MAC High Sierra issues - extremely bad performance and crashes

[Sigg Naidoo]

I am having terrible time with any viewer I try. Tried 4 now. I get 0.3 FPS in low graphic setting, when I am used to flying through in High and use Ultra whenever I wanted.  Will not be able to play SL now and will need forfeit my land, shame  I so enjoy SL. I also crash to a black screen some times too in SL.  It affects the performance of all my computer applications until I log out of SL.   SO disappointed.  Hope this gets dealt with, anyone have any suggestions?

Sigg Naidoo

Not a newbie  been on regularly for 9 years

[Nalates Urriah]

I'm not a Mac person. But, I have noticed news, the last couple of weeks, about Apple having software issues. They have had to rush patches out to correct them. About all one can do is stay updated.

I suggest you keep digging for an answer. The lead software engineer for SL uses a Mac. So, while SL's Mac users often complain of feeling ignored, they do have a heavyweight in their corner. This also suggests there is a problem unique to your computer. If it were an incompatibility between the OS and the viewer, there would be many more complaints.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/2/16727238/apple-macos-ios-software-problems-updates

Also, while I did not dig through all the pleas for help in the forum, there are not many that request help with a Mac High Sierra system, 33 over more than 2 years (search: Mac Sierra). Many of those are problems accepting the SL ToS. This also suggests the problem is not general but specific to your machine.

The only piece of information you gave us is that you run Mac High Sierra. If you want help, you need to post specifics. Open the viewer and before login open HELP->ABOUT... and copy paste in the information revealed. We may be able to see a problem.

[Elror Gullwing]

While Apple stated that the new MacOS High Sierra 10.xx will run on older Mac's (including laptops, iMac, and of course the monster Mac Pro), this latest OS upgrade does consume more resources that the previous Sierra and much more than the predecessor El Capitan.  Launch the Activity Monitor utility and take a look.  I believe Apple said High Sierra would run on computers as old as 2009.  HOWEVER, any Mac older than say, 2012 will be challenged - particularly when attempting to run the hoggish SL viewers.  

I was fortunate and fiscally able to max out my current late 2013 IMac with the best upgrades available at the time, including the biggest and fastest graphics card, the latest and fastest i7 dual quad core processors, and a sweet pure SSD *hard drive.  Also loaded up with 16 GB's of memory.  Only the most recent iMac's are now catching up with mine.  

Bottom line, I have seen some minor glitches with my iMac and running the latest FS viewer with MacOS High Sierra.  Tweaks in Preferences have helped a lot.  I am resisting clearing the disc cache and/or re-installing FS viewer as yet.  I do need to clean out some old inventory and perhaps clear inventory and texture caches. since I have over 200GB's of free space on my SSD, I maxed out the disc cache size, and that seemed to help, too.  

Finally, try running with your ethernet option versus on WiFi.  That should give a boost - especially on the older Mac's and particularly if you have an older WiFi router or Cable /modem router.  A hard wired connection is always better.  For now, my setup is running fine.  Well, except for a couple FPS 'Falling Snow'  lag ;-)  Hope this post is informative and helpful.

[Nalates Urriah]

8 hours ago, Elror Gullwing said:

 I am resisting clearing the disc cache and/or re-installing FS viewer as yet.  I do need to clean out some old inventory and perhaps clear inventory and texture caches. since I have over 200GB's of free space on my SSD, I maxed out the disc cache size, and that seemed to help, too.  

...  A hard wired connection is always better.  ...

2

Three or 4 years ago the cache was changed to use an indexed database for find files and for deleting old ones. At that time clearing the cache for performance became counterproductive. Once you have filled a 10GB cache clearing it means you have to re-download the 10GB of stuff and decompress it. That slows the computer. The cached files reduce the load. 

The amount of time saved in the database searches between say a 2GB cache and a 10 GB cache is way small. So, the advantage from a cache clear for performance is too small to perceive.

The size of inventory is not a serious factor. That is why we have an unlimited inventory. Your inventory is a list of names and pointers. Each entry is ridiculously small. The asset servers and your cache hold the actual items. So, your viewer only ever holds the items it needs to render the current scene. The only exception may be the Calling Cards. Long ago the cards had a serious impact on performance. That impact was reduced and now most of us ignore them. But, loads of calling cards could have an effect on performance. But, not much of anything else.

An exception is flat inventory, meaning all your 40,000 pairs of shoes in a single folder. On a good connection people started having problems at about ~5,000 items per folder. Problems like not being able to login. Seems inventory downloads folder by folder and has a short window to do it at login. I'm not sure how it works exactly but it is like the download clock resets with each folder the viewer asks for. So, more folders, more time.

A year ago, more+/-, the Lab made a tool for support people to go in and break up large folders into several less full folders, because of the number of people having trouble with flat inventories keeping them from logging in. So, cleaning out is not as important as keeping it organized.

As to always better... I would say often better. 4G wireless is supposed to run at 100mbps, twice my cable speed. In practice 4G is more like 15mbps. So, a number of factors coming together can have an in-home wireless connection run at more than adequate speeds.

Some of the new in-home gateway/routers are running connections at 50mbps.  COX is promoting their in-home 100mbps wireless service. The same as wired. While wired is supposed to run at 10/100mbps various factors combine to slow that down.

Depending on where you are and what service you have, it is a toss up whether wired or wireless is faster. It is changing. The world is going wireless. How else are those self driving cars going to work?

[Parhelion Palou]

11 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

As to always better... I would say often better. 4G wireless is supposed to run at 100mbps, twice my cable speed. In practice 4G is more like 15mbps. So, a number of factors coming together can have an in-home wireless connection run at more than adequate speeds.

Some of the new in-home gateway/routers are running connections at 50mbps.  COX is promoting their in-home 100mbps wireless service. The same as wired. While wired is supposed to run at 10/100mbps various factors combine to slow that down.

Depending on where you are and what service you have, it is a toss up whether wired or wireless is faster. It is changing. The world is going wireless. How else are those self driving cars going to work?

My cable modem is rated for 589 mbps; my service is 200 mbps (which often goes up to 240 mbps). I run a 1gbps wired network with everything except cellphones running wired. COX must be a bit behind where you are.

Anyway, it's not the connection speed so much as the connection quality that makes wired better than wireless. SL is very dependent on the quality of the connection.

Self-driving cars had better be able to operate using only what's on-board. (Losing GPS will mess up their navigation but they should still be able to move through traffic.) If self-driving cars were dependent on an external wireless connection then they'd be far too dangerous to allow on the road.

[Elror Gullwing]

A spot on response.  And, the quality of the wireless connection has a high potential for interference both from nearby EMP generating appliances and other devices that will slow wifi speeds, or even cause the connection to drop entirely.  Plus, run a WiFi scanner application, such as "Wireless Diagnostics" (built into Mac's Network framework), and see all of the Wifi networks, connection types, and channels connected in your area.  Wireless Diagnostics generates a report and will identify the best channels to set on your router or cable modem / router network(s) - whether 2.4 Ghz or 5 Ghz.  Bottom line, Ethernet connection is still the most solid, fastest and consistent connection vs. WiFi, for now.

Here are a couple of articles to review.  https://www.howtogeek.com/217463/wi-fi-vs.-ethernet-how-much-better-is-a-wired-connection/

https://www.howtogeek.com/209450/how-you-and-your-neighbors-are-making-each-other’s-wi-fi-worse-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/