Qualification of Maya 3.5.1 for Mac OS X
Qualification of Maya Personal Learning Edition for Mac OS X

Last Updated: June 5, 2002

Products Version Software Date
Maya Complete 3.5.1 December 1, 2001 12:13:33

File Compatibility

Maya

Maya 3.5.1 can read Maya 3.x. formatted files. Some conversion may be necessary for the transfer of Maya ASCII (.ma) and MEL files between operating systems. Maya Unlimited data from other platforms will not be included. Maya 3.5.1 for Mac OS X files can be read into Maya 4.0 on any platform.

Others Maya 3.5.1 can read Adobe Illustrator native (.ill) and .eps files, .rib, .aiff, .wav, .mp3 and .obj files. Additionally, Maya's image file format on Mac OS X is based on QuickTime 5. File formats supported by QuickTime 5 can be imported into Maya. See Apple's QuickTime specification page for more details.

System and Graphics

Maya 3.5.1 is qualified on the systems with the specific graphics and operating system listed below. Also, though G3 systems are not specifically qualified to run Maya, these systems may be acceptable for general Maya use. Additionally, G3 and some early G4 systems are not qualified to act as license servers.

Please note that Maya 3.5.1 cannot be installed on machines running versions of Mac OS X prior to 10.1.1, Maya is not qualified on such systems and is not supported.

See below for important details about each of these graphics cards.

Alias is working with Apple and other vendors to qualify Maya on new hardware at the earliest possible time. However, Alias can make no predictions as to which systems will or will not be qualified. Upon qualification, systems will be listed and published here immediately.

Maya 3.5.1 (and Personal Learning Edition) and Mac OS X 10.1.2 and 10.1.3.

Maya 3.5.1 is not officially qualified to run on Mac OS X 10.1.2 or 10.1.3 on all system configurations. Although Maya 3.5.1 can run on these versions of Mac OS X, known regressions include:

  • When software rendering shaders containing file based textures in JPEG format, the correct results are not always achieved. Rendering performance of these textures is significantly slower than with 10.1.1. Also, the icons for JPEG files in the Hypershade window will not display correctly. The workaround is to replace JPEG formatted files with an equivalent file in a different format, such as TIFF.

Maya 3.5.1 (and Personal Learning Edition) and Mac OS X 10.1.4

Maya 3.5.1 will not install correctly on some systems running Mac OS X 10.1.4. The installer does not report any errors, but Maya will not run. You may subsequently encounter difficulty with uninstalling the software.

Apple has released update 10.1.5 which resolves this problem. We recommend that you upgrade to 10.1.5 before attempting to install Maya.

Maya 3.5.1 (and Personal Learning Edition) and Mac OS X 10.1.5

The installation and launch problems encountered with Mac OS X 10.1.4 do not occur with Mac OS X 10.1.5.
Maya 3.5.1 and Maya Personal Learning Edition will install correctly on 10.1.5.
If you previously installed Maya 3.5.x or Maya Personal Learning Edition on 10.1.4 you should uninstall first, then update to 10.1.5, then reinstall Maya.
If you update to 10.1.5 before uninstalling the non-working Maya software, (or in some cases the uninstall does not work), at this time we cannot offer a foolproof uninstall method to remove the non-functioning software. Subsequent installs will work correctly but you may have unnecessary files on your file-system. We are continuing to investigate this problem.
Important: We have made no changes to the Maya or Maya Personal Learning Edition installer or downloads. You do not need to download any new versions of software from A|W to resolve this issue.


Maya 3.5.1 (and Personal Learning Edition) and Mac OS X 10.2

You will encounter a number of issues running Maya 3.5.1 or Maya 3.5.1 Personal Learning Edition on Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), some of these issues will have a large impact on your ability to use Maya on 10.2:

  • some text is not drawn in some dialogs and option boxes, making controls and options unavailable from the user interface.
    At this time we know of no workaround.
  • The timeline is not drawn in the hardware render buffer.
    The timeline will appear if you resize the hardware render buffer window, or toggle the timeline display in the Render menu.
  • Hardware Lights do not display correctly on ATI Radeons and possibly other graphics cards.

System Graphics Card OS X
G4 Systems,
800 MHz and faster		 ATI Radeon 8500 Mac Edition
(Details) 		10.1.3 (5Q45)+
Driver 1.1.5
G4 Systems,
800 MHz and faster		 nVidia GeForce 4 MX
(Details)		 10.1.3 (5Q45)

G4 iMac Systems,
700 MHz and faster

 nVidia GeForce 2 MX iMac
(Details) 		10.1.3 (5Q45)
G4 Systems,
450 MHz and faster

nVidia GeForce 3
(Details)

 10.1.1 (5M28)
10.1.2 (5P48)
G4 Systems,
450 MHz and faster		 nVidia GeForce 2 MX
(Details) 		10.1.1 (5M28)
G4 Systems,
450 MHz and faster		 ATI Radeon Mac Edition
(Details)

10.1.1 (5M28)
10.1.2 (5P48)
G4 Systems,
450 MHz and faster		 ATI Rage 128 Pro
(Details) 		10.1.1 (5M28)
Powerbook G4 [Titanium] ATI Mobility Radeon
"Rage M6"
(Details) 		10.1.1 (5M28)
Powerbook G4 [Titanium] ATI Mobility Rage 128*
"Rage M3"
(Details) 		10.1.1 (5M28)
* Significant limitations exist for this card.


The following are relevant for all systems.

  • Standard pen pressure sensitivity with Wacom tablets is now supported. However, Wacom mice which are used with tablets have significant limitations and cannot be fully integrated with standard navigation in Maya. We recommend using a standard mouse with Maya, and limiting pen usage to Maya's Paint Effects and Sculpting tools. Alias is working with Wacom to achieve full support for Wacom products.
  • Standard Dual Monitor setup has been tested and is supported, though the number of combinations of graphics cards prevents us from qualifying all of those combinations.

    Limitation: Use o    f Paint Effects with Dual Monitors can cause Mac OS X to kernel panic. There is no solution at this time.

    Specific combinations of graphics cards tested are:
  AGP Port:   PCI Port:  
  ATI Radeon with ATI Rage 128 Pro  
         
  ATI Rage 128 Pro with ATI Rage 128 Pro  
         
  GeForce2 MX with ATI Rage 128 Pro  
 

 

General Configuration
  • A three button mouse is strongly recommended.
  • At least 512 MB of RAM is required.
  • It may be possible to successfully use Maya with a non-qualified or partially qualified configuration, but support and maintenance programs will be subject to the Alias Support services guidelines.
  • The configurations shown are subject to change, and additional qualified configurations may be added after qualification testing has been carried out.
  • Where Graphics Controllers are configurable, you must have at least 32MB of video memory (VRAM). Due to the differences in the manner in which hardware vendors approach display memory, we suggest that you consult your hardware vendor to ensure that your configuration will support your required resolution. (See ATI Rage 128 Mobility Limitations)
  • The operating system specified below is the OS used for the qualification process. While it may be possible to use Maya successfully on earlier or later versions of Mac OS X, Alias cannot guarantee the performance or behavior.
  • We do not recommend saving data directly from Maya to NFS or Novell Netware or other remote mounted file systems. We have received several reports of data corruption when saving in this method although we have been unable to reproduce this. We strongly recommend that you save the files locally and then copy the data to the mounted storage system.
  • When texture images are stored on systems remote from the rendering process; depending on network speed, specifications and load it is possible that the renderer may be unable to access a texture file on demand and may 'drop' individual textures on a frame by frame basis. To reduce this occurrence store textures on a system local to the rendering process.


Specific Graphics Card Information
Graphics OS Driver Settings
nVidia
GeForce 4 MX

10.1.3

 1280x1024, Millions of Colors
Limitations and Solutions
There are no known limitations for this card.
 
Graphics OS Driver Settings
nVidia
GeForce 3

10.1.1
10.1.2

1280x1024, Millions of Colors
Limitations and Solutions
Limitation Paint Effects do not always display correctly. Maya may crash after Paint Effects has been used.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
Limitation ColorPerVertex and PreLighting shading on polygonal geometry does not display properly.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
Limitation Multi-pass hardware renderings result in images with corrupted/streaked output.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
Limitation Some tools which use overlay planes disappear or are drawn incorrectly. (E.g. Texture placement tool)
Solution There is no solution at this time.
 
Graphics OS Driver Settings
nVidia
GeForce 2 iMac		 10.1.3 1024x768, Millions of Colors
Limitations and Solutions
Limitation Due to the LCD screen, some high contrast scenes will flicker significantly.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
Limitation Since the maximum horizontal display resolution is 1024 pixels wide, it may not be possible to access some attributes inside of some editors. For example, Paint Effects color controls for some brushes may not be displayed.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
 
Graphics OS Driver Settings
nVidia
GeForce 2		 10.1.1 1280x1024, Millions of Colors
Limitations and Solutions
Limitation Multi-pass hardware renderings result in images with corrupted/streaked output.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
Limitation Some mild screen flickering is evident on dual processor systems.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
 
Graphics OS Driver Settings
ATI Radeon 8500
Mac Edition

10.1.3+
Driver
1.1.5

1600x1200, Millions of Colors
Note: Until Apple releases the next version of OS X, customers with the Radeon 8500 must install the 1.1.5 version video driver. Check the ATI website for downloadable versions of this driver. Click here for instructions on how to check which version of the driver is installed on your system.
Limitations and Solutions
Limitation In some cases, Z depth issues result in improper surface depth display while in shaded mode; selected objects which are behind other objects may appear in front.
Solution Narrow the range between the near and far clipping planes of the panel camera. For example, alter the cameras near clipping plane from its default 0.1 to 1.0.
 
Graphics OS Driver Settings
ATI
Radeon Mac Edition		 10.1.1
10.1.2 		1280x1024,1600x1200, Millions of Colors
Limitations and Solutions
Limitation Highlights for some surface types are displayed as black.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
Limitation In some cases, Z depth issues result in improper surface depth display while in shaded mode; selected objects which are behind other objects may appear in front.
Solution Narrow the range between the near and far clipping planes of the panel camera. For example, alter the cameras near clipping plane from its default 0.1 to 1.0.
 
Graphics OS Driver Settings
ATI
Rage 128 Pro		 10.1.1 1280x1024, Millions of Colors
There are no known limitations for this card.
 
Graphics OS Driver Settings

ATI
Radeon Mobility
("Rage M6")

 10.1.1 1152x768, Millions of Colors
Limitations and Solutions
Limitation In some cases, Z depth issues result in improper surface depth display while in shaded mode; selected objects which are behind other objects may appear in front.
Solution Narrow the range between the near and far clipping planes of the panel camera. For example, alter the cameras near clipping plane from its default 0.1 to 1.0.
Limitation Due to the LCD screen, some high contrast scenes will flicker significantly in panel views.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
Limitation Depending on your task, the performance on Titanium Laptops may not be acceptable.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
 
Graphics OS Driver Settings

ATI
Rage 128 Mobility
("Rage M3")

 10.1.1 1152x768, Millions of Colors
Limitations and Solutions
Limitation Limited VRAM adversely affects Maya's ability to display full screen. Panel views might appear corrupted if window settings allow single panels to become too large. Textures applied to surfaces and image planes might also appear corrupted.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
Limitation Limited VRAM adversely affects Maya's performance in panel views.
Solution Avoid layouts which make individual panel views too large. For example, a single perspective view maximized with all Maya UI elements hidden may perform quite slowly, while the same scene with all UI elements present might perform quite quickly.
Limitation Due to the LCD screen, some high contrast scenes will flicker significantly.
Solution There is no solution at this time.
Limitation Depending on your task, the performance on Titanium Laptops may not be acceptable.
Solution There is no solution at this time.

How to verify which version of a video driver is installed on your Mac OS X system:

In a finder window, navigate to /System/Library/Extensions/(vendor extension file). With this file selected, choose File -> Info to view the version information.

For example, to determine the version of the video driver installed for the ATI Radeon 8500, one would select the /System/Library/Extensions/ATIRadeon8500.kext file and then choose File -> Info.