Darwinia and Tiger

Problems with the Mac version of Darwinia

Moderators: jelco, bert_the_turtle, Chris, andy, John

User avatar
xander
level5
level5
Posts: 16869
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:41 pm
Location: Highland, CA, USA
Contact:

Darwinia and Tiger

Postby xander » Wed May 04, 2005 4:46 am

As Tiger has been out for a few days now, and I finally have a copy, I thought that it might be appropriate to start a new thread that deals with problems or improvements caused by Tiger.

I have been playing around a little with Darwinia on my brand spanking new install of OS 10.4 . Overall, it would appear that performance has improved by a hefty margin. Biosphere and Temple are now more or less playable (though I am still lucky to get better than 10 frames per second, even with everything turned down as far as it can go). To be a little more specific:

In both levels, I start at about 10-15 FPS, using the [censored] profile (you know, the one that the Doc gives you at the end of the game), with all of the graphics settings to maximum. As the levels progress, and more DGs and souls come into existence, things begin to bog down. By the end of Biosphere, I was getting maybe 3-5 FPS, with everything turned down. While this is -- mathematically speaking -- a 100% improvement over performance in 10.3 (where I was lucky to get 1 or 2 FPS), it is still rather choppy. It is possible to finish the level, but grenades sometimes explode in mid-air long before they reach their targets, gestures become difficult to make, and radar dishes skill out of control. Performance is very similar in Temple, though it takes a bit longer to create enough entities to bog things down quite so much.

As the problems seem to be with rendering massive numbers of souls and/or DGs and/or other creatures, it gives me hope that the new patch will boost performance even more.

Again, if you are having any problems getting Darwinia to play nice with 10.4, or have any comments on improved performance, or whatever, this may be a good place to discuss it.

xander

EDIT: Forgot to add this link -- a similar topic on the ASW boards.
Ozymandias IV
level4
level4
Posts: 907
Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2003 10:15 pm
Location: New York City
Contact:

Postby Ozymandias IV » Sat May 14, 2005 2:36 pm

I definitely got improved performance. I could look around much quicker, and set the graphics and screen options higher without making the game unplayable. Of course, before that, I had been running 10.2, so it was probably a bigger jump.
bigbear
level0
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 4:37 am
Location: Florida, USA

Postby bigbear » Sun May 22, 2005 11:34 pm

Any word on when the patch will be out? I ordered my copy for the PC, hopefully that will ship soon. <twitch twitch>
User avatar
xander
level5
level5
Posts: 16869
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:41 pm
Location: Highland, CA, USA
Contact:

Postby xander » Mon May 23, 2005 12:22 am

The last I heard, it will be soon, but IV encountered some difficulties and are working on them. I hope that the beta testers will probably have a beta patch before the end of May, putting a release of the patch in early June. However, this is all based on hearsay, and may bear no relation to reality.

The best answer that anyone but John, Chris, moki, or maybe andcarne can give: soon. As to the others, they are not likely to answer your question with specifics.

xander
Andcarne
level4
level4
Posts: 675
Joined: Mon May 26, 2003 1:44 am

Postby Andcarne » Wed May 25, 2005 12:13 am

I could well say something, but I shouldn't, so I won't. Hopefully it will be soon though.

Return to “Mac Issues”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests