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[joevt]

That's what I was asking, how do I know Altivec has been activated?

It's too late for a backup; it's already updated, but based on the photo, it doesn't look like anything significant has changed in the OS.

Maybe Power Fractal 1.3? I haven't tried it. There's download links for a OS X (1.4) version and a Carbon version (1.3) which should work in Mac OS 8.5 and later.
 https://daugerresearch.com/fractals/powerfractal.shtml

[indibil]

Ok, I don't know if I made a backup a while ago on a FW HD of the Pismo installation with G3, if I did, I'll try to test it.

[ssp3]

indbil, I think you're chasing ghosts.

IIRC, those AltiVec libraries were installed as separate parts only in the early OS9 systems. By the time 9.2.x came out, they were integrated into System
.
This info is from November 1999 (!!!)

Important OS 9 Installation Note to G4 Upgraded Macs: This has not been documented anywhere else that I've seen, but I thought it would be important to readers that were planning or have G4 CPU upgrades. Note that OS 9 installed on an Apple G4 Mac has 4 extensions that are not installed by the standard OS 9 installer on other systems. Even if you have a G4 CPU upgrade in a B&W or older Mac (I tested to verify this), the following Altivec OS 9 core extensions are not installed by default:

    vBasicOps
    vBigNum
    vectorOps
    vMathLib

To have these extensions installed on non-Apple G4 Macs, try choosing the 'Universal Installation' option in the list shown when you select a customized OS 9 install. (Tome Viewer is also a way to extract specific files from installers. Point Tome Viewer at Mac OS 9:Software Installers:System Software:Mac OS 9 Additions:Tome)
The other Altivec support on G4 systems is contained in the Adobe folder inside the 'Application Support' folder inside the Extensions folder. This of course is not present on the OS 9 CD (only on Apple G4 systems). As noted in the news here recently, Powerlogix reported that Adobe will be releasing their Altivec extensions for Photoshop 5.x. XLR8 ships a Photoshop v3/4 Altivec extension with their G4 Upgrades.


G4 'Enabling' Software - Sonnet Comments:
In a followup to the Sonnet PR noted in Thursday's news Sonnet provides an explaination of their 'enabler' software:

    "Because altivec is a separate functional unit in the G4, much like the floating point unit in the Motorola 68K family, it is necessary to declare its existance to system software for it to be used. Sonnet Engineering has developed a method that informs the system of this at a very early stage, so that all system services and applications can register and take advantage of it.

    In particular, Macsbug, a common programmer utility, has support for the altivec unit if it is declared properly, which we do.

    This enabling software makes Altivec available; however, it is up to applications to use it.  This enabling software does not bring anything to an Apple G4 system that it does not already have; instead, our goal was to make an upgraded G3 or a upgraded 9500 type machine behave exactly like an Apple G4 system (which is more complicated than it sounds!)

    Any app that supports the altivec unit on an Apple G4 system will also support it on system upgraded with a Sonnet G4.

    Again, it does everything that the Apple G4 system does; but it does not provide anything more that the Apple G4 system provides.

    Henry Kannapell
    Engineering Manager
    Sonnet Technologies, Inc "

I'm still not clear if this means Sonnet's software has the same core support as the OS 9 extensions noted above, but it's clear that you should not expect non-Altivec apps to show improvements as I mentioned the day of the press release. In fact, in my tests so far in the B&W G3 and 9600/350 with G4 upgrades, even with the OS 9 Altivec extensions CPU/FPU intensive apps that are not Altivec aware like Infini-D 4.01 showed literally no gain with or with the extensions added to OS 9 (I retested twice). G4 owners will have to use Altivec enhanced applications to see the full benefit of the G4 as noted here in the past. Otherwise, MHz for MHz the G4 seems to perform no faster than a same speed G3 in current (non-Altivec enhanced) applications. (see the CPU upgrades page for recent reviews like the MAChCarrier G3/500 and XLR8 G4/400 first look for examples of tests).

To take advantage of AltiVec, you have to use applications that are optimized for it. You have to use the same applications to test for this functionality, but I suspect you won't see any difference if using 9.2.2. Maybe with Photoshop 5 and that AltiVec plug-in, but who knows.

Here's the bunch of links with tons of information for you, including Adobe download.
Start digging, if you want to discover the past!

http://web.archive.org/web/20001110084000/http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G3CARDS/XLR8G4/

http://web.archive.org/web/20020807234855/http://xlr8.com/support/cpuupgrades/faq_tech_g4z.php3

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/daystar-digital-drivers-control-panels-and-related-software

http://web.archive.org/web/20000815062759/http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/85ee.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20151201091714/ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/photoshop/mac/5.x/plugins/altivec.sea.hqx

[indibil]

indbil, I think you're chasing ghosts.

IIRC, those AltiVec libraries were installed as separate parts only in the early OS9 systems. By the time 9.2.x came out, they were integrated into System
.
This info is from November 1999 (!!!)

Thanks, this is the answer I was looking for. I wasn't looking for ghosts, I was just alerted by the Sonnet PDF. So under OS 9.2.2, there's nothing to add; it works OOTB.

Mystery solved.