Second Life Forums Archive - Warning: SL is not compatible with MacBook Pros 2.2/2.4 Ghz

Missy Malaprop

♥Diaper Girl♥

Join date: 28 Oct 2005

Posts: 544

12-04-2007 09:49

From: Baba Bu

My 1 year old MacBook Pro is a 2.0 Ghz - with ATI Radeon X1600 graphics card. I bought this new Mac so i could access the online simulation Second Life (SL). The hard drive started sounding like a garbage disposal after 7 months in (SL) & Apple replaced it under warranty. After 14 months in (SL) the Apple replacement drive sounded like a cement mixer & I replaced it at my expense. At this point I have to say that Apple Lap tops are likely to destroy themselves if used for on line simulation games like Second Life.

give me a break... you had a couple of hard drives die, and you say it means Mac Laptops are bad? you do know Apple does not make the hard drives, and they are the same exact hard drives found in Dells and Toshibas and Acer and Lenovo and Sony..... and more...

my hard drive in my Macbook Pro has been doing great with extended times in SL for almost 2 years now.

A1ex Heckroth

Registered User

Join date: 27 Mar 2007

Posts: 6

I love my MAC

12-11-2007 10:12

I have always been a PC/Windows user.
Then I bought a Mac Book Pro 17inch 2.0 GHz with 2GB RAM.
I love it I run Parallels and win XP but most things including SL I run on MAC OS 1.5.1
I have had no problems other then SL issues (same issues PC users report).
I really thought I would have to run SL in the windows VM but I have not had to in fact it runs better for me on the mac side.
I had some issues when I was running 1 GB of RAM.
Don't get rid of your MAC it is a wonderful machine work with your hardware manufacturer and video settings you will soon love this machine, I promis!

Danii Szydlowska

Registered User

Join date: 23 Dec 2006

Posts: 5

12-14-2007 08:02

I must say I can survive playing SL on my MacBook Pro quite well atm, it has been worse: constantly freezing of the whole machine, requiring a hard reboot everytime...

But since I tried the hints given in the thread scruffy09 Xi mentions above, the freezing occurs less frequently, let's say SL is now not more crashing on my MBP than it was on my PowerBook before (which is still waaaaaaay too much!!!!!!)

But still: it is freezing the whole MacBook Pro instead of just crashing the SL application on the PowerBook, so I keep on hoping LL, Apple, nVidia,... are working on a decent fix, and in genral LL will put more effort in application stability, lag reduction and general performance on all systems, before introducing new features.

Here's the link of the mentioned thread:
/164/cb/199385/1.html

Fatbottomedgirl Barbosa

Registered User

Join date: 10 Aug 2007

Posts: 88

12-15-2007 20:52

My mac book pro will go great for ages and then I will have a run of freezes. This week has been bad so I have gone back to using the old viewer version.

My bad was the logic board dying. 4 weeks out of warranty, it cost 1600 to replace and it only had a 3 month warranty.

The next laptop we get will be a PC which is huge as I have always used macs.

Calliope Simon

Registered User

Join date: 21 May 2006

Posts: 154

12-16-2007 14:54

From: Negko DeVinna

OK Silence, I also have a Santa Rosa edition macbook pro and meet the same issue. Until LL, NVIDIA, and Apple find a way to make it right, I have found two ways to make it work fine, but you have to put in your mind that you will need to run ... Windows on your mac.

1) Install Leopard (mac os 10.5), then boot camp, and then XP or Vista (I recommend XP SP2). Reboot on XP and install SL, classic client or onrez, or even Nicholaz Beresford edition.
2) if you want to always stay on mac os X and not reboot, you can still run XP in 'virtualization mode'. For that, get a licence of Parallels Desktop (80$). It will boot your XP partition in mac OSX, and you can run SL directly in this application. Performance is a bit slower than rebooting with boot camp (parallels desktop emulates a video card with 64MB of Vram ONLY

), but it is really useful when you want to run mac osx applications at the same time.

I know that these solutions cost another big investment (software licenses for Mac OSX, XP, and Parallels), but they work and keep your laptop safe.
I chose to do that because... well, I could never go back to PC laptops. Except the SL issue, this macbook pro I have ROCKS! (especially with Leopard by the way).

I hope this post will help you.

I didnt read this whole thread, but I didnt have to. The following works on the new macbook pros, because I have one and noticed this issue immediately:

Do a search on the web and find one of the zillion free applications for controlling the fan speed. Essentially, apple could fix this issue by making the fan speed moderator (a PRAM setting and also a sysctl (?) setting) much more sensitive...or LL could fix it by not doing a direct port anymore and actually hiring someone capable of thinking, or you can fix it by controlling the speed of your own fans with a 3rd party application.

Whenever I run second life, I pump the fans all the way to their max, which is 6000 RPM. Yes, its a little loud. But it doesn't crash anymore, and my hardware isn't getting ruined quite as quickly.

Jack Sakigake

Registered User

Join date: 13 Nov 2006

Posts: 150

01-07-2008 14:00

From: Calliope Simon

I didnt read this whole thread, but I didnt have to. The following works on the new macbook pros, because I have one and noticed this issue immediately:

Do a search on the web and find one of the zillion free applications for controlling the fan speed. Essentially, apple could fix this issue by making the fan speed moderator (a PRAM setting and also a sysctl (?) setting) much more sensitive...or LL could fix it by not doing a direct port anymore and actually hiring someone capable of thinking, or you can fix it by controlling the speed of your own fans with a 3rd party application.

Whenever I run second life, I pump the fans all the way to their max, which is 6000 RPM. Yes, its a little loud. But it doesn't crash anymore, and my hardware isn't getting ruined quite as quickly.

I usually use my noise-cancelling headphone on the plane.. not while I am using my laptop, that's why I am sticking to bootcamp and WinXP as the solution.

Danii Szydlowska

Registered User

Join date: 23 Dec 2006

Posts: 5

01-09-2008 03:19

Thanks Calliope,
After reading your post, I downloaded a fan controlling app and I now speed up the MBP's fans to 6000rpm prior to starting SL. It sure does help to keep temperature reasonable and so protect my precious hardware, but the impact on SL stability is not exactly measurable.

It might have reduced the crashes/freezes, but they still happen, although maybe less frequent than before. So I still hope for a fix, and looking at the Jira, that might happen..

Inno McCallen

Mac Pwndz The Windows

Join date: 5 Jan 2008

Posts: 16

01-10-2008 13:20

Hey everyone, Inno here. I am a MacBook Pro user as well, 2.4GHz. I noticed all the same problems with Sl in mac. I run SL right now on dualboot with Vista and it runs amazing. I use smcFanControl and boost to 6000RPMs before gameplay, prevents a lot of crashing. Still have memory dumps here and there. Computer really gets above 200F when playing this game. Anyway, I hope they fix it soon so I can play on mac native. Look forward to seeing other mac users in world.

Username is: Inno McCallen

See ya!

Court Goodman

"Some College"

Join date: 10 May 2006

Posts: 320

fix in windlight?

01-14-2008 10:04

you all might appreciate this, from teh Jira entry:

With Apple's help, I've made *very* good progress on this issue. Our internal WindLight code base now contains a substantial fix that appears to solve this issue. I can only ask that you to be patient with us a just *little* bit longer, as I believe (cross your fingers) that this may finally be solved.

I know it's hard to tell without actually knowing everything that has been going on internally, but this has been a very difficult issue to find the *exact* cause of and likewise to fix once we knew the cause. Apple deserves a LOT of credit for how extremely, extremely helpful they've been to us in tracking this issue down and helping us solve it and I personally can't thank their devs enough.

from BigPapi Linden http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1757?focusedCommentId=41431#action_41431

Koft Ash

Registered User

Join date: 5 Jan 2006

Posts: 1

01-17-2008 12:25

I have a MacBook 2GHz / 4GiB ram which I purchased 2 weeks ago. I did notice that SecondLife doesn't work well on it. Locks up after 15 seconds, etc.

You can however get Second Life to work perfectly fine on this machine if you launch Second Life from the OpenGL profiler tool if you select software rendering. It actually doesn't do too bad compared to 1.5GHz PowerBook. It may be kind of annoying but at least it works.

Warning: SL is not compatible with MacBook Pros 2.2/2.4 Ghz
Missy Malaprop ♥Diaper Girl♥ Join date: 28 Oct 2005 Posts: 544	12-04-2007 09:49 From: Baba Bu My 1 year old MacBook Pro is a 2.0 Ghz - with ATI Radeon X1600 graphics card. I bought this new Mac so i could access the online simulation Second Life (SL). The hard drive started sounding like a garbage disposal after 7 months in (SL) & Apple replaced it under warranty. After 14 months in (SL) the Apple replacement drive sounded like a cement mixer & I replaced it at my expense. At this point I have to say that Apple Lap tops are likely to destroy themselves if used for on line simulation games like Second Life. give me a break... you had a couple of hard drives die, and you say it means Mac Laptops are bad? you do know Apple does not make the hard drives, and they are the same exact hard drives found in Dells and Toshibas and Acer and Lenovo and Sony..... and more... my hard drive in my Macbook Pro has been doing great with extended times in SL for almost 2 years now.
A1ex Heckroth Registered User Join date: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 6	I love my MAC 12-11-2007 10:12 I have always been a PC/Windows user. Then I bought a Mac Book Pro 17inch 2.0 GHz with 2GB RAM. I love it I run Parallels and win XP but most things including SL I run on MAC OS 1.5.1 I have had no problems other then SL issues (same issues PC users report). I really thought I would have to run SL in the windows VM but I have not had to in fact it runs better for me on the mac side. I had some issues when I was running 1 GB of RAM. Don't get rid of your MAC it is a wonderful machine work with your hardware manufacturer and video settings you will soon love this machine, I promis!
Danii Szydlowska Registered User Join date: 23 Dec 2006 Posts: 5	12-14-2007 08:02 I must say I can survive playing SL on my MacBook Pro quite well atm, it has been worse: constantly freezing of the whole machine, requiring a hard reboot everytime... But since I tried the hints given in the thread scruffy09 Xi mentions above, the freezing occurs less frequently, let's say SL is now not more crashing on my MBP than it was on my PowerBook before (which is still waaaaaaay too much!!!!!!) But still: it is freezing the whole MacBook Pro instead of just crashing the SL application on the PowerBook, so I keep on hoping LL, Apple, nVidia,... are working on a decent fix, and in genral LL will put more effort in application stability, lag reduction and general performance on all systems, before introducing new features. Here's the link of the mentioned thread: /164/cb/199385/1.html
Fatbottomedgirl Barbosa Registered User Join date: 10 Aug 2007 Posts: 88	12-15-2007 20:52 My mac book pro will go great for ages and then I will have a run of freezes. This week has been bad so I have gone back to using the old viewer version. My bad was the logic board dying. 4 weeks out of warranty, it cost 1600 to replace and it only had a 3 month warranty. The next laptop we get will be a PC which is huge as I have always used macs.
Calliope Simon Registered User Join date: 21 May 2006 Posts: 154	12-16-2007 14:54 From: Negko DeVinna OK Silence, I also have a Santa Rosa edition macbook pro and meet the same issue. Until LL, NVIDIA, and Apple find a way to make it right, I have found two ways to make it work fine, but you have to put in your mind that you will need to run ... Windows on your mac. 1) Install Leopard (mac os 10.5), then boot camp, and then XP or Vista (I recommend XP SP2). Reboot on XP and install SL, classic client or onrez, or even Nicholaz Beresford edition. 2) if you want to always stay on mac os X and not reboot, you can still run XP in 'virtualization mode'. For that, get a licence of Parallels Desktop (80$). It will boot your XP partition in mac OSX, and you can run SL directly in this application. Performance is a bit slower than rebooting with boot camp (parallels desktop emulates a video card with 64MB of Vram ONLY ), but it is really useful when you want to run mac osx applications at the same time. I know that these solutions cost another big investment (software licenses for Mac OSX, XP, and Parallels), but they work and keep your laptop safe. I chose to do that because... well, I could never go back to PC laptops. Except the SL issue, this macbook pro I have ROCKS! (especially with Leopard by the way). I hope this post will help you. I didnt read this whole thread, but I didnt have to. The following works on the new macbook pros, because I have one and noticed this issue immediately: Do a search on the web and find one of the zillion free applications for controlling the fan speed. Essentially, apple could fix this issue by making the fan speed moderator (a PRAM setting and also a sysctl (?) setting) much more sensitive...or LL could fix it by not doing a direct port anymore and actually hiring someone capable of thinking, or you can fix it by controlling the speed of your own fans with a 3rd party application. Whenever I run second life, I pump the fans all the way to their max, which is 6000 RPM. Yes, its a little loud. But it doesn't crash anymore, and my hardware isn't getting ruined quite as quickly.
Jack Sakigake Registered User Join date: 13 Nov 2006 Posts: 150	01-07-2008 14:00 From: Calliope Simon I didnt read this whole thread, but I didnt have to. The following works on the new macbook pros, because I have one and noticed this issue immediately: Do a search on the web and find one of the zillion free applications for controlling the fan speed. Essentially, apple could fix this issue by making the fan speed moderator (a PRAM setting and also a sysctl (?) setting) much more sensitive...or LL could fix it by not doing a direct port anymore and actually hiring someone capable of thinking, or you can fix it by controlling the speed of your own fans with a 3rd party application. Whenever I run second life, I pump the fans all the way to their max, which is 6000 RPM. Yes, its a little loud. But it doesn't crash anymore, and my hardware isn't getting ruined quite as quickly. I usually use my noise-cancelling headphone on the plane.. not while I am using my laptop, that's why I am sticking to bootcamp and WinXP as the solution.
Danii Szydlowska Registered User Join date: 23 Dec 2006 Posts: 5	01-09-2008 03:19 Thanks Calliope, After reading your post, I downloaded a fan controlling app and I now speed up the MBP's fans to 6000rpm prior to starting SL. It sure does help to keep temperature reasonable and so protect my precious hardware, but the impact on SL stability is not exactly measurable. It might have reduced the crashes/freezes, but they still happen, although maybe less frequent than before. So I still hope for a fix, and looking at the Jira, that might happen..
Inno McCallen Mac Pwndz The Windows Join date: 5 Jan 2008 Posts: 16	01-10-2008 13:20 Hey everyone, Inno here. I am a MacBook Pro user as well, 2.4GHz. I noticed all the same problems with Sl in mac. I run SL right now on dualboot with Vista and it runs amazing. I use smcFanControl and boost to 6000RPMs before gameplay, prevents a lot of crashing. Still have memory dumps here and there. Computer really gets above 200F when playing this game. Anyway, I hope they fix it soon so I can play on mac native. Look forward to seeing other mac users in world. Username is: Inno McCallen See ya!
Court Goodman "Some College" Join date: 10 May 2006 Posts: 320	fix in windlight? 01-14-2008 10:04 you all might appreciate this, from teh Jira entry: With Apple's help, I've made very good progress on this issue. Our internal WindLight code base now contains a substantial fix that appears to solve this issue. I can only ask that you to be patient with us a just little bit longer, as I believe (cross your fingers) that this may finally be solved. I know it's hard to tell without actually knowing everything that has been going on internally, but this has been a very difficult issue to find the exact cause of and likewise to fix once we knew the cause. Apple deserves a LOT of credit for how extremely, extremely helpful they've been to us in tracking this issue down and helping us solve it and I personally can't thank their devs enough. from BigPapi Linden http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1757?focusedCommentId=41431#action_41431
Koft Ash Registered User Join date: 5 Jan 2006 Posts: 1	01-17-2008 12:25 I have a MacBook 2GHz / 4GiB ram which I purchased 2 weeks ago. I did notice that SecondLife doesn't work well on it. Locks up after 15 seconds, etc. You can however get Second Life to work perfectly fine on this machine if you launch Second Life from the OpenGL profiler tool if you select software rendering. It actually doesn't do too bad compared to 1.5GHz PowerBook. It may be kind of annoying but at least it works.

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Warning: SL is not compatible with MacBook Pros 2.2/2.4 Ghz