Mac 64bit OpenGL3.2 supporting Viewer please

[Loki Eliot]

Now that Apple have released OSX Mountian Lion, can we have an 64bit OpenGL3.2 supporting Viewer please? I'm only assuming we are stuck on openGL 2.1 to stay compatable with Leopard users.

[Theresa Tennyson]

My understanding is that all the versions of the viewer use the same OpenGL calls and the Window/Linux viewers have been supporting up to OpenGL 4.2 for months.

[Gistya Eusebio]

No the Mac viewer is 32-bit and it uses deprecated multi-threading calls (makecontext etc.) and uses deprecated QuickTime functions (as of 10.7). Yes it is one multi-platform codebase, but I don't yet know what version of OpenGL it supports on the various systems.

 

I have been trying to build a 32-bit client on 10.8 and so far it crashes anytime the mouse is used. It will not compile in Apple's recommended compiler, LLVM 4.0. It definitely is not able to be compiled in 64-bit without some serious code overhauling.

 

I wish someone would make a version of the client that uses Cocoa for all the windows, palettes, chat window, standard OS X menu bar, etc. I think that would cut down on the codebase substantially and improve performance... but it would make it hard to do it as a multi-platform deal.

[Gistya Eusebio]

I have been going thru the OpenGL codebase for Viewer 2, and I can tell you, there is a lot of hacks in there that are designed to improve performance by addressing shortcomings in Apple's drivers. However they are really just to keep it acceptable but now that 10.8 has much improved the OpenGL on Mac, these hacks are actually slowing things down.

Just by removing ONE of these 4-year-old kludge hacks I have more than doubled the framerate on the Mac viewer when at long draw distances. 

Now I am building the client with even more of this crap removed to see if it helps matters. For example, LL had it set to where the Mac was limited to Shader Language 1.2 max :-/ They also had code that even in the comments next to the code, it said that it "kills FPS on Macs with VBO enabled"...!! 

From what I can tell they haven't recently bothered to fine-tune the client for performance on the Mac. They are more interested in maintaining backwards compatibility with OS X 10.5 than creating a viewer that would actually run smooth on 10.7/10.8. 

Frankly I also think they waste a lot of code on XUI when they SHOULD be using Apple's native GUI interface calls. But that is obviously something they do on all platforms to make there be less work to make the client deploy on all platforms. However somehow, all other major developers like Adobe and many others have no issues with supporting OS X's native GUI (not to mention Windows' GUI etc.). I wish LL would; it would certainly make the software vastly easier to use and it would run MUCH better.

[Loki Eliot]

Only just rad your reply, i just got the latest iMac. Are you still playing with removing Hacks form the Mac Viewer?

I read very recently that LL are doing some mac related stuff witht he viewer. It was not at all clear what exactly STUFF was. Maybe they are removing some of these old hacks. 

I would love to have a copy of your De-Hacked Mac Viewer to test

[Ehrman Digfoot]

Any word on this?  I just bought a new iMac and discarded my PC  Is there a third-party viewer with a more modern version of OpenGL?

[Ehrman Digfoot]

just ran SL in bootcamp  win7 on the new entry level imac with the nvidia 640m and it runs very smoothly with full graphics, shadows and depth of field.