Some Mac newbie questions.

[goose67]

I recently acquired a Mac G5. It has dual 2.7ghz PowerPC processors, 4 GB Ram, two 400GB SATA Hard drives, Nvidia 6800 Ultra Graphics. It's currently running a fresh install of 10.4.11 Tiger.
What version of iMovie will run on this and where would I get a copy?
What is the latest version of OS X that will run on this?
Are there any settings I should change to improve performance?
I would also like to get some kind of video capture card for the PCI-X slot.

I'm a retired geek and I would like to max this thing out with software and hardware just for fun.

This is my first Mac!

Thanks.

 

[pigoo3]

What version of iMovie will run on this and where would I get a copy?

Ebay.

What is the latest version of OS X that will run on this?

10.5.8. Get an install disk on eBay. FYI. 10.5.8 is 6 OS versions old. The latest Mac OS is 10.11.

Are there any settings I should change to improve performance?

There really are no settings that can be changed to improve performance. It is what it is.

I would also like to get some kind of video capture card for the PCI-X slot.

Great. Probably check eBay.

I'm a retired geek and I would like to max this thing out with software and hardware just for fun.

Hopefully you know that this is an old Apple computer (from 2005). In most ways it is highly outdated (hopefully you didn't spend too much for it). Also. In case you didn't know. This model Powermac G5 has a liquid cooling system. Which can be prone to failure & leakage. Thus watch it carefully

Welcome to Mac-Forums. Hopefully your experience with this first Apple computer and the Mac OS will be positive (keeping in mind this is an 11 year-old computer). And will lead to you to purchasing something newer in the future.

- Nick

 

[toMACsh]

When you obtain the OSX 10.5.x disc, you should have the comparable version of iMovie after installing.

Make sure you buy a disc that is the retail version. It (one disc) will be black, not grey, and have a leopard on it. The grey ones are only good for specific computers. It is unlikely that you would find grey discs (usually one) for your model.

 

[harryb2448]

All you can do is increase the memory to 8GB. Apple did say 4GB at th time of release, but that can now handle 8GB. Do not spend too much, as at the end of the day it is still an old, slow, eleven year old PowerPC architecture computer. Personally I would not take a PowerPC computer on the 'net. Leopard OS X.5 is six operating systems old with few security features compared to today's operating systems.

 

[toMACsh]

For sure, don't use 10.5's Safari. You might be able to run the latest version of Firefox on that, and that would be more secure. But, someday, probably soon, new updates for Firefox will stop working on 10.5 at all.

 

[goose67]

Thank you all for your help. This is not my main computer. I have always wanted a Mac but could never afford one. I got a good deal on this one and thought it would be fast enough for me to at least learn about how they work. So far I've really been enjoying it. I have "Halo: Combat Evolved" and "Unreal Tournament 2004" running on it. I think I may use it for an audio editing workstation with Audacity and a few plugins. Thanks again.

 

[harryb2448]

You might like to try TenFourFox for PowerPC Macs:-


http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/