Mac Mini G4 pixel clock limited to 135Mhz

[darthnVader]

It turns out the G4 Mini has some issue with coherent vs. non-coherent LCD's and that my LCD needs a Pixel Clock of 146.25 MHz for 1680x1050 and the maximum the G4 Mini can do is 135 MHz. See:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Hardware/DeveloperNotes/Macintosh_CPUs-G4/MacMiniG4/3Input-Output/chapter_4_section11.html

The doc linked seems to be gone, but I assume the info is good.

This explains why some of us are having issues with higher res DVI/HDMI displays.

I'm not sure how this can be fixed.

With SwitchRes X, you can let it fill in all the blanks according to pre-set formulas. If, when building a custom timing, you click on the "Use simplified settings:" check box and then select "CVT-RB" from the associated pop-up menu, all you need type in is "1920" for Horizontal Active and "1080" for Vertical Active and "60" Hz for Vertical Scan rate. SRX will fill in all the other numbers. The dot clock will come down to 138.5 MHz when you do this. That's not quite the magic figure of 135 MHz, but it's close enough that it will probably work. If not, you can uncheck "Use simplified settings" and then edit the horizontal front porch, sync and back porch to shave off time (do this in 8 pixel increments) until the pixel clock reaches 135 MHz.

Hopefully all the other strangeness you are seeing relates to the pixel clock issue and all the problems will go away once you have a working 1080p timing.

[DieHard]

Played with the Mini all day today, it is a total beast under OS 9 and is super quiet !  The video at 1280 X 1024 is ROCK solid.  I will be moving it to the home lab and connecting it to a 25" via DVI... I will report back

[FdB]

Oh sure. Taunt an old man with yet another quest
and your new-fangled modern gizmos!

Does sound rather cool however.

[darthnVader]

Oh sure. Taunt an old man with yet another quest
and your new-fangled modern gizmos!

Does sound rather cool however.

You young whipper snappers and your Mini's, back in my day we had Apple IIe's, you had to spend all day writing programming for them when you wanted them to do something, and they were the size of a small car.

That's the way it was and we liked it.

[macStuff]

Played with the Mini all day today, it is a total beast under OS 9 and is super quiet !  The video at 1280 X 1024 is ROCK solid.  I will be moving it to the home lab and connecting it to a 25" via DVI... I will report back

so whats the benefit of running os9 on a mini?
what connections does it have on the back?
ethernet / dvi / usb2.0 / firewire ?

id like to see someone put up a video on youtube of a mini running os9!
someone should do that and then put a link to this site on it..
thats the kind of video that will end up going viral
think strategically and use it to our advantage to promote

Display Support:   Single Display   Resolution Support:   1920x1200
Details:   The DVI video output supports digital resolutions up to 1920x1200. Apple also reports that it supports the "20-inch Apple Cinema display and 23-inch Apple Cinema HD display; supports coherent digital displays up to 154MHz; supports non-coherent digital displays up to 135MHz." VGA output (using the provided adapter) supports analog resolutions as high as 1920x1080. S-Video and composite video (to connect to a projector or TV) requires the Apple DVI to Video adapter (sold separately).

what does this mean? coherent vs non-coherent?
does this mean darths monitor is incoherent??

[RossDarker]

id like to see someone put up a video on youtube of a mini running os9!
someone should do that and then put a link to this site on it..

Here you go: https://youtu.be/t9G5T0ZaWok

[darthnVader]

Played with the Mini all day today, it is a total beast under OS 9 and is super quiet !  The video at 1280 X 1024 is ROCK solid.  I will be moving it to the home lab and connecting it to a 25" via DVI... I will report back

so whats the benefit of running os9 on a mini?
what connections does it have on the back?
ethernet / dvi / usb2.0 / firewire ?

id like to see someone put up a video on youtube of a mini running os9!
someone should do that and then put a link to this site on it..
thats the kind of video that will end up going viral
think strategically and use it to our advantage to promote

Display Support:   Single Display   Resolution Support:   1920x1200
Details:   The DVI video output supports digital resolutions up to 1920x1200. Apple also reports that it supports the "20-inch Apple Cinema display and 23-inch Apple Cinema HD display; supports coherent digital displays up to 154MHz; supports non-coherent digital displays up to 135MHz." VGA output (using the provided adapter) supports analog resolutions as high as 1920x1080. S-Video and composite video (to connect to a projector or TV) requires the Apple DVI to Video adapter (sold separately).

what does this mean? coherent vs non-coherent?
does this mean darths monitor is incoherent??

Coherent vs non-coherent is some obscure thing to do with the TMDS transmitter( on the GPU ) and the TMDS receiver in the display. The 9200 either has an issue with a weak TMDS signal with non-coherent receivers( Displays ). Or Apple crippled it, tho I doubt that.

The trouble is, no manufacturer really list that in the specs, and I doubt you'd get anyone in tech support to know what you were talking about if you did call them.

So it's really a crap shoot as to what brand and make of display will work correctly at the native res of the LCD/LED. My 1080p HDTV works fine with the Mini @720p, as the pixel clock is not over 135Mhz at that resolution.   

[IIO]

(1680*1050) / 1764000 == 82.9081

does the monitor only allow 85 Hz at that resolution? like  CRT?

1920*1200*59.9, which is what my samsungs do, would exactly fit to those magic 135 MHz.

[DieHard]

id like to see someone put up a video on youtube of a mini running os9!
someone should do that and then put a link to this site on it..

Here you go: https://youtu.be/t9G5T0ZaWok

ROSS!!!!!!  That is so damn cool on Youtube... people will think your hiding Cube off-screen   Can't wait to see all the haters and Mac Experts scratching their heads for a while

[DieHard]

so whats the benefit of running os9 on a mini?
what connections does it have on the back?
ethernet / dvi / usb2.0 / firewire ?

OK, so the "cool-quiet" thing is I was looking for a "Quiet" Machine to run my legacy projects... yes, a G4 Cube is cool, but slow, add a CPU upgrade and you now add noise with a fan and a huge price ticket, Cubes with Fast upgrades bring $350 or more, even now.

So... now the "cool-cheap"... the Mini fits under my Monitor and is only 15 to 20% slower than my MDD which gives me a headache at times, I bought 2 on ebay for $76 and I got the "Diehard" luck of getting 250GB Hard drives in them; which is pretty good considering they are 40 pin PATA notebook hard drives.

I am now in the final stage... testing... If I can get decent playback on my 32 Bit floating-point VST 5 files via a USB interface (I have several M-Audio Transit)
https://www.amazon.com/M-AUDIO-Transit-Resolution-Mobile-Upgrade/dp/B0000CDHP5

So I can playpack old stems form old recordings and transfer Optical stuff from my DAT (Panasonic SV-3700).  If the Mini works out, I will Never go back; I use RAIDED OWC Dual Minis to store this site and all libraries), So I just need to test it all

My first full day with the Mini was like running a "cloud-based" Mac OS 9, silent, very perky, and I forgot where the actual unit was.  I am so psyched becuase the Mini is a total POS under X, I used to give them to people for their young kids to play with, I laughed at them, I am NOT laughing now, this baby was made for OS 9... who knew

[IIO]

thats what i wrote in a german forum one hour ago. as an OS9 machine, the mini ranges in the area of the quicksilver 2003 machines. it is 4 times faster than a cube - which costs like 10 times more.

[macarone]

Your Panasonic SV-3700 must be great for listening to DAT.

For getting the tapes onto a hard drive, I much prefer a Sony SDT-9000 which came in SCSI only (no IDE). This will read the tapes to your hard drive at less than half the "real time" of optical. I've tried it with a Ratoc SCSI to FW converter, and that does work with a Mac mini, but I much prefer a SCSI PCI card in a Mac Pro.

DATXtract reads audio DAT in OS X. Not sure if there ever was software for OS 9.

Lots of additional links here, but some no longer seem to work:

http://www.zianet.com/jgray/dat/links.html#DAT%20Studio

Once I transfered an hour tape in about 25 mins, I never went back to optical.

[macStuff]

My first full day with the Mini was like running a "cloud-based" Mac OS 9, silent, very perky, and I forgot where the actual unit was.  I am so psyched becuase the Mini is a total POS under X, I used to give them to people for their young kids to play with, I laughed at them, I am NOT laughing now, this baby was made for OS 9... who knew

true. very true.
steve jobs is rolling in his grave.

[darthnVader]

We should do a youtube video of OS 9 holding a funeral for Steve Jobs

[IIO]

hopefully you guys manage to fix the audio line out control issue, because with only 1 firewire and 1 usb port these machines are difficult use even as additional host computer (aka "standalone synth") because it would be overkill to add proper audio and midi interfaces IMO.

[IIO]

oh p.s. diehard, you slipped into the wrong thread

[DieHard]

Your Panasonic SV-3700 must be great for listening to DAT.

For getting the tapes onto a hard drive, I much prefer a Sony SDT-9000 which came in SCSI only (no IDE). This will read the tapes to your hard drive at less than half the "real time" of optical. I've tried it with a Ratoc SCSI to FW converter, and that does work with a Mac mini, but I much prefer a SCSI PCI card in a Mac Pro.

DATXtract reads audio DAT in OS X. Not sure if there ever was software for OS 9.

Lots of additional links here, but some no longer seem to work:

http://www.zianet.com/jgray/dat/links.html#DAT%20Studio

Once I transfered an hour tape in about 25 mins, I never went back to optical.

Off Topic, but I must say that is very Cool  

If I had more than 40 tapes to go thru, I would definitely conciser it, but I get the benefit of listening to them and making track notes as I transfer.  I was lazy 24 years ago, so most tapes only have a date label and no content sheets

[DieHard]

From IIO...

hopefully you guys manage to fix the audio line out control issue, because with only 1 firewire and 1 usb port these machines are difficult use even as additional host computer (aka "standalone synth") because it would be overkill to add proper audio and midi interfaces IMO.

There are 2 USB, not one

FW400 can be "daisy-chained" so you can have both and interface and external Hard drive

oh p.s. diehard, you slipped into the wrong thread 

Yeah... this one went more off the rails than usual

[IIO]

i never count the first usb port.

[MacOS Plus]

  Don't worry, I'm still going to work out if I can 'graft' a third port onto the data lines for the Bluetooth card.