How to fix the MacBook Pro w/8600M GT Crash Issue

The solution is to install Vista in your Bootcamp partition. Then, run Second Life in Vista. It works fine, no crashes, runs smooth as butter -- and you can even force anti-aliasing turned on in the NVIDIA Control Panel (which, even if the drivers didn't crash, you could not do on the Mac because Apple's drivers are featureless).

Vista Home Premium is $199 though you can find it on Craigslist often for $50-150, since lots of PC users hate it since it has driver issues with some motherboards, etc. Though, it runs perfectly on the Mac, since the Mac uses an Intel-designed chipset for the mobo. Also, Apple just makes great hardware.

There is a software called MacDrive that's $49, which lets you access your Mac partition from inside Vista (so you can open images, text files, save data to the Mac partition, etc.).

I also found Vista to be faster at web browsing than Mac OS X, noticeably, and seems to run snappier all around. Plus it has very nice image preview features; if you're browsing a folder of JPEGs, the icons show the preview of what the image is (in Mac you have to go into a photo browser program to have the same effect).

Maybe OS X 10.5 will fix this problem, but it doesn't come out until October, will cost $129, and will not run all the latest games like Windows will. It does have a new OpenGL implementation that's supposed to be twice as fast, so maybe it will catch up to Windows finally as far as how fast it runs SL. But as for me, I'm not going to wait, though I will try 10.5 when it comes out. Hopefully it's as good as Vista or better.

Also I heard that a 10.4.11 is in the works, though no rumors yet as to whether it fixes this particular issue. I can almost guarantee you though, that Apple will never add the ability to force anti-aliasing to be turned on, and let me tell you, it makes SL look SOOOO much better!! It's awesome. And it didn't even slow it down! I get 35 FPS solid in Windows on SL on this MacBook Pro and I don't crash at all.

I'll move back to my Mac partition of course, as soon as Apple fixes their s***. But at least it's a solution and I can get some building and scripting done, in the meantime!

I really think Apple should give us free updates to 10.5 as a result of this. Everyone should write a letter to [email]steve@mac.com[/email] about this issue and demand a free 10.5. I know I will. And please, also write to Apple and call into their tech support and bug them.

G.E.

Here's a thread about it on MacNN forums:
http://forums.macnn.com/69/macbook-pro-and-powerbook/346958/vista-runs-faster-more-stable-macbook/#post3471106
Gistya Eusebio is online now Edit/Delete Message

Not true:
Open said folder of JPGs and switch to Column View (cmd+3, under View menu)

Not a solution, highly disruptive to workflows people actually desire Macs for. If I wanted to live in Windows, I'd be using my Windows machine.



Fixed your quote for you. As others have mentioned in other threads about this issue, when a bug is pretty much tied to a single program you have developed, regardless of the exact cause... it's still your fault and you still need to either fix your program or provide a workaround instead of throwing up your hands and walking off after blaming someone else. Given I've not had this sort of issue with any other sort of graphically intensive application on this laptop that I've tried, I'm more likely thinking the issue is with the SL client. This would not be a first, for the OS X client or the others.

... installing a second Operating System on your computer just to run a specific application is never a solution.

Regardless of the fact that this issue is likely a bit Linden Lab's fault and not Apple and nVidia's - your suggestion is pretty much akin to "Just get a PC".

Think about it - in both cases you're shutting off everything you're doing on ONE machine only to swap over to ANOTHER machine, for the sole purpose of running a single program.

You should really think things through before you post.

Perhaps the OP was being a bit ironic...?

No, it is true. In Column View, the icons still do not show a preview. Though the right-most column is a preview of the currently-selected file, the actual file icons which are very small do not show any sort of discernible preview.

In 10.5 however, you can view "by icon" and the OS automatically previews the files in the icon.

GE

Hey, do you have a solution? I have this $2500 that crashes hard when you run that "single program" (in which I spend half or more of my computing time). I have scripting work to get done. So I needed a solution and installing Windows was the only tenable one.

What would you do, in my shoes? Here's your life: you have to script a bunch of things, your current OS does not run Second Life. What is your "solution" to this problem? Linden Labs claims it's Apple's fault. You call Apple, they say it's Linden Labs fault. You talk to Linden Labs and they say it's Apple's fault again. You call Apple again, and they say they can give no progress or timeline on when any update that fixes this problem will be forthcoming. You install a beta of 10.5 but it crashes even worse. WHAT DO YOU DO?

Install Windows. It's the ONLY SOLUTION AVAILABLE FOR RUNNING SECOND LIFE ON THE MACBOOK PRO W/NVIDIA 8600M GT.

It's not that it's not a solution... it's that it's a CRAPPY solution and an UNTHINKABLE solution and you and I both hate it, since we like to think of Apple as a company with its proverbial S*** TOGETHER but no. They are not, there is not even an NVIDIA Control Panel for Mac OS X. Even if it worked, this system would be denying you hardware anti-aliasing that you could have in Windows with the SAME COMPUTER, that makes Second Life look SO much better graphically.

And, my solution is not "akin to just get a PC," because it's not "just get a PC". I'm posting this so anyone who just bought this computer that comes to these forums looking for succor, will find a tenable solution that allows them to run Second Life on their hardware without it constantly crashing. Or better, that someone who was considering purchasing a MacBook Pro might read this and thereby know what they were in for!

Since I very much wish someone had told me all this before I bought mine. (Early adopter tax I guess.) Going nearly 1/3 a year now without being able to do the very thing on my computer which I bought it for, and with no sense that anyone who can fix it gives a flying f&*(, has driven me to the most heinous of fixes.

GE

Well stated Gistya

BTW CrystalShard, I love your scripts. I use the Scan Foo and the Security Force Field, like, all the time.