New iMac with ATI Card?

So, I've been debating or considering buying an iMac. I really like the 24" one, but I have some concerns with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO card that it comes with. I'm currently using a G4 PowerBook and am afraid the performance won't be much better than the nvidia card I have now. I've found a page showing performance for each video card, but I think the performance may be much worse under OSX compared to XP or Vista with the same card.

http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/11/15/typical-frame-rate-performance-by-graphics-cardgpu/

What kind of performance do people find with the new iMac's and the ATI HD 2600 card? I really would like to have a mac, but I could get a comparable PC for $600 (since I already have a spare lcd). See if I'm tempted to run SL on a PC, then I may just buy a MacBook to replace my aging PowerBook. So many choices..

After reading another thread, I do wish there was a SL client written for a mac instead of something being adapted from a PC. I mean they might as well written it in Java! Imagine how bloated that would be..

I just got an iMac 24" with that card. The performance is ok, but not that great. The graphics quality is outstanding. But, it could also be because I'm on DSL.

I was hesitant to.. but was lucky to test the new 20" iMac with SL- and wow - I was so impressed I went and bought one. My old G4 dual 867 was struggling with SL.

The new iMac 20" Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz runs the windlight version so well at 25+ fps on the default high setting. I was going to buy a Mac Pro tower but the iMac with the ATI Radeon HD2400 is power packed even though it only has 128MB VRAM. I had read bad reports on the card and the screen. Maybe the specs on paper do not look good in comparison to other systems but the truth is - SL looks great on it. Leopard was installed at the store.

If there are any particular tests you want me to run feel free to ask. I'm no longer plagued by strange multicoloured textures. Textures load quickly and the camera controls are very smooth. I have been to lagged out areas and found the whole experience to be excellent. On my estate I always have the viewing distance maxed out to 512m. I have a fast cable internet connection.

I was tempted to get the 24" but decided to get the smaller 20". I have no regrets at all.
I added 512 MB of RAM to boost the total memory to 1.5 GB on both.

Sweet machine highly recommended. Tell the guys in the mac/applestore you would like to download SL and verify the good reports - you will want to get one! A friend bought a new mac book pro (laptop) 2 weeks ago and he cannot run windlight-and crashes often. I sympathize with all the frustrated mac users on SL but the new 20" iMac runs like a dream.

I also have a new iMac- 20 LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!! Also using windlight and same specs as Locos.. Best machine out!!

Get one you to will love it! Oh I love mine..

Loco,

Your response sounds very good. How exactly do you see how many fps the client is running at? I think the standard version use to have it at the top right hand corner when I started using SL. I've been using the windlight client on my pbook now since it seemed more stable than the regular version. I'm most curious about the fps and what that looks like in crowded areas. Crowded areas make my current computer unusable even with all the graphics settings turned all the way down.

I was on the line between the 20" and 24" but I thought the 24" would be better since I could get the fastest processor in that size. I was going to go with the minimal memory configuration and replace it with memory from crucial.com. Crucial is the same as micron, but you can buy directly from the manufacturer at the crucial site. I could max the thing out with 4GB of ram for $150. You can get the same memory that Apple uses at comparable prices from OWC (macsales.com). It's kinda insane that Apple sells the same upgrade for their computers with $600 price tags.

I might have to go into the Apple store and try out SL just to see how well it works. The ATI card has some decent ratings in Windows. I've read a bit about Apple not utilizing all the features in some graphic cards and then SL being a port from Windows to Mac. I don't know how much truth is in all of that, but it just sounded like nvidia cards performed better. I did see some things about nvidia with leopard though. I haven't upgraded any of my macs to leopard yet. I did get the upgrade disks, but have heard about a couple issues that were being worked out (even outside of SL).

Thanks for your response!

Control / Shift / 1 while you are in-world brings up a statistics panel at the top right hand side of the viewer. From there you can see FPS (client), bandwidth, ping, time dilation, Sim FPS, how many avatars on the sim (main agents), amount of objects, active scripts. From this list you can click on each word to show an expanded view of each.

With my new iMac 20" 2 GHz - I have been able to visit areas in which I previously could not move.

High traffic areas :- I visited Hanja welcome area traditionally a very laggy area there were at least 15 avatars there, I was on the recommended settings and I turned the view distance down to 80m turned Trees down to minimum and windlight down to low- set the time of day to midnight. I took a seat and ran between 8 and 12 fps. Zooming out behind my avatar about 20 metres took the FPS count up to 17 fps. It fluctuated but was acceptable. Another test test was to reduce the client window to about 1/4 of the iMacs screen size which gained a few extra fps. Safari running the whole time, when I made safari the active window SL fps dropped to about 9FPS in the background but returned to 18FPS when switching to the SL window.

Finally I went back into preferences/graphics and set the override slider for quality versus performance to low. The overall look was good and many of the avatars that were not in my immediate area vanished. This drew 14 - 17 fps. This slider seems like a quick and easy way of adjusting to suit the conditions in a busy area.

Thanks Loco! I just went around to some areas and was rarely getting any more than 5 fps. That is with a 1.5GHz G4 Powerbook with an nVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200. I have almost all of the settings tuned down. I'm using the Windlight client and like the overall slider in the graphics tab.

I was also curious if there was much difference between the 20" and the 24" and if resizing the window to make it smaller would speed it up much. If it barely speeds it up much at all, I would think it would be safe to presume it would be about the same. I prefer to run SL in a window so I can easily flip back and forth to a web browser.

Thanks for all the info. I think I will stick with the plan to get the iMac. I am planning on waiting until Jan 15th to see if they upgrade the processors or disk after the MacExpo.

Thanks again!

Just got my shiny new 24# IMac with the ATI card also, and I cant even open the SL client software

It hangs as soon as I click it, cant even get a splash screen. I've sent SL a support ticket and they said to update my WINDOWS DRIVERS (grumble, grumble, form letters annoy the f**k out of me)

I've tried both 1.18.3.5 and 1.18.5.3 and have the same problems... forget lag, I can't even launch the software

I'm also having severe permissions problems (can't do anything without typing my password) wonder if they might be related?

Anyone else having this problem? should I go back to 10.4? is it the card? HELP MEEEEE!!

Never mind folks, figured it out

Turns out I had to get rid of EVERYTHING and do a clean install of the software.

I was hesitant to do that because I thought I would lose everything (inventory wise) but I decided to try anyway, and it worked... and, thankfully, all my inventory is still there (must be stored on the SL servers instead of on my system)

So, that is how this problem is solved (in case anyone else has the same issues)

I have to routinely remove the second life (and onrez) folders from application support. I log chat and IMs (and this fills up pretty quick), perhaps I should be clearing cache more often?

However, I dearly love my imac 20, she's just over a month old, and has changed my use and enjoyment of SL. I was on a macbook before - lets just say i can see, type walk and fly now

I'm in love with my brand new Imac running SL.
Here are the Specs: IMac 24" Intel, 2,4 Ghz, 2 Gb RAM, DSL, OnRez client.
I was strongly disappointed with SL on my previous Mac, which was a G5 IMac (PowerPC G5, 1.8 GHz, 1 GB Ram, DSL, SL client). Now my new machine manages SL smoothly, with some minor glitches just in the crowded areas. As someone wrote before me, I'd need just to toggle a little with the graphic detail reg to find a solution. But anyway, I've never felt the need to do it, yet. I'm not into prim building or exaggerate details: I can live without antialiasing even when I play videogames, so maybe my needs are not that high. But I can perfectly live in SL with my IMac. If your one and only doubt before buying a IMac is SL, buy the machine and take it home: you'll need just 5 minutes to feel peaceful, calm and happy.
K.M.

As am I Keishaa. I just got the same iMac as you. I am so happy with this computer.

I am currently on holidays but I will soon return to work where a Windows machine sits on my desk. I think I will weep

I got a new 24" iMac with the 2600 card last October. I must say I am disappointed with the SL performance.

My main machine a G5 Quad with 4 gigs of ram and an ATI x1900 card. I normally get 30 frames per second with graphics preferences maxed and a draw distance of 128.

The iMac is lucky to average 20 fps with graphics sliders backed off to 3/4 and the draw distance set to 64. There is a recurring problem where the performance slows to a crawl until I check or uncheck Vertex Shaders in preferences. Whether it is off or on, changing it sends the frame rate back to 15-20.

The color and sharpness of the 24" screen *is* breathtaking. Too bad all the circles look like octagons because I have to keep the settings turned down. The machine itself is great!!! I think the 2600 card is the loser here.

The way Second Life works is that all that sits on your computer is the software which is a VIEWER... much like a web browser is to a web site.

The world itself (aka the Grid) exists on one set of servers, and all the items on the grid (all objects, your inventory and so on) is in another place called an asset server.

In other words, you could access SL on any computer from anywhere, and you'd still have your inventory, etc., so you never need to worry about not getting your inventory.

The MAC SL viewer has poor performance compared to it's XP equivalent.
If you use bootcamp and XP you get far superior frames per second.. (I mean FAR SUPERIOR) The reason is unknown to me but I tried to get info on this...


Unfortunately for the aluminium Imacs, there seems to be a problem with ATI's support of GLSL for the 2600 series (and maybe others). The result is that, in bootcamp XP SL, alot of users are not getting ripple water in standard viewer, and not getting reflexions in the windlight viewer. (in the XP SL viewer that is)...

Soooo, since the best way to get great frame rate on a Mac with SL would be to run bootcamp, I would actually think twice about buying the Imac, becos it will only give you very poor water renderings in PC mode. ANd no one knows about any fix on the way.

If however you want to run SL with settings of 64 meters viewing distance, in environments that are not prim heavy.... you might find acceptable the fps you'll get from settings in the OSX viewer.

Maybe the osx viewer will deliver same results as the XP viewer in the future, but today, it's just UNCOMPARABLE... check out for yourself if you know someone who runs bootcamp and XP...
Compare frame rates at same SL location with same settings OSX/XP bootcamp. And make sure you skip the first 5 minute results you'll get in the OSX viewer cos usually the frame rate when launching the ap will seem ok for a few minutes then drop down drastically.. My 2 cents..... you can read posts on the 'no ripple water' issue in threads like these :

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3184