SL performance on MacBook pro

[Jules Catlyn]

1 hour ago, Alyona Su said:

Let us then presume you've never used one at length.

You are right that i have not used and Imac or a Macbook at length but judging by what i see in here and inworld they are very cumbersome when it comes to using them for SL.  The only things i have used at great length are Iphones and at some point switched to Android and found out Android is just plain better. It seems that you pay a lot more for a product that is great when you use it in its own Apple environment interacting with applications specifically tailored for an Apple product but as soon as you want to use software that is commonly available and will run on a Windows machine you have to jump through hoops to get it to work.

[Alyona Su]

48 minutes ago, cheesecurd said:

Same reason people buy fancy clothes brands. It's a nice branding kinda thing to the people who like them and the apple ecosystem.

People don't buy Macs for any reason other than "but it's a Mac". And they'll visciously try and deny this but there's just no competition in any other aspect besides brand loyalty.

There are better computers, better peripherals, and better operating systems. 

Im not gonna go seek out people to crap on them for using a Mac but when I see people recommending them as if that's a better option than anything else on the market, its clear they have no idea what they're talking about. It's a fashion accessory, if you want actual performance and value for your money then a Mac should be the last choice on the list.

Wow.

Not really. It's about the experience one receives. You can drive a Ford Escort or you can drive a Cadillac. Sure, for some it's the name Cadillac for others it's about the luxury of the car. In this case, they may go with a Lexus, or Infinity, Or Mercedes or whatever; there are many to choose from. When it comes to computing experience, options are extremely limited. You have the experience of MS Windows or macOS on the software side and it's similar on the hardware side (Unix/Linux notwithstanding).

You can shop on price or you can shop on quality, nothing wrong with either method, but you do get what you pay for. It's about priorities, not brand-names. For some it may be, for most it's not.

A good and proper way to look at it: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/tech-tips-and-tricks/pc-vs-mac-the-big-debate.html

[Alyona Su]

5 minutes ago, Jules Catlyn said:

switched to Android and found out Android is just plain better.

Let me clarify this for you: "...Android is just plain better for me." Fair?

[Wendy Starfall]

1 hour ago, cheesecurd said:

Same reason people buy fancy clothes brands. It's a nice branding kinda thing to the people who like them and the apple ecosystem.

People don't buy Macs for any reason other than "but it's a Mac". And they'll visciously try and deny this but there's just no competition in any other aspect besides brand loyalty.

There are better computers, better peripherals, and better operating systems. 

Im not gonna go seek out people to crap on them for using a Mac but when I see people recommending them as if that's a better option than anything else on the market, its clear they have no idea what they're talking about. It's a fashion accessory, if you want actual performance and value for your money then a Mac should be the last choice on the list.

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, cheesecurd said:

Same reason people buy fancy clothes brands. It's a nice branding kinda thing to the people who like them and the apple ecosystem.

People don't buy Macs for any reason other than "but it's a Mac". And they'll visciously try and deny this but there's just no competition in any other aspect besides brand loyalty.

There are better computers, better peripherals, and better operating systems. 

Im not gonna go seek out people to crap on them for using a Mac but when I see people recommending them as if that's a better option than anything else on the market, its clear they have no idea what they're talking about. It's a fashion accessory, if you want actual performance and value for your money then a Mac should be the last choice on the list.

Show me an example of a Mac owner here who's viciously denied... well anything?

I highlighted in red a magnificently quick and efficient self contradiction. You do know how to make an impression!

I've been using Macs since I "borrowed" my Father's in 1984. I spent the bulk of my professional career running engineering software on Windows, often custom building the hardware for my specific needs. I still run Windows via VMWare on my Macs. Each environment has proved useful, but one is consistently more pleasing, even when I'm not using it.

My personal preferences are just that. I very rarely make computer recommendations to anyone else. I do not purchase tools of any kind simply for the performance they can achieve. I purchase them for the performance I can achieve while using them. Performance is enjoying what I do while bringing delight to those I do it for. By that metric, Apple products have been my preferred computing tools for more than three decades.

I've a neighbor with a new Porsche Roadster, another with a new Corvette. I have an old Miata. We've all swapped seats, just to confirm that we haven't accidentally bought the wrong car. So far we are all happy with our choices and happy for each other. It's been fun learning about our differences in taste, though the two boys still think I'm nuts for driving all winter with the top down.

To each their own. It's all good.

 

[cheesecurd]

Im not saying macs are inherently bad, its the spreading of misinformation that they are somehow a better or superior product. And this is not a debate of OSX vs Windows, at all. This is about the hardware, the OS doesnt matter anymore, you can run OSX on pretty much any modern PC and you can run Windows on pretty much any modern Mac.

If you like them then you like them and thats your choice. But dont go around telling other people that theyre some kind of better product, because they arent. Macs an alternative, just as building your is an alternative, hackintosh is an alternative, or buying an off the shelf system is an alternative.

But they are most certainly not a better product. In exchange for a higher pricetag, and non consumer friendly build design, you get adequate for the consumer hardware specs, a really nice display and the apple ecosystem. Aesthetics aside, but if you like the style then thats a factor as well.

All that adds up in a comparison to other equally specced machines and you see where that pricetag difference lies. Drop back to 2011 with the 2011 MBP vs a Lenovo Thinkpad T420, (i bring these up because theyre just the easiest models to cross reference with lots of detail on each) at identical specs you see a nearly 1000$ price tag difference when they were new. Thats a bit excessive for an aesthetic difference and OSX. Now theres a pretty big difference in what these machines are at face value though, but in the end they both target the same business and individual markets. You paid 1000$ more for less external i/o, less user serviceability overall, less full on expansion options (expresscard or docks in general) and in exchange got OSX and a brushed aluminum body with an island chiclet keyboard.

If you are ok with that kind of expense then theres no issue, if you are ok with spending a lot more for overall a lot less but getting the user experience you prefer then who cares. But it is not a superior product because it has a higher price tag, it is a very much so inferior product.

Not even gonna get started on mac build quality, i feel like there hasnt been a single apple computer made in the past 15 years that wasnt a thermal housefire waiting to happen. i.e the macbook airs that thermal throttle out of the box or the older models that tended to experience bga solder failure because the dedicated gpu options reached over 110c on load. Which just isnt acceptable, its a flawed product.

Youre looking at a mac vs a pc and seeing an equally specced PC as an inferior product, which it just isnt.

The comparison i made with the 9600k imac, you lose the aio form factor and in exchange get the ability to upgrade or exchange any component on the PC.

- If your GPU dies on the imac you need an entirely new mainboard, because its a mobile rx 580 soldered to the board, its not even an MXM card. You cant upgrade it, you cant replace it yourself, once you buy it youre stuck with it unless you get a whole new machine.

- You limit your thermal potential on the processor because the only cooler that will work is the cooler it comes with, the only airflow configuration is whatever it was designed for and if the fan dies you need to buy an identical fan for it.

- The ram is SO-DIMMs, its slow for DDR4 in 2019, you cannot upgrade the speed because the bios doesnt support XMP, itll always be 2666mhz. That matters these days too, ram speed is really starting to affect things now that were into 4ghz+ memory.

- The only drive options are what it comes with, you can replace it with a larger drive but unless your motherboard has a second NVME slot option, you only get the one drive.

- You only get stock expansion options, no dedicated sound, no capture cards, no multi gpu, no drive controllers, no usb-c expansions, no pcie ssds. A lot of people dont do that kind of stuff anyway, but some people want better than stock, sound cards are making a comeback for this reason.

- If the screen breaks you need a whole new screen assembly, only for that model and only really from apple. Getting it repaired requires someone who can buy parts from apple, if they even bother, like the imac pro that nobody can get repaired because apple doesnt make replacement parts.

This comparison of a:

5 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

You can drive a Ford Escort or you can drive a Cadillac

Looking at a PC as a ford escort vs a mac cadillac is more like "literally any car on the market" vs a tesla. Proprietary, limiting, in its own special world of DRM and manufacturer restrictions.

Note that all of you came to instantly defend the macs when i called you out. I dont care about what you use personally or why you use it, but do not for even a second consider a mac a superior option because it never has been, and it never will be. Apple is the big waving flag of anti consumer practices.

The technologically literate look down on macs not because "its a mac" but because the people who use them spout this endless stream of lies about them and berate other options.

 

Im currently posting this from a Thinkpaz Z61t from 2006. It runs linux, its still to this day in flawless physical condition, i can hotswap batteries as needed because i have an ultrabay battery, or i can take that ultrabay battery out and swap it for a disc drive or a 2.5" sata bay with an SSD with Windows 7 Enterprise on it, its plugged into a dock that allows for an external gpu, in this case a GT 420 for the sake of an extra display, and spec wise it is more than adequate for browsing the internet and watching 720p youtube videos. They keys have not worn away or gotten shiny, the screen has not faded, the chassis is free of scratches, dents or chips.

Whats a macbook from 2006 doing right now? The white ones are brominating like a PC from the 90s and turning yellow, the black ones rubberized coating is getting sticky, the pros are missing most of the print on the keys by this point. They topped out at OSX lion from 2012 and if you want to run linux you need a custom bootloader because apples bootloader is locked to OSX only.

And again, its the same thing in 2019 as it was in 2006. Inferior product, higher price tag.

[Alyona Su]

10 hours ago, cheesecurd said:

Looking at a PC as a ford escort vs a mac cadillac is more like "literally any car on the market" vs a tesla

/me laughs! Okay, then we'll call macOS and Apple hardware the Tesla of personal computers. Your words.

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

On 8/24/2019 at 6:15 PM, Jules Catlyn said:

I don't understand the fascination with Apple products.

The BSD Unix-based Mac OS is still pretty awesome. I miss the Exposé-likes feature and the speed of searching things (Spotlight) and speedy backup (Time Machine) the most after my switch to PC/Windows 10. And I miss the Unix/Linux-like toys and pre-installed programming languages on the Bash shell. But I switched and I don't want to go back because SL runs so much faster for me now.

[Coffee Pancake]

11 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

And I miss the Unix/Linux-like toys and pre-installed programming languages on the Bash shell. But I switched and I don't want to go back because SL runs so much faster for me now.

As as aside, On Windows 10 you can install the Linux subsystem to scratch that nix console itch (even run gui stuff if you're up for an adventure), also the built in file backup is at least superficially comparable to time machine.

[Wendy Starfall]

15 hours ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

The BSD Unix-based Mac OS is still pretty awesome. I miss the Exposé-likes feature and the speed of searching things (Spotlight) and speedy backup (Time Machine) the most after my switch to PC/Windows 10. And I miss the Unix/Linux-like toys and pre-installed programming languages on the Bash shell. But I switched and I don't want to go back because SL runs so much faster for me now.

I'm still tinkering on a perfect setup to run SL on a gaming PC and stream it to my Mac. I miss exactly those things the most on PC too.

4 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

As as aside, On Windows 10 you can install the Linux subsystem to scratch that nix console itch (even run gui stuff if you're up for an adventure), also the built in file backup is at least superficially comparable to time machine.

I run the Ubuntu sub-system on my Win PC and used to use it all the time when on PC, but these days I'm mostly just use Git Bash when on Win.

[Oups Waco]

I don't care much about those Mac vs Windows debates. I just wanted to say that I run Windows 10 1903 on my MacbookPro (late 2015) (i7, 16G of Ram and Radeon Pro 460 with 4GB or RAM). Using dual-boot on the Macbook is a piece of cake and yes, SL viewer runs much faster with this configuration. The only thing is that in theory you need a Windows 10 licence to do it... (and make sure you have a decent graphic card because that's what is needed in SL). 😉

[Wendy Starfall]

I don't like these Mac vs. Win PC debates either. 🙁

Sure, bootcamp is always an option, but then you miss out the main reason why you got a Mac in the first place, and that's Mac OS.

Maybe there will be a nice, native Mac client for SL sometime? Sure, you are all gonna say it's unlikely blah, blah, but is it really?

You can run iOS apps on Catalina, and I can see only benefits if SL ran on iOS, so... who knows.

[Alyona Su]

21 hours ago, Wendy Starfall said:

I don't like these Mac vs. Win PC debates either. 🙁

Sure, bootcamp is always an option, but then you miss out the main reason why you got a Mac in the first place, and that's Mac OS.

Maybe there will be a nice, native Mac client for SL sometime? Sure, you are all gonna say it's unlikely blah, blah, but is it really?

You can run iOS apps on Catalina, and I can see only benefits if SL ran on iOS, so... who knows.

Linden Lab have announced an official SL text-client in the works for iOS. I mention this because that is also a "gateway" to a macOS-native client, perhaps? A long way off, sure, though still a plausible thought. Just thinking aloud.

[Oups Waco]

Sadly Apple decided to get away from OpenGL in favor of its own Metal graphic engine. Not sure what this means for developers like Linden Lab but so far they rely on an obsolete rendering engine that will probably vanish from MacOS soon...

Also don't get me wrong... I use BootCamp mostly for SL. For my daily usage it's 100%  MacOS 🍎

[Alyona Su]

12 hours ago, Oups Waco said:

Sadly Apple decided to get away from OpenGL in favor of its own Metal graphic engine. Not sure what this means for developers like Linden Lab but so far they rely on an obsolete rendering engine that will probably vanish from MacOS soon...

Also don't get me wrong... I use BootCamp mostly for SL. For my daily usage it's 100%  MacOS 🍎

Not sadly, but cheers. Apple always has had a history of cutting away the cruft, OpenGL is ancient crusty technology. The world doesn't't revolve around SL. In the real world I am seeing 4X performance improvements on similar-spec'd hardware of the same applications when compared side-by-side on macOS and Windows 10. Of course, if all one does is type letters to grandma then, well, once can only type so fast and there you go.

I'm sure Linden Lab will find a way to continue supporting macOX, there are just too many macOS users in SL for them not to try.

[LeoMS20]

Running on a Mac mini (2018) with "Graphics Card: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630" , not happy also, SL Viewer ( the viewer with better experience I tested among all others) is just frying the box ( even using low graphic config ).

Mac Mini "Apple store GLView app" says it fully supports OpenGL till version 4.1  and OpenCL 1.2 ( Not sure if SL uses that one).

But latest SL viewer version "Second Life Release 6.4.3.542964 (64bit)" uses "OpenGL Version: 2.1 INTEL-14.6.18".

To me looks like a modern software, using OLD graphic libs version, not sure why, and also not sure if making it to use new 4.1 GL version would make things better under MacOS+SL .

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by LeoMS20

[Lyssa Greymoon]

11 hours ago, LeoMS20 said:

To me looks like a modern software, using OLD graphic libs version, not sure why, and also not sure if making it to use new 4.1 GL version would make things better under MacOS+SL .

OpenGL 4.1 is ten years old. My guess is Linden Lab is using OpenGL 2.1 for compatibility reasons. The problem with your Mac's performance isn't the old version of OpenGL, it's that weak sauce Intel UHD graphics. 

[Puck Ida]

i have 2 macbooks.

1x 13" early 2015, 2,9 dual core i5, 8GB 

and

1x 13" 2020, 2,3 Quad Core i7, 32GB

Guess what.... on the 2015 version SL works fine, smooth, not problems at all.

On the 2020 version: macbook overheated, fans go out of control and make soooo much noise... 

 

Wanted to have a better Macbook for my graphics and photoshop edits, etc. But well, turns out my old one is even better. 

 

[DilliDallagio]

Mac OS X (or OS X or macOS or whatever it is going to be called in future generations) never exposed the "compatibility" profile of its OpenGL implementation to version 4.x. When the viewer is showing the Mac OS to be at OpenGL version 2.1 or 3.0 (as in the case of my using High Sierra at the moment), that is the "compatibility" profile version of the Mac OpenGL implementation. The SL viewer  run against the "compatibility" profile. When using a benchmark applicaiton on Mac OS X chances are it is showing the "core" profile OpenGL version to be 4.1 (which is that last standard that Apple bothered to achieve with its implementation). None of the SL viewers, whether they be from LL itself or any of the third-party teams, use OpenGL "core" profiles.

Perhaps those that actually modify viewer code can shed some light on why "compatibility" profile is selected over "core."

As many have pointed out earlier in this thread, Mac OS X really needs to have a viewer built against current APIs, such as Metal 2. I can understand LL's reticence in hiring the additional developers that will be necessry to build a Mac version for what seems to be a (very) minor segment of the SL residency, but barring that it seems unlikely such viewer mods/building will come to light. Now, add to it that by 2022 all future Macs will be running on Apple Silicon with ARM instruction sets instead of Intel/AMD x86_64 and it seems even more unlikely that LL will create two versions of the viewer.

(Yes, I know about Rosetta 2 and the "demo" of Shadow of the Tomb Raider running on a developer kit of the A12Z Apple Silicon. Independent bloggers who have received the development boxes and conducted their own benchmark comparisons show that there is a big hit running an Intel-based applicaiton under Rosetta 2 vs running it on a native Intel box.)

I love Mac products. They saved my professional skin in 1999 when I needed to get a media project done and the Windows PC I was using at the time was constantly Blue Screening. Running down to the local CompUSA and buying a Power Mac saved the day, I've been using them up to 2016 when I got so frustrated with SL performance on an iMac that I switched over to linux (on the iMac) and noticed incredible performance improvements. That's when I realized that the linux drivers at the time were exposing OpenGL "compatibility" profile to 4.3 and the viewers took advantage of it.

Now in 2020 I'm back to running a Mac and SL performance suffers (the purpose built linux box suffered a fatal motherboard death and I've not yet replaced it). While I can hope that someday LL will create a viewer to natively run on a Mac, I'm not holding my breath.

Edited July 11, 2020 by DilliDallagio
minor typos

[Tholan Nohkan]

This story appeared on Mac Rumors an hour ago. Apple released a set of developer tools to convert windows games to Metal.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/11/metal-developer-tools-windows/

[DilliDallagio]

3 minutes ago, Tholan Nohkan said:

This story appeared on Mac Rumors an hour ago. Apple released a set of developer tools to convert windows games to Metal.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/11/metal-developer-tools-windows/

Awesome! Hope that LL is taking notice.

If this works, it could also mean the companion iOS application that LL is currently developing (at least in alpha stage now, if not some sort of beta) could becomre more than just an IM/Group Chat app. 

[Madelaine McMasters]

44 minutes ago, Tholan Nohkan said:

This story appeared on Mac Rumors an hour ago. Apple released a set of developer tools to convert windows games to Metal.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/11/metal-developer-tools-windows/

In think your characterization as "convert windows games to Metal" is inaccurate. As I read it, Apple has simply ported the Metal development environment to Windows. Game designers must still recode DirectX (or whatever they're using) to Metal. That's the heavy lifting.

[DilliDallagio]

Just a follow-up on current and future macOS support...

Per Inara Pey's blog LL still plans on supporting macOS. They need to evaluate how to transition the viewer from OpenGL given that Apple made announcements about deprecating OpenGL and making the move to power Macs with their own custom silicon.

https://modemworld.me/2020/07/11/2020-sl-project-updates-week-28-tpvd-summary/

[Henri Beauchamp]

On 7/11/2020 at 10:43 PM, DilliDallagio said:

Just a follow-up on current and future macOS support...

Per Inara Pey's blog LL still plans on supporting macOS. They need to evaluate how to transition the viewer from OpenGL given that Apple made announcements about deprecating OpenGL and making the move to power Macs with their own custom silicon.

It's going to be a close-to-impossible task... Unless Apple finally decides to adopt a Vulkan compatibility layer for their future ”Metal GPU”...

LL has recently added a Vulkan detection feature to the statistics sent by the viewer to their server (i.e. the info whether your system got support for Vulkan or not is sent together with the stats the viewer reports to the SL severs). Obviously the preliminary evaluation for the feasibility of a Vulkan port.

Transitioning from OpenGL to Vulkan would allow to make the viewer renderer multi-threaded and (at last) benefit from the many-cores modern CPUs, while retaining the compatibility with the current three platforms (Windows, Linux and x86-based macOS). Not sure it will be sufficient, however, to support ARM-based Macs if the latter cannot run Vulkan !

LL will also need to add support for ARM CPUs in the viewer code (i.e. providing Neon optimized maths for the viewer maths currently using SSE2). A lot of work for a small user base: much, much, much more work than supporting Linux, which LL already stopped (while trivial !), letting TPV developers do it in their place ! 🙄

[animats]

There's an open-source library for running Vulkan on Macs. I suspect that few games will be developed directly for Apple's Metal; game projects will use cross-platform solutions such as UE4/5 and Unity, or a conversion library.

Parallelism in the rendering thread in the viewer, though. That's hard. Needs to be done, but it's hard. CPUs are not getting faster, but chips come with more and more CPU cores.