filz Camino

I'm sceptical that the demand for it is real. I've had Lumiya on my phone for years and I never use it. For me, SL is best experienced on a device that has a decent sized screen and a keyboard. And, SL is never what I want to spend time on when I'm out and about. I guess I would be (slightly) more likely to use a SL app that runs on my iPad rather than my phone, though.

Having had Apple Macs for most of the last 20 years, but having converted to Windows last year, it really does have to be said that Mac SL performance is shockingly bad and likely to get worse in ways that can't be mitigated in graphics settings with the upcoming Firestorm PBR release, where it will no longer be possible to turn the graphics settings right down in the way that is possible today. If you want a light and efficient laptop that can still do SL reasonably well, it might be worth considering a Windows laptop with a AMD 7840u or 8840u. These APUs are aimed at the handheld gaming console market, so (despite having integrated graphics) they do work pretty well for SL and are also very power efficient. Here's a 16" 7840u laptop that is only 1.23Kg https://www.acer.com/us-en/laptops/swift/swift-edge

It depends very much on what you are doing in SL. Firestorm uses about 3Gb when I'm alone in my skybox, and as much as 20Gb if I am in a busy club with 40+ avatars (and that is also with my 12Gb video memory maxed out). (Try going to Peak nightclub, which is usually pretty busy. A quick test there right now shows Firestorm alone using 18Gb).

This was discussed here previously and the general consensus seemed to be that SecondLife doesn't make use of the extra cache. (I have a 7800X3D, but I also play other games that benefit from it).

Depends exactly what you are doing in SL and the other apps, but I think it could slow down quite badly trying to do all that with just 16Gb of total memory. Remember that on Apple computers, the unified memory is used as system RAM and as video RAM. Running Firestorm and no other apps, my computer typically uses 10Gb of combined system and video memory and that's a minimum use case when I'm just sitting alone in my skybox. If I go to a busy sim, combined memory use often increases to well over 30Gb. So if I was getting a new computer right now I would want more than 16Gb of memory. I think for combined system and video memory, around 32Gb is a comfortable minimum in 2024 that will cover most use cases and also future-proof for a reasonable length of time. I understand that the extortionate prices that Apple charge for extra memory do make this a difficult choice, though. If money is really tight, I guess you could get a 16Gb MacBook, test it carefully with your typical use case and return it if you are not happy?

Try scaling the UI (as per the link above)

Yes - I have had problems in the past running SL over a tethered 4/5G connection, but just right now it seems to be working perfectly (assuming a strong signal).

The Linden Labs system requirements seem pretty unrealistic in this respect, IMHO. I can't imagine how badly SL performs on their 4Gb system minimum, and I really doubt how well it will perform in busy areas even with their "recommended" 8Gb of RAM. (Especially if the computer has integrated graphics).

That screenshot was taken at "House of Booty", which just happened to be the busiest club at the time of posting. That amount of RAM use is pretty normal in a busy club, though - I've often seen figures like that at Peak or Warehouse 21. I've not modified any debug settings in Firestorm. Depending on the size of your video memory, RAM usage may go even higher. My desktop PC graphics card has 12Gb of vRAM and in a busy club it often ends up running out and allocating 2 or 3Gb of system memory to the graphics card. (In a busy club, my laptop with 64Gb of memory and integrated graphics can use up to 40Gb of memory just running Firestorm!)

If you are wanting top shelf performance in SL, I think 32Gb is a definite requirement these days. Here's me in a club 5 mins ago, with nothing but SL running and 23.6Gb of memory in use (in a busy club, this is the norm). And, on top of that, it is useful to have free memory available to open things like a web browser while in SL.

I get 165fps at ground level near the sea at 4K (e.g. Hi DPI) full screen resolution on my Windows gaming PC. Up in the sky, it can reach over 400fps. Obviously that is overkill, but more usefully in a busy club I can set Max Avatars to 40 and still get around 50fps. I'm sure that Apple silicon Macs are a reasonable step up from Intel Macs, but I have a feeling even a M3 Mac Pro is still very significantly slower in SL than a Windows machine. I've used Macs for the last 10 years or so and only recently switched to Windows, obviously Macs are superior in some respects but when it comes to SL, I just can't quite believe what I've been missing out on. Looking at the results of my original test, I think most of the problem is in the Apple software, either the drivers or perhaps the version of OpenGL that Apple uses, which I understand is rather old. But when it comes to gaming performance, I would say that even PC hardware tends to be superior in terms of absolute performance because Apple silicon is optimised for lower TDP - great for laptops, but for a desktop, a power-hungry gaming PC is likely to be significantly faster. Even when it finally arrives, I doubt an M3 Ultra GPU will be as fast as a 2022 RTX4090.

Not quite - how it seems to work is the frame rate limiter only has a small number of meaningful values, e.g. i find that setting it anywhere between 35fps and 60fps caps at about 30fps, and setting it anywhere between 65fps and 105fps caps at about 60fps. So rather than allowing you to enter an arbitrary number for frame rate cap, it would be better if Firestorm allowed the user to select a frame rate cap value from the list of actual possible options.

If being able to run on Ultra settings is the priority, but you want a computer that is as small as possible, check out "mini atx" form factor gaming computers, e.g. https://www.chillblast.com/pages/hej Different sizes and shapes of mini atx cases are available, and in many cases there is just enough space to squeeze in the components required for a really top end gaming machine.

That is how Windows is supposed to work. Whenever a program loses focus, Windows assumes that you're not making active use of it and reduces its processing time to save resources for the program that currently has focus. Looks like it may be possible to turn this off, though: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/disabling-under-prioritization-of-background-tasks/c4749a47-76f0-4c5c-bb30-b9d319f610fc

I've updated both my desktop and laptop computers in the last few months - both have AMD processors and both perform really well with SL. I don't find any of the current Intel options compelling for my use case. AMD is using an advanced TSMC 4nm manufacturing process and that gives them a pretty big edge in terms of efficiency and power consumption when compared to Intel's current manufacturing process and CPU offerings. Intel CPU performance does currently lead for productivity tasks, but only by operating at eye wateringly high power levels. When it comes to overall gaming performance, the fastest processor right now is AMD's 7800X3D, it is faster even than the new Intel i9-14900K and uses a small fraction of the power. So I think the TL;DR is - If you want absolute best productivity performance and don't care about fan noise and power consumption - buy Intel. For most other use cases, consider buying AMD. (This is only true right now, in a few year's time the situation may have changed. Although the outlook for the next year or so is that AMD may actually have moved more convincingly into the lead).