New Apple Silicon

[Rod Zeddmore]

On the lowest settings, I max out at about 19 fps, same as my old computer from 2014. Dropping to 5 fps in a club with about 10 people. Very disappointed and making me consider returning the mac.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Rod Zeddmore
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[MarissaOrloff]

On 5/7/2021 at 9:39 PM, Rod Zeddmore said:

On the lowest settings, I max out at about 19 fps, same as my old computer from 2014. Dropping to 5 fps in a club with about 10 people. Very disappointed and making me consider returning the mac.

Until there are discrete GPU options for Apple ARM CPU's (if it's even possible) gaming or anything requiring that level of power is going to be completely unsatisfactory. Apple just doesn't care about that and they really never have historically. The biggest insult to users was the $6000 2019 Mac Pro paired with a $200 AMD Radeon  RX-580 with the exception of IOS gaming but that really doesn't require much graphics power anyways. M1's are basically just iPhones in a new case running Big Sur. I still want one to play with and Micro Center has really good discounts on them right now!!!. 

[Lyssa Greymoon]

On 5/7/2021 at 9:39 PM, Rod Zeddmore said:

On the lowest settings, I max out at about 19 fps, same as my old computer from 2014. Dropping to 5 fps in a club with about 10 people. Very disappointed and making me consider returning the mac.

If you're still running Big Sur 11.2, update to 11.3. The M1 hardware is capable of running SL, Big Sur has been a dumpster fire.

[Rod Zeddmore]

On 5/11/2021 at 8:16 AM, Lyssa Greymoon said:

If you're still running Big Sur 11.2, update to 11.3. The M1 hardware is capable of running SL, Big Sur has been a dumpster fire.

My tests were on 11.3. I also played around with the high density and open gl options with no real difference in performance. I've had problems with other applications as well on the new M1 and am trying to return it, but Apple is putting road blocks in my way.

[Trinity Blakewell]

What a difference in experiences. I am running 11.3 on a MacBook Air M1 and using Firestorm. On an ultra custom setting with high antialiasing (but Ambient Occlusion and Shadows turned off), which I m now using for still photos, I get 18 - 30 fps at my Bellisseria sky platform. 

 I have bunch of custom settings I use, for example I do drop down quality and turn off the advanced lighting model at events. I am still seeing a massive improvement over my circa 2016 Intel MacBook Pro.

 

Something weird that I have discovered today - I just bought a new dock that uses the DisplayLink drivers. Although I only have one external monitor hooked up now, I wanted the option to add another one, and the DisplayLink driver is the way to do that now on the M1 Macs. Also, I wanted a dock with a separate power supply, which only connected to one port on the Mac,  so the power cord did not connect through the dock. My last one got a bit warm and that concerned me. The external monitor would also occasionally loose the signal.

Well, with this new dock, you have to use the DisplayLink drivers, even with only one additional monitor connected.

Now, there's the thing I didn't expect. With the DisplayLink driver enabled,  I'm getting a better quality image in Firestorm on the custom ultra setting. More highlights, better atialiasing.

(Edited to add - I've even gotten up as high as 68fps on the custom ultra setting at the sky platform. Another thing I'm noticing - if I have a web browser open on top of Firestorm, my frame rate drops dramatically - the frame rates I quoted above were with the browser as the active window on top of Firestorm)

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Trinity1776

[MarissaOrloff]

On 5/15/2021 at 9:59 AM, Trinity1776 said:

 

(Edited to add - I've even gotten up as high as 68fps on the custom ultra setting at the sky platform. Another thing I'm noticing - if I have a web browser open on top of Firestorm, my frame rate drops dramatically - the frame rates I quoted above were with the browser as the active window on top of Firestorm)

 

Up in the sky there are not as many triangles to draw as in other areas. Less objects in your draw distance the lighter the load on the computer hence high frames per second. to non ua

Use the same settings and go to an area with 40+ avatars and you will see that FPS figure drastically reduce to poor or non usability.

[Coffee Pancake]

On 5/15/2021 at 9:59 AM, Trinity1776 said:

I get 18 - 30 fps at my Bellisseria sky platform

Alone on a skyplatform, this is pretty bad. I have a windows netbook that can beat that.

On 5/15/2021 at 9:59 AM, Trinity1776 said:

Another thing I'm noticing - if I have a web browser open on top of Firestorm, my frame rate drops dramatically

This is intentional, the viewer throttles back when it looses focus. This affects everything the viewer does, so switching to another application following a teleport will make it take significantly longer to load.

[MarissaOrloff]

8 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

This is intentional, the viewer throttles back when it looses focus. This affects everything the viewer does, so switching to another application following a teleport will make it take significantly longer to load.

You can change that in Firestorm by going to Avatar > Preferences > Advanced and setting the time to 0. Firestorm will not lose focus then but... That CPU core will always be running at 100% which may not be optimal when doing other things on the computer.

[Trinity Blakewell]

10 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Alone on a skyplatform, this is pretty bad. I have a windows netbook that can beat that.

This is intentional, the viewer throttles back when it looses focus. This affects everything the viewer does, so switching to another application following a teleport will make it take significantly longer to load.

Yeah, but I later amended that post...it's actually much higher when Firestorm is in focus. Those original frame rates were with the browser on top of Firestorm

[Rod Zeddmore]

Since skyboxes were being discussed, I tried this as well. 2014 Mac Mini: 70 fps, 2020 M1 Mac Air: 38 fps. Both on low settings. All optimizations discussed in this thread enabled.

[Trinity Blakewell]

Which viewer?

 

[Trinity Blakewell]

LOL, sometimes it depends on the time of day, how many other applications you have open, whether anything else is affecting your internet access, etc. I've had several successful boating excursions recently through various parts of the Belli coast and inland waterways. Have a graphics setting that takes down the quality a bit but raises the distance a lot. It's been working fine for me...not fantastic frame rates (except on the very south coast of log land) but no jerkiness and easy region crossings. But today tried it and the boat started acting all crazy, flopping over, unresponsive, etc, and finally I got logged out.

Well, it might be all the people nearby working from home, plus the fact that since I was on a lunch break and had to do some work today on my personal computer, I had two different web browsers, email, Photoshop and XD open. Although it's not unusual for me to have a browser, email and Photoshop open while in SL without noticeable impact.

[Trinity Blakewell]

Honestly I don't know what could specifically account for the wide discrepancies of experience on the M1 MacBooks. I have a circa 2012-ish Intel Mac Mini that I don't even use anymore. It's sitting near my TV because I had the idea at some point about setting things up for FaceTime for convos with remote relatives, so we could see them on the big screen. But it hasn't been hooked up for a long time. I know I would never get the kind of performance from SL on it that Rob got. In addition, the performance on my circa 2015 MacBook Pro was nowhere near what Rob was getting on his Mac Mini. Going to Fameshed, Level, and Cyber Fair as I did yesterday, on the intel Macs I would have been dealing with lots of textures not rezzing, very low frame rates, and jerky movement, no matter how I decreased my quality settings.

[Katarin Kiergarten]

For what it's worth. Details at the Flickr page for the video (click the title, "Motion Capture," in the video below). I'm updating there in the comments as relevant, so I won't duplicate that here.

TL;DR: Pretty decent performance IF you upgrade macOS to 11.4. I cannot report on the performance of anything between 11.2.3 (pretty bad) and 11.4 (good), as that was the most current available when mine arrived.

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by Katarin Kiergarten

[Ansel Artful]

On 4/28/2021 at 3:08 PM, uk89201 said:

Hi Russ - guessing you mean iMac not iPad Pro? If you did mean iPad I’d love to hear more

I’d remove the drivers, you don’t need them for FS.  I’m running Catalina and the space mouse works well. Settings I use are below. 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. When I remove the drivers using the 3DConnexion utility, reboot the system, and start FS, the "Enable joystick" checkbox does not appear; in its place it just says "Joystick:" and there's a pull-down that reads "none". What am I doing wrong?

And yes, I meant "iMac" not "iPad". 🙂

 

[uk89201]

7 hours ago, Ansel Artful said:

Thanks for the suggestion. When I remove the drivers using the 3DConnexion utility, reboot the system, and start FS, the "Enable joystick" checkbox does not appear; in its place it just says "Joystick:" and there's a pull-down that reads "none". What am I doing wrong?

And yes, I meant "iMac" not "iPad". 🙂

 

Hi Ansel

That’s a shame, I don’t share the same experience at the moment.

This bug report may interest you though: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-230637

To summarise the experiences shared on this report:

* Through May 2021, a number of users have reported that the SpaceMouse stopped working in Catalina where no drivers are installed (the standard position when the device is used for SL only)

* It’s believed within the report its been caused by a silent Apple update
* Upgrading to Big Sur resolved (but the movement experience hasn’t been as smooth as < Big Sur)

* Sidenote: In Big Sur, the SpaceMouse cannot be used in SL with the SpaceMouse drivers installed, so you’d be in difficult situation if you use the mouse for CAD software too. 
 

 

 

[Hara Surya]

I'd love to try it on my M1 MacBook Pro, but keep getting a security error. I've heard the proper response is to basically "ignore and force it." I'm sorry, but as a former IT worker that's just dumb and engrains horrifically bad habits. If I got a similar error on Windows I'd uninstall and run away while scanning my computer with every antivirus I could find.

Is this really the advice you give Mac users? Ignore malware warnings and force it? Do you realize how stupid that is? Is this really "word of God" advice from Linen Labs? Ignore security warnings and force it?

Is this actually how Linden Labs views security in general? Ignore warnings and force it? No wonder Second Life user numbers aren't just in the toilet, but well into the sewer system nearing the discharge vent into the nearest body of water. This is just dumb.

I walked away from Second Life for nearly a decade and only the plague brought me back. At this point I see no reason to come back. I can't trust even the official client for being free of malware.

And the required license to remove that warning, on both Mac and Windows, is a trivial cost. The fact Linden Labs can't be bothered to pay it just shows they simply don't care, at all, about the security of their users.

Edited July 24, 2021 by Hara Surya

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, Hara Surya said:

I'd love to try it on my M1 MacBook Pro, but keep getting a security error. I've heard the proper response is to basically "ignore and force it." I'm sorry, but as a former IT worker that's just dumb and engrains horrifically bad habits. If I got a similar error on Windows I'd uninstall and run away while scanning my computer with every antivirus I could find.

Is this really the advice you give Mac users? Ignore malware warnings and force it? Do you realize how stupid that is? Is this really "word of God" advice from Linen Labs? Ignore security warnings and force it?

Is this actually how Linden Labs views security in general? Ignore warnings and force it? No wonder Second Life user numbers aren't just in the toilet, but well into the sewer system nearing the discharge vent into the nearest body of water. This is just dumb.

I walked away from Second Life for nearly a decade and only the plague brought me back. At this point I see no reason to come back.

Apple operate a walled garden and would like a 30% cut of all the profits from those operating from within it's walls. If you're happy to pay the apple tax on top of the price of everything in SL, by all means demand SL's inclusion.

Inclusion in the walled garden does not guarantee an app is safe.

The SL client is open source, you may download and inspect it line for line yourself, compile those sources yourself and then run your own binary. As that requires a significant amount of time and skill, an element of trust in those who supply the binaries is required.

LL and third party viewers have a significant stake in maintaining a trust relationship with their users. If the SL client contained any malware, we would know and it would be made immediately public.

"Bypassing" the scary warning from Apple about leaving the walled garden does not automatically mean an application is or has malware. It just means that the application is published independently .. which makes up the bulk of all software.

LL take security very seriously

But you know all this.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

8 hours ago, Hara Surya said:

Is this really the advice you give Mac users? Ignore malware warnings and force it? Do you realize how stupid that is? Is this really "word of God" advice from Linen Labs? Ignore security warnings and force it?

It’s not a malware warning, it’s an unidentified developer warning, and bypassing it is literally what Apple says to do. Apple can’t guarantee it hasn’t been modified since it was released, but if you’re getting a program straight from the publisher, that’s not a problem. If you’re getting it from sketchydownloads.ru, it’s a problem.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/open-a-mac-app-from-an-unidentified-developer-mh40616/mac

[MarissaOrloff]

On 7/24/2021 at 1:10 AM, Hara Surya said:

Is this really the advice you give Mac users? Ignore malware warnings and force it? Do you realize how stupid that is? Is this really "word of God" advice from Linen Labs? Ignore security warnings and force it?

If you really think there is the possibility of malware then run it through an antivirus and antimalware programs. I use both  bitdefender and malwarebytes on my Mac. That is the best way of checking for Mac malware. 

[Laurent Bechir]

On 7/24/2021 at 7:23 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

Apple operate a walled garden and would like a 30% cut of all the profits from those operating from within it's walls. If you're happy to pay the apple tax on top of the price of everything in SL, by all means demand SL's inclusion.

I think you're making a confusion between identified developers/signed apps and Mac App Store.  To sign an app you need to be part of the developer program (99$/year) and follow some steps indicated here to sign your app. There is no indication that you have to pay something else. The 30% you mention are paid to Apple if you sale your app with the Mac App Store which is not manadatory to be an identified developer.  Regarding Second Life official viewer, Linden explain in this article why you can get this "unidentified developer" error message and what they do to solve the problem. 

[Gromit Mayo]

OK. Now the M1X Pro and M1X Max is on the market. are there any field reports yet? I am very curious

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

It still amuses me to think every Apple (and others) mobile device in the world is totally dependant and running off patented ARM (Acorn RISC Machines) CPU tech that was initially designed for a series of British school computers (the Acorn Archimedes) that were commonplace in UK schools during the 1980s and 1990s...

Edited October 26, 2021 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Gromit Mayo said:

OK. Now the M1X Pro and M1X Max is on the market. are there any field reports yet? I am very curious

They haven't even started shipping yet, and at $$$$ for a M1X MAX PRO GUSH RAGE edition it's going to be some time before any SL users have one, it may be months before we see anecdotal "it works for me" stories, objective AB testing is unlikely to ever happen.

I know of no third party viewer devs with an M1 (of any kind) 

[anitabush]

2 hours ago, Gromit Mayo said:

OK. Now the M1X Pro and M1X Max is on the market. are there any field reports yet? I am very curious

Hopefully some SL user will get their hands on one soon to test. They should be significantly faster than the first m1 macs, especially the 32 core m1 max. 
 

I wish we could get some news on a native apple silicon viewer, using emulation really hampers performance.