Am I getting the best performance and FPS??

Hi,
On a new MACbook Pro, 15" 2.1 gig core duo, 2 gig ram, ATI RadeonX1600

I can get as fast as 40fps in empty zones but in crowded ones, or combat areas, I stay between 10-15 fps.
Is that the best I can expect? Any ways to speed up the performance for combat?

I love my new MAC!

That's a pretty good system.
(on my mac, I get 5-8 FPS.)

Most folks dont' need high FPS in Second Life. But to tweak the maximum, try these things:

1. run in Full Screen Mode
2. Decrease Resolution from 1280x1024 down to 800x640
3. Reduce the draw distance to 64
4. Turn off all those "pretty" but inessential things like bumps and water and local lights

I keep two copies of SL, normal SL viewer and the FIRST LOOK viewer. They use different prefs sets. You could do something similar, one set of prefs and FIRST LOOK viewer for shoot-em up gaming, and the standard viewer, with high-res preferences for shopping and building.

I've got the same Macbook as you Valentine, and it sounds about the same...the last official build seems to run faster for me than the Firstlook does. What made the biggest difference for me was installing bootcamp and running SL in windows...it's definitely a bit faster, and then you also have anti-aliasing controls and more graphical control...so much prettier than in OS X!