Please Help! PowerMac G5 Crashes on FirstLook Viewer No Matter What

Just downloaded the newest FirstLook Viewer for my PowerMac G5 so I could get a much better performance out of my extremely high-end machine and it crashes before it even finishes loading me into the world.

The system is as follows:
Processor: Dual Core PowerPC 970FX v3.1 (tech 0) 2.7 GHz Core, 1.4 Ghz Bus for both chips individually.
RAM: 4 GBs of DDR SDRAM DIMM
HDD: 232.76 GB SATA 7200 RPM
GC: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL AGP 256 MB
Internet: Built-in Ethernet 10/100/1GB and Built-In Firewire 2.0
Mac OS X 10.4.8
Latest Versions of Second Life Main Grid, FirstLook Viewer, and Beta Grid.

Please!! PLEASE!! Help!

Oh, come on...Don't be too hard on it! I got it to run for a grand total of 6 seconds! I was so proud!!!

Hrm, now that's really odd, as you have basically the same specs that I do, I have the 2.5ghz chips and two 160gb hard-drives, neither are something that should affect it. I've had no trouble =S

Have you submitted your crash-reports?

Yes I have! Yet still haven't gotten an answer. LL doesn't seem to ever respond to them.

It really saddens me to read this. I was hoping to transition to a mac in a few months but seeing as I only use my computer for SL, browsing the web, and doing business, I guess I may have to stick with my ugly HP PC

I wish you the best of luck in getting the problem fixed I'm crossing my fingers for you as I would be very interested in buying a comparable machine if I could be assured it was (could be made) perfectly compatible.

Reece,
They are talking about the prior generation of processor chips...the 'PowerPC' from Motorola. Macs in the last year or so have been based upon Intel chips--as are ALL new Macs that you might buy today. They are also talking about the 'First Look Viewer', a 'beta' viewer that is not yet ready for general release.

Buying a new computer, Mac or PC, can be daunting.
As for 'Perfect Compatibility', well, wander on over to the 'Technical Issues Forum.' There are more than enough problems to go around. SL can be quite demanding for its graphics. WHATEVER machine you buy, put LOTS of RAM into it, and search these forums to be sure the GRAPHICS Card is compatible.

For example, the current MAC PROS, and the iMacs are SL compatible. The Mac Mini is also compatible, but slow. At least at the moment:
The iMacs and Mini have built in graphics. Both are fine with SL.
If you're doing a MAC PRO, the ATI cards seem to have the better drivers.
If you're doing a PC, then NVIDIA seems to be the graphics card of choice.

Also, there's a NEW version of the Mac OS out in the next month or two...should have better performance with SL than the current version. (Also, I'd point out that we all complain about our computers...but my Mac Mini runs SL pretty darn well.

I discovered the problem was a corrupted account file for the OS, nothing more. So make sure to play the First Look Viewer on a fresh Mac account. First Look Viewer is also BETTER performance for a Mac, then the current normal version of SL. That is why I tried it.

Thank you to those who helped me.

Hi Lianna
I have the same problem with my mac
so , how precisely have you done for reparation ?

thanks by advance

I am running First Look on my Mac Pro and so far.. no major issues. In fact, it's about 10 times better than the official client.

Thank you very much for informing me of that Sterling

I love the way those new Apple computers look and am really happy to hear they run SL fine.

EPPUR:

On your Mac, from the finder, open the menus as follows:
APPLE / System Preferences... / then the "Accounts" item within Systems Preferences.

Make a 'new Account'. If the 'lock' at the bottom is locked, click it to unlock it.
push the '+' button to add an account. Call it 'Second Life', or "EPPUR" or whatever you like.

The result is a new userid for your MAcintosh. YOu can either activate Fast User Switching, or you can use the LOGOUT command (under the Apple menu). then LogIn to the New Account you made. Download the SL software, and you're all set to login to Second Life from an account that has NO OTHER software running. (No startup things, no old extensions, etc...just the basic operating system.)

@Reece: I run and code for both the PC and Mac (even release my own version of the SL viewer for both platforms.)

My new 20" Core2 Duo iMac runs SL perfectly fine, but on a (literally) side-by-side comparison, I have to admit SL runs smoother on my 1 yr. old HP even though it has an older AMD X2 cpu. It's probably because my HP has a stronger video card in it. Unfortunately the iMac's video card isn't upgradable.

Anyway, you may want to consider the Mac Pro (desktop) series. A friend who is a heavy WoW player loves it. Either way, get at least 2GB of RAM (Mac memory is quite a bit more expensive, so budget for this as well.)

One advantage of the PC is you can get a relatively inexpensive box. stick a top-of-the-line GPU in it, and you have a great SL setup.

Ironically I'm looking for a G5 now since I can't test my code on PPC at the moment.

-peekay

I was having the same problems on my MacBook Pro. What fixed the problem was deleting First Look, downloading a fresh copy, deleting the SL preferences and installing the new copy.Then I was able to log in and no crashes.

Of course, actually being able to do anything once you're on with all the server/database/network issues SL is having is another matter

I don't think buying Apple branded memory would be necessary.

I just upgraded the memory on my powermac g5. The store didn't have any mac memory in stock so they just gave me some whatever brand sticks instead, the only difference is that they don't have an Apple sticker on them, and the price is quite a bit lower.

Also, with my macbook, it was cheaper to buy it with 512mb default memory and get 2gb non-Apple memory for it than having bought a macbook with 2gb installed from Apple. Now I have the useless 512 sticks laying around somewhere...

Anyways. SL crashes on both powermac and macbook, first look or not. Recently I've been getting the not-responding spinning beach ball crash, but I get a lot of the one where it looks like normal, but the world just dies; chat stops, nobody moves, the little bars in the top right corner are all black.

SL has been 'bad' these last few days.
If you still have the problem, try clearing your cache.
If that doesn't fix it, use the procedure above to create a 'fresh' userid---one that is clean of all other items. Download SL into it and try from there. If THAT doesn't work, then I'd look for a network problem. Let us know.