Does Mac version use threads?

If no, why not? If yes, why is SL so slow on my dual processor G4-867? If threads were enabled, I would get better performance than a single-CPU iMac at 1GHz. Threading is your friend, especially when various tasks are fairly different.

Was the program architected with threading in mind, or not? If the engine supported multi-threading, wouldn't that mean better performance (at least from a user perspective) on HT CPUs on the PC?

Thanks.

I believe SL is threaded somewhat, with about 4 threads, but it's like 80-90% one thread doing all the work and the other 3 threads do minor stuff.

Probably not going to see improvements on MP or HT systems.

As to why this is so, hopefully a Linden will pipe in, as I can't remember.

Not scientific, but noticed while, uh, testing....

When I installed Second Life on a Dual 2Ghz G5 system at the Apple store, I had the Activity Monitor w/CPU monitor up the whole time. One processor ran at 100% the whole time; the other flickered occasionally. That said, it did run pretty well!

I almost thought of it as a feature. Since the processing seemed to be restricted to one processor, I figure the other processor would be open for other stuff. On my own single processor G5, when SL takes 100%, other programs are sometimes a little sluggish. So if SL ever does become capable of utilizing every last cycle, it would be nice to have an option to throtle it down.

All in all it works pretty well, although I seldom see FPS over 5 or 6 (yes, draw distance set to 96). I am always thinking about getting a low-end PC... which many posts seem to imply would perform better than mine. Except that my Macintosh friends would then heap shame upon me.

Adam,

Give Avie Tevanian and the Mach microkernel team a little credit. Your Mac has a scheduler which uses some really good techniques to balance the load on the processors, including giving fair access to each and every process running. It's not a feature if a program is not multi-threaded: the other processor that is idling is a total waste of resources you have available. If you run multiple programs (in fact you always have at least thirty processes running: check top or Activity Monitor), if they are threaded, it just means that the threads are all balanced, instead of just the processes.

You can throttle down certain applications, although I forgot how. The most immediate way is just to put the hungry program in the background. Programs that take too much processor time are throttled back automatically by the Mach scheduler. But usually, the problem with sluggish apps on a fast computer is lack of memory, including lack of graphics memory, not bad scheduling. SL needs a LOT of graphics memory -- the AGP bus gets a lot of traffic when you run SL in windowed mode, and AGP is a significant bottleneck.

Lots of PCs now have twice the graphics memory of Macs in the same or even better class, thanks to the screw job ATI and nVidia (and Apple) are giving Mac users regarding 3D accellerator cards. (We're overcharged for everything, to varying degrees, but that's the price of snobbery.)

Also the Mac client is still beta; there is a lot of optimization to do, although it is unlikely, with GCC, that it will ever get anywhere near the optimization for the PC. When we get the IBM compiler in XCode, we should see a lot of improvements, and this will be a big deal for games. Or so I infer from what I've read online.

Notice that the Mac requirements are much higher than the PC requirements, in clock rate and memory. I'm confident that an 867MHz G4 outclasses a lousy P3-800 -- I believe that the Mac code is far inferior.

I will say that I get frame rates around 10 on my G4, so I will have to check the draw distance setting. ... Mine was at 128. I changed it to 96. I get between 8 and 12 fps, even staring at a simple scene. I will get a G5 in the Fall, and then everything will be fine.

Yes yes! Much credit to Avie Tevanian and the Mach microkernal team. All in all, Second Life for Macintosh runs pretty well.

I thought my 1G of RAM would be enough to prevent sluggish applications, but everything takes more these days. I have only 64MB in the graphics card, and will be looking into getting more; thanks for the tip.

I hope all the possible improvements (compilers, processors, non-betas) work out. More and better and faster Second Life for Macintosh will be a wonderful thing.