Cache Enablers

[nick.ashton]

Anyone running OS X on an Old World Mac, or clone, with a G3 or G4 upgrade processor will need to enable the cache memory built into their CPU card in order to achieve the full performance of their system.

The good news is that once you successfully enable your cache memory your system responsiveness will be transformed.

The bad news is that none of the available cache enablers work on all systems and a few people can't get any of them to work on their particular machine.

I'm going to list the principal options that people can try to get their cache working along with some known pros and cons for each option.

1) XPF - the most obvious option to try is the cache enabler included with XPF3 itself. To enable this just check the box marked "Enable L2/L3 Cache" in the Options screen of XPF and reboot.

[wederfort]

I was using CPU director on my 8500 in Panther. I had some system freezes and decided to buy XLR8 Mach Speed Control, since I have anXLR8 450 G4 accelerator in my 8500 (latest version is 3.03 giving Panther compatabilty). The system freezes have disappeared.

I haven't tried it yet in my Umax s900, but it has a check box to disable mother board cach, so you don't have to fool with cutting resistors on machines with soldered mother board cache. I think it is well worth the $18.00

[willschou1]

"There are some other and earlier cache enablers available e.g. ... and XLR8 MachSpeed Control (now owned by DayStar). However, neither of these is being further developed so I won't go into details unless someone specifically wants me to. "

Nick,
Daystar/XLR8 did start out as a distributor of leftover and unsold XLR8 products. Many people seem to still think of them in that light. They have a number of new upgrades for various machines and IMHO are still one of the very best upgrade companies for Mac.
The point I'm getting to is Daystar/XLR8 MACH Speed Control Cache software is very much still being developed. In fact when I couldn't get it to work after upgrading Panther to the 10.3.5 update Gary emailed me the new version within an hour of my email ! It is available free with G3/4 upgrades or is sold for around $18.00 for other users. It does startup faster and seems to work the best with my setup. A J700 Umax with XLR8 Carrier card G4 550 MHz. There was a period of time when it wasn't available but that has been sometime ago.

[krissel]

Minor input in that XPF's cache control (which works beautifully for me) does properly allow ASP to list the L3 cache size, bus and processor speed. Does not, as mentioned, get the type of processor correct.

9600/Sonnet G4700/
1.4G Ram/10.3
Comp USA USB/FW
XLR8 MACh fire PCI FW
Radeon MacEdition
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Wallstreet 466/512/20G/10.3
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Free Mac help at Techsurvivors

[nick.ashton]

Wederfort & Willshou1

Thanks for your information regarding XLR8 Mach Speed Control.
Since I don't intend spending $18 to test it out can you answer some questions for me so I can update the details in my original post.

1. Does this enabler only support XLR8/Daystar CPU's?
2. When in the boot sequence does it load - early so that entire boot process is accelerated or late?
3. Does it come with any configuration utility to allow changes to be made to the cache speed (like CPU Director) or to the write-thru/write-back mode.
4. Does it allow for disabling of cache attached to the motherboard.
5. Does it allow utilities like Apple System Profiler to display the correct CPU type, CPU speed, bus speed and cache size/speed?

Once I have the details I'll amend things accordingly.

[JoelVink]

I would think that if you would contact Daystar/XLR8 and show them the writeup that you are doing for Cache Enablers on this site that they would probably get you a copy to evaluate.

I think a review/comparison/tutorial like you have done should be done completely by a single reviewer that has all the different options and trys the product yourself, to give the most accurate evaluation.

[nick.ashton]

Well if they would give me an evaluation copy that would be nice but having looked at the latest details on their web site I'm by no means sure that their software is intended to work with other manufacturers CPU's (and I don't have an XLR8 CPU). Plus I'm reasonably confident that Wederfort and Willshou1 have no particular axe to grind so they will almost certainly give accurate responses to my questions. But I'll bear your suggestion in mind just in case. Thanks for your interest in this topic.

[webmaster814]

As of late, how does XPostFacto handle the Sonnet G4 700/800MHz cards? Is L2 and L3 present and working well?

I guess, in a few days, I'll find out for myself. But, I would appreciate a heads-up.

Thanks,

Michael

[krissel]

Have a Sonnet G4/700 and use the XPF cache enabler. The system profiler recognizes the processor correctly and registers the L3 cache as 1MB. No other info as to L2.

I did notice an amazing difference in response from the usage before enabling the cache and after. Acted like a totally souped up machine in comparison to the initial install. (10.3)

[JoelVink]

Sonnet has released the final version of SonnetCache 1.3. It can be found at http://www.sonnettech.com/downloads/proc_upgrds_sw.html#sonnetcache.

All continues to work well for me.

[willschou1]

Sorry for taking so long to get back on this.

XLR8 Cache software

1. Does this enabler only support XLR8/Daystar CPU's?
No, in fact at one time it was being used by many people with different cards then they started charging non owners of XLR8 cards. I also have an OWC G3 500 MHz Zif and it works fine with that. Don't know for sure which cards it works with but i'll guess it will work with most cards.
2. When in the boot sequence does it load - early so that entire boot process is accelerated or late?

I wasn't able to use the 3.0 version which came with my G4 550-600 Zif card. The 3.1b version loaded early and boot time was like 1 min flat! The current version 3.1.0 seems to load later oddly enough. So startup time is back to like 2.5 min. I should write and ask about why this was changed.
3. Does it come with any configuration utility to allow changes to be made to the cache speed (like CPU Director) or to the write-thru/write-back mode.

It has a nicely written control panel (much the same as it's been since OS 9 versions)
Cache speed can be set to auto which in most cases will be the default setting. You can also set to manual and pick faster or slower speeds. Works great 1 speed faster for me.
Yes, you can choice write-thru. Unchecking the box swtiches to write back mode.
It does thermo monitering and reports temp for CPU that have sensers. Newer fast G3's 800+ and G4 7410LE CPU's no longer have this ability. It also will give a warning if CPU is overheating.

4. Does it allow for disabling of cache attached to the motherboard.
Yes, it does this feature will only show up if you have motherboard cache. I disabled my motherboard cache and the box no longer shows in the control panel.
5. Does it allow utilities like Apple System Profiler to display the correct CPU type, CPU speed, bus speed and cache size/speed?

Machine type for my Umax J700 shows ???? and CPU type as 604 (machine came with this CPU)
CPU speed,BUS speed and Cache size and speed info is correct in Apple S Profiler.
The XLR8 Control Panel shows all of the above info correctly including CPU type.
Nice feature I've not seen elsewhere. It lists all the RAM slots and if the RAM is interleaved or not and RAM chip size. All RAM info is correct! (at least on my machine) Even shows empty slots correctly.
I like this App a lot but not sure it's worth buying for most people.

I also like Cache Control X discontinued by Powerlogix but works great with Jagaur.If anyone using Jaguar wants a copy let me know. Gives more info and has more features then the newer Cache Director.I don't think it works with Panther.
Hope this info helps, Will S

[nick.ashton]

[willschou1]

G4 Zif upgrades had issues with the 6 PCI slot Apple and Power Tower Pro machines (Umax S900's use a different setup so missed this bug) Only the top 2 PCI slots worked correctly with a G4 present. XLR8's solution was a special version of the Carrier card for these machines. According to Daystar the current Daystar/XLR8 software takes care of this issue. So they only sell one version of the Carrier card and it works fine in all the machines using their software. The other companies still in business also came up with fixes for the G4 6 PCI slot issue. Some in hardware and others with software. Kind of hard to keep track of. Daystar also claims Altivec features of OSX work better using their software. It does indeed work well but kind of hard to prove that it works better then others. Sounds a bit like my soap will make your colors brighter then the other guys

[gary949]

Just to clarify ,

The XLR8 CPU/Cache Controller does (as always) support all manufacturer's CPU cards. Until recently though, it was limited to the 7400-7410 CPUs. But the new upcoming, MAChSpeed Control - OS9 and - OSX is improved and expanded to ALL Mac CPUs/Systems/Upgrades.

There is a new beta out (and an upcoming announcement).

The newest version supports everything including the G5 (although it doesn't do much more than testing/verify on the G5). It has MP support, and now also includes the ability to change the speed (on the fly) in the 750 GX/FX systems and upgrades. It still performs an active Cache/RAM/CPU test when opened (a great overnight stability/burn-in test which we use everyday for our PowerBook and iMac factory upgrades).

On older systems, it has the speculative processing fix (by XLR8) built in, and also, has a memory management feature that speeds performance 3-5%.

There are a handful of other features under the hood (such as Apple System Profiler CPU reporting fixes), and a unique fix for the FX/GX chips to change speed AFTER bootup (since the Blue and White has issues booting above 800 MHz on a 100 MHz bus). A full listing is in the utilitiy's readme.

Last, it still has the exclusive feature of being able to profile and test the cache and CPU on startup, allowing only the successful speeds to be selected. This includes the ability to easily reset if you have a cache/cpu failure.

We have had a number of testers on XPOSTFACTO with perfect results.

Anyone wanting to beta test before we ship the final, can email me direct. A free copy of the final version will require posting of the test results in the forums (the XLR8YOURMAC users forums, also appreciated).

All current owners of MAChSpeed Control can get the beta by emailing me.

Yes, there is also a price, but, that's what pays for the engineering.

[rob.green]

So I'm an idiot.

After getting Tiger up and running on my Powerbook Lombard (with a Powerlogix G4/500 processor upgrade), I thought "I'll turn on the L2 cache. What could go wrong?"

Surpise: Kernel panic.

Booting from the Tiger Install DVD, I can't access XPF, but I can open Terminal.

Before I do any more damage, is there a way I can disable the L2 cache through Terminal?

Failing that, I guess I boot from a Panther CD, open XPF, and turn off the L2 cache there? (Right?)