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Mar 4, 2002, 4:56pm

in article 3c472d2d at server1.Activeworlds.com, kah at kah at kahnews.cjb.net
wrote on 17/01/2002 19:59:

> probably the guys at Criterion being a bit lazy and not implementing it into
> the OGL RW engine, I'd say...

I find that hard to believe considering RW is a 3D engine used in many games
on several different computer platforms and game console platforms!

gerard

Mar 4, 2002, 4:53pm

You know what I would find really cool and something that would make AW more
money (that should wake em up).

Issue passports or ID cards!

I would love to have a real looking passport or ID card to state that I'm an
official citizen of the Active Worlds Universe.

Something with a stamp, photo and all that jazz. Also kinda handy to make
sure you never loose your details as I had to sing up again after loosing my
details :(

Gerard

Mar 4, 2002, 9:08pm

Hell, I would :)

Serious though. Stuff like T-Shirts, posters, mousemats and the likes. Hey,
people buy em from Apple and Microsoft. Or they buy merchandise of their
favorite computer game.

I'm not saying this should be an expensive item. An ID card the size of a
credit card with a cool AW logo, you account details and laminated would be
kinda cool to have in your wallet, or am I just being a big geek here?

Before you think I'm some little kid, I'm a 30 year old father with 2 kids
working as an IT manager, does not mean I don't have a sense of humour :)

Gerard

[View Quote]

Mar 1, 2002, 11:32am

Typical PC users comments, I'm a Mac user and got myself a PC ONLY for
Active Worlds. Might be interesting to note that Microsoft Office and
outlook have more features and look better on the Mac. Don't take my word
for it, Mister Bill Gates himself said so :)

Here are some news readers for the Mac:

There is the bundled Outlook Express and Netscape Communicator.

And from the net:

Macsoup:
http://home.snafu.de/stk/macsoup/index.html

Maxnews:
http://www.maxprog.com/

Diiva:
http://www.diiva.com/

Newswatcher:
ftp://ftp.acns.nwu.edu/pub/newswatcher/

Thoth:
http://www.thothsw.com/thoth/

Hogwasher:
http://www.asar.com/cgi-bin/product.pl?2/index.html

MT-Newswatcher:
http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/

Will that do?

Gerard van Schip.

Mar 4, 2002, 3:58pm

in article 3C8169F4.8090104 at acsu.buffalo.edu, goober king at
rar1 at acsu.buffalo.edu wrote on 03/03/2002 00:23:

> Surely you jest! The day Macs can do 3D as well as NT is the day I kill
> myself. :P All I know is what I've heard, and what I've heard is that
> the Mac version of Maya is crap. As far as I know, Maya for Macs is only
> a recent thing, though I could be wrong. In fact, if you look at the PLE
> site, it states that the Mac version will *only* work with Mac OS X,
> whereas on a PC it will work with anything from NT to XP (excluding the
> 9x series, of course). Sounds to me like the Mac version is more recent
> than the PC version...
Another PC user who is 'confused'.

Mac's were doing 3D long before Windows came around. Pixar's stuff was made
first on the Mac way back then...

Problem is that Apple lost it's way and thus got behind the game. In 1996
Steve Jobs came back to the fold (the guy who OWNS Pixar and started Apple
back in 1976) and now Apple is back on track. Apple will never be bigger
then Microsoft but then again a lot of successful companies aren't. You
don't have to be the biggest player on the market to be successful. Apple
makes good products and makes good profits, end of story.

As for Maya for the Mac. There are two main versions of Maya. A normal one
and a pro one. Only the normal version has been ported to the Mac and works
just as well as the Windows version.

As with regards to your Mac OSX comment. The old Mac OS was, well, old :)
and in serious need of updating. Mac OSX is a very modern UNIX based OS with
all the features a BIG 3D app needs. Running Maya on Mac OS9 would be a much
bigger task in porting and would make as much sense as running Maya on
Windows 3.11.

Maya is a very BIG app for BIG cash. There are loads of other 3D apps on the
Mac that will do just fine for 80% of the users out there. I use Cinema 4D
XL, a true multiplatform app, you can also use Lightwave, Electric Image,
Amapi or Vector works (cad app).

Gerard

Mar 4, 2002, 4:06pm

in article 3c7fedc6 at server1.Activeworlds.com, valeri gail at
ValeriGail at msn.com wrote on 01/03/2002 21:08:

> I have been looking into getting a Mac for my next computer.. but i have
> been worried about active worlds performance on one.
> Would you not recomend running Active worlds on a mac?

On my G4 with a 400mhz processor (that's 800mhz for pentium) I can get about
9 frames a sec at Ground Zero. The gate with all it's fancy stuff turned on
gives me about 3 frames a sec. Usable but not fun.

Choosing the right computer for you is all about what you do most on it and
what kind of person you are. In the last 20 years I have used pretty much
everything out there and always came back to the Mac for its polished OS and
user friendliness.

But, this is an active worlds newsgroup so let's get back to topic :)

Active worlds will run on a Mac but I would not advise it. If you really
want to get a Mac I would suggest you do like me. Get a nice Mac and do
everything on there except Active Worlds. Get an old Windows box and
optimise it to run ONLY Active Worlds. I use an old DELL that I got for free
from work. It runs at 450mhz and has 320mb of ram. Soon I should have the
cheap Geforce MX card with 64mb. That should be enough for your average
Active Worlds usage.

Gerard

PS
Now Mac has switched to Mac OSX, a UNIX OS, I really don't see why AW can't
make a client! It's not that the 3D engine won't run on a Mac.

Mar 4, 2002, 4:13pm

in article 3c82f7c4$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com, sw chris at
chrisw10 at nckcn.com wrote on 04/03/2002 04:27:

> I think Macs use RISC (Reduced Input) processors, and that's what makes them
> a good rendering platform. PCs use CISC (Complex Input) processors. I
> think I spelled those right.

It's "Reduced Instruction Set Computer" it means that all instructions sets
are the same length and much shorter. On a CISC cpu it has to deal with
these long lines of code which make it inefficient. This is why PPC
processors are used in so many embedded devices, reliable, fast, cheap and
usage of low voltage. Only the fastest G4's need a cooling fan. Try to run a
Intel chip without it's cooling fan and die :)


Some interesting reading:
http://www.apple.com/myths/

Gerard

Mar 1, 2002, 11:18am

Ok, don't throw stones at me, I'm a Mac user :)

Since I got fed up with running Active Worlds on a PC emulator (sloooooow) I
convinced my boss to let me have one of the companies old Dell towers. Its a
450mhz Dimension model.

My problem is that it comes with a nVidia TNT2 card with 16mb of memory.
Gives a decent performance with distance set to 40 meters, not a lot.

I have been asking a lot of people online what cards they use and price
performance wise they suggested a geforce 2. Now is my question, which one?
I can get my hands on the MX200 model for a fair price, would that do the
trick?

Gerard, on and off active worlds since 95.

Mar 4, 2002, 4:47pm

As a Mac user I'm used to optimise my OS to run certain apps as fast as they
can by removing extensions (they are like DLL's).

Does anyone have any tips on tuning my DELL Win2k machine to run Active
Worlds? I would love to hear ALL your findings, I might just stick em all on
a webpage.

I'm new to Windows but would like to know:
- does it help to have lots of memory or is this a waste of money?
- is there stuff I can take out of windows to tune it?
- does Active World perform best at a certain aspect ratio or does this not
make any difference? (digital movies like mpg's have an optimal ratio of
compression and playback).
- on the settings for the nvidia card I can allocate more system memory to
the texture buffer, what does this do?. What's best?

Basically I want to squeeze any extra frame I can add to the overall frame
rate out of my machine.

Be heard people!

Gerard

Apr 3, 2002, 12:34pm

in article 3c926b5f at server1.Activeworlds.com, zeo toxion at
cozmo at activeworlds.com wrote on 15/03/2002 21:45:
> I've been looking for a good laptop lately. Has everyone switched to Pentium
> ready computers or what!? The only two laptops i found with AMDs were the
> cheapest model of Compaqs and the cheapest model of Sony Vios (although you
> can customize them)...its an outrage. They're all Pentium 3's and 4's.
> Although i've heard a lot of bad things about P4's im not sure about P3's
> but i just woudl rather stear clear of them all together.

Well, you could go for the low power usage, faster than pentium mhz
powerbooks by Apple powered with PPC processors. Even the graphic chips
aboard these babies outperform many wintel laptops, one problem though.

Activeworlds is to lazy to code a mac frontend to the Mac compatible
renderware engine. This is the only reason why I got myself a Wintel box, it
just sits there in the corner with a 20gb hd dedicated to running
activeworlds... :)

Gerard

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