Second Life on the new GMA x3100 Macbooks

Has anyone here tried Second Life on these new machines?

Is it playable? What sort of frame rate does it get?

As I'd be interested in how it performed before I bought it, I'll post now for others ^^
Got a new MacBook today, 2.2 GHz, GMA X3100, 1 GB RAM (will be upgraded later)
Using the current version (1.18.3.5) gave me some bad crashes, which persisted even in the rc (1.18.4.2), until I deleted the SecondLife profile folder (as proposed in some other threads). Now I could test it a bit (like 20min), seems to be crash free for now.
(First of all, this is my first mac, so I don't know whether I could tweak anything to speed it up or such)
In a 800x600 window, with details on medium (terrain detail low) gives approximately these fps:


empty sim, mouselook <= 50 fps (wow! =))

"town" sim with buildings, no other people, 3rd person: 10-15fps (feels playable)

(very) full sim (max. count of people) ca. 5 fps, sometimes less (no fun anymore)


interesting: vertex shaders work and water can be made look nice (although this makes it unplayable ), in empty areas it can be used relatively useful in 1280x800 fullscreen (like <10fps); I saw no bigger gfx errors.

So, I guess, a gamer would say omfgosh unplayable, but to just walk around a bit and chat I think it's enough
Especially, given the fact that the X3100 is a relatively advanced IGP, and I guess neither SL Mac OSX version, nor the X3100 Mac driver are as much optimized as it would be possible, there is more power to be unleashed.
(One thing to note is, as mentioned above, I tested with only 1 GB of ram, but SL takes up 1.25 GB virtual memory almost since it starts. So I guess with more RAM there'll be a speedup)
To compare it, I'll set up bootcamp with winxp in a few days and try the same with Windows (and I'll post the results if anybody is interested)

To sum it up: If you want a really good platform to use SL with all it's features, the new MB is still not the notebook of choice for SL.

Greets,

Ookami

PS: I'm still happy with the performance, given the fact that I were used to a GeForce 2MX 200 which gave even worse fps

Ookami,
On sat I got my first ever macbook - same as yours except 2 gig of ram. The entire computere freezes up after 5-10 sec running time. Both with default build and RC. You mention deleting a profile folder (and cutting back the graphics) allowed you to run. Where do I find the Profile Folder????

Thanks, I was getting ready to take the thing back in for 90% - you have given me some hope!!!!

- Danaeah

Ookami,
Deleting the user folder, setting screen to 800x600 and landscape detail to low I freeze after about 2 min instead of 5-10sec. Have an appointment tomorrow with one of the locl mac store techies. Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Danaeah

It's a pity that SL makes so much trouble with the macbooks atm.
As I'm new too to Macs, I unfortuneatly don't have any further ideas what could make it work or run better.
I don't want to say it's crash free for me, as I only tested it for 20 mins, and it seemed to crash not, at least for that time.
The folder I deleted was the YourUsername/Library/Application Support/SecondLife folder.
Whether you keep it or not is a question only you can answer. As I'm not a hardcore SL user, and I primarily use the MacBook for other purposes, I'm happy with the sheer possibilty to use SL somehow (and maybe, some versions later, better - according to some other threads atleast some people seem to experience general problems with SL and Leopard, even on machines absolutely fast enough to run it flawless; obviously us new MacBook users have no way to test it with an earlyer version of MacOSX).

If the technicians know anything to make it work, please post it as it might help the growing community of latest MacBook users

Greets,
Ookami

PS:

I hope no one got this wrong, with empty sim I mean really nothing but sky and maybe ocean or empty and flat land. No buildings or structures, no other people.
Updated: PPS:
In another thread I've read that selecting a lower video memory size (in the new MacBook's case it'd be change it from 128 MB to 64 MB (X3100 under MacOSX can use 144MB, i think)) would solve certain speed problems, and, although I didn't perform any longer test, it seems to run atleast a little bit (maybe a few fps) more fluent (to the cost of textures beeing downscaled etc.). (Actually it's no wonder, Leopard uses OpenGL on it's own to speed up Quartz (see Quartz Extreme or Core Image), so leaving only 16 MB for it might be too little, which results in a fight for video memory between SL and Leop. )

At the store, I ran SL "as is" and the machine froze in 5-10 sec. The tech plugged in her own HD and launched 10 simultaneous cpu/graphics intensive applications - computer vs. computer chess, and nine 3D animations of fractal equations, etc. Let it run for 15 min with no glitch and impressive speed and clarity.

Then I set the SL preferences to min graphics and chose 800x600 window res. Tech watched and did not think there was anything else I could do. Froze in about 40 sec. though I was moving around at the Botanical Gardens.

The one detail to check was I set the video memory from 128 to 16 and that seemed exterme - I will try it at 64.

Other than that the tech said I could try reinstalling the OS in case there was a glitch, but in her opinion I'm just going to have to wait for a client upgrade that comprehends the new hardware.

Any opinions on when that might be, or other comments/suggestion?

- Danaeah

It would be interesting to test the macbook with Bootcamp/XP or Vista and see what haapens then.

ok, I installed Win XP (+latest intel drivers) and tried it, and I'm puzzled.
The performance seems to be mainly on par, sometimes even a bit slower.
The only advantage it seem to have, is that it can sustain a bad-but-usable (ca. 10fps) a bit longer, but often (and often without an understanable source of frame drop (like a complex object)) it drops down to unsuable levels.
On the otherhand, it doesn't seem to crash randomly. (I only had some crashes as I tried way too high settings.)
Interestingly, the water effects and such couldn't be selected, so I guess either the intel Mac OS X driver is currently ahead of the windows ver (which would make sense, given that it runs overall smoother under MacOS), or SL force-deactivates those options given the little power the intel gma has.
Overall, that's all strange. I really expected SL to run a whole lot better. But it (currently) doesn't - I hope that there is still a bit of power left which will be mobilised in further driver upgrades. (From what I read last, Intel has, at least in early driver versions, taken almost no advantage of the improvements the X3100 contains over the GMA950, but I don't know whether that's still the case)
Frustrating.

Greets,
Ookami

PS:
Yet a bit strange is, some games I tested worked a whole lot better than I expected.
STALKER MP Demo e.g., could run with full dynamic lighting, unplayable, but without graphic errors. Playable with static lighting from 800x600 maximum (fairly stable around 20fps) to 1280x800 minimum (around 20fps, gets jittery) - no graphic errors.
FarCry - playable, some graphic errors.
PPS: Please not to all my fps-numbers: I did not perform any reproduceable tests, I just walked arond in SL/the games a bit and tried to get an impression how it performs.
PPS (update):
Interesting, in the windows driver there is a setting for the energy saving, where one can chose between max quality and max runtime. Choosing hi qual doesn't change much, but it looked like some fps more (more like the MacOS version --- maybe the MacOSX driver automaticly selected a faster mode as I selected hiperformance for plugged in use of the MacBook ... so much to speculate ^^)

Ookami,
Now I'm confused too. You seem to indicate that the XP version runs more crash free, but with quality glitches? Since you were able to run ~20min on Mac while I can't run 2min, I hesitate to run out and buy a new XP for questionable results. On the other hand, waiting for the Lindens to take a break from their TV activities to write a new client ain't the most attractive prospect either.

Any settings details or specific hints for a mac novice would be greatly appreciated. You mentioned installing the latest intel drivers - where did you go for those?

Though I've decided to keep it, so far I cannot say I'm happy with the mac. Last night I needed to send a large attachement (>5meg) on gmail, and the mac could not handle it while the pc could. Some glitches installing software for a recent model HP printer too.

The advent of functional SL on this machine would convince me like nothing else, but so far, I regret my purchase, am likely to run bootcamp for bread and butter utilities because I don't feel like investing in mac software, and unless something changes, its likely to be our first and last mac.

/pout off
Danaeah

I would've thoght twice about buying XP, but I fortuneatly could use the version I now don't use on my PC anymore. The drivers I updated were the XP drivers, I don't know whether I really updated something as I don't know which version is on the Mac OS X DVD. I downloaded them from intel.com
It's a pity that you have so bad experiences with your Mac, I fled the Windows and Linux world and till now, I'm amazed every time I boot it up. (Maybe it's just because I have a really crappy PC )
As I mentioned earlyer, it's my first mac too, so I'm no professional either and don't know any hidden tweaks or so.

Greets,

Ookami

Ookami,
Thanks for your tests and posting the details of your experiments. Based on the rather dismal results, and the lack of any hint on when or if the Lindens will accomodate this hardare, I returned the machine this morning. Too bad I didn't visit the store a month ago, since an SL friend loves the way it runs on her older macbook. Meanwhile for the amount of the refund and a few hundred dollars more, I'm going to order a new Dell with supported components, and have it in my hands soon after Thanksgiving.

Sorry your experience with your MacBook was so bad, but I've been running SL on various Macs going back to the G4 era and it was great, very playable back in the day (pre-1.13 era when I first joined SL--seems everything started going to hell beginning with 1.13), but has gotten steadily worse with each SL "update". Also, the Mac version has always been a bit slower than the PC version. I fault the crappy SL client. Just take a look at the JIRA, the general tech forums or some older posts here in the Mac forums sometime and see the enormous list of problems. It's insane.

I have a new MacBook Pro and also a 2+ year old PowerBook. Up until the voice version came out I was able to run SL pretty decently on the PowerBook, but the performance has degraded significantly since then. SL on the new MBP is crash city...

Oh and just an FYI, I also run SL on a dedicated Win XP game machine. I run Call of Duty, Battlefield 2, Eve, etc on that box as well as SL. Guess which one of those games gives me problems even under XP and blows up the Nvidia drivers on a regular basis? (Hint: it's the one made by Linden Lab)

Thanks Deej - I am not blaming Apple. In fact I truly hated returning the thing - as a friend said, it was a little like test driving a Ferrari for 10 days and then handing over the key. It was simply that I need a new machine now (not when a passable SL client is rolled out) and SL is one of my prerequisites. Someday....

The problem is with the 10.5 drivers for the x3100

I have the same problem on the brand new MacBook Late 2007 (144mb x3100 Intel). I also have bootcamp/xpsp2 on the machine and SL runs fine there.

see this post in the wiki
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/MacBook_Pro_2007_Graphics_Freeze_Workaround

Using the same work around, but choosing Apple Software Render as the driver works on the MacBook with x3100.

This proves that it is the Apple Driver, not the hardware.

I have tried all the various clients (Nicholaz, onrez etc) and they all crash when turning the camera around within 10 seconds, but run fine when I set the driver to Apple Software Render.

So, until Apple updates 10.5 to include better drivers, we wait.

FYI, a friend who is a sim owner submitted a bug report to Linden Labs, quoting the symptoms I had logged above, and received the following reply:

"Please work through the Control Panel graphics options, and try turning each of them off. For each one that you turn off, please run Second Life and see if your problem persists. The particular options to try would be: . Set Draw Distance to 64 . Disable Vertex Shaders, Bumpmapping and Shiny, Ripple Water and Avatar Vertex Program . Set Avatar Rendering to Normal . Set Lighting Detail to Sun and Moon Only If these make no improvement, then you could setting the Object Mesh Detail, Flexible Mesh Detail, Tree Mesh Detail and Avatar Mesh Detail to the minimum settings as well. If still no luck, ensure that Anisotropic Filtering is off, and set Graphics Card Memory to be less than the memory on your graphics card. If there is still no improvement, it would be best to place an entry on the public issue tracker at: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Issue_tracker" - eom

best regards,
Danaeah

THis issue has a fix!

http://softwareblogs.intel.com/2007/11/29/there-is-a-hack-for-second-life-and-the-intel-965-chipset/

It worked for me on a MacBook late 2007.

Almost unbelievable!

Seems to work for me too,

thank you!

greets
Ookami

I'm thinking of buying one of these MacBooks - what's the performance like with the fix in place?

Well, SL is mostly crappy on its own, so its hard to tell exactly... I would call it "usable."

Hi Tuber,

I tried the fix that you suggested but it didn't work for me. I have a new MacBook 2.2 GHz machine, 2 gb sdram - any ideas?

Well, there is another work around... It is less ideal however.

Install the Xcode Tools that either came with your computer or your OS Upgrade.

Then, look in /Macintosh HD/Developer/Applications/Graphic Tools/

for an application called "OpenGL Profiler"

Using this application, you can manually set the Graphics Driver to a different driver, then from there launch SL with that driver.

The alternative driver which seems to have the most luck for people is "Apple Software Renderer"
There have been mixed results trying other ATI or Nvidia drivers.

Hope that helps.

Tuber

My partners x3100 macbook is now FLYING on SL since the latest 10.5.2 update and the new graphics update.
Everyone with a x3100 should get it.