Macbook G4 - powerful enough for VST?

[Syntho]

I want to get a laptop capable of booting OS9 so that I can do some late night composing. I'm not a VST guy at all so I wouldn't know if the last few G4 laptops that came out are powerful enough to run a VST or two.

How fast would I need to get in terms of mhz to solidly run VST instruments? I'm guessing it's pretty much impossible to do it with a G3 laptop.

[nanopico]

I by no means use a lot of VST instruments, but I use a 700mhz G3 iBook to do exactly what you are asking with no issue.
I've also used a 366mhz iBook as well, but there are lower limits on what it can do.

[IIO]

I'm not a VST guy at all so I wouldn't know if the last few G4 laptops that came out are powerful enough to run a VST or two.

it will be able to run 250 bitratereducers, but if you plan to use altiverb you should be prepared to do that in mono.

[Syntho]

I haven't yet figured out what I will use, but most likely it will be a sampler for drums (Battery?), an orchestral VST like the Edirol one, and a software synthie or two. Do you think I can get away with all of that?

[IIO]

romplers yes, with synths there is a wide range of CPU hunger. many will work fine o a G3 - a few are still too hungry for the fastest G4s.

[Syntho]

Hmm. I wonder which ones are considered the best. There's a short thread in the VST section about it. There's the ReFX Vanguard, and Vibra 9000 which seems to be ok. I'll have to do a bunch of research and see what tickles my fancy.

[IIO]

i dont think you want to use vibra or vanguard as an all day synth.

and note that "best" is always objective. so... what are you goung to do with them?

[Syntho]

I don't use VSTs much at all but I'm trying to get into the habit of it. If I had to choose a good sounding VST, I'd say Diva. But diva is way newer. Is there something like it for OS9?

[IIO]

"best sounding" might be somewhere between g-force and arturia, but for my taste they simply need to much CPU on a G4.

my all day synth used to be the PPG before i got into programming my own. exciton is cute too. my favorite in the "special" category is dacota.