MAC BOOK PRO questions!!!!!!

Im going tomorrow to look at a MAC book PRO 2.16ghz core duo with a 256 meg Radeon card and a gig of memory.. .any one try this yet with SL? I will try to load SL on it in the store but dont want to be disappointed if anyone else has already tried it.
Recommendations?? I very much prefer to get a MAC laptop- as I currently play on an iMAC G5 that does GREAT and would rather stay with MACs if possible but want a mobile solution too.

If you could have both... would the Pro do it for you on SL???

Val

well im running the universal binary alpha client on my imac 2 ghz 1.5 gig ram 256mb video ram pretty much no problems really. dont expect to crank everything to max though at the native resolution of the lcd though. with moderate settings tho it runs great. no crashes so far =p

hope that helps

I have the same setup as Cerebrix but with 2 Gigs RAM.
SL universal binary beta (or is it alpha?) is a pleasure to use. I have most things turned up to full except draw distance (which still creates a huge hit) and local lighting, It's just great having terrain detail turned up to max.....
You might also like to note that SL appears take to up all the capacity of one of the dual cores, meaning that if you run another program or three (such as skype) there's no hit to SL performance.

Enjoy!

Thats great! Im going to the Apple store this afternoon and will see if they will let me try it in the store. Im looking forward to being mobile with SL!!

A.

just remember there is a direct cololation regarding fps and available bandwidth, the more you have, the better fps in sl can be (as far as i know, the only mmo on the market that is like this due to the streaming technology).

point being theres a ton of wifi going on in an apple store. and your bandwidth is prolly gonna be kinda limited in that situation. so dont take the framerate you see as a final evaluation of what framerate will be like. if you have a broadband connection at home, it will probobly be faster than what you see inside an apple store as i doubt youll have 30 other macs competing for bandwidth at your place =p.

I have a MacBook PRO with the same specs. I get about 30-40% better performance when I run SecondLife using WindowsXP on the MacBook then when I run it under OSX.

This is because OSX underclocks the chips to lengthen battery life and reduce heat. Even when setting OSX to "Performance Mode" and having it plugged into the wall, it still doesn't run as smooth as it does under XP.

If you want to get the maximum graphics and 3D performance out of your new MacBook.... You have to ironicly run it in Windows mode


...


That being said, the performance of SL in OSX isn't too shabby. But if you can figure out bootcamp and install XP, you'll be actually utilizing the full potential of your computer.

Thanks! I bought it today and am playing it now- playing around with the settings. I havent loaded the Windows stuff yet but will try it tomorrow to see what the difference is. So far, except for a really crowded place, it seems to be working well.

I dont think your saying this very clear, becuase i have a MBP and SL barely runs differently in WinXP and OSX keeping everything standard and the same settings. Now i can get it slightly better (never 40%, not sure where you are getting that) if i use a 3rd party program to clock the Radeon up faster. The processors dont run any different in XP and OSX. The performance mode in OSX is for battery life, and affects stuff like screen brightness etc... it doesnt at all afffect how the CPUs or GPU runs.

now if i crank the settings all way up so that neither is really playable because its so slow, the Windows one will keep higher frame rates by at least 3 or 4 fps.

maybe your exaggerating a 3 - 5 fps difference to 30 - 40%? or maybe something is very odd with my MBP and its running XP too slow, or something wrong with yours and OSX is running bad