I have an old (circa 1999) iMac that I let my kids use. All they do is check their myspace pages and play online games.
I’ll get them a newer computer eventually but I’m wondering if I can strip down OS X to speed things up. Maybe it’s lack of RAM or bus speed or whatever, but the machine bogs down and gets painfully slow. When you boot in OS 9 it’s relatively speedy. I’d just leave it in 9 but there is no modern browser for it. Pages don’t display properly, it crashes etc.
Has anyone here stripped down the GUI in OS X? I assume that’s what is eating all the available memory.
How much RAM does it have? OS X really wants 512M minimum. Also, all new software is written assuming that the user has the latest and most well equipped computer, so things just run slowly on old machines.
You really need to upgrade the RAM. The Mac OS X graphical user interface software was designed around the assumption that there was plenty of RAM. Using more RAM allowed them to improve its speed. There really isn’t anything that can be “stripped away”.
Depending on the exact model, the 333 MHz iMac can be upgraded to 512 MB. You might try checking eBay for cheap iMac memory.
I know it’s not necessarily what you wanted to hear, but this is the main problem. Any sort of tweak you do (which I can’t even think of any) would be negligible.
Really, even throwing in more RAM, might not do a whole lot. It’ll probably make it better, but still… you’re running hardware that’s practically nine years old. And OSX Jaguar which requires 128MB of RAM at the minimum, but really recommends 512. I dunno… not sure there’s much you can do.
There are Linux distros that can be installed on that hardware - I don’t think you’d necessarily see the same kind of dramatic performance hike as you might if you were switching from Windows to Linux on a PC machine of similar vintage, but it still might be worth doing. You’d be able to run the latest version of Firefox, plus a bunch of other stuff.
There’s a free utility called Tinkertool that lets you access hidden preferences. It’s mentioned in some books and things so it seems to be a well-known product. You can probably use it to simplify things a bit, but I don’t know whether it would really make things faster.
PS: Don’t let the kids use Tinkertool because they could probably mess things up.
I second Balthasar’s input on going to 10.3. Huge step up in speed and some extra stability between those two versions. Every revision has gotten a little bit faster and better, but 10.4’s requirements are a little too steep for your computer.
Some of the graphical elements actually auto-scale. My 400 MHz G3 Powerbook doesn’t have enough GPU to deal with animated transitions when switching users, and a few other little things. The overall look is very similar, but there’s a bit less depth due to shadows not being rendered, etc. The OS doesn’t display those things unless your system has the horsepower for them.
More memory is a must. The absolute minimum in the official documentation is 128 MB, but 512 is more realistic. Getting two 256 MB chips from Ebay or Low End Mac shouldn’t be terribly expensive.
You might be better off trading that in for credit on a newer Mac; I’ve upgraded that way before, and some local dealers probably still do that in your area. Or, consider using the little bit you can get selling it on Ebay toward a newer computer.
