In MacOS 8/9, there are three ways to play a DVD:
1) Apple DVD Player 1.x and Apple OEM decoder hardware (Rage 128
daughtercard, PowerBook PCMCIA card or on-board MPEG-2 decoder of the 400Mhz Lombard)
2) Apple DVD Player 2.x and a Rage 128 or higher video card capable of doing hardware-assisted DVD decoding and playback
3) One of the not-so-common 3rd party PCI DVD decoder cards that use a VGA
passthrough to overlay the decoded DVD video on top of the Mac's video signal (the same way the 3dfx Voodoo 1 and 2 worked) with the long-out-of-date DVD playing software that goes with it
In OS X, there are a few open-source DVD players that run entirely in software, but require at least a 400Mhz G3 to decode a DVD at full speed. CPU speed won't matter much for options 1 and 3 above, since the decoding is done entirely in hardware. Option 2 will require some CPU speed, but I've had no trouble getting it to work on a 233Mhz G3 for instance.
I don't think there is any way at all to play a DVD on a NuBus based Mac, unless perhaps you have one that has a CPU upgrade of a 400Mhz G3 or higher and you're running Linux so that you can use one of the software-only open source decoders.
- Nate
On Fri, 1 Apr 2005, Antonio Rodrguez wrote:
I read a few years ago that you needed a 450 Mhz Pentium II/III processor to decode DVDs (or full-screen MPEG2) in real time. So, comparing the horsepower between Intel and Motorola families, I bet you'll need at least a 233 Mhz G3 in order to do that - I can't say it for sure, but the limit must be somewhere near there. Because of that, with a 601 processor, the DVD-ROM drive will be of use only as an storage device...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ha escrito:
> I'd have to check, but I think the CD-ROM is full-sized. Wonder what > it takes system-wise to run that DVD? I've got a 601 PPC upgrade on a > 575 LB and with a res-hack I can run up to 8.6 I think (but it would > be sloooow). Wonder if that's enough? Though I heard somewhere that > the hardware is not capable of processing that much video (at least in > any kind of smooth way). Perhaps this is why I never did it. :-)
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