New PC???,,, or a new MAC????

Then you must really hate linux, derivative of UNIX which is as old as grandpa...




So its the OS's fault there are arse clowns targeting it? Nice logic. I suppose when someone in the upper class gets robbed its the victims fault too for being too rich...



I can't talk about your specific issue anymore then you can mine. I stated however what kind of services are running. None the less the point being its quite possible to have a secure modern windows box if one takes the proper s/w and h/w precautions. Its all about knowledge, or on the flip side lack of.



Good for you, enjoy the command line for the most basic tasks. Not my cup of tea however to each their own.




http://secunia.com/



When you have ~5% of the market why would a haxx0r bother with such vs a worm/trojan that has the potential to effect 90%+ of the market? Simply those boxes are not worth a haxx0rs time to find exploits as the return will be quite small for all the work.



Again, prevention and knowledge.



At least your honest.

Your learning, good job!

I am not going to bash either system. They both have their pluses and minuses.
What it came to for me was support. The nearest Apple store is 100 miles away. While we have many places that cater to the pc platform with in a easy drive
There is something be said for having a larger market share. With a larger market share the software companies are going to focus their attentions on that market first.

There are a lot of choices out there. My best advice is read, read and read some more, before putting your hard earned money on the counter.

Rox

Support is a big issue it seems. Maybe I'm lucky, but I have never had to use support for the 2 computers I've owned personally. Not with the computer manufacturer or any windows issues for that matter. Granted I don't use it for anything heavy to begin with, but any minor issues I had were fixed by a few questions of friends or a little research on my own. Even in SL,I have yet to need any of the Support options.

Many independent dealers, especially the best ones, are authorized to repair Macs. I had two Macs in my department that needed new motherboards recently, and an independent shop fixed both under an Apple recall at no expense to my university.

On the same hardware, the performance of the Windows and Mac clients is similar. It's easily shown by using a Mac Pro or MacBook Pro with Boot Camp, where you can run both operating systems.

The problem with the Mac right now for Second Life, especially on the desktop, is the lack of high-end video options. The best video card you can get for a Mac Pro is a Radeon X1900, which doesn't even begin to measure up to ONE Nvidia 8800, let alone two of them in SLI. (You can put multiple video cards in a Mac Pro, but it's just for supporting additional monitors; they don't have SLI or CrossFire support.) The frame rate of a high-end Windows gaming computer will blow the best Mac out of the water.

The other current problem with the Mac is that the drivers for the newest version of the MacBook Pro (the one with the NVidia 8600 graphics chip) have completely broken OpenGL support. The only way to get that system to work well with SL is to run Windows on it.

If you're buying a desktop computer just for Second Life, Windows offers more bang for the buck; get it with XP rather than Vista if you can. (So does Linux, but then you have to live without official voice support or the ability to play some movie files.) If you're buying a laptop and cost isn't an object, the MacBook Pro is one of the nicest systems available, but if you're looking to spend more like $1000 than $2000, Apple doesn't have anything available. (The MacBook is closer to the right price point, but its integrated graphics make it a poor choice for running SL.)

If you plan to run other applications as well as Second Life, you have to weigh the ease of use and stability of Mac OS X against the often higher price of the hardware. Stability of the OS isn't a big deal if you're just using it for SL, because both platforms are far more stable than the SL client, and in my experience the Windows client (not the OS) is a bit more stable than the Mac version.

Finally... MacWorld Expo is coming up soon. Apple will surely introduce some new or updated systems there. The Mac Pro, in particular, is looking rather long in the tooth, and is badly in need of some newer video options. Your choices could be radically different in a couple of weeks.

BEST advice EVER!!

Can't say myself one is better over the other. I've used Windows. I've used Mac OS. I've used Linux (various flavors and they all taste great!)

The post about the Video Cards is a good one too, as just with a single 8800GTS, SL runs frickin' SWELL!!!

its pretty common knowledge to not buy memory from apple due to the exorbitant prices. I get mine from newegg.

The system I was referring to was a black macbook. I never compared my macbook pro, there was no doubt in my mind i wouldnt love this thing when i purchased it. Also at the time I purchased it there was no other laptop like it on the market. Honestly I wouldnt purchase a macbook pro right now--I think a new model is due very soon.

I'm going to be getting a new Mac Pro this month when they'll hopefully be announcing an update to that line of machines (so hold off till around the 15th when there ought to be some news on this front!).

The advantage now of the Mac system is that you can use OS X for the bulk of your stuff, and if you really have to you can switch to Windows if you find SL performance isn't quite what you were hoping for. The Mac version of SL could do with a lot of improvement and I'm hoping to look at some now that I have time off, just need to get some other things out of the way first =)

But yeah, my vote would be for the Mac, since you can run Windows on it anyway if you need to, heh. So you get the best of both worlds now.

Are you implying that Macs are preferred by classic stereotypical villains and people from evil parallel universes?

Back to the topic at hand. I tend to side with the Windows crowd because I build my own. No bias against Macs, except for the fact that I can't build one from scratch.

Well, technically, you could, by breaking into lots of people's houses and stealing bits of their macs. I'm not sure that that would be terribly rewarding though.

Once again my sincere thanks to all who have responded. I never expected this many posts! lol

Yes, the lack of current graphics cards for the Mac Pro is a negative along with the weak power supply to feed them. No doubt! I'll definitely wait a bit to see if Apple is coming out with a revised Pro soon. We'll see.

Unfortunately I have to make up my mind in the first half of this year. Hopefully, there will be some new offers before the summer.

Right now, its a battle between the PC's (specifically, Falcon Northwest) with their flexibility regarding components, i.e. graphics cards, vs, MAC with that wonderful OS. A very hard choice at this point.

The investigation will continue.

Thanks again!!!!!

Out of curiosity I went to the Falcon site. Even with the Talon, I couldn't put together a system that I could spend that amount on and still sleep at night. It was fun though, playing with the configurer I must admit.

Its possible that a Mac Pro announcement may not come until around the developers conference which hits that halfway mark in the year (if there is an announcement) . I think the pro's are kept in the same marketing family as the servers.
Hopefully timing will work out!

speak of the devil: http://www.apple.com/macpro/

re-fire up the debate! new mac pro!!!! remember to play the game of "how much will a fully-loaded one cost?"

And an outside preliminary review: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=7522

* NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 1.5GB (Stereo 3D, two dual-link DVI) [Add $2850]



dont worry, it'll be $199 next year

buy either, as long as they have the graphics capabilities you want. THEN, take it to the local compy set up/repair shop that has someone who can uninstall everything, install Linux, Ubuntu and run Gnome as a desktop. Poof, you'll have all the functionality of OS stuff, AND the Gnome desktop is a lot like the Windows/Mac desktops as far as the UI is concearned. Of course, this is coming from a VEEEERY biased opinion

Oh, but aside from being snide about Windows OS, don't run with Vista if you can help it. WAAAAY too many crashes. If you end up with a Win machine, go for XP or 2000. They seem to be the most stable around our house, and we've got one of nearly every combo of machine imaginable. Mine alone is a Win2000/Linux-Ubuntu dual boot system lappy. So, there really are TONS of options out there, and a good compy tech will be able to set you up with precisely what you want, not just try to sell you the latest box.

Apple didn't wait until Macworld to announce the Mac Pro update, and the new video options are much better. The Quadro is overkill (and wicked expensive for SL, and not officially supported by LL anyway), but the 8800GT looks like a solid choice if the drivers work (the ones for the 8600 in the new MacBook Pro don't yet). Probably still no SLI support, but at least it puts Apple back in the video performance game, though not at the top of it.

Apple continues to believe that open, expandable systems are only for the well-heeled professional user, not for the mainstream. I'd love to see them offer a single-socket quad-core desktop system using ordinary DDR2 RAM and priced somewhere down around $1500, but a box like that doesn't fit into the Jobs worldview. (With the lower price of the desktop Core 2 chips vs. Xeon and DDR2 vs. FBDIMM, that price should be achievable.)

(My original post said that the price of entry had gone up, as all the systems are 8-core now. However, it is now possible to configure a system with only one CPU, which takes $500 off the price, making the least expensive system $2299. You don't discover that until you actually try to build one, though; the main page lists the Mac Pro as starting at $2799.)

In my real-world experience over the last three years, MacOS performance has steadily _decreased_ . From a platform parity at Client 1.13 in 2004 or 2--5 to today's 1.18, my nearly identical hardware distinctly favors the Windows Client over the MacOS Client.

Side by side comparison:

Second Life 1.18 Client (200
Windows box supports 20-25 FPS up to 1280x1024
MacOS hardware supports 20-25 FPS only to 1024x768; Drops to 8-9 FPs at 1280.

Second Life 1.13 Client (2005?)
Windows hardware performance is essentially identical to MacOS hardware


---Testbed:
MacOS X 10.4.11
Dual G5 2,0 GHz
GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB
2GB RAM

vs

Windows XP Pro SP2
AMD 64 x2 2 GHz (3800+)
GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB
2GB RAM

YMMV.

G5s are old architecture so its hard to compare that to the new systems in discussion here

I think the mac pro will eventually cross the affordability border into mainstream after a few more iterations. Keeping their product line at a minimum is a huge part of the Apple business model.

Funny story: I just bought a Embedded PC from WDL Systems for about $100. 300MHz Vortex86SX, about the size of a small home router, 4GB flash card for the drive. Ethernet, USB, its all there. Runs Slackware Linux. It's purpose is to be built up as a shoutcast server that runs on 15 watts, the wattage of a flourescent bulb. This cuts the price of streaming audio from about $15 a month on an average PC down to a couple dollars a month.

Whats funny is this computer in many ways (more and less in others) as powerful as my Apple G3 Tower from 9 years ago. Moore's law dictates that this technology accelerates exponentially, so it's possible in say, 5 years, that this same $100 embedded pc will be as powerful as this new mac pro.

bitchin'. super-computing in my cargo pants.

Okay, so I'm just dying to know what you ended up with?

I would NEVER EVER EVER spend money on a Dell after supporting them in IT for awhile. OMG what a nightmare. In fact, I would NEVER EVER pay money for Microsoft Windows.

I have three Macs, one that is over 10 years old and running like a charm. I also have a peecee that I bought at a garage sale for $10.00 and put linux on it. Unfortunately, the video card died on it and I haven't bothered with it.

Yes, I do have windows that came on that old peecee and installed it on the Mac because I have to use it for just one slimy little program. Other than that, I don't need windows for anything else.

Please tell me you bought the Mac.

til then, I'll give my mac pro review after a month or so....

Hardware:
Freakishly awesome. Nothing compares. Whoever doubts that, you're wrong. Runs dead-silent, CPU meter never gets past about 15% with everything from SL to Adobe Suites to Logic Pro, running at the same time. Plugged into it, i have 2x24" samsung monitors, I have an external audio interface that i only optionally use now--the built-in optical out has minimal latency (thats a *big* deal personally, writing a lot of music on it).

OSX:
I want to downgrade to Tiger because everything isnt "there" yet for leopard. no Xcode yet, a few software titles havent been released for Leopard yet either. Unfortunately Apple's business plan doesnt include much support for backwards compatibility. I don't blame them, if they did, OSX would probably run more like Windows.

For all apps that Leopard works fine with, its beautiful, its like silk. The "Core" features are starting to spawn some ridiculously powerful and CHEAP applications that will soon rival the big boys, such as Pixelmator and DrawIt ($59 photoshop competitor?)

we'll see more of these ridiculously cheap apps come out as more of the hip & agile developers learn the workings of Core Animation, Audio, Video & Image.

SL:
Kind of sucks.* No sub-pixel anti-ailiasing -- things perform like 2010 but look like 2001. There's a design issue with the Way OpenGL does it's math and the way OSX does its own, and in a nutshell (im not technical enough to explain in detail), subpixel anti-ailiasing isn't a go in Mac's version of SL right now. Im not worried, Apple has been doing a lot of OpenGL work lately and it's been getting a bit of a renaissance by chip makers.

Theres also a few notorious memory leaks, also related to OpenGL. The nice thing about this however, is that Apple and LL and Nvidia are working on it, and LL is a very mac-freindly dev house.

* I hear Ubuntu and Mac and Nvidia and SL are getting along pretty nicely, so when I have time to try that out on the mac pro hardware, i will. Hopefully in the next couple weeks. Nvidia has a control panel for the 8800 card for Ubuntu from what I've read, and thats where antiailiasing has to be overridden for SL at this time.

However I didnt buy this system as a SL system. One can Max out SL with a PC gaming system built for $500 these days (plus whatever of the 137 different "editions" of windows you choose to buy). For example I like SL best on my AMD+Nvidia 7950, a system I built for the TV, running on a 55" plasma. Quite nice.

I got the mac for work, and work, it does.