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[indibil]

Hi, I have a question for OS9 library experts. I have a Pismo that I swapped from a G3 to a G4 7410@500MHz CPU. I was recently reviewing some Sonnet PDFs, and the CPU upgrades for Power Mac 7600s are listed as follows:

https://www.sonnettech.com/support/downloads/manuals/crescendo_pci_g3_or_g4_manual.pdf


2. Install Sonnet Software
Insert the Crescendo/Encore Install diskette into
the floppy disk drive drive. Double click the
Crescendo/Encore Install icon. By default, with
“Easy Install” selected from the pop-up menu,
the required software will be installed into the
active System Folder on the boot drive. If this is
ok, click the Install button; otherwise, select
“Custom Install” from the pop-up menu for
more options or select another drive to install
the software. The installer will install the appro-
priate software into the System Folder of your
computer. If the installation was successful, a
dialog box will appear. Click Quit to leave the
installer and shut down your computer.
3. Install Crescendo/PCI G4
Remove the current processor card from your
computer’s Processor Card Slot and install the
Crescendo/PCI G4 processor upgrade card.
4. Rerun the Mac OS 9.x Install
Application
The Mac OS 9.x Install application will only
install AltiVec libraries into your System Folder if
a G4 processor is present in your computer dur-
ing the Mac OS installation process. As a result,
you will need to rerun the installer to install the
AltiVec libraries.

From this, I deduce that to take advantage of the Altivec on the 7410, I'd have to reinstall OS9, but if I knew what those libraries were, simply adding them would work. Is that correct? What extensions should I copy from the Power Mac G4 installation and add to the Pismo to save myself the reinstallation?

Thanks.

[indibil]

up!

[Mat]

I am sorry, I cannot help.

Just wanted to leave a message that I read your posting, and I am as well interrested what the exact answer is. For example I alsothink there are "special" mobile stuff that is installed - corresponding to your hardware.

In the end it might be the case that someone would have to install twice freshly, once with the original G3, once with the G4 upgrade and compare the fresh installations, …

[laulandn]

I have such a G4 card in my 7600, and the manual states exactly what you mentioned:  If you already have MacOS 9 installed, you must install it AGAIN after you've installed the card, because the Altivec libraries only install if a G4 is present.

I don't know exactly which files these are, or if it might be possible to find them on an existing copy of MacOS 9 installed on a G4 and copy them over or not.  Because I didn't want to bother figuring this out, I just did what the manual said, just to be safe.

I just took a look at the System Folder on a actual graphite G4 running 9.2.2, and didn't see anything in Extensions that looked likely, but it's possible with 9.2.2 the libraries are built into either the rom or the System file, and not separate like they might be on 9.0 or 9.1.

[Knezzen]

I've never heard of specific G4 Altivec extensions for Mac OS. The only thing that comes to mind is LibMoto, the "optimized" floating-point library for Motorola PowerPC CPUs , but after 1997 or so, the major compilers (CodeWarrior, GCC, etc.) and the "standard libraries" caught up performance-wise, so it's not really applicable for anything past Mac OS 8.1 or so.


LIBMOTO for PowerPC

[robespierre]

Any operating system running on a G4 needs to have code to save and restore the vector register file when it is being used by a task. It's not just a matter of "libraries".