Which iMac / MacBook Pro to get all photo effects?

[bucky Barkley]

[sorry if this is a repost - this part of the web site seemed to swallow the first one]

Which of the current crop of MacBook Pro or iMac machines will allow me to take full advantage of all available photo effects?

I want to be able to take photos with depth of field, shadows, and blur.  My 2006 iMac wont do these ...

thanks!

 

[ Just to be clear - yes, I know where the system requirements are.  I am coming up on 5 years in SL.... my SPECIFIC question is really aimed at those who are currently taking advantage of ALL available effects on an iMac or MacBook Pro.  I want to hear about their experiences.]

 

[Knowl Paine]

Computer Processor: 1.5 GHz minimum  or 2 GHz  or above
Computer Memory: 512 MB minimum 1 GB or more

for a detailed list you can look at that link.

http://secondlife.com/support/system-requirements/

 

What you buy is a matter of preference and budget. I would check with the product manufacturer of your choice and find a machine that meets or exceeds the SL requirements.

Check the speed of your internet connection. 

[Missy Restless]

My Macbook Pro overheated and died. I expect you would have better luck with the iMac. Either will satisfy the memory and cpu requirements but it is the graphics card/chip you need to worry about. At the time I had a Macbook Pro the SL viewer did not recognize the hardware as supported. I ended up just buying a cheap PC ($280) and good graphics card ($100) and running Windows 7 which got me much better performance, graphics, stability, ... for much less $$ than any Mac.

If you do buy a Mac you might want to read the following and any later more current threads you can find:

iMac and Second Life

The iMac in Second Life

How to deal with the MacBook Pro and MacBook Heat

New MacBook Pro with NVIDIA 9600M GT

[Storm Clarence]

If you can afford a MacBook Pro then perhaps you should consider a BOXX computer.  You will have no problems enjoying your SL the way you want.

 

[Pyewacket Bellman]

I haven't run into anyone yet who can get shadows, depth of field or even Antialiasing to work on a Mac - any Mac - even a mac Pro. Kristen's viewer supposedly got around the problem - but it  crashes my iMac when I try to enable shadows.  At this point, I'd be happy to see sculpts rendered properly - or textures to stay put.

 

So - if anyone out there is actually using a Mac with shadows enabled - speak up now!

[Court Goodman]

Not current, but my Mac Pro from 3 years ago: a dual 3GHZ Quad Xeon with Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT can render shadows, anti-ailiasing, etc, albeit at 1-3FPS when a sim is empty.  But it does work.  Here's a photo to prove it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/courtgoodman/5339359343/

When I first picked up this machine, it took a year for SL to render correctly.  Major bugs, crashes, the usual Mac stuff.  I have learned (also with 5 years in SL) that there needs to be a huge asterisk next to the term "multi-platform".  

My brand new (3 days old) MacBook Pro cant render squat.  Looks like Second Life in 2006.  Kind of a bummer, with twice the video memory, but that's the way SL has always been with MacBooks.  No anti-aliasing, and complete crash meltdown when I tried turning on shadows.  

It could be the new ATI video, as opposed to the Nvidia video that Macs used to have..who knows.  I stopped following as it caused too much frustration in my daily life. 

Best thing to do, IMO, is get/build a cheap PC with a fat video card.  You can do it for as little as $500-$700, and you can gradually improve the computer with new components over time, such as video cards, much more easily. Gaming just isn't a big market on the Mac, and the penalty is bad compatibility.  It's just easier for video card companies to stay caught up in the Windows side than on the Mac side, due to the high market of individual components.  I've always kept a PC close by for those few things that it does better--gaming graphics being one of them.   You can build up a PC meeting the exact specs that SL requires.  It's impossible to do so on a Mac.  

If you must have a Mac for SL, then my recommendation is to find a Mac Pro like mine described above on the used market, but they're still pricey.  

I hate PCs and I love Macs, but it's just a fact of life.    Good luck,

-Court 

**************************

UPDATE:

I just installed Windows 7 and Bootcamp on my new Macbook, and it renders shadows, or anti-ailiasing, but not both.  However the SL experience is much nicer when running via Windows/Bootcamp on the Mac.  So, that's an option for you-- Partition part of your drive for Bootcamp, Install WIndows 7, and run SL from there. 

 

[Starbuck Hax]

I'm using the Early 2011 PB Pro with the best graphic card (AMD Radeon HD 6750M). SL doesn't recognize it yet. Intel Core i7 2.3 GHz. Very fast for laptop and all seem fine with graphics but would like SL to update its card settings.

[Kiddo Oh]

I am. I got this MBP a couple months ago, and I seem to be able to run the Viewer2 with shadows and depth of field enabled. Only problem here is the antialiasing, once enabled my screen goes into a sort of limbo in which all retired graphic cards go to die. It doens't freeze.... with lower graphics settings my avatar becomes partially transparent, with higher graphics settings all I can see is glow... it is too "glowy", I can't see anything at all. I tried almost everything with no results.

I need good quality pics for the vendors and without antialiasing it is a pain!