Curious if any Mac users have upgraded to Vue 8 Infinite and what the initial impression is? I've been playing with the Pioneer beta and it appears to be much more responsive overall, though I am seeing some lingering input issues on one of my MacBook Pro (aka the dyslexia problem), though they're not present on my Mac Pro. There is however an OpenGL shader compatibility issue on the Mac Pro as my ATI Radeon X1900 XT apparently doesn't support Shader 4 :(

Well that sure looks like the same error I'm getting on the tower and near as I can tell, there is no upgrade/update to my card that will fix this one. Then again, in my rudimentary testing the non-Shader 4 option seems to work ok, so I'm not sure what I'm missing out on ;)

Quote - my ATI Radeon X1900 XT apparently doesn't support Shader 4 :(

Yep. Shader 4 is brand new.  Our cards do up to Shader 3.

Hi,

I have used the beta of Vue 8 Infinite and will be getting the full version soon to try out. So far, there are some bugs as you have seen on some Mac systems. As you know, it mainly has to do with OpenGL and graphics issues running under the Mac OS. However, I am not seeing the graphics issue you have right now on my 2008 Mac Pro with the Nvidia 8800GT card (see my signature). 

Also, I have NOT tried the final version, but I was not seeing any major issues like that in Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit running on my dedicated drive using Boot Camp. Note, Apple has already officially said they would support Windows 7 later this year with updated Boot Camp drivers. My Vue 7 Infinite is running just fine under current Boot Camp Vista 64 bit drivers on my Mac Pro although not "officially" supported yet. Apple says they will only "officially" support it if you have Snow Leopard too (got me stumped on that one).

Anyway, I will post back details once I have bought Vue 8 Infinite final shipping version and tried it on both Mac OS and Windows 7 64 bit here. It may be a good idea to bump this thread in a couple of weeks or so to help other Mac users with useful info.

 we have similar computers only mine was one of the first mac pros I think and I have the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
Damn I wish I'd got the better card.

I had the 7300 and quite some problems on the Mac Pro (first generation). I got an ATI 2600 since two weeks and it works so much better. It is not an expensive card and works in my Mac without problems. And the Vue fun is back!

Thanks Wabe, I might just order one.
 can you have both in at once and is there any advantage to doing this?
Love esther

I think you can have both in. But this makes only sense when you have more monitors connected. And I would say - more than two because these cards all support two monitors already.

This is the exact name that "about my Mac" tells me: ATI Radeon HD 2600. It has 256 MB VRAM. Be a bit specific on those or verify first when you by another card or version whether it works on Mac. I am still on 10.5.8 btw, just in case this is something you want to know too.

Quote - Thanks Wabe, I might just order one.
 can you have both in at once and is there any advantage to doing this?
Love esther

I would HIGHLY recommend that you go with an nVidia 285 card instead. 256MB is very LOW for work like this and in fact I am getting ready to build a killer workstation later on that I will post pictures of. If you can get it, then I would. Also, swapping out your graphics card can be somewhat tedious and I would advise you watch some detailed videos on the web, make sure you have all the right tools like a Mac Pro specific screw driver with a LONG thin handle, etc. Otherwise you may want to take it into an Apple store for service. I have Apple Care and it's great for what they do there.

Also, I too am on Leopard and am running triple dedicated drives right now on my Mac Pro: Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard and Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. I have NOT tested Vue 8 on Snow Leopard due to all the issues they are having with it. Once 10.6.2 update comes out that corrects some of the serious flaws like erasing ALL you data on other accounts if you have a "Guest" account, etc. Right now, I don't trust that OS until Apple releases that patch.

Well, it is all a question of investment into an old Mac. I would not spend much money on a Mac that is so old already. So  a cheap card that does the trick is a much smarter move. And save the money for a new Mac that has to come anyway one day. This was my intention in doing what i did. And a recommendation from e-on too btw.

Btw, I found a video at YouTube for putting in a card into a Mac Pro. Otherwise I would not have been brave enough. Easy thing, I think I have the link still if someone needs that.

Maybe not helping here, but i'm gonna stick it out this time with all the updates. Currently i still have a G5 PPC Mac running OS X 10.4.9 (not even intel) and Vue Inf 7.21.

My plan is to wait until the Mac version of Vue is fully 64bit and working flawlessly (!) on the system.
Only then will i buy a new Mac Pro (or whatever it's name will be at that time) and will i upgrade my Vue Inf licence.

But to be honest about it... i will envy the lot off ya who allready can play with these latest upgrades on the Vue side and on the computer side :-)

 wabe does that ATI 2600 solve the problem of the message I got?  ie does openGL work properly as it should in vue 8?
Love esther

Esther, I only have seen this message on my Mac Mini with its Intel 32 MB graphic card. And even there Vue runs without (too many) problems.

Here on the Mac Pro the new card changed a lot. I had a lot of crashes when working in Vue and was unable to load more complex Poser characters into Vue. Even with them saved to vob from Vue 6. Now I CAN load them and work with them again.

But what "properly as it should" means is a bit hard to say for me. Therefore I simply do not know the definite answer to that.

 hehe, sorry - I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I just meant that instead of the message I could work and be compatible with the new vue 8 shader engine instead of the message.
I might price that card and think it over (not too long I reckon)
Love esther
ps I suppose I keep my old board as spare then?

Yeah, does not hurt I would say to keep the old card. And you of course can simply leave it in the puter - to remember where you put it!

 I just got an oddity.  rendered the default scene with just an imported poser appartment and it worked fine.  Put in a heightfield terrain with a forrest ecosystem that came with vue 8 and suddenly it keeps rendering a sand coloured blank picture.
Love esther

 perhaps I accidentally bumped the camera.  i moved the camera and all is well.
Love esther

I reported something similar - and got the reply that this is a bug that sometimes appears. Vue "thinks" that it is inside the terrain and renders therefore the inner side of this terrain. It will be fixed (hopefully) in the next update.

On what build are you Esther?

 47443
 

Ok, seems to be the latest.

 I haven't had the error since ie in the last 5 minutes that we've been talking.
I am very happy with my little 3d applications, DS, poser and vue.  they work well together so far.
Love esther

I just find myself in a weird place right now - I've written off Vue 7 (and my $295) altogether and as might be expected, have some serious reservations about Vue 8 being much better. Vue 6 Infinite really does everything I need it to do and is very stable, though in Snow Leopard there are some minor OpenGL display issues (not as bad as those in 7). Since I know e-on isn't going to be making version 6 compatible with Snow Leopard and certainly don't expect them to, I'm thinking of getting a used G5 at this point. It feels a little odd to buy an older machine just to run Vue on, but my only other option is to revert to Leopard on my Mac Pro. Unfortunately many of the apps that I use in my professional life run very well on Snow Leopard, so I certainly don't want to hinder their performance just to get Vue 6 Infinite working well. What a PITA.

But sin't a G5 a bit very old? A Mac Pro earlier generation would do too. How about taking my old Mac Pro and give me one of your newer ones?  

If you ask nicely I would go into a divorce from this lovely old machine (to get a young new one!)

You're right wabe, a G5 is a pretty old machine, but the investment would be minimal and I still find them to be quite relevant. Hell, a few of my designers are still running G5's and cranking out some pretty serious work day in and day out.

And hey, I've got a bunch of G4/early Intel laptops as well as several G4 towers that I could trade you :biggrin:

 I've got a broken G5 I could sell you if you like

Quote -  I've got a broken G5 I could sell you if you like

Minus the broken part, I might take you up on it :)

Quote - > Quote - my ATI Radeon X1900 XT apparently doesn't support Shader 4 :(

Yep. Shader 4 is brand new.  Our cards do up to Shader 3.

Out of curiosity, are there any first gen Mac Pro compatible cards with Shader 4 support? Maybe I'm not looking for the right thing, but I can't seem to find much of anything on Shader 4 even on the newest of cards.

I think Shader 4 is something brand new. Not many cards (Windows or Mac) do support this yet.

3DNeo, I have a Nvidia 8800GT card like you and 12 GB of ram, so IYO do you think, Vue 8 Infinite will run fine on my mac? Gosh it seems just yesterday that I bought my Mac Pro Octocore Tower and now it's already needing upgrading! lol. : )

Quote - 3DNeo, I have a Nvidia 8800GT card like you and 12 GB of ram, so IYO do you think, Vue 8 Infinite will run fine on my mac? Gosh it seems just yesterday that I bought my Mac Pro Octocore Tower and now it's already needing upgrading! lol. : )

I don't have any problems running it on mine so if your Mac Pro is the same then yes, you should be just fine. NOTE, I have not yet installed the FINAL version of Vue 8 but will very soon. However, not many issues with it right now so I don't expect it to change.

One other thing to consider is if you are running the Mac version of Vue 8 it will still be 32bit until e-on releases their 64bit Mac version. They said to expect it within about two months of Vue 8 being released, but that is only a Beta. Most Mac people think it will be around the late January/February time frame for it. For the final 64bit build it most likely be Vue 8.5 or sometime late 2010. Some are saying it will be in Beta until Vue 9 but no one knows for sure.

Reason I say this is you did not mention if you plan to setup a dedicated Windows 7 drive on your Mac Pro. I can tell you that if you plan on doing any resource intensive scenes and importing say several Poser/Daz figures, you will need to run it that way. It will see all your RAM which makes all the difference in the world for your scenes. Right now, that is the only solution for us Mac guys until e-on at least comes out with their Beta on the Mac.

Let us know how things work out, but I'm sure you will be just fine with those specs.