Best viewer and settings for a Mac?

[Francesca Frye]

I use an iMac with a 25" screen and a Macbook pro for SL. Im currently running Phoenix as my viewer. Any other Mac users out there who recommend a different viewer? What about settings? I appreciate any suggestions. Seems like my loading and grapics arent working like they used to and thinking my settings may need to be adjusted. 

 

My iMac is 3.2 GHz core i3

25" screen

4GB memory

ATI Radeon HD graphics 

[Metmes Zerbino]

I cannot give you an answer but I have the same question. I've an iMac 24" with an ATI Radeon HD 4850 inside. I am content with it as far but I cannot see Mesh-Graphics. I use the Phoenix Viewer because I cannot use the SL Viewer 3 due to the problem ("... cannot resolve the DNS..."). So the question is: can any other Mac User recommend another Viewer?

[Dana Dielli]

I've been using Singularity on my MacBook Pro, and love it.   (Singularity Viewer 1.6.0 (3) Dec 12 2011 22:55:53 )

Offhand, I'm not sure where you'd download that because it's a modified version not on the Singularity website.  I obtained the download link when it was posted in the Mac Users Group IM.  If you ask in there, you may get the link.

One note about using Singularity .... Make sure to detach any Phoenix or Firestorm Bridge, as Singularity doesn't need it, and it will definitely cause strange problems.  (Just detach in Inventory/Worn Items.)

As for settings, if you're on Singularity and IM me inworld, we can compare notes.  My system may be a bit different from yours though.

My System Info:  

CPU: Intel® Core i7-2860QM CPU @ 2.50GHz (2500 MHz)
SSE Support: SSE2
Memory: 8192 MB
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.7.4 Darwin 11.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 11.4.0: Mon Apr 9 19:32:15 PDT 2012; root:xnu-1699.26.8~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 6770M OpenGL Engine
OpenGL Version: 2.1 ATI-7.18.18

[Dorothy Earnshaw]

Well, I had the same problem! After a lot of Googling and opening a ticket for the Firestorm Viewer, it turns out you need to put the DNS for Linden Labs into your Network settings. It's a Mac OS bug that mesh trips up.

[Metmes Zerbino]

I've found the solution for the missing resolve of the DNS too. I've just set a second IP-adress for a free DNS-Server (by Google): 8.8.8.8 

To set it I've opened the network properties. It does now with the SL Viewer too, but its awsome slowly. So Phoenix is definitively faster.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I've gotten the best FPS using Exodus on my iMac, and it's also the only viewer that allows me to enable shadows. 

[BestSkyKing]

I am using an iMac 27 inch 3.4 GHz intel core i7 w/ 16GB  13333 MHz DDR3. Phoenix works great ...for a while then the phantom feature stops working. To be honest, while Phoenx renders Mesh very well, Imprudence viewer's graphics are sooooo much better (crisper, truer color, rich, vibrant) than Phoenix viewer...this is of course subjective. 

[Edge Sharpless]

Can someone tell me if the latest (2012) iMacs with the AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics chips render Shadows correctly now?

I saw a review from 2011 that they weren't.

I'm set on upgrading and while I understand everything else works well, if it doesn't do Lighting, Shadows and FoV then it's a no go for me.

Thanks in advance.

[Toeknee Capra]

is this the same franscesca frye from palos verdes high?

 

[AdamSamuel Anthony]

I have a mac book pro with retna display, the Singularity viewer 1.71.  Works great

 

[Barbie Arabello]

Singularity works well on my imac, firestorm works well now also, but confusing,  did not work until I changed the dnc to 8.8.8.8

[Barbie Arabello]

dns has to be changed in settings to 8.8.8.8

[Ikonn Giano]

what is the 8.8.8.8 for and where do you set this? on the mac or in firestorm?

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Ikonn Giano wrote:

what is the 8.8.8.8 for and where do you set this? on the mac or in firestorm?

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Hiya, Ikonn:

8.8.8.8 is the IP address of one of Google's DNS (Domain Name System) servers. It is sometimes recommended to tell your computer to use Google's DNS servers because they are often (not always) faster than those provided by your internet service provider. DNS servers are those computers on the internet that convert human readable web addresses (like http://www.secondlife.com) into the cryptic nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn IP addresses that computers actually use to talk to each other. Your Mac must consult a DNS server at least once everytime it wants to locate another web server (after which, until the session closes, it will remember the IP address itself). Sometimes, if the DNS conversion takes too long, your connection to SL can act up.

If you do wish to use one, or both of Googles servers (most computers allow you to specify a primary and secondary DNS server, just for redundancy, Googles other server is at 8.8.4.4), you enter them either in the "Network" section of "System Settings" on your Mac (if it is connected directly to your cable/DSL modem), or in the "Internet" tab of your Airport router's Control Panel (which you get via "Airport Utility"). If you have a non-Apple router, you'll have to consult the documentation for it to make a DNS change.

Good luck!

[Andrej Storno]

And what you suggest for Macbook pro, mid 2012:

Proc: 2.5GHz

Graph: Intel HD 4000

SSD 256Gb

RAM: 16Gb

 

Andrej