What Mac works for you?

You've seen the SL requirements for Macs. I'm running better than recommended: Dual 1.8GHz G5, OS 10.5.6, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, screen at 1680x1050 (22" LG), but only 1GB SDRAM.

I have set the SL graphics preferences to Low. I have cleared cache and done Repair Permissions and everything else I see suggested such as (in SL) Advanced/Rendering/Run Multiple Threads.

SL Performance still sucks. If I'm lucky I get 12-15 fps. Trying to move is a crap-shoot. forget about vehicles!

Some in this forum say don't use ANY PowerPC Mac. What's wrong with a Quad 2.5? Which Intel Mac should I look for at minimum? What's the difference in the different Intels? I see there are some Intels slower than the quad 2.5 G5. Is this wrong?

What are you using with great (like Ultra) results?

intel core 2 duo 3.06 ghz, 4gb memory bus speed 1.07 ghz NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 512 MB VRAM

runs sl like a dream, fully maxed out 200 meter draw ultra settings on all

Hi - good to hear you iMac is still doing well. I saw your post couple of months ago. I am thinking of getting one of those with the same spec. Just wondered if you used any other tweaks or variants such as the Cool Viewer? Anything else worth bearing in mind? Following various discussion threads I am avoiding the ATI video card option...

if it's any consolation...

MacBookPro '08
graphics preferences set to High
10-15 fps on average
peaks of 30fps, provided the sim is empty (!!)
a few annoying bugs here and there (spinning wait cursor etc.)

Needless to say, these issues were already being discussed in 2006. Thank you LL for listening to us.

I think you are expecting way too much... SL runs poorly on most computers.. even Windows "gaming" machines.. thats just SL. 12-15 is not bad FPS, but it depends on your area.. not all of SL is equal. In some places I can get 60+ fps, and others its like 10 fps with the same settings. It depends how crappy the builder of the area is (its a buncha amateurs making stuff), and how many people are there, as well as how crappy their avatars are made... You computer specs are very low end. SLs requirements to run are for bare minimum run-ability, not for decent or acceptable performance, and they haven't been updated in so long, even though major graphical changes in SL.. its a joke.

There are a lot of places on the net you can read up on processors. just remember that the frequency of the processor (the Hz, aka GHz, MHz, etc) is NOT a overall speed rating of the processor. If you take the exact same processor and increase the Hz, it will be faster. But you can have a processor with a better architecture at 1GHz compared to one with a worse architecture at 2GHz, and the 1GHz will actually be faster. Just because a G5 is 2.5 GHz doesn't mean its faster than a Core 2 Duo at 2 GHz.. but it depends on what you are doing with the processor.. different architectures have different +'s and -'s

if your looking for an Intel mac... any currently sold new machine will have decent performance, even the mini. If your talking about all past machines, well thats too many to go through.

The latest Mac Mini finally has a non-crappy GPU, so it's an option again. Don't get a refurbished last-gen mini, though. Intel GMA950 graphics.

So, what exactly does video card memory and RAM do for SL performance? From time to time I get nearly acceptable performance with my dual 1.8 G5. The fps is acceptable but texture loading is slow. Walking and dancing are OK but riding a motorcycle isn't too much fun and vehicle scripts are one of my main interests right now.

Texture loading has always been very slow compared to the Windows client. Since 2006 I've tried several Macs, but the problem is still the same as it was three years ago. It's not a matter of hardware, it's just a matter of bad coding.
If you need more speed (textures fps etc.), or if you simply don't think MacOSX deserves such a bad piece of software, don't get a new Mac. Use Windows instead, or leave Second Life. Sad but true.