trouble with my new macbook

Unity Engine
1

hi all,
i’ve just purchased a macbook because i’ve been stunned by unity features.
i’ve tried to develop with torque but the learning curve, docs etc are so frustrating…

i think unity is the right choice but… i need a MAC.
so, i run in the nearest apple store to get one.

i haven’t much money to spend so i’ve choosed a cheaper notebook.

i know it isn’t a right choice but it’s what i can do right now.

well…
i’ve installed the trial version yesterday an i notice 2 heavy problems:

  1. performance. it’s slow and everything jerks. if i publish the island demo, i cannot see all objects… i bet many messages on screen like “framerate too low…decreasing all i can kill!”.
    i cannot see effect like blur, dof etc too
  2. errors in shaders an polygons. green lines crossing the window randomly.

i think it depends by the gfx card… may be the intel x3100 isn’t the right card to play 3d games and unuty too… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

i’ve read a post regarding these problems with leopard and gfx card.
someone could tell me more?
i hope it’s planned an upgrade of unity and gfx card drivers too… asap…
:?

plz help me!

p.s. sorry for my rusty english :sweat_smile:

2

Right, the integrated graphics are not very good at all, and the drivers for the X3100 are apparently pretty broken. Unless you need a laptop, I’d strongly recommend replacing it with an iMac, which has a real graphics card and isn’t going to be that much more expensive.

–Eric

3

if you’re hard up, i would even (though not strongly) recommend an older generation macbook. I’m using one for my development, most of the unity games do not run well on it, but ive heard the gma950 is a little less broken than then newer integrated chipsets.

go with an imac if you really want to do true 3d gaming development.

4

thnks guys
i’ve purchased a laptop because we have 3 workstation and 13 server in our office and a small laptop when i was out of the office for work.
so… i’ve replaced this PC laptop with the macbook…

i’ve just tested the island demo online with windows installed on a partition with bootcamp and it’s all right!!
i can see the demo perfectly!
all objects, vegetation etc. and speed is ok.
avert fate demo is perfect too.

it seems that drivers for windows are ok.

i hope apple can publish unbroken drivers asap.

the gfx card isn’t a real 3d game card but now i think it’s possible to develop something just for testing the engine and if we will be able to publish some work i think it’s possible to get a real MAC in our office and integrate it in our pipeline.

thanks

5

The Apple OpenGL x3100 drivers have several driver bugs. We are working with Apple on fixing those. 2.0.2 will at least have driver workarounds which disable the graphics card features which are currently broken and use fallbacks instead. Once Apple fixes the drivers, we will reenable the features.

If you want to use graphics features like shadows before Apple fixes the graphics drivers you will have to get a different machine.

6

thank you!

i can wait a while for drivers update and meanwhile i make some tests with the engine.

have you got any idea about the time for driver release?

i think i’m not the one and the only who get a new generation macbook with these problems…

i hope apple do the best they can to solve these bugs.

thanks again