Technical issues with Mac OS X

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Using Second Life on Mac OS X

First off, forget Ctrl-Clicking in Second Life! Cmd-Click (Apple-Click) is how it's done here, and note that the Mac Option key is equal to a PC Alt key. If you have a two button mouse you'll find SL a lot easier! Apple's Mighty Mouse can be configured for two-button operation, and a variety of inexpensive two-button mice are available from third parties.

Optimizing the Second Life viewer for Mac

Based on Resident experience, it seems the lowest Mac configuration that is acceptable for Second Life is a PowerBook G4 or iBook G4 with a 1GHz processor, 768MB RAM and a 64MB Video card. Under this configuration and similar configurations the following settings are advisable in the Second Life viewer preferences:

Graphics tab

  • Display Resolution: Check Run in a window, since fullscreen mode on Mac may be unstable. Leave the resolution pop-up menu as is (it should be disabled), and leave Fullscreen aspect ratio as is, and leave auto-detect checked.
  • Draw Distance: In general, 64 meters is good for busy locations. If you want to take a picture of a beautiful scene you can up it much higher, up to 512 meters. For low traffic areas, 96 is good.
  • UI Size and Display Options can be set as you prefer, and will not affect performance.

Graphics Detail tab

  • Shaders: Enable Vertex Shaders: Turn this off if the viewer crashes frequently.
  • Shaders: Enable Bump Mapping and Shiny: Turn this on. Turning this on has negligible effect on performance.
  • Shaders: Enable Ripple Water: Turn off, at the expense of really beautiful water with reflections.
  • Shaders: Avatar Vertex Program: This option can cause some problems on some Macs, and is currently disabled in the viewer for some Macs. If you check it and see that your avatar is not displayed properly for more than a minute, turn off this setting..
  • Avatar Rendering: Set to Normal.
  • Lighting Detail: Set to Sun and Moon only.
  • Terrain Detail: Set to low for better performance at the expense of better looking terrain.
  • Object Mesh Detail: Move the slider to the middle.
  • Flexible Mesh Detail: Move the slider to the middle.
  • Tree Mesh Detail: Move the slider to the middle.
  • Avatar Mesh Detail: Max it out if you can, but anything at the middle or above is good.

Advanced Graphics tab

  • Filtering: Uncheck Anisotropic filtering. Textures viewed at sharp angles may look blurry, especially in the distance with this off, but it may give a small boost to performance.
  • Gamma: Don't worry about this, your Mac controls it. Only useful for full-screen mode, which is inadvisable on a Mac.
  • Enable VBO: Leave this off if you experience crashes of the viewer. May cause instability for some graphics cards.
  • Graphics Card Memory: Max this out! It only goes up to the total amount of VRAM you have.
  • Nighttime Brightness: set as you prefer as it will not affect performance.
  • Fog Distance: This feature fades out things that are on the threshold of your draw distance. 1.5 to 2.5 is good for this option. if you have your draw distance down at 64 meters set the fog to 1.3.
  • Max Particle Count: Depending on you Mac you can increase or decrease this. 2048 is a good option.
  • Outfit Composite Limit: This has to do with texture complexity for an avatar's clothing. 4 is a good option.
  • Debug Beacon Line Width: Set at 1.

Miscellaneous Mac issues in Second Life

Difficulty leaving 'mouselook'

There is a minor bug in the Mac user interface which causes difficulties leaving Mouselook. The Esc key is used on the Mac viewer to close the Chat type-in field, reducing the UI stripe at the bottom to a single row of buttons. This happens even if you are in Mouselook. The solution is simply to press Esc twice, the second time exits Mouselook. (By the way: Esc also returns your camera viewpoint to its default position behind your avatar, if you have been camming around.)

If you find that your Esc key does not function at all, leaving you with no way to get out of Mouselook, pressing the key combination Command-Q (for Quit) helps : it brings up the small window asking if you want to Continue or Quit. Pressing Continue brings you out of Mouselook 9 times out of 10.

Cache size is inoperative

Setting the cache size to the maximum (1 GB) has no effect : OS X overrides it and continues to 'grow' the cache irrespective. I got mine up to well over 4 GB once which had a disastrous effect on performance. It may also contribute to the next effect...

Logging in to a sim, underwater at 10,10,10

This is a horrible experience and often goes hand-in-hand with low bandwidth - other people can see you normally but all you can see is an underwater view, you can't move, can't see yourself, can't TP or Search, though IM may be normal. If this happens, forget Clearing Cache in SL, try the following:

  • logout
  • locate /~user/Library/Application Support/Second Life/cache folder - select everything in this and trash it.
  • empty the trash
  • relog

This manoeuvre may not work the first time (inexplicably) but on subsequent occasions it seems to make life a lot easier

Taking movies using File menu inoperative

The option Start/Stop movie under File menu does not work on a Mac. The only way to do this is to use third-party software such as SnapzPro X.


Getting more information about Second Life for Mac users

Macintosh user groups in-world

To find a Mac user group, click the Find button then the Groups tab. Type in Mac and hit Search. You can join the group from that window. Other Mac users will be happy to help you out, and group IM is a good way to keep abreast of changes to the Mac viewer. As of May 2007, the "Macintosh Users" group has over 1,600 members and active group discussions. Other groups exist for non-English speakers, and for Mac-centric locations in-world.

Macintosh technical support on the SL Forums

The Mac Discussion forum in the Technical Talk section of the SL Forums provides Mac users with an avenue for finding more help and discussing issues and questions about Second Life on the Mac.

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