Confirmed: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will run on G4’s

Comment from Bill
Time: June 12, 2007, 2:20 pm

G5s *are* 64 bit…

Comment from niclet
Time: June 12, 2007, 5:06 pm

But will it be slower than Tiger on a G4?

Comment from Eric
Time: June 13, 2007, 2:14 am

Of course the performance won’t be as good on a G4 as on a Core 2 Duo – because it’s an older chip, 32-bit not 64-bit and also running at a slower Ghz clock rate. To hope for the same OS performance from a much older Mac as a new one and call it bad news when it does not happen is odd. Sooner or later new OS X releases will be for Intel only. I would anticipate Leopard will be around for 2 years, then 10.6 will be for G5s and Intels, and 10.7 for G5’s and Intel, 10.8 for Intel only. Just a guess.

Comment from niclet
Time: June 13, 2007, 6:35 am

@ Eric: I understand this but, for example, when my “old” Sawtooth (G4 400MHz Tower) was upgraded from Jaguar to Tiger, it was faster than ever in most of tasks. Tiger is running like butter on this machine. Will Leopard fade this improvement?

Comment from Chris
Time: June 13, 2007, 11:12 am

Good question, but I can’t answer it. Indeed I saw a performance increase after I installed 10.4 on my G4/350MHz server. I’ve got a 1.42GHz Mac Mini G4 right now, and plan on getting 10.5 asap, that is unless of course it will be dog slow. Core image is another issue. The mini’s do not support it, does this mean I won’t be able to use features like time machine? I really wish Apple would address all of our concerns (a FAQ maybe?). Hmm…

Comment from niclet
Time: June 13, 2007, 5:43 pm

Hey Chris,
I don’t know for the speed but since your Mini’s video-card is a Radeon 9200 it surely doesn’t support Core Image by consequence Core Animation “Core Animation runs on any Core Image-capable Mac (including most Mac systems shipped in the past two years).” dixit Apple – Core Image minimum requirement can be found here http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301347

But video-cards can make some “interpretation”. For example, when I run the Tiger’s Fast User Switching transition (which use Quartz Extreme), on my actual PowerBook G4 1.5GHz the transition is the normal turning 3D cube but on my old PowerMac G4 400MGz, the transition is only a fade out cut. The function works but without the astounding graphic FX!

So, I’m pretty sure you’ll be “graphically” able to run Time Machine on your Mac Mini but the UI graphic transitions, animated or not, will probably be “interpreted” by your Radeon 9200.

We’ll see…

Comment from Reviladigedo
Time: June 19, 2007, 12:49 pm

glad I can run it on my older macs”

Comment from BillA
Time: October 24, 2007, 6:05 pm

Thanks for the story. Might save me abundle as I add new machiines and want to mesh with the old ones.

Comment from Bill
Time: July 1, 2008, 2:53 pm

I have an eMac G4, 1Ghz, 768MB, 80GB, can anyone tell me if this can run Mac OSX 10.5?

Cheers

Comment from achadd
Time: October 6, 2008, 9:30 am

Bill, i think your eMac could run the Mac OS X 10.5 as the minimum system requirement to run the OS is G4 867 MHz, 521MB RAM, 9GB dsk space. Don’t forget, u will need a DVD drive for installation of the operating system

Comment from Armondo
Time: January 20, 2009, 4:47 pm

Dear G4 I beat God of War part 1 on God mode in one night Thank you

Comment from Oscar
Time: July 13, 2009, 3:31 am

Dear Forum,

I have a Power PC G5 Dual 1.8GHz currently running 10.4.11 a couple of questions:
1) Can I run Leopard on this rig at all?
2) I know I won’t be able to use all the new features but I’m more concerned about experiencing freezes/hangs and the like….does anyone forsee any problems?
Many thanks for any advice….

Comment from stuart
Time: January 10, 2010, 1:22 pm

hi i have a emac g4 and i want to know if i can upgrade to leopard
SPECS:
1.25Ghz G4 Processor
512Mb RAM, 40Gb Hard Drive
Apple ComboDrive
Mac OSX v10.4 Tiger
PLZ REPLY ASAP THANKS