SL performance on 15" Aluminium Powerbook G4 and iMac G5

Hi everyone!

I am currently running SL on an Al Powerbook G4 1.25GHz (512Mb RAM / ATI Radeon 9600 Mobility 64Mb VRAM) and am, to say the least, extremely unimpressed with the performance compared to my desktop PC (P4 2.4GHz 1Gb RAM GeForce 6800 OC 128Mb VRAM).

I know my PC has more memory and a far better video card but still, I was shocked at the difference. With the PC I can have all graphics turned way up and get great frame rates on non-laggy sims. With the Powerbook I have everything turned down and get rubbish-to-OK frame rates even on perfect non-laggy sims.

Can anyone suggest the best way I could get better performace on my powerbook? Are there some options I can set either in SL or in OS X itself?
Would I see a big difference if I upgraded the RAM on the Powerbook to 1Gb ?

The powerbook is connecting via wireless to an airport (bog standard 11Mbps) base station, while the PC is on wired ethernet. Could that be making a difference?

On a related note, I am seriously considering buying one of those lovely iMac G5s. Does anybody have experience running SL on one of those? How does it perform? What do you have the graphics options set to?

Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions!

Shirokuro

I have a 15 inch Powerbook wotj 1.5 GHz and 768 MB RAM and for me it runs comparable to my 2.93 GHz PC with 1 gig of RAM. Like yours, my PB is on wireless while my PC is ethernet. Perhaps it's the RAM that is the problem, but it wouldn't seem that much of a difference.

My bf has the G5 iMac. I haven't "played That Game" as he is so fond of saying, on his but as he is out of town tonight, I will try it and try to get back to you about it.

I held a Mac meeting to discuss settings. I will drop the notes from it to you in-world.

Good luck.

Thanks a lot April!

Glad you're having a great experience on your Powerbook!
It is wierd though, since my PB is only slightly below yours in terms of specs...

I really appreciate you giving it a try on the iMac G5! That would be very cool if you get a chance and could let me know how it is. But dont worry if you dont get a chance!!

I may also go to my local Apple Store and try downloading SL and giving it a try on an iMac G5 there (assuming the store folks will let me). (And make sure to delete my password afterwards of course!!)

Thanks for sending me the notes too! I'll pick them up next time I'm in-world. I would love to come to the next Mac meeting if I'm able too!

Thanks again!

Shirokuro

turning down the rendering distances will help, having a gig of ram helps.

I have read previously that SL doesn't do extremely well with wireless networks. You could get a performance boost if you don't mind being tethered by CAT-5 cable.

I also have a wireless network connection, although I have been using a wired link of late due to local signal problems with the G5 Powermac antenna.

Apart from this, I haven't noticed any difference in performance, re: packet loss or whatever between wired and wireless, in my case, although I can appreciate the issues with wireless and streamed 3D data. As long as signal strength is healthy it seems OK.

Extra RAM may help as it should avoid using VM , which you may well be doing with 512Mb under OS X.


April, could you possibly send me a copy of the results of that meeting on OS X SL settings too - be much appreciated - I spend ages trying to understand and optimise these, please let me know of any future get togethers, I'd be glad to join in and perhaps contribute if I can...!

Could i get a copy of those notes as well please?

Max

Regardless of what LL indicates as the minimum or recommended processing power and configurations, SL i s a huge resource hog - whether you are on IBM compatible or Apple Macintosh.

I run both platforms. The Big Mac is a G5 dual 2.0ghz processors, fully loaded with 2GB RAM and the high end ATI 9800 card with 256 VRAM. SL runs great!!. Only probs i ever have are SL servers and DB related. which, of course, we all deal with on daily basis.

The new Toshiba 17" laptop has the Intel 3.4ghz processor with 512 RAM and the new nVidia GeForce FX card with 128 VRAM. While not the experience provided by the Mac, SL runs very well.

Bottom line, SL will run very well, given you can provide a WHOLE lot computing power - much more that LL says is the minimum or recommended configurations.

Just to provide a little context:

All 3D games/applications are "resource hogs". Displaying 3D objects is a very, very mathematically intense process. The faster the CPU & Graphics card, the more calculations it can perform per second. The more RAM you have, the more textures it can store and the more calculations the system can "remember" or "refer to" at the same time.

Here's just a little overly-simplified sample of what it takes to view a 3d object - in this case a simple flat triangle (not even a pyramid - a simple triangle):

1) Gather data about where the "points" of the triangle are, relative to each other.
2) Gather data about where the "viewer" or "camera" is that's looking at the triangle.
3) Calculate the "volume" or "area" that can be seen by the camera.
4) Check to make sure the triangle is visible within that area. If it is partly out of view, some modifications may need to be made (this is called "clipping".
5) Calculate the orientation of the triangle relative to the "world" it is in - this requires doing complex math (called "Matrix Math" for all 3 axes on all 3 "points" of the triangle.
6) Calculate the orientation of the camera relative to the "world" it is in. This requires the same sort of calculations as in Step 5.
7) Combine the results of Steps 5 and 6 so that the triangle "appears" in the proper spot in the camera's "eye".
Calculate how the triangle should "look" to the camera, based on its "lens" (i.e. viewing width, perspective effects, etc).
9) Convert the coordinates from Steps 7 and 8 into 2d coordinates on the Computer Monitor - so the individual pixels (the little dots that make up the screen) can be filled in.
10) Examine the "texture" and color of the object, to calculate what color to make each and every pixel, before it is drawn on the computer monitor.
11) To each pixel, add in the effects of any colored lights or overlapping "transparent" objects, before drawing each and every pixel.
12) Actually draw the pixels.
13) Send all of the pixel-data to the computer monitor so the user can see it.
14) Blank the "screen" and start again. (In reality, there are usually 2 or 3 virtual screens, and the computer "flips" through them when each one is ready to view - sort of like an old reel of film).

Now, in the "real" game, everything is made up of little triangles (for a number of technical reasons, the triangle is the basic element in 3d rendering). So a standard "box" prim is actually 12 triangles - where each pair of triangles makes up one "side" of the box. The land is also made up of little triangles - as are your Avatars.

As you can imagine, at any given moment you may be seeing tens of thousands of triangles on the screen at the same time! The Steps described above must be repeated for each and every one. There are optimizations and shortcuts for some of the steps - but many of them, like the tough "Matrix Math", cannot be avoided.

And all of the above completely ignores processing things like mouse-movements, keyboard-strokes, sounds, other programs, etc. etc.

BTW, if you want an illustration of what I talked about with all the triangles being drawn, start up SecondLife. Press "ALT-1" to bring up the stats-window.
Click on the "Advanced" section and then "Render". You should see 2 bars, saying "KTris Drawn". The top one tells you how many thousands of Triangles are being drawn each time your computer-screen is refreshed. The bottom one tells you how many are being drawn per second.

I'm attaching a screenshot of my stats-bar. Notice my machine is having to draw 16,200 traingles every frame (over a million every second) - and that's just staring at an empty section of beach & water at medium graphics settings!

So hopefully this gives you an idea of why 3D graphics programs require "so much hardware & resources".

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

Umm, yeah, thanks Tread.

April, could I please have the notes, too?

I have a 17" PowerBook and a G5 iMac. . .both unfortunately right now with 512 Mbs of RAM. I use to get halfway decent frame rates even with local lighting and shiny objects. That was up to about three-four weeks ago. Now they totally suck. I'm lucky to see 8 fps on either computer — with everything turned off.

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone for all their help, suggestions and comments, and especially to April for sending me the notes!

I upgraded my RAM to 1Gig and it made a tiny bit of difference but not much really.

Instead of going for the G5 iMac I opted for a 23" HD Cinema LCD display to use with my powerbook. This thing is GORGEOUS!!! Watching DVDs is great, and running SL full-screen on this thing is amazing (even if I have to turn graphics down a tad).

Thanks again,

Shirokuro

I've run SL on a 5 year old mac.

733 mhz
256 meg ram
Geforce 2


I kept my distance setting at 64m all features off

Hey it RUNS go mac.