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Use Apple pro applications on older machines Apps
Having recently taken the plunge to go totally Ten, all that was left was to purchase an upgrade to my old Final Cut Pro 2. I unfortunately am in the position of owning a Yikes G4 (the one with the PCI graphics card), and according to Apple, FCP4 needs an AGP card to run. Well, it seems the only reason that it needs an AGP card is because Apple tells you so. I found a hint on xlr8yourmac.com that suggested all you needed to do was change a field in the preferences file and away you go. And it's true!

This got me thinking whether the same is true of the other Apple Pro apps, and as I found, in the case of both Soundtrack and Compressor, it certainly is. To make the apps run on a crappy old G4, here's what you need to do. Control-Click the app and select Show Package Contents. Open the Contents folder. Open the info.plist file. The easiest way to do this is if you have the Property List Editor installed (from the Developer Tools), but BBedit (or any other pure text editor) should do fine. Find where it says Graphics Card Required and simply change AGP to PCI. Save the file.

This hack allows both FCP4 and Compressor (you have to repeat for both apps) to run perfectly well on a Yikes G4/400 (albeit with 640MB RAM), and if you don't mind renders that take a while, it makes both apps perfectly usable.

To get Soundtrack (and the Soundtrack Loop Player) to work on my machine, I had to edit the Required Speed field to read 400 -- Apple suggests 500MHz minimum for running, but again I managed to get Soundtrack to run perfectly well with a few layers of sound on my 400mhz machine ... just by changing the preferences!
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Use Apple pro applications on older machines
Authored by: Fofer on Dec 15, '03 01:47:23PM

Wow... that almost seems too easy!

While it's somewhat annoying to see evidence that Apple is now deliberately coding software to require costly hardware upgrades, it's nice to know that at least we have options. Yes, we recognzie performace won't be as good as it will be on a G5... but at least let us dabble on our "antiquated" hardware!

Thanks for the tip.



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Ditto for the "really old" 2002 iBook
Authored by: djLOKI on Dec 15, '03 06:00:20PM

I've got a 900 mhz iBook maxed out @ 640 meg of RAM - less than a year old, but discovered I was S.O.L trying to get some of these apps to run as well.

The same hack works with G3 machines (although I wouldn't do it on a slower one than mine and that's pushing it) except just delete (replacing didn't work for me) the line in the info.plist files that say the minimum required processor is a G4.

I tried to switch it to G3 first but it bombed so I deleted the entire entry and everything works great. I can line up about 10 tracks in Soundtrack with effects before she starts to snarl.



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G3's too!
Authored by: Anonymous on Dec 16, '03 01:09:16AM

Running on older processors require you to delete the [code]AELRequiredCPUType[/code] key to run. I hope that Panther is smart enough to handle problems if the applications are using any G4 specific code.

Now, what keys do I need to alter to get soundtrack to run on my Lisa? ;)



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Did anyone try FCP 4 on a G3 Pismo?
Authored by: pkishor on Dec 19, '03 10:01:26AM

Additionally, any experience with using FCP4 on upgraded machines? I currently have a G3/400 Pismo, and am thinking of upgrading to G3/900 using the Powerlogix upgrade. Whether or not I do that, I would be happy to learn (either way) whether FCP4 can run on this machine using the stated hack.

Tia.



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Use Apple pro applications on older machines
Authored by: casper on Mar 06, '05 06:15:12PM

Unbelievable! such a simple workaround!

To install the Soundtrack Update 1.2 on Machines that do not match the defined Specifications from Apple, you have to make the following changing:

Control-Click the pkg and select Show Package Contents. Open the Contents folder. Open the Resources folder. Open the InstallationCheck file. The easiest way to do this is TextEdit. Find where it says $hasG4 = 0; and simply change 0 to 1. Save the file.

This hack allows you to successfully install the update. After the installation you have to reedit the info.plist file from soundtrack.



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