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Will the MacBook Air run Second Life? Meh.

Posted on January 16, 2008 by

Macairsl

Like all the other fanboys, I was fawning over the new MacBook Air.  So sexy, so svelte.  But Mac-user Second Lifers like me want to know, will it run Second Life? 

The answer is: sorta. Details on my initial research on this after the jump…

Based on the SL tech specs,
it looks like the MacBook Air meets some requirements, including the
processor (Intel Core 2 Duo processor) and included RAM (2 gigs).

The problem starts with the operating system.  The Air comes loaded with Leopard (OS X 10.5).  The forums and blogs are reporting lots of problems
with how SL runs on the new OS.   There are tweaks to your settings you
can do, but generally performance is sub-par in comparison with older
versions of OS X.  And as usual, SL runs fastest on Windows. Sigh.

Another big question is the graphics card: an Intel GMA X3100.  This is
the same card that comes with the recent iteration of MacBooks, which
SL Mac-users have been complaining about on
the forums. There are various workarounds that people are talking
about, including running Windows XP on the MacBook.  The Intel GMA
graphics processor will likely work, but so far it is unsupported
officially by Linden Lab.

The other problem is the "air"-iness of the Air.  The MacBook Air is
intended to be used on a wifi network and has no built-in ethernet
port.  Second Life is not meant to be used on a wifi connection, even a
802.11n wifi connection.  So to really rock in SL, you will need to
purchase an extra $30 dongle that connects the Air to a wired network. 

So, in short, if you are looking for a portable, Mac solution for running SL, the MacBook Pro is still your best bet.

This of course is largely speculative since I haven’t had a chance to try Second Life on an actual Air.  If any Apple representatives would like to send me a MacBook Air to test on, I would not refuse it. 😉

14 thoughts on “Will the MacBook Air run Second Life? Meh.”

  1. Bromo Ivory says:
    January 16, 2008 at 8:42 am

    Yeah – I got the distinct impression that the Mac Book Air was in an uncomfortable niche – not small enough (thin doesn’t count for this category) to be an Ultra-Mobile PC, and not powerful enough to be a true desktop replacement (as is Mac Pro), and not priced low enough for what it is.
    Steve Jobs spent a lot of time trying to make this a Vaio UMPC killer, and it just isn’t. Its a thinner, sleeker MacBook with a Mac Book Pro price tag.
    And it will probably run SL as well as a MacBook (non Pro) does … which is a shame.
    I found my Mac fanboy fervor sorely dissappointed. Though I did quite like the Mac Pro desktop, it ought to run SL just fine! 🙂

    Reply
  2. rikomatic says:
    January 16, 2008 at 8:45 am

    Well the MacPro looks like it could run the space shuttle, so no contest.

    Reply
  3. skribe Forti says:
    January 16, 2008 at 4:59 pm

    My phone has more computing power than the shuttle.

    Reply
  4. IYan Writer says:
    January 17, 2008 at 5:04 am

    Alas, the MacBook Pros come with a SL problem set of its own: the dreaded system freeze. Check this JIRA entry for more info: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1978
    In a nutshell, after some time in SL (1-20 minutes), OS X freezes and a hard reset is necessary. The problem has been around for more than 6 months and although a solution (basically a workaround) seems in sight (check last entries on the JIRA post), it is not here yet 🙁

    Reply
  5. thaumata strangelove says:
    January 18, 2008 at 12:59 am

    I run SL on a mac book pro, on my wireless network. That system freeze bug is extra annoying. It’s one thing for SL to freeze, but another to have it crash EVERYTHING I am working on. Other than that, though, I never have any issues running it on this computer.

    Reply
  6. Stef Wade says:
    January 19, 2008 at 2:27 am

    “And as usual, SL runs fastest on Windows. Sigh.”
    Not quite 🙂 Given the same hardware, SL _seems_ to run fastest on Linux:
    http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/07/sl-speed-showdo.html
    Of course, there was no Mac in the comparison, and Linux-SL does not provide all the goodies like voice…

    Reply
  7. Garri Azz says:
    February 17, 2008 at 12:08 am

    As the de facto administrator of the Security Fix blog, I’ve spent many an hour deleting spammy links left in the comments section –
    – comments that usually lead back to the same kinds of Web sites you most commonly see advertised in junk e-mail.

    Reply
  8. SteveNelson says:
    February 25, 2008 at 1:58 pm

    I saw a MacBook Air for the first time at the Apple Store yesterday. I downloaded and launched Second Life and it ran. I didn’t spend that much time, but it launched and I flew.

    Reply
  9. Jeff Heaton says:
    February 27, 2008 at 10:27 pm

    Well, I actually own a MacBook air. It really is a nice computer for just about everything I want to use it for. However, Second Life is NOT one of its better points. The game is very very slow. My MacBook pro is not perfect, but way better than the air. I would call the Second Life experience on the air, just a few steps above unusable. This is of course using wireless. But I always used wireless on the MBP, without too much problem.

    Reply
  10. Ulver voight says:
    April 13, 2008 at 3:56 am

    For a total freeze about 30 seconds into sl..this worked on my NEW Macbook…(not the problem with old ones) Find the “user_settings” folder under your Second Life folder that is under yourname/library/Application support/secondLife/user_settings Data. Note also you will have a folder with your Avatar’s name. Don’t change the settings.xml file in that folder – change the one in the user_settings folder.
    * once you have found user_settings/settings.xml. You will have to manually add the command to disable Object Occlusion to this file. The lines to add before the “” are:
    o
    o
    * Save the setting.xml file and then try to connect to Second Life.
    It worked for me like a dream!!

    Reply
  11. rikomatic says:
    May 11, 2008 at 6:50 am

    Thanks for the tip, Ulver!

    Reply
  12. JB Garrigus says:
    July 30, 2008 at 9:44 am

    I have a MacBook Air and it BARELY runs if you have no other apps running. It is agonizingly slow. I had a MacBook Pro 17 and it ran completely fine even wirelessly. Right now I don’t know if I can stay in SL with the Air. To move around in Sl you have to literally count the clicks on the arrow keys as………your……..AV……….slowly…………turns…………and………….oopppsss……..too turned to far………..so turn back……….wait…….wait………..get gun…………shoot screen………
    🙂
    JB

    Reply
  13. solsang says:
    February 9, 2009 at 4:09 am

    it runs with crappy graphic setting on my air, using performance booster (cpu accelerator)
    i can walk and run etc, sound is fine but graphic is jumpy

    Reply
  14. CHirqui says:
    August 26, 2010 at 7:12 pm

    I am new here and I was wondering if you could tell me why my account keeps logging out? Is this normal?

    Reply

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