mac G4 specs and upgrades?

[gimpy limp]

What is the best thing to upgrade first on a mac? It's mainly used for desktop publishing stuff like Illustrator, quark, photoshop and the like? I'm sure I've heared someone say once that the processor speed is used more for that kind of work than the memory is? or is it the other way around?

This is the spec I've got:

- Powermac G4
- 450 MHz L2 Cache
- 1MB Bus speed 100 MHz
- 512 RAM

Should I increase the memory/ram or leave it as is or just keep a clean install with minimal programs on it?

It's a second computer just for design/work stuff whilst a seperate windows system is used for internet etc.
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[gimpy limp]

Also what exactly is involved in linking a mac computer onto a network of windows systems to share files? Do you do it the same way you would link a normal windows system into a network?
____________________
-=[Sam/b]=- cx500's the only way to travel, we do it in style just like jimmy saville
msn addy - [email protected]
https://pre-auto.com/cx500/rat_and_survival_gallery_2006

[iCraig]

First things first how much have you got to spend?

Cos Mac Upgrades don't come cheap!

You can if you wanted get a 1.5GHz G4 Sonnet Upgrade card for about £400, this will improve performance no end but your still stuck with the same bus speed, and whatever cache is on the upgrade card.

512Mb of SDRAM is the bare minimum I'd for Mac OS X these days, what version of OS X are you using? And what version of Quark and Photoshop are you using?

Memory is the cheapest and most effective upgrade option so I'd go with that first!

And one thing I will suggest is put a bigger HDD in there, as no doubt it'll be the original 5400RPM ATA-2 one.

[iCraig]

[gimpy limp]

ace, sounds easier than I thought it would, hopefully I'll be picking it up tomorrow or the next day, I was impressed by how smooth and geared towards design work they are, from using the works computers, that I decided to get one.

I noticed on the works computers you can set up where you want the ram/memory etc to be targeted in one of the system menus, is their a way to set the computer up for optimal performance (geared towards design work)?

Here's the other specs:

Operating system OXS 10.3.9
76GB (7200 rpm) Hard Drive (Is that hard drive good enough?)
Quarkxpress 6.1 passport
Indesign CS2
I use the latest versions of photoshop/illustrator usually.

I also have an older version of quark (4.2) because thats the version they use at work (certain features/shortcuts are not in the older version).
____________________
-=[Sam/b]=- cx500's the only way to travel, we do it in style just like jimmy saville
msn addy - [email protected]
https://pre-auto.com/cx500/rat_and_survival_gallery_2006

[Tarmacsurfer]

Speaking of OSX, been playing with it on an x86 platform. It's rather interesting. Sadly it's not suitable for the Nforce chipset, probably going to see about putting a cheap intel build together for simplicities sake.

In terms of what you're running, RAM would be a gooood plan. Regardless of platform PS and Quark are hungry buggers.
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I'm immortal. Well, so far.

[gimpy limp]

Do macs have a system restore feature like windows does? Something that I could install my main software onto a clean install, then back it up so it can be reverted to that state if it bogs down atall in a few months.

Any other tips/features on macs I should know about? I've Not had one before, i've always used windows systems.

What do macs have in the way or virus/adaware protection? I've heard they have better built in protection than windows does.
I use Zonelarm on windows but I think thats a windows program aint it? So wont be available for macs?
____________________
-=[Sam/b]=- cx500's the only way to travel, we do it in style just like jimmy saville
msn addy - [email protected]
https://pre-auto.com/cx500/rat_and_survival_gallery_2006

[iCraig]

[gimpy limp]

Is it difficult setting up one of these "system volume" things? It's a partition isn't it from what I understand? I quite fancy having just the main programs I use on their own partition but i'm not too sure what's involved as i'm still getting used to it all.


"Use intelligent partitioning
Using Mac OS X - you should generally try to keep your system volume as big as possible. Many applications (particularly ones from Apple - such as Final Cut Pro) require that you install them on the system volume. The file system that OS X uses (HFS+ or JHFS+) has some on-the-fly disk optimization that will help prevent massive fragmentation on that volume. This, in addition to optimizing your hard drive every so often, will help you get the best performance out of OS X. iDefrag from Coriolis Systems ($30 USD) is one good defragmentation/optimization tool."
https://guides.macrumors.com/Enhancing_Performance_Of_Mac_OS_X
____________________
-=[Sam/b]=- cx500's the only way to travel, we do it in style just like jimmy saville
msn addy - [email protected]
https://pre-auto.com/cx500/rat_and_survival_gallery_2006

[iCraig]

[quote="gimpy limp"]Is it difficult setting up one of these "system volume" things? It's a partition isn't it from what I understand? I quite fancy having just the main programs I use on their own partition but i'm not too sure what's involved as i'm still getting used to it all.

I've never heard of anything like it to be honest, I personally prefer to just have one partition on each HDD, depending on the Mac (cos some have to have OS X in the first 8Gb).

I personally have no performance problems with Mac OS X, then again I don't save alot on the HDD in the machine all of my files are saved on to 2 external Firewire hard drives.