IMac ?

Is a IMac a good computer for Second Life ? Im debating if I should get one or not

it can be.. but i can also be bad... windows is more easily upgraded and less expensive usually though.... but vista sucks

if youre looking for a dedicated SL computer, or a system that is primarily focused on SL, iMac might not make you happy. as great of a system as it is, it's designed for compactness and elegance over horsepower.

if you do go for one, make sure it has the 256MB video option.

i run a macbook pro 15" and it works quite well (also at 256MB video) but i went ahead and built a windoze PC because lets face it, Windows still kicks ass over every other OS at gaming. Hoping the SL linux client continues to develop however, it'll be nice to get this dinosaur OS off my beautiful machine. After i'm done playing Bioshock, that is.



* all IMO

I'm using one of the new 20" aluminum iMacs and it works great for SL.

Just make sure you increase the RAM when you get it. Not just for SL but for anything, more RAM is important.

Anyhow, SL for me is great on my iMac.

-Atashi

that brings up a good point, the larger screen you get, the amount of redrawing increases exponentially, so a 20" at max res will appear to perform much higher than a 24". any larger than 20" and youll probably be best running SL in a window, or at a set resolution in full-screen mode.

The 20" iMac I ran SL briefly on seemed to handle it swimmingly. It's not a computer you can easily trick out--the payoff, as pointed out above, is that it looks pretty good when it's turned off too. I'd avoid models that have other than Nvidia-flavored graphics, and get 2gb RAM in before you get it home.

My experience has been that OSX is way, way easier to update than Windows. Drivers are about as tricky on either system.

while Vista has many quirks, it is still infintely superior to XP when it was first released. All of Vista's quirks are also mere minor annoyances that are easily fixed - it is frustrating that a customer should have to fix it in the first place however. Vista has absolutely no stability issues whatsoever. Despite requiring more memory in itself, Vista is more efficient at allocating memory and CPU resources to other applications, thus making it overall less hardware intensive than XP was even with service pack 2. Vista is, in essence, the next step up from Windows 95 (98, ME and XP having all been enormous steps backwards).

It is a shame that they chose to pair it with the ridiculously inefficient Internet Explorer 7 - which right at this current moment is using 97MB (out of a total of only 300 being used overall) of RAM as I type this, according to Task Manager. Not to mention the fact that a second .exe file (ieuser.exe) can now be seen running (at 13MB of RAM). Quite why one application requires two .exes, where one sufficed to do the job before, is beyond me.

If you get a Windows based PC of any sort remember; task manager is your friend. The first thing you need to do is kill explorer.exe - no one needs that when you can launch applications through task manager.



Imac, however, remains the best over-the-counter hair removal product available at the current time.

It's actually called Veet now lol

Damn Europeans with their Snickers and their Cif Lemon!

I've been using my iMac 20" for the last 3 months, regularly running the Windlight client, and at the same time running Mail, Safari, Adiumx, iTunes, and Slingplayer with no problems.

2.4GHz core 2 duo
2GB ram
256MB ATI Radeon HD2600

Snickers? Isn't that the chocolate bar? What's wrong with that?

You are clearly too young to remember the mid 90s when they had the sensible name of 'Marathon'.

What the hell is a snicker anyway?

The adverts were vaguely amusing;

French lady in cafe with over the top accent: "Excuse me, have you got zee snickers?"
Waiter: "No madam, it's just the way I walk."

My Vista works Great with Second life. I have not had any poroblems. it is a great little lap top-
hp pavillion DV 2500 with nvidia geforce go 7150m graphics with up to 287MB shared video memory 1 gig of ram

We will be getting an Imac soon so I will do an update and let you know how that all works out. But I have not had any problems at all with this PC. Vista was preloaded on this machine from get go... So that could be an issue in its self? Who really knows ?
I think the new Imac looks and runs other things really well under leopard and have no doubt that it will run second life really well also.

From your question, I gather you already know all the advantages/disadvantages of MACs/Windows/Vista in other areas? If so, and you still want to get an iMac, then go for it. I've had absolutely no problem with SL. Honestly, it's not that expensive for what you get. Of course, if your the tinkering sort, and enjoy searching for bargains - you might find something cheaper with the same performance. I have no desire to know all the parts in my TV and how to take it apart/put it back together - why would I spend my time doing this with a computer? I have admiration for those who do this but, I have other hobbies. Leopard has had some problems though with SL(not too sure about this, I run mine on Tiger.) It all depends on what else you'll be using it for.

Conan, is it a good idea to get the 64 bit version of Vista? Or not?