No crashes for me in 1.4.2... some minor bugs to report
Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 4:07 pm
Hi bug-report-listening people,
Before I start the list, a bit of history: I used to work for several game publishers, and I tired of playing computer games. It's been a *long* time since anything caught my interest. Darwinia is a great game-- the story that ties it together, and the player's interactions with Dr. S. and the Darwinians is extremely engaging from beginning to end; the interaction of the locations and the puzzles that have to be solved are brilliant; the pacing of increasing difficulty and increased abilities is very well balanced; and, well, I got completely addicted! I'm better now, but Darwinia is a superlative technical and creative feat.
OK, here's what I have...
What model Mac are you using: PowerMac (tower)
What processor are does your machine have, and how fast is it? G5, Quad 2.5GHz CPU
How much RAM do you have? 2G
What video card do you have? GeForce 6600, 256M VRAM
Is there anything else that makes your computer unique? Me! Seriously, a 23" LCD display. I play in native 1920x1200 mode.
I originally began play on my laptop, which lagged, and which got so hot I burned my lap. I'll point out which bugs were only seen on this Mac:
What model Mac are you using: PowerBook (Aluminum)
What processor are does your machine have, and how fast is it? 1.5GHz G4
How much RAM do you have? 1G
What video card do you have? ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, 64M VRAM
Is there anything else that makes your computer unique? Nope.
Both computers are running 10.4.6 and all OS updates. Disk Utility reports no errors.
First off, I tried getting screen dumps of some of these issues using the 'P' key, but the BMPs generated only had an alpha-like or overlay channel, even when opened in Adobe Photoshop Elements. In other words, the pics were black except for the round cursor or dish-pointing crosshairs, the Task Manager display at left, and occasional lighting effects (like a beam of light shining down on a trunk port).
I saw several stuck spiders, some on the water's edge, and one in the side of a steep cliff. Armour would probably have killed it, but nothing else did. When that level started, and right near where the spider got stuck, there seemed to be a single spider with 12 or 16 legs. It was probably multiple spiders in the same place. It never moved, and was easily killed.
Similarly, I had a Darwinian get stuck at the water's edge. For some reason, after beaming to a new island, a bunch of them wanted to cross the water in the direction they'd come. I Officer-ized one of them with a "follow me" flag, and they all followed, except one that seemed stuck as he made repetitive movements.
I can also verify a previous report of dark banding across all the green Darwinians during the Temple cutscene, as they are facing the port with the light pouring down on them, and the camera looks down on them as it drifts upward. Again, a screen dump failed here. I've seen this artifacting each time I've seen the cutscene. Seen on both Laptop and Desktop.
When I move the camera high enough to see all the islands in (probably) any location, the edges of the islands distort, as if every ~16-line-high horizontal band is rendered upside-down.
After several hours of game play, the left click to place an Engineer is no longer responsive. A full Quit is required to restore it. Strangely, left click works elsewhere, just not to place an Engineer. I've seen this with Squads, too. I do have a free Task, and the cursor looks OK as it enters the circle around a reprogrammed building, so I'm sure in this case it isn't "operator error."
On the laptop only, After > 8 hours of game play, especially on a level (Yard I think, where the Armour is manufactured) that's going poorly and the spiders and other nasties are multiplying out of control (i.e., LOTS of rendering going on, enough that response time is affected) I saw the Task Manager circles move ~2 times a second, up and down, and even zooming in as they bounce farther and farther up and down. A full Quit was required to restore playability. This happened more than once.
In the location when the red Darwinians first start coming out of the ports (sorry I haven't memorized the level names)... On the "first" island (the one with three lines of sight (or shooting) toward the port where the reddies emerge... I kept seeing a red soul in a nook behind the left side of the port, and the Engineers would try and try and fail to pick up the soul, which they couldn't reach. They'd keep trying until they were finally killed by friendly fire unless I manually directed them to an incubator, which is a bother when I'm waging battles on another island.
Engineers will approach a building that needs reprogramming, and about 10-20% of the time, just keep bumping into it rather then reprogramming. This could be my fault, as my habit is to point right at the building and click, rather than telling them to go near the building and figure it out for themselves. This snag is usually fixed by directing the confused Engineer to go away from the building a bit and try again.
Just my opinion, but mobile armour is too vulnerable to things like little ants. Presumably it would be pretty rugged.
Thanks,
-S
Before I start the list, a bit of history: I used to work for several game publishers, and I tired of playing computer games. It's been a *long* time since anything caught my interest. Darwinia is a great game-- the story that ties it together, and the player's interactions with Dr. S. and the Darwinians is extremely engaging from beginning to end; the interaction of the locations and the puzzles that have to be solved are brilliant; the pacing of increasing difficulty and increased abilities is very well balanced; and, well, I got completely addicted! I'm better now, but Darwinia is a superlative technical and creative feat.
OK, here's what I have...
What model Mac are you using: PowerMac (tower)
What processor are does your machine have, and how fast is it? G5, Quad 2.5GHz CPU
How much RAM do you have? 2G
What video card do you have? GeForce 6600, 256M VRAM
Is there anything else that makes your computer unique? Me! Seriously, a 23" LCD display. I play in native 1920x1200 mode.
I originally began play on my laptop, which lagged, and which got so hot I burned my lap. I'll point out which bugs were only seen on this Mac:
What model Mac are you using: PowerBook (Aluminum)
What processor are does your machine have, and how fast is it? 1.5GHz G4
How much RAM do you have? 1G
What video card do you have? ATI Mobility Radeon 9700, 64M VRAM
Is there anything else that makes your computer unique? Nope.
Both computers are running 10.4.6 and all OS updates. Disk Utility reports no errors.
First off, I tried getting screen dumps of some of these issues using the 'P' key, but the BMPs generated only had an alpha-like or overlay channel, even when opened in Adobe Photoshop Elements. In other words, the pics were black except for the round cursor or dish-pointing crosshairs, the Task Manager display at left, and occasional lighting effects (like a beam of light shining down on a trunk port).
I saw several stuck spiders, some on the water's edge, and one in the side of a steep cliff. Armour would probably have killed it, but nothing else did. When that level started, and right near where the spider got stuck, there seemed to be a single spider with 12 or 16 legs. It was probably multiple spiders in the same place. It never moved, and was easily killed.
Similarly, I had a Darwinian get stuck at the water's edge. For some reason, after beaming to a new island, a bunch of them wanted to cross the water in the direction they'd come. I Officer-ized one of them with a "follow me" flag, and they all followed, except one that seemed stuck as he made repetitive movements.
I can also verify a previous report of dark banding across all the green Darwinians during the Temple cutscene, as they are facing the port with the light pouring down on them, and the camera looks down on them as it drifts upward. Again, a screen dump failed here. I've seen this artifacting each time I've seen the cutscene. Seen on both Laptop and Desktop.
When I move the camera high enough to see all the islands in (probably) any location, the edges of the islands distort, as if every ~16-line-high horizontal band is rendered upside-down.
After several hours of game play, the left click to place an Engineer is no longer responsive. A full Quit is required to restore it. Strangely, left click works elsewhere, just not to place an Engineer. I've seen this with Squads, too. I do have a free Task, and the cursor looks OK as it enters the circle around a reprogrammed building, so I'm sure in this case it isn't "operator error."
On the laptop only, After > 8 hours of game play, especially on a level (Yard I think, where the Armour is manufactured) that's going poorly and the spiders and other nasties are multiplying out of control (i.e., LOTS of rendering going on, enough that response time is affected) I saw the Task Manager circles move ~2 times a second, up and down, and even zooming in as they bounce farther and farther up and down. A full Quit was required to restore playability. This happened more than once.
In the location when the red Darwinians first start coming out of the ports (sorry I haven't memorized the level names)... On the "first" island (the one with three lines of sight (or shooting) toward the port where the reddies emerge... I kept seeing a red soul in a nook behind the left side of the port, and the Engineers would try and try and fail to pick up the soul, which they couldn't reach. They'd keep trying until they were finally killed by friendly fire unless I manually directed them to an incubator, which is a bother when I'm waging battles on another island.
Engineers will approach a building that needs reprogramming, and about 10-20% of the time, just keep bumping into it rather then reprogramming. This could be my fault, as my habit is to point right at the building and click, rather than telling them to go near the building and figure it out for themselves. This snag is usually fixed by directing the confused Engineer to go away from the building a bit and try again.
Just my opinion, but mobile armour is too vulnerable to things like little ants. Presumably it would be pretty rugged.
Thanks,
-S