request for tips running SL on older Mac

I'm running SL on a 1.8 GHz Dual PPC G5 with 1.5 GB memory and OS X 10.3.9. I crash frequently, especially in the presence of other avatars, which makes socializing rather difficult (to say the least).

I've tried updating the viewer with Nicholaz, but can't get it to work. DH doesn't want to spend money to upgrade OS or get new computer, so I'm looking for suggestions for improving performance. TIA

IMO, your best option is the Nicholas viewer. You said you could not get it to work. Can you be more specific? Maybe we can help you get going.

Meanwhile have a look at this rund down of settings:

http://www.versiontracker.com/php/feedback/article.php?story=20050618061835830

When I have PatchSL open and try to choose the folder my SL client is in, I get a message saying it can't find it. I would be willing to try to copy the files manually, but I'm not experienced enough to follow the instructions on Barney Boomslang's blog (I can't figure out where the files are).

Thanks for the link to the other thing about settings. I will try it when I get home from work.

What is the actual Mac model, and what video card does it have?

I managed here for several years with just a Mac Mini. It had a mere 512 MB RAM, and an integrated ATI 32 MB VRAM card... It wasn't fast, in the best of circumstances, but it worked. Keep your graphics settings and draw distance set low, whenever possible. Turn off local lighting. I even kept sound turned off. At best, if I tweaked all the settings, I was only getting 3 to 10 FPS, unless I was in a dead empty sim (new, with no prims) and staring up into an empty sky.

As I recall, the files you need to manually move for the mac version of the Nick viewer go into the SL app. You need to right-click (or option-click with a one-button mouse) and look at the contents of the SL application, then open the Resources folder. The files are nested in there.

Barney Boomslang helped with my problem. As I was afraid might be the case, the problem was that I am an idiot. I had been running SL viewer right from the disk image instead of copying it to my hard drive. I've been patched and am now using the Nicholaz viewer. I managed to get into Last Call last night and shop for awhile without crashing, and performance was MUCH improved. I still crashed at several other times, usually when my inventory was loading, but the crash & recovery took MUCH less time than before.

Nad, I checked out that post, but the suggestions are over two years old & most of the settings are not where the post indicates.

Ceera, the Mac model is in my first post. Being an idiot, I can't remember what the video card is. I'm at work now, but I'll check when I get home tonight.

Thanks for your responses!

Where can you download the Nicholaz viewer?

Here: http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Ceera! I'll go check it out!

OK, where do I find what video card I have? I can't find it in System Preferences. (I swear my brain is deteriorating.)

One time, I used Photoshop to calibrate my monitor. Everything elsed worked fine, but SL stopped working. There was a time delay there, so it took me a couple days to think of that change. i un-calibrated, and SL worked again.

i repeated the process as a test, and calibating broke SL again.

This was awhile ago, prolly OS X 10.3.x

haven't needed to calibrate since, thank goodness.

Apple menu > About this Mac > More Info (button) > Hardware (in the left menu) > Graphcs / Displays.

Should look something like this:

ATI Radeon X1900 XT:

Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1900
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
Slot: Slot-1
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB

Ceera, that's where I was looking, but there is no "Graphics/Displays". There is "PCI/AGP Cards" which has the following:

ATY,RV350:

Type: display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 64 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4150
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-A13601-126

Display:

Type: display
Display Type: LCD
VRAM (In Use): 64 MB
Resolution: 1344 x 840
Depth: 32-bit Color
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes

ATY,Simone_B:

Status: No display connected

/me says ???

The 64mb video card is the main killer here, as your computer should otherwise be okay for SL. Any chance of you upgrading the graphics card?

I'd recommend trying the Windlight viewer which you can get here:
http://secondlife.com/community/firstlook.php

Download it somewhere, open it up and go into preferences (it should now be in a menu at the top somewhere). Set the graphics to low and make sure atmospheric shaders and water reflections are off (basic shaders should be fine). You can then play with the sliders on the right to see how it improves your situation, I tend to keep avatar detail way down, and draw distance at 64m.

But yeah, my main recommendation would be to try and grab one of the AGP graphics cards compatible with your Mac, your model should be an AGP 8x so you can get a NVidia 7400 I think, which should be a good card for SL. Someone else can hopefully give you a better idea of where to get one for your Mac.

Thanks, Haravikk! Luckily we have an Apple store nearby, so maybe I'll run over there this afternoon. It's been awhile since I changed a graphics card (on the G3 so I could play The Sims, and not the online one, either), so I'm a little nervous about it. But if it improves my SL experience, I'll do it! Much cheaper than buying a new computer, which my DH does not want to do right now.

I haven't bothered with Windlight since I figured it was hopeless, but maybe I'll give it a try, too.

Heh. I just got rid of my two oldest "dinosaur" Mac towers, so I can't look at one to check this...

I suspect that 64 MB VRAM ATI card in your AGP slot might not be the only place you have to plug in that display. It's possible there is also an on-the-motherboard VGA port that has even lower specifications.

Take a look at the back of your tower, where the adapter card slots are. At one end or the other of that row of slots is where your AGP graphics card slot should be, and that 64 MB VRAM ATI card will be in that slot. If that isn't where your monitor is plugged into your computer now, you might try moving the monitor cable to that slot.

A 64 MB VRAM ATI video card isn't adequate for Windlight, but should at least nominally run SL without crashing all the time. Upgrading to a better AGP video card should help though. I have a Windows PC at home that had only a 64 MB built-in graphics adapter. I tossed in a used AGP 4X Nvidia card with 128 MB VRAM, which was the model that was top of the line issue when the PC was still an active model. Paid a whopping thirty bucks for it, and the card made SL much more playable. (Still not good enough to get any real benefit from Windlight, however.)

Since your newer-than-my-PC G5 Mac should at least have an AGP 8X slot, you have a few options that are better, like the Nvidia 7400 that Haravikk recommended. Most computer makers and graphics card makers have moved away from using AGP vor video cards, so the ones you can find now tend to be pretty cheap. You may have to settle for a used one, however.

On the back of your tower Apple should have installed a sticker that has your computer's exact model number and serial number on it. Take that model number info with you when you go to the Apple store, and have them make sure the model you have supports AGP 8x, before you buy your card. It should, but it's better to check than to find out that it only has 4x speed after paying for a more spendy card.

Well my sis is running SL on a G4 500 Mhz, with 256 RAM, its not as fast as it is on my comp, but its functional and she can do what she likes on it with out to much trouble or lag

lol she was running it on my old G3 450 with 512 ram, slow yes, laggy on ya, but it still works.