MacBook Pro Software Update 1.2 improves graphics stability

Apple just released a MacBook Pro Software Update 1.2
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbookprosoftwareupdate12.html

This update improves graphics stability and is recommended for all 2.2/2.4GHz MacBook Pro Models.

For further information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n306708

Maybe this is the long awaiting update for the core 2 duo owners? Tell us your experiences!
If it works I upgrade my core duo macbook to the newer core 2 duo!

Meni

It seems better as far as the graphics freeze issues are concerned and that really is the showstopper for those of us with the nVidia 8600mGT. After updating, rebooting, clearing cache I ran the Mac client for a about half an hour. I experienced typical SL crashes and was able to relog without having to reboot the computer. So far it has not locked up the system requiring a hard restart while using the standard LL client version 18.3.5. Hard to say what was included in the Apple software update as they are vague in their descriptions but it does seem more stable. It still runs hot, the fans are blowing at 6000rpms but it does that on the vista side as well. that's normal. When using the Release Candidate version 18.4.2 and switching between full screen and 'view in window' mode i crashed consistantly three times. Force Quit worked for that each time and I was able to relogged with no problem.

Still though, it's SL on a Mac. I'm running Vista Home Basic (reluctantly) on this machine with Boot Camp and it blows away the Mac version of SL. I get 25-30fps in places i'll only get 10-15 on the Mac OS X client. 'Bump Mapped & Cloth' are not available under Mac OS, there are under Vista (makes clothing look more realistic). I've been online for more 6 hours with no crashes with Vista, can't say that about the Mac client. Lighting looks better on windows too.

I'd much rather have the Mac version perform equally as well as the windows version but at this point it looks and runs soooo much better on windows! why is that Apple? Maybe they should call some one up in Redmond WA and get the right drivers for this thing so we can find something else to complain about!

SR MacBook Pro 2.4GHz/2GB RAM/nVidia8600m GT 256MB
Powermac G4 MDD 1.25/1.25 GB RAM/ATI Radeon 9600 256MB

Did you make sure "Vertex Buffer Objects" is enabled under advanced graphics preferences?

On Mac OS X it is disabled by default, and this will cut framerate in half.

Glad to see Apple is at least starting to fix these problems.

I'd also like to mention two additional things:

- The mac client has always been crashy switching between full screen and windowed modes. I've come to accept this, and never use full screen mode. Just hit the green maximize button on the SL window and you'll have it mostly full screen and no crashes. Note that this also makes it a lot faster to switch to other applications, and to see notifications in your dock.

- You may want to try setting the video memory in Advanced preferences to half of what you actually have in addition to enabling vertex buffers. Mac OS X requires a lot of video memory for the GUI; Second Life doesn't take this into account so it will use too much and slow things to a crawl.

Hope these tips help. Happy SLing!

Well I think partially Microsoft has just been much better about giving support to game developers (not that SL is a game exactly, but it runs on a game engine). For example on this MacBook Pro 2.4 GHZ with 8600M GT, I can play Oblivion and the graphics are better than on my Xbox 360! I mean, the 8600M GT is a great GPU.

I think the fact is that there is more crap running in the background on the MacOS. For example a lot of Windows games completely monopolize system resources. I don't know about Mac but it seems that does not occur. Whatever the case may be, for years, Apple has been ignoring game developers' requests for how they should tailor their OS towards game developers. Also, Apple insists on writing the drivers for the GPU themselves, so we don't get things like the NVIDIA Control Panel etc.

I'm curious however to see if 10.5 in combination with these new drivers will substantially improve performance, since 10.5 has multi-threaded OpenGL and therefore takes advantage of both cores.

I do think that one thing that hampers OS X is that it seems more virtual-memory dependent, and you know that SL is very heavy on disk use. If you have a 7200 RPM internal system disk, I wonder if that would improve SL frame-rates by decreasing load times from the cache for textures and such?

Either way, I am willing to take a slight performance hit to run SL on a Mac just because it makes it much more convenient since all my other creative apps like CS3 and my code editors like TextEdit and BBEdit are on the Mac side.

Also I was having Blue Screen of Death crashes while running SL in Vista pretty frequently, so that was pretty crappy as well to be honest -- even though the frame-rates were somewhat better. One thing I like is that in Vista you can force Anti-Aliasing to be turned on with the NVIDIA Control Panel, which is something that you can't do with the MacOS.

-=GE=-

VBO on the new iMacs still cause the game to lock up almost as soon as it's enabled. If I turn it on and don't change the camera position, it doesn't lock up. Move the camera, and it freezes solid.

I realize you are responding to a MBP user but this option freezes SL after login on my iMac Al, even with the recent Leopard Software Update 1.3 applied.

I try to install the update but my MBP tells me 'no need to'.
I had installed Leopard before, maybe it was included?

MBP 17" 'santa rosa' / 8600 mGT

Has anyone tried reducing screen resolution down to 1024 x 640 - not fantastic but I found that performance improved drastically. Just alter the user interface in the Preferences > Graphics Tab (along with the text chat size) and it's better than stuttering all the time...