How to Be a Happy Mac User in SL

First, realize that your no matter how fast it is, your Mac will never play SL as fast as a well-equipped Windows PC. Windows gets all the developer time, from hardware to video drivers to optimizing compilers to SL itself. Accept the fact that no matter how cool your Mac is, no matter how great OS X is, no matter how many productive things you can do on your Mac more efficiently than you could on Windows, Windows is the dominant platform for SL. It's sad, but true. Once Apple ships Intel-based hardware, this may change somewhat for the better. We'll have to wait and see.

Right now, the minimum *playable* system for SL is a PowerBook G4 1.0 GHz (any graphics card) or an iMac G5 (any). SL needs 512 MB RAM all by itself to run efficiently, and so does OS X, so you're looking at 1 GB RAM at minimum. For portable users, I recommend a 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 with the Radeon 9700 graphics processor. Get the build-to-order 128 MB VRAM version if you can. While it is true that SL is a CPU hog, the GPU is also a bottleneck, especially in portables and older machines. You need at least 64 MB VRAM, realistically. I just got a 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 with the stock 64 MB Radeon 9700 and it is a huge improvement over my old IBook G4 1 GHz with 32 MB Radeon 9200. Don't get a Mac mini to play SL, either. The graphics processor just isn't up to snuff.

Settings in SL

Let SL use the default settings, then make these changes:

Disable far clip
Set draw distance to 64 m, maybe as high as 96 m in quiet areas
Set object detail to two notches above minimum
Set tree detail to minimum or middle
Set terrain detail to Some
Set avatar detail between minimum and maximum, depending on the size of the crowds where you are
Set video memory cap to the size of the VRAM in your graphics processor, for example, 64 MB
Set texture memory to 512 MB or more (you must have at least 1 GB RAM installed if you choose this option)

Don't turn on things like anisotropic filtering, shadows, or shiny objects unless you want to take some nice snapshots. Turn them off again when you are finished. Don't go to the welcome area with these options active by any means. You will lag somewhat there even with the above settings.

Network setup is often overlooked in these discussions. Your network bandwidth cap in SL should be set to 50-100 less than your connection speed. Example: 256 Mbit DSL, set it to 200 or to 150. You will probably drop packets like crazy otherwise, which will slow you down and cause you to lag and skip as all those lost packets fail to load textures, objects, and update your position. Very little packet loss is acceptable in SL, maybe 1 to 2 percent before you start to really suffer. The default value for this setting is 300, which is too much for 256 DSL. I have read that there is rarely any benefit to setting this value above 300 or 350 even on a very fast connection. Find out what works for you.

You can also use Cocktail, a shareware utility, to tweak the TCP/IP stack in OS X for better performance. It has a friendly interface - just choose the capacity of your network connection and you're done. It won't make a huge difference, but you might get a little higher throughput and maybe even lose fewer packets.

If you are on a wireless network, make sure you have enough signal and that you aren't having to share the connection with other users. Other traffic on the wifi network will usually result in packet loss and latency.

Upgrade to OS X 10.4 if you haven't already. It's just that little bit faster in about every aspect.

Another SLer suggests booting from a 7200 rpm Firewire drive when you play SL. If you have, say, a laptop, this might help you. I have not tried it myself.

I would not try the Quartz Extreme 2D hack if I were you. There have been too many problems with it in general use. That's why Apple doesn't enable it by default.

With the settings and tweaks above on 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 with 64 MB Radeon 9700, you can expect about 6-12 fps in the welcome area and 20-40 elsewhere depending crowds, texture, and objects.

Best to you in your Second Life and good luck! If you have any questions about SL and Mac performance, please post them here.

I have a ADSL2 - speed up to 24MB in and 1 MB out.. .so what do you suggest that I shall put the connection to in Cocktail=????

...and of course a Mac))) Poor us...DD

Hi there!

Your connection is rated as quite fast. It might be a good idea to test your connection speed a few times using a service like http://www.beelinebandwidth.com/ or something similar, to see what it's actually doing in real world use. Pick the setting in Cocktail closest to your average speed. If your download capacity is really that good, you can probably just choose the fastest connection in Cocktail.

NO if - smiles - its 20.28 right now.. and thats low - al neigbours are at the net.. 25 minutes over ghost hour..

Il check that - tks a lot!!!

I love and support Mac products, but have only played SL on a PC.
Is it true that all Mac users have to forgo sound from SL? Heard this yesterday and it sounds terrible!

I hear sound on my Mac with SL

Machine Model: eMac
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz


Great info Morgan. I'll have to check my settings again and see if I can improve SL performance on my machine.

I have a 867 MHz G4 PowerBook (the very first MacOSX-only Aluminium model from years ago), GeForce 420 Go (= GeForce4 MX), and 640 MB RAM. Draw distance is 96m, or 64m when building (especially in a crowded sandbox), tree detail is minimum, ground detail to Full, object detail is average, AV detail at max, outfit composite limited to 3 (but I might try 2 since my videocard only has 2 texture units). Framerate runs between 0.05 to 30, most of the time around 12. I'm playing in windowed mode (800x600) now that it works correctly, and have not remarked any performance difference from fullscreen.

I'm planning to buy a 2GHz G5 iMac (+Radeon 9600 with 128 MB VRAM), what kind of improvement can I expect when playing SL ?

Yes, unfortunately, SL is a resource hog - Mac's included. Laptops are usually underpowered and lack the computing resources required for a truly good SL experience. This it true for both Mac Powerbooks and IBM compatible laptops. G4 desktops are lacking in that regard, too, unless they have been significantly upgraded.

I run a G5 Dual 2.0 with 2.5GB RAM, ATI 9800 Pro (256 VRAM), and a 6 Kbit/sec high-speed cable connection. My SL experience is very good to outstanding, even with several graphics options on and distance set at 128. Granted i turn distance rendering down in clubs and large gatherings to around 64-96 meters.

Bottom line, Linden Labs stated "System Requirements" both both Mac and IBM Compatibles are a misrepresentation at best.

I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT SHINY




And neither can you.

DP 1.8 GHz G5, here. It does an excellent job for me in SL, though I'd love more VRAM (only have 64 MB).

I find this kind of negative, and some of it is just not true IMO. I have been playing for three months or more on a system far below your "minimum" requirements (800 MHz iMac) and I also play with the same Powerbook you describe yet I can tell you the difference is minimal on the graphics and general speed.

Also, you spend a great deal of time talking about the graphics card, but my experience is that this is not half as important as the memory and the bandwidth. In fact memory and bandwidth are almost the whole story it seems to me in that I get a similar experience on two widely divergent machines, one of which is not even up to spec. They are both most often on the same network however and have the same amount of memory.

While memory is one of the keys, to say that a Gig is a minimum requirement is a bit over the top IMO.
Obviously that is a sensible minimum for any machine today, but if you dont have it, SL will still run quite useably on much lower memory requirements. On my powerbook right out of the box with only 256 of memory installed for instance. It's kind of slow, but not unuseable and not really that different from the same computer with 768 installed. A Gig is the first "sweet spot" not the minimum.

Turning down the draw distance is a good way to turn a low performer into a better performer, but hardly magic. If the area you are in is not that laggy to begin with this will have almost no effect at all. Personally I leave mine at the default and only turn it down at areas where I am having real difficulty.

A lot of the stuff you talk about is good advice though and thanks greatly for the post. I don't know much about the network packet details so perhaps I am doing something wrong there. Have to check when I get home.



.

SL 2.0 will run great on the Intel macs!

I have a 12 inch powerbook 1.33 ghz, 768mb ram, Geforce Go 64mb card

I am so choppy in the game it is unplayable with almost everything turned down all way. Do you think the game will be tolerable (or near tolerable) if I toss in a 1 gig stick and go up to 1.2 gigs of ram?

Its unfortunate, this damn game kept me awake at night thinking of all of the cool things I could have made (were it playable).

Yeah probably...but I'm under the impression we won't see intel chip sets until very late '06, early '07.

A minimal difference in general speed? Sorry, that has not been my experience at all. I've played Second Life on my 700 MHz iMac G4 and the difference is worlds apart from my PowerBook. Furthermore, the 700 MHz iMac G4 with slower bus, slower memory, slower CPU, and nVIDIA graphics card with the same amount of VRAM as my old 1 GHz iBook G4 was noticeably faster than the iBook... I don't see how you can explain that away with memory bandwidth.

I've played Second Life on an iMac G5 with only 256 MB of RAM. Great for a few minutes until RAM gets full, then swapping ensues... frame rate drops below 1 and then Second Life crashes.

Draw distance makes a tremendous difference on VRAM-challenged systems - the difference between barely playable and not-at-all playable. If you have 64 MB VRAM, you can go up to 96 m in non-crowded areas. 128 m and you really start to notice the slowdown.

I guess "truth" is relative, but I put quite a bit of time into evaluating different systems, peering at the statistics window, finding averages, etc. Of course, you are free to call me a liar, but I am honestly doing what I can to try to overcome my own frustrations with the game and thought others might find my research helpful.

I guess we're not all equally picky about game performance. I'm relatively new to SL and have come from a background of 3D games that exhibit superior performance characteristics to SL. I realize SL has some additional challenges, such as not knowing in advance how to render the world, but that makes it especially important that people have every advantage in knowing how to tweak the system, as well as realistic expectations about what kind of hardware is required for a good experience. I still feel, as others here have also stipulated, that the official system requirements are not realistic.

I guess the moral of the story is, your mileage may vary.

So I guess it sounds like going from 768 megs of ram to 1.2 gigs would helpful?

(powerbooks, specifically) had trouble (actually, no access at all) using control-Fkey combos for gesture shortcuts? i think there's an app/keyboardlayout conflict going on - lindens, please take note!

and possibly other items with Fkey actions that don't operate properly, but it seems that others (on PCs) can use them ok...

Umm what are we basing this on? I use my Powerbook everyday on SL and I have no problem with FKeys and combinations. Everything works the same, just uses the command key instead of the control key for most combinations.

If you are having problems, specifify and I'll tell you the proper keystrokes.

__________________________
"To announce that there must be no criticism of
the president, or that we are to stand by the
president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and
servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt

setting a control-Fkey combo as a gesture shortcut would work, but triggering would not... it might've been a keyboard setting/glitch on my part ("international layouts" would sometimes activate on their own, though i've had that preference turned off for a long time).

command-key/menu shortcuts would work fine; gesture F-key worked; gesture F-shift-key worked; gesture F-control-key would not trigger. (sadly i don't have access to that test machine anymore, so i can't test fixes - but thought i should mention it if it hadn't yet

was a new pb g4 17" 1.67; don't know if it was a model/user-specific prob...

I have a fairly new iMac G5, 1.8 GHz, 1.25 GB DDR SDRAM. Most of the time, the camera movement is extremely choppy. I'm going to try the recommendations from this forum, but is choppiness standard?

There have been times when the camera and avatar movement is really smooooth, and playing is a blast! Most times, though, avatar movement is choppy, and I end up flying into people and walking into walls trying to get out a door.

Is this kind of play standard with Macs, or is that elusive smooth movement (which I have NO idea how or why it happens) common only for PC players? How are others' camera movements?

I'm just not sure whether I should worry about this (I'm an SL ADDICT!! ) or whether I need to get a PC just for this game! LOL

okay, i was lucky and had a 128 vram test machine but even turning all the settings all the way down still led to choppiness, falling through floors, etc...

i then tried a couple modifications to my own behavior...

1) using Mouseview more for walking/flying. since the app no longer had to display me, that relieves the processor a bit more - and is really, really, really cool while flying. (you can chat in Mouseview, but i couldn't get IM to work.) in general, i say sl is more fun staying in Mouseview as much as possible. (try targeting a friend, then playing 'tag' with them in the air - very fun

2) pay much more attention to the minimap, and don't speed on into sectors that haven't loaded yet. consider it a temporary stoplight to take a look around at the scenary below - if there is any. then move on when the way ahead is loaded.

once i started doing these two things a lot more, i found i wasn't having nearly as many probs getting around. have fun flying!!!

Funny - I have never been able to upload textures in bulk. It just dosen't work for me. Either it returns saying it could not do it or it completely locks up my client. (Even when I was only trying to upload (2) 246K textures.

Last night I changed this setting:



I lowered it from 512 to 256 - and presto! I can now upload textures in bulk. Do any of you know why this would have affected it?

.

I do use Mouselook quite a bit now, and I agree it does help texture problems a bit.

What I've recently learned is that being in an area full of scripts and complicated hairdos cause lots o' lag! But I've gotten more adept at manipulating my settings based on the area I'm in, and things seem to have smoothed a bit.

Also, if any of you experience textures "flashing," try shrinking to window size (if you're in full screen mode) and then returning to full screen. The reloading seems to stop the flashing most of the time.

have noticed that too! very helpful... forgot to bring that one up. does help with some general graphics glitches...

The original poster was correct in saying that SL in the end is faster on a Windows platform.

However, being a Powerbook G4 user myself (with only 512mb ram), I still have a great time in game. Overall, I just figured out the tips mentioned in the thread...such as the detail levels and view distance.

What I recommend to anyone is that if possible, they play SL on both a Mac and a Windows machine...to get the different experiences.

-Data Bean-

but i wonder what sl looks like on a nicely maxed g5...

no doubt that the pc client will still get the majority of devtime/optimization for a long time... but apple ain't going to disappear, either. very happy that ll at least -made- a mac client!! does anyone have handy a stat on the pcs-to-macs spread on sl?