not a transit, sonica

[...] a true fix would most likely be in the form of a small system extension that patches the CD driver, which should be possible. I'll look into this and see what I can come up with.

Thank you, that'd be incredibly awesome.

On a side note regarding the SCSI vs. ATAPI and OS 8.1+, it seems the latter is also fine and fully working with Quake version 1.09 specifically. However, all minis were confirmed as non-working with Quake 1.09, meaning that on top of the whole SCSI vs. ATAPI situation, something else is also additionally getting in the way of the minis, whatever it is.

I just hope someday it can be figured out.

@UnexpectedBomb, great job!
Due to lack of time I am following this thread with great interest, but only once in a week or so.
I have a question - does your G4 Mini audio fix exists only in form of Control Strip Module?
If so, what about those who never use Control Strip? Like me, for example.

The audio fix per se is in an Extension, which you can download ready-to-use here, developed by "matouspikous" as part of his "MacLegacyLabs" project, inside of which is the "MacMiniAudioFix - max sound" subproject in question.

@UnexpectedBomb's solution requires this to be already installed on the mini as a pre-requisite. His solution, which only comes in the form of a Control Strip Module (CSM), gives this audio solution some further functionality, which is welcome.

While the Control-Strip-based solution could, perhaps, be converted into a Control Panel as the next best thing, it'd require new work when we already have the working Control-Strip-based solution... Which IMO we shouldn't get distracted by: Control Strip is very low in resources, and can easily have its visibility fully toggled on/off with Cmd+Ctrl+S ("S" for "Strip", so it's easy to remember).

@UnexpectedBomb, great job!
Due to lack of time I am following this thread with great interest, but only once in a week or so.
I have a question - does your G4 Mini audio fix exists only in form of Control Strip Module?
If so, what about those who never use Control Strip? Like me, for example.

Some CD-based Mac games had multiple tracks, as they contained redbook or CD-DA audio in them, to play in-game. But the first few games of its kind on the Mac seem to commonly have an issue with later Macs that use IDE/PATA for CDs (including all New World ROM Macs?), and Mac OS 8.1 ~ Mac OS 9.2.2. This is an issue that affects not only the minis, but lots of other Macs. Games like Quake fixed it on later patches, such as Quake 1.09, and the likes of Warcraft II are new enough not to have the issue, but the original "Warcraft: Orcs & Humans" does, without any patch to fix it.

That Mac Garden thread nails the overall cause: old "mixed‑mode" CD games assuming SCSI‑era CD‑audio behavior that breaks on newer ATAPI drives + OS 8.1+, so it's not really Mini‑specific. The Mini just adds one twist: the control‑panel crash on the CD input is the screamer/AWACS spoof advertising a CD‑audio input the Toonie DAC doesn't physically have, so ticking it faults on hardware that isn't there.

Either way it's upstream of the amp fix (that only switches the output on), so it's not something my Control Strip module can touch. The iTunes idea is an interesting workaround that at least gets you some of the original atmosphere more or less, but a true fix would most likely be in the form of a small system extension that patches the CD driver, which should be possible. I'll look into this and see what I can come up with.

All, I apologize for the flurry of posts lately... hopefully you don't mind be blowing up the "Hacks & Upgrades" board around here  but I am VERY excited about this new update.

Nothing wrong with that. On the contrary, it's much appreciated, you're the one doing us all a lot of favors with this!

"MikeTomTom" from the Macintosh Garden seems to be having some issues with the original VBL-fix approach, so he might be the kind of guy you were looking for, for this kind of testing. This is what was reported.

Regarding sound on the mini.... I recently discovered a lesser-reported audio-related issue all 4 minis seem to have which, if it could be addressed in the future, it'd be really awesome. I'll just share some info on it here, if by any chance it interests you.

Some CD-based Mac games had multiple tracks, as they contained redbook or CD-DA audio in them, to play in-game. But the first few games of its kind on the Mac seem to commonly have an issue with later Macs that use IDE/PATA for CDs (including all New World ROM Macs?), and Mac OS 8.1 ~ Mac OS 9.2.2. This is an issue that affects not only the minis, but lots of other Macs. Games like Quake fixed it on later patches, such as Quake 1.09, and the likes of Warcraft II are new enough not to have the issue, but the original "Warcraft: Orcs & Humans" does, without any patch to fix it.

... Now here's where the mini's own issue, on top of the one above, comes in: even the likes of Quake 1.09 cannot play CD-DA audio on the mini. All other Macs can. In the "Sound" Control Panel, you even notice that if you go to the "Input" tab, click on "CD", then check the 2nd checkbox, it will crash the Control Panel, which is a further symptom that the mini indeed has some issue with this sort of playback, much like how it is also finnicky and buggy regarding the built-in audio (even with the audio fix).

If you feel like looking into this too, it'd be awesome, because then we could have these minis able to play the whole of the Warcraft trilogy in one single convenient machine! Of course, this would also benefit the MDD and the others, too.

Assuming this interests you... I provide all the information I can in this comment. Quite a number of people stumbled upon this issue, only to be sad about it... You can see their conversations in links within that comment.

Some people are occasionally also dropping by this Garden page to provide feedback about the current audio fix (but that page has yet to mention your control strip, something which we can fix).

I was so paranoid back in the day about MDD tempertures running OS 9 DAWs that I opted for standard configuration for my self and other clients of a single CPU MDD 2003 (1.25 Ghz.) or a single CPU MDD 2003 (1.33 Ghz. from Xserve CPU). 

Most audio apps did not utilize the Dual CPUs under OS9 (as you can research from Mactron posts back in the day) and the single CPUs ran so much cooler compared to the duals which was easily observed by simply feeling the air blowing out of a 2003 MDD.... that being said, this new tool would have been invaluable back in the day.

Absolutely incredible job on a tool that was ALWAYS NEEDED and MUCH APPRECIATED.

It is amazing to me that so many MDDs have survived all these years with apple's thermal issues.  I would have assumed most these CPU daughter boards would be micro-cracked to the point of failure from heat by now.  I can tell you that many serious users learned early on how to use a compressor every 2/3 months, and arctic silver about every 1.5 years.

All, I apologize for the flurry of posts lately... hopefully you don't mind be blowing up the "Hacks & Upgrades" board around here  but I am VERY excited about this new update.

I have successfully integrated the VBL fix into the G4 Mini's ROM itself, moving it inside the display driver. The driver now re-arms the interrupt at the tail of its own mode-switch routine, at the moment of the switch, before the desktop draws. No app, no Startup Items, no brief freeze. It simply boots. And because it acts at the switch rather than after boot, there is a real chance it also catches the severe hard-hang and garbled-boot cases the app could never reach. After ten clean boots on my own (five warm, five cold), I've had zero freezes.

The patched ROM is byte-for-byte identical to the standard MacOS9Lives mini ROM apart from that one driver change (verified with a full dump comparison), so every existing boot patch is left alone. It is safe to drop in only if that is the ROM you already run. If your base ROM is different, do not flash mine over it. Use the included patch, which applies the same change to your own ROM.

Install is simple and fully reversible: back up your current Mac OS ROM first, expand the download, boot from another volume or CD, replace Mac OS ROM in the target System Folder (keep the name exactly), and reboot. If anything looks wrong, restore your backup and you are back to stock. And if reflashing a ROM feels like more than you want to take on, the VBL-Fix app from my previous post still covers the mild case.

Download everything here, including the full technical write-up: https://github.com/UnexpectedBomb/G4-Mac-Mini-VBL-Fix

I am especially after testers who get the severe hard-hang or garbled boot, since that is the one case my own mini will not show me. Thanks as always to Elliot Nunn for the diagnosis and the ROM toolchain, and to @n8blz and @xc68000 for the earlier testing. This is the final "native" state I had always envisioned for this solution; being a ROM-level fix, this should also drop naturally into a CD or installer, as @davecom suggested earlier. If broad community testing can prove out this ROM-level fix, we may have finally, truly put the G4 Mini's cursor-freezing bug to bed.

IMPORTANT EDIT: I myself have now experienced at least two cursor freezes with this new ROM so it is still very much a work in progress. I recommend to ALWAYS keep the app fix on hand, either on the desktop where you can easily navigate to it and run it with just the keyboard, or in Startup Items, or attached to a hotkey setting that allows you to run it that way if necessary. The app is still the guaranteed method of reviving the mouse cursor. Eventually I'll get the ROM itself to do it seamlessly and reliably but it seems I have more work to do there.

Sounds interesting. Like to try it out but link doesn't seem to work....

Which part? The link to the repo? Download link?

Quote from: cyberish on August 04, 2026, 07:20:39 AM

Is there any hope that this will work one day on a OldWorldMac?

As a System Extension, it should, hopefully.

Exactly. That is the hope, since Old World Macs don't use the Mac OS ROM file like the New World Macs do. Just to set expectations for you @cyberish, such a solution would be far down the road. The reality is I'm heavily prioritizing New World Macs for the time being because:

1) I already have several different G3/G4 New World Mac models that I can test on
2) I don't have an Old World Mac to test on (but would gladly accept a donor Mac for this noble pursuit )
3) There are far more New World than Old World Macs that would benefit

Once the ROM for New World Macs has reached a "mature" state (and if I were to somehow acquire an Old World Mac, ideally a beige G3), an Old World USB 2.0 extension might see some love.