1.9 on a Mac Mini?

Has anyone tried the 1.9 Beta on a Mac Mini? I know it's pretty much minimal hardware for running the current release of SL, but I am worried that with all the new graphics features that 1.9 may make my Mini completely obsolete, and lock me out of SL...

Looking forward to the Wednesday release with dread...

I am on a Mac Mini, running 1.9...unless there's another 1.9?

Second Life 1.9.0 (21) Apr 4 2006 16:02:18

CPU: PowerPC 7450 (1417 Mhz)
Memory: 1025 MB
OS Version: Darwin 8.6.0 Darwin Kernel Version 8.6.0: Tue Mar 7 16:58:48 PST 2006; root:xnu-792.6.70.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh
OpenGL Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL Renderer: ATI Radeon 9200 OpenGL Engine
OpenGL Version: 1.3 ATI-1.4.18
Packets Lost: 485/44184 (1.1%)
Viewer Digest: d41d8cd9-8f00-b204-e980-0998ecf8427e

Thanks Mugsy, but I should have been more specific. I was asking about the beta version on the preview grid, version 1.9.1.24.

I see they are delaying that release. Maybe now I'll have time to download the beta and test it myself...

....unless 3-4 fps is something you want. Believe me I've tried all the tricks I know of but if anyone else has any positive suggestions I'll listen. I am now using a PC and will have an iMac core duo soon and use that too rather than the mini. Actually the hardware would be good enough if the program were properly coded which it isn't.

Oh, I completely agree with you, Christopher. I certainly would NOT recommend anyone get a Mac Mini today, as a machine to play SL on! The best I get on a good day now, in a lag-free sim, is maybe 5.8 FPS, and then only if I'm looking towards the edge of the sim and into a void sim! Typical is, as you say, no more than 3-4 fps in a good place, to less than 1 fps in moderately bad places. And I can't even go to a busy club or a laggy sim and expect to get above 1 fps! There are some places that I don't dare go at all, because I'll crash due to lag and texture overload.

The 32MB VRAM video card that is built into the Mac Mini, and which can NOT be upgraded, hobbles its frame rate terribly, and causes numerous issues with texture display. It has a fast enough CPU to support three concurrent SL sessions as far as chat and IM are concerned, but doing that drops the frame rate even farther! (I have been logged on as myself, plus an alt, and then had a friend log on using his account, all at once, on my Mini. And got only 1 to 2 fps. Definitely wouldn't recommend it for anything normal, but it's at least marginally possible.)

That said, my Mac Mini is, sadly, the only computer that I own that is even marginally capable of running SL. And 3-4 FPS is a far cry better than being locked out completely!

I am trying to save up for a better computer. When I got the Mac Mini, it was before I ever considered playing SL. At the time, it was what I could afford, and it did everything I needed it to do, just fine. It still meets all my other needs quite well. SL is the only thing I do on the computer that requires so much horsepower and video processing capability. I have other priorities on my finances that are far more important than SL - like paying the mortgage, and paying my mate's dental bills! I just hope I can manage to upgrade the system before SL's 'improvements' lock me out.

...to get the ati displays software for the mac from atitech.com and select and set the secondlife.app program to performance setting and turn vertex shaders on in 3d get 1gb ram upgrade and boot from a firewire drive.

The real issue is that the Mac client is gpu dependent for vector rendering unlike the pc client which is coded properly (relatively speaking) and is cpu dependent for vector rendering. So acutally textures aren't that much a problem as the video card has to draw the object vectors before it can texture them.

So thats it. Thats all. Pfft to Linden labs. I just won't use my superlative PPC Mac Mini on Linden Labs TERRIBLE software.

Well, the fact that the Mac Mini only has 32 MB VRAM certainly does cause texture loading issues, but you may well be right on those other points.

FYI - My Player has been an Apple-certified Mac support tech, and a computer service manager, since 1984 - the year the Mac was introduced.

The only way for me to play on my Mac Mini SD with 1GB ram. And the only way to run is have all on mini.
Anyways all is lagging *hit

Has anyone tried the Preview Release (going live on the main grid today?) on their Mac Mini, either the PPC or Intel version?
It should certainly perform better in most cases I hope.

All I have is this mac mini right now so this better work about the same or I will be upset I can't afford a new computer just yet.

I have an Intel Mac Mini and I will check it out today.

I'm in the same boat. Can't afford to replace the old Mac Mini just yet. So if it doesn't work at all with today's release, I'm screwed.

So far, I seem "stuck in the traffic jam", waiting to get on. The update installed OK, but the messages I get on my PPC Mac Mini (original release version) is that "Despite our best efforts..." Error, which, according to a sticky topic on coping with issues right after an update, supposedly means the login servers can't compe with the flood of people trying to get back on to SL...

I hope that's all it is... *sigh*