1.8GHz models. The 2.0GHz CPU I was referring to is the G5, if/when the port of MorphOS is ever completed.

> I was/am under the impression that the 2.0GHz G4 upgrade CPU's might have an
> even lower chance of being MorphOS compatible than the 1.6GHz & 1.8GHz models.

I referred to the 2.0 GHz 7447A upgrades, not to the 2.0 GHz 7448 ones.

> The 2.0GHz CPU I was referring to is the G5

I know, but that is not what my question is aiming at.

No, I do not see any difference in cost efficiency between the 1.6, 1.8, or 2.0GHz G4 upgrade CPU's.

Quote:

I guess it really depends on how cheaply you can find the 1.25GHz & 1.42GHz G4 PowerMacs, compared to the cost of buying an older, slower G4 PowerMac & 1.4GHz G4 CPU upgrade. I have been fortunate to have found MDD G4's at very low prices.

> I do not see any difference in cost efficiency between the 1.6, 1.8, or 2.0GHz G4
> upgrade CPU's.

Thanks for clarification.

Quote:

Quake3 and geekbench

Quote:

No, I'd probably go with the MDD TOO. The MDD offers a slightly improved drive controller and a slight edge in performance (at comparable CPU speeds).
Besides, you're right, MDDs can be had at a minimal premium over older Powermacs.

G4 Powermacs will provide expansion slots, but for faster CPUs we're going to have to wait for G5s.

Quote:

Last night I read a post by Fab on another site that stated he had asked bigfoot to test running a 1080p HD movie file using MPlayer on his 2.7GHz G5 running MorphOS. Fab stated that it ran the HD movie with no problems, or was it with no lack of speed and power?

That is very encouraging to know that bigfoot already has MorphOS2.? running stable enough on any G5 to be able to run MPlayer and test a 1080p movie file on it.

Perhaps we will see a public release of MorphOS2.x on the G5 PowerMacs sooner than I had imagined or even hoped for!

[ Edited by amigadave on 2010/9/15 9:48 ]

> Fab stated that it ran the HD movie with no problems

Yes, and he stated even some more, albeit not relevant for MorphOS:

"OSX is jut not able to do it because of the additional overhead in the graphic system (or whatever)."
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=32428&forum=33#580833

Is it maybe that video replay doesn't benefit from SMP and thus can't leverage the second CPU core to make up for the additional overhead?

Well, some mplayer builds may not be SMP-aware, so i assume that the test is done on a single core. If OSX still doesn't manage to play it properly with 2 or more cores with an adequate ffmpeg/mplayer, there's definitely a big issue with OSX. :)

If bigfoot ever has a free moment when he isn't doing anything more important, maybe he could upload to YouTube a video showing the difference in video quality between MorphOS+MPlayer and MacOSX+MPlayer (or any other HD movie file player)?

Quote:

He he... MorphOS developers, please stop making more native applications, or we'll never find a reason to buy more powerful computers!

And MorphOS doesn't even have all graphics acceleration functions... Who knows, perhaps GPU driver capabilities becomes more relevant than CPU speed in the future. Wait, it already is!

Bite your tongue jcmarcos! We need all the MorphOS native apps we can get.