Apple just Released a new Mac OSX update today for the intel macs (10.4.10) that seems to alleviate alot of the start issues with ZBrush. Previously I could only get ZB to launch approx. one out of every ten times, I just downloaded the OSX update and it seems to launch successfully at least 50% of the time.
This is just my experience, could just be me.
Yup, keep thing up to date people!! 
Someone just emailed support with the following information. I figured this would be a good place to share it, in case it helps any of you out.
I’ve been having some trouble getting zBrush 2
for Mac to startup lately and I’ve narrowed down
exactly what’s causing the trouble, just thought
I’d share.Mac OSX 10.4.10
Intel 2x 3Ghz Dual-Core Xeon
4Gb Ram
zBrush 2.03zBrush will not start if iChat is open, instead I
get a spinning flywheel, additionally the zBrush
process shows as not responding.I quit iChat, it opens right up- no problems.
So far, works every time.
I’m using Parallels (June 07) ZB3 is working well, but I prefer the Mac enviro.
Thanks Aurick. iChat gives a headache in many ways. I’m glad it worked for that person, however I don’t think it’s been an issue for most.
Good to know though!
What a pleasant surprise to check back in this thread to find you guys have solved the problem while I was away. Groovy:)
Works great. Not surprised to find no ZB3 for Mac yet. Not interested enough to make it my one and only Bootcamp app and no other reason to buy Parallel. Patience, Willow…
Oh and Jason, while I was out, I checked out a certain bar where played a certain Irish band. I owe you thanks even if an excellent story was not the subject of your signature;)
It is a great bar isn’t it! Haha, even if it isn’t quite the version described in particular literature.
Glad your back and funtional.
has any one had any issues with leopard and vmware fusion/zbrush. i would like to install it but i’m a little skitish. :ex:
Hi skullbeast, I haven’t as I’ve grown fond of Parallels. I do hope someone here has given it a try. I’ll check back, maybe I can set it up for a test in the near future.
i bit the bullet and gave it a shot, and i am very pleased. OSX10.5 and vm fusion + zbrush so far so good! 
I gave a try of ZBrush with Parallels and VMWare on a MacPro 2 x Quad 8 cores with 9 Go of memory, and I can say it works nice with both. Maybe a little bit faster on VMWare …
M i c h e l
Glad to hear that both of you are up and running, please keep us all informed to any further successes and issues.
Hey all, I am a pretty new Intel Mac Pro user and I am still having troubles. I am using 10.4.10 and I have issues with the loadig screen. I have gotten it to load, clicked the button to skip it and then quit and then it still tries to load after that. Any ideas how to make it stick, am I missing something? or is just something odd?
Dual 2.66 Dual Core Intel Xeon … Thanks
By ‘click the button to skip it’, are you referring to the Preferences tab?
GhostofMacbeth,
It sounds like you are unchecking the welcome screen in ZB Preferences but then aren’t saving the preferences configuration before closing ZB. It’s at the top of the Preferences window.
Preferences, misc, skipwelcomescreen … I didn’t see the save preferences configuration so that might have helped. Thanks … It seemed to be opening a bit smoother the last couple of days anyway but I am not sure why.
Excellent news GhostofMacbeth.
I know it’s been suggested that disabling the Welcome screen can fix the startup problems for ZBrush 2. Unfortunately, of course, there’s the problem of getting into ZBrush in the first place, so that you can disable that setting! 
For those of you in that boat, I’m attaching a zipped copy of ZBrush 2’s CustomUI.cfg file. Unzip it and place it in your ZBrush 2 folder (on the same level as the ZBrush 2 application). This configuration has disabled the welcome screen, so it should allow ZBrush to start.
You’ll still want to adjust the Preferences>Mem>Compact Mem setting to take advantage of your system’s RAM, though. Right now, it’s set for the default of 256 MB.
Hope it helps you guys!
UICustom.zip (1.25 KB)
well, this file definitely doesn’t work for me. I’m still in the same beachball mode as always.
I’m pretty sure I bought this application almost 2 years ago with the promise that it would run on Intel machines too.
HOW MUCH LONGER?
I bought the Mac version and cant get zbrush to install/run
MacPro 3,1
Processor speed: 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory (MB) as supplied by Apple: 2
Memory (MB) installed afterwards:4 800 MHZ DDR2 FB-DIMM
Memory installed afterwards - Paired (Y/N): Y
Memory vendor: OWC
OS X version: 10.5.2
Dev Tools installed?: ?
Anything else you can think might be relevant: Bus Speed 1.6 GHz
Success (Y/N): N
Issues: beachball (not respondeing) before I get the chance to start activation
Opinion: running 3.1 windows version under VMware Fusion for now
No. of tries before launch?:15 tries and no sucess yet
Hope this helps and someone can figure out how to get Zbrush to work under OSX…For now I am good w/ running Zbrush windows under vmware emulation .
-Behrooz