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Plan in place for Intel based macs?

Aradon Psaltery
Registered User
Join date: 7 Jun 2005
Posts: 27
03-05-2006 01:00
I just bought my very first Mac, an iMac 17" currently running 512MB but will be getting an additional 512MB this week.

So far I am very impressed with ease of use, snappiness of the GUI, and clean interface. I did download and install SL and ran it.. It ran "ok" ~5fps but that was with skype running and on voice along with yahoo and camino.

I have to say, I am very impressed with the new Macs.. defiantely not my fathers Mac! :)

I also can not wait for this universal binary... wonder what is taking them so long... WoW already has their universal binary out.
Missy Malaprop
♥Diaper Girl♥
Join date: 28 Oct 2005
Posts: 544
03-06-2006 06:34
its possible its taking them a long time because they found numerous issues where the code wouldnt port over correctly. Its likely they are having to re-write many things.

Its also possible they only have 1 person working on it and its majorly back burner since there is prolly only a handful of people who really need it right now.
Missy Malaprop
♥Diaper Girl♥
Join date: 28 Oct 2005
Posts: 544
03-06-2006 07:07
From: Bobby Dayton
I have just stumbled on this thread whilst I was contemplating upgrading my Powerbook G4 12" for a new Intel based Powerbook. I am a bit disappointed they dont do the 12" version yet, or even if they will.

My question is in relation to the graphics. I can get SL running acceptable on the Powerbook G4 which has a GeForce FXGo 5200 I believe. How will the ATI Radeon X1600 in the Intel Powerbook behave in comparison. I have always kept away from Radeon cards due to the incompatability with SL that I keep reading about.



the ATI problems in SL is from software issues in Windows, not the hardware... I dont know of any problems running ATI cards in SL. the X1600 in my MacBook Pro runs great... even pretty fast running SL in rosetta
Nathan Stewart
Registered User
Join date: 2 Feb 2005
Posts: 1,039
03-06-2006 07:15
From: Missy Malaprop
the ATI problems in SL is from software issues in Windows, not the hardware... I dont know of any problems running ATI cards in SL. the X1600 in my MacBook Pro runs great... even pretty fast running SL in rosetta


Thats kind of right, although its more the drivers ati decided to create, and since the source code for those drivers goes to apple for creation of their drivers the problem is likely to be the same, the drivers unlike the nvidia ones arent the opengl drivers with full debugging functionality, but more an ati written driver with stripped debuging facilities, they are that stripped of debug options that linden find it very hard to debug graphics issues on these cards as they would normally would to a point they had to get someone from ati a while back to help them out.
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Missy Malaprop
♥Diaper Girl♥
Join date: 28 Oct 2005
Posts: 544
03-06-2006 10:43
From: Nathan Stewart
Thats kind of right, although its more the drivers ati decided to create, and since the source code for those drivers goes to apple for creation of their drivers the problem is likely to be the same


Ive ran it on a few, and seen it run on a few.. ATI card macs.. there wasnt any of the common issues.
Brent Linden
eXtreme Bug Hunter
Join date: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 212
Drag manipulator handle bug workaround
03-07-2006 16:05
Give the object you are working with any Transparency value other than 0. 1 works fine and is barely noticable (er... unless the object happens to be shiny). Don't forget to change it back!

A word of caution: This will change the Transparency of all textures on your object. If you have differing levels of Transparency in an object (ie, a window frame and glass), you may not want to use this workaround.
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The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay
Gwyneth Llewelyn
Winking Loudmouth
Join date: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1,336
Intel-based Mac mini
03-08-2006 02:05
Well, I expect that in a few days a group of people will start using the the new Mac mini, which is also Intel-based. So much Intel-based that it features a "Intel GMA950 graphics processor" instead of an nVidea or ATI video card!

Support for Intel video cards has been a relatively recent feature of SL; it is still not "polished" on the Windows version — I can see that from the many newbies using Intel video cards and the difficulty they have in loading textures properly, specially when in Appearance mode. Except for the ones using laptops, many have simply bough a US$50 new low-end nVidia or ATI card just to be able to run SL properly.

Alas, with the Mac mini, there will be no choice. Like on Windows laptops with this kind of card, you won't be able to replace the video card. Either it works with SL — or you can forget it. I wonder if someone has already done some testing.

So, not only the universal binary starts to become a serious "need", as more and more people buy Intel-based Macs, but the Intel video cards needs to get as well supported as the nVidia or ATI cards...

- Gwyn (worried)
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Brent Linden
eXtreme Bug Hunter
Join date: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 212
03-08-2006 10:08
Currently we do not support Intel graphics cards. Back in 1.6 we stated that they may work better, but we didn't say we support them. Using Second Life with an Intel graphics card is at your own risk: Support will not be able to help you, and bugs filed with a graphical nature may not be resolvable.

That said, I do plan on sneaking into the Apple Store San Francisco (sooo ... shiny ...) and begging them to let me install SL on an Intel Mac Mini. I suspect it will run pretty well. We do have a few Intel machines here in the office, and other than the occasional crazy glitch that makes skirts transparent, they run pretty well.

Of course, some may consider that skirt thing a feature ... ;)
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The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay
Gwyneth Llewelyn
Winking Loudmouth
Join date: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1,336
03-08-2006 14:36
Brent, thanks for your very enlightening post — I stand corrected, and I'll surely be explaining to owners of Intel video cards that those are not supported by SL: they might work, or they might not, but it's really caveat utilitor.

Hopefully you can get your hands on an Intel Mac mini, and get SL to run on it :) From what I can infer from your words, the problem is not necessarily with the Intel video cards per se, but with the way drivers and OpenGL are supported on top of them? Would this mean that Apple has a better track record in fully supporting video cards (as opposed to the chores and nightmares under Windows), and thus your confidence that the new Mac mini will run SL flawlessly?
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ColdFire Bigwig
Anthro Techi Dragon
Join date: 11 Dec 2005
Posts: 93
03-08-2006 14:48
OpenGL is more cloesly intergrated with the Mac OS then Windows so the drivers tend to be more stable and reliable. Also I am sure Intel wants a good image for thier first Intergrated Graphics card for the Mac and has done a good job on the drivers.
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I Fix PC's for a living but live on a Mac.
Ravenous Dingo
Registered User
Join date: 25 Feb 2005
Posts: 78
03-09-2006 21:56
20" Intel iMac here

BIG improvement over using Rosetta. Nice experience overall.

lindens r teh r0xx0r
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