What Kind of Apple Hardware Do You Have?

On Sunday, we purchased a new dual-processor 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac with a 23" Cinema HD display. I was also successfully able to make a case for the NVIDIA GeForce 5800 Ultra DDL video-card upgrade. It should be here by the middle of May.

I can't wait to play SL on a cinema display. Does anyone else out there have one? If so, what's it like and what resolutions can you run it at?

~Ulrika~

ROFLOL!
I still have my 128k baby Mac, bought in March, '84 - that i upgraded to 512k - you know the one with the original developer team's sigs etched on the inside of the case. And it still works.

I also have two copies of the 1st issue of both Mac World, and issues #2, #3, and the first issue MacUser magazines.

These days I'm running an iMac 1 GHz G4, 768 MB DDR SDRAM... with the portrait monitor.

That's really cool. I used to read those magazines from head to tail, and then other Mac mags rolled along and I read them too -- I have #1 of MacAddict, which I haven't read in a long time but have many fond memories of. Ah. I also liked CD-ROM today for the plethora of goodies they put on the discs.

My first Mac was a Centris/Quadra 660AV. If it was up to me I'd get... er... I'd get a system like Ulrika is going to have! That sounds like sheer elegance.

My 12-inch 867 MHz G4 powerbook looks like it's gonna be my primary computer for the foreseeable future. It does everything I need to do pretty well; except for SL which gets a low frame rate (which is still better than my desktop which cant handle sl at all).

I'm a switcher. My first Mac was one of those early white iBooks. My only other experience with apple hardware was playing games on an Apple ][ and programming on its ROM-BASIC. Fun times.

If anyone has a spare dual G5 powemac, just send them my way, I'll pay for shipping.

12" 1.33 GHz PowerPC G4 Powerbook, 512MB RAM, nVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 video card, built-in AirPort. Plays SL just fine, from anywhere in the house.

My first Apple was a ][GS (I was a C64 user before that), and I still had my PowerBook 170 until last year, when I gave it to a university program that could use it. I still have my Newton MP 2000. Apple's cancellation of the Newton turned me off to them for a few years, but when the Mac OS went to Unix (with full Unicode support, no less), I came back.

neko

15" Powerbook G4 1.25GHz 1GB ram.
The video card is ATI with 64MB of ram
The type is reported as ATY,RV350M10
MacOs 10.3.8, going over to Tiger next week I hope.

Performance on SL is ridiculously variable, though often pretty marginal.

I keep all graphic enhancements off, and usually run view distance at 96 or 128.
With these settings the frame rate can vary between 1.5 and 33 fps (freak). Even without a sim full of people.
Most usually about 11-15 I s'pose.

I am disturbed to find that just logging out and back in can sometimes boost my framerate from 2fps to 20fps.

I thought this was something to do with the cache getting in a mess, but now I'm not so sure. I once tried logging in 6 or 8 times in a row, and got different frame rates each time, apparently randomly.

Anybody explain whats going on, and about the cache?

Isn't it great? We asked for a space of our own, and here it is. Thankyou, Lindens.

Machine Model: PowerBook G4 12"
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.5 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz

GeForce FX Go5200:

Type: display
Bus: AGP
Display Type: LCD
VRAM (Total): 64 MB

I like the silence produced by my notebook computer as well as the reduced power requirements and heat generation. I'm sure a big box G5 is much better for SL use, but for everything else I do the PB is Just Right.

I'd love it if they figured out how to pasively cool a G5, but I'm not holding my breath for that.

Dual 2.3GHz PowerPC G5
1.15GHz frontside
bus/processor
512K L2 cache/processor
1.5 gigs DDR400 SDRAM
Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
250GB Serial ATA
16x SuperDrive (double-layer)
Three PCI-X Slots
ATI Radeon 9600
128MB DDR video memory

This baby runs SL like a Porshe. Lag, what is lag? I can run through malls.

Oh and I have a !5 inch Powerbook

733mhz G4
1.25 GB ram

April go to your room!

Yeah me too Lindar.
My machine specs are above...been that way from day one - I've given up trying to get LL to help figure it out.

Got a whole crate fulla 'em.

They're hardware now, but if we don't eat 'em pretty quick they'll turn into software. Yuck.

Seriously though? I have a MacQuarium at home! Out of the semi-rare black case Mac Classic II. ^_^

[ FYI: http://www.eriqx.com/projects/macaq/ is fun! ]

* 1.33 GHz 12" Powerbook (aluminum)

* "Sawtooth" (1999 era) G4, upgraded to 1.4 GHz processor + ATI Radeon 9000 Pro with 2 Dell 20" flat panels

On both machines I run with shiny on, 128 draw distance, and most detail throttled back.

Neither is a particularly stellar SL machine, but they are certainly serviceable, and both have over a gig of RAM. I was anticipating getting a G5 after the most recent Apple Power Mac product line refresh, but it turned out to be such a minor speed bump that I'll probably hold off, hoping for dual-core processor machines later this year. I'm not a game-player in general, so my current machines work pretty well for everything I do besides SL.

Sweet little bottom of the line eMac
PowerPC G4
CPU speed 1.25 GHz
a measly 512 mb RAM
i don't understand allthe video card stuff, looks like ATI with 32mb VRAM

I run SL with all the preferences (except for object and avatar detail) down as far as possible most of the time, tho sometimes if things are going well I'll put draw distance up to 96 or 128.

Before 1.6, I felt VERY lucky if my FPS went over 5. But nowadays I usually hover between 8-12, which may seem sucky to some of you, but it has made my Second Life so much more enjoyable. I know *I* didn't change anything, so thanks to LL for whatever y'all did to improve that!

I NEED MORE RAM!

When I doubled my ram recently from 512 to 1024, I was a bit disappointed.
My fps improved, but only about 10-15%. I was hoping for much more.

Anyone had the same experience ?

(I have a 2Meg broadband line.)

Am I the only one here with BigAl?

Doesn't surprise me too much, Lindar...SL is all about the CPU. Extra RAM will speed things up and keep you from disk-swapping (disk-swapping is storing temporary memory on your harddisk rather than keeping it in RAM, which slows your machine but is necessary if you h'ain't enough RAM) so it will definitely help some, as you've noticed. The bottom line is: for faster SL performance get a faster processor. (Someday I mean even follow my own advice.)

The 17" is nice, definitely, but ultimately the tiny form factor of the 12" won me over. It's just too easy to take with me everywhere.

Edit: Divorced from this context, the above comment could construed as "naughty." This was not intentional, and I apologize for any entendres I may have made, double or otherwise. Thank you for your understanding.

Oh April, don't tell me.
Can you really run through malls with all the graphic options turned on?
What, 30fps?

Presumably you still get slow initial rezzing, and if you fly fast, because that is a feature of how fast the SL servers supply you with data ?

So the improvement is in the local area once the downloading has stabilised?

My interest is not theoretical, I'm trying to decide whether its worth buying something much faster.

Any further comments would therefore be invaluable.
Thanks.

I have a beautiful liitle G4 iMac.

It is adorable, but below spec (800Mhz).

Cant deal with the uglyness of having the graphics turned off so I usually just get used to lagging everywhere.

Although I use my PCs most of the time, I have SL on my Mac Mini and it does a credible job with it, without the ATI bugs of my Windows laptop even though it's an ATI chipset. I've got the 1.42GHz Mini bumped up to 512MB of memory, which did help a lot. Mac OS X Tiger is on the way, running 10.3 now.

I just tried it on my new PowerMac last night (after getting more RAM).

With 512M stock it was pitiful, but with 2.5G after upgrading it runs well. I was able to log both my accounts in at the same spot on PC and Mac for a roughly equivalent comparaison. With the same graphics settings I got similar performance, though the PC was running with some FSAA enabled while the Mac wasn't. I think if the Mac client gets truly optimized it would win out in my pair, as I believe currently it lags behind the PC one in terms of performance. I'm especially looking forwards to seeing what the supposedly multi-threaded 2.0 client can do with a couple of processors behind it.

PowerMac: Dual 2.0Ghz G5, 2.5G ram, Radeon 9600/128M
PC: Athlon XP 2800 (1.8Ghz?), 1G ram, Radeon 9800Pro/128M

G5 Dual 2.0, with 2.5GB RAM, ATI Pro (256 VRAM), and the max hi-speed cable connection... routinely get 4.5 to over 5+Mbits on speed tests. Running 10.4 (Tiger). This setup runs SL great.

I didn't notice this thread.

G5 Dual 1.8, with 1.5GB RAM, GeForce6800 Ultra

I can't still turn on the full options.

640mb iBook G4 1ghz

Runs SL good enough when I'm travelling.

It has improved quite a bit, though. When the mac client first came out, it was horrible. Now, the framerate on my iBook is usable.