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Old 11-29-2002, 10:55 AM   #3
Michael Babin
Mac Development
 
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Join Date: Jul 2002

Location: Rowlett, Texas
Posts: 199
The "demo" (which is actually the application, you enter a keycode to provide access to all the features) should run without problem on any Mac OS 9 system with OpenGL 1.2.1 installed. If any required component/capability is missing, the application should notify you of the problem and quit gracefully. If you're encountering an unexpected quit (crash), then we need to find the problem and remedy it. Could you send an Apple System Profiler report to me (mbabin@orderndev.com) with the details of your system (including extensions)?

If you don't have a hardware-accelerated OpenGL driver and video card, then the performance will suffer greatly, but the application will still function. For example, I've run the Mac OS 9 version of MA on my old 7500 (with a 604 processor card) under System 8.1 (with OpenGL 1.2.1 installed) without any problems, but it only has a software renderer available so the rendering speed is between 1-2 frames per second. At that speed, it really isn't "usable". A 333 MHz G3 is right on the bottom edge of the recommended range, depending on the graphics card and drivers installed. For example, an iMac with a 350 MHz G3 does provide adequate performance.

As for the "freezes" on your G4, I assume you are still referring to the Mac OS 9 version of MA. If so, then other applications/tasks can exclusively consume all the system resources (i.e., processor time) at certain points, which will cause a pause in MA. I've seen this periodic freeze occur when file sharing is starting up. It should not occur when no other applications or system tasks (such as file sharing start-up) are running.
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