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Mac G4 Psycedelic Display


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Hi There

I posted a partial fix to the problem and would be interested to know if it works for everyone.

I have a TiPB 1GHz with I Gb RAM and a Radeon 9000 built in.

I boot in 9.2.2 and then disable classic RAVE.

I then ditch the CMBB preference file.

I assign a memory of about 50000K and start up CMBB.

I get a psychedelic display.

I then quit and give CMBB a memory allocation of 200000K (about 4x initial) and restart CMBB

I now get partial normal display with patches of psychedelic ground. As I scroll along, the patch moves and stays in the background.

I am assuming that somehow there is a problem in how the card is using the memeory allocation as it calculates the 3D graphics during play and is aliasing. (Very lay assumption as I am no computer techie). The static parts of the screen has always been diplayed normally!

Cheers

Chee-Yan

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Wow, love those screen shots. Looks a little like my Santana black-light velvet posters from 1974.

I run a dual-chip G4 mac (OS9) and sometimes my wife changes the color resolution (from thousands to 256) to play her tetris-type game while CMBB is sitting in the background. Whenever I go back to CMBB after she is finished the screen colors go all, like, Van-Gogh-ish.

Moral: Don't change color resolution while CMBB is running.

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Originally posted by Don't Panic:

Hi There

I posted a partial fix to the problem and would be interested to know if it works for everyone.

I have a TiPB 1GHz with I Gb RAM and a Radeon 9000 built in.

I boot in 9.2.2 and then disable classic RAVE.

I then ditch the CMBB preference file.

I assign a memory of about 50000K and start up CMBB.

I get a psychedelic display.

I then quit and give CMBB a memory allocation of 200000K (about 4x initial) and restart CMBB

I now get partial normal display with patches of psychedelic ground. As I scroll along, the patch moves and stays in the background.

I am assuming that somehow there is a problem in how the card is using the memeory allocation as it calculates the 3D graphics during play and is aliasing. (Very lay assumption as I am no computer techie). The static parts of the screen has always been diplayed normally!

Cheers

Chee-Yan

its a good suggestion

anyone else try it.

This Damn OSX thing is starting to be a REAL pain with CMBB!

:mad:

grr....

-tom w

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Thats how I feel about this stinking situation. Basically, no current desktop mac can run CM, and even the old "new" machines with Radeon 9000 wont run CM.

Unless a fix is in the works, I consider BTS to have abandoned the Mac platform... whether or not apple hoodwinked them.

Supporting just legacy hardware does not mean your game is Mac compatible. If you don't support the current stuff, its not.

I wonder how many people are returning their CM's over this... I would certainly be upset, the game says Mac OS9 compatible, not Mac OS9 compatible "with legacy hardware only".

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BTS can't rewrite ATI's drivers for the Radeon 9000, so get real. The issue is ATI's... the drivers aren't supporting the RAVE calls properly. BTS can't program around every buggy set of drivers that comes out.

What hardware boots OS 9 is NOT under BTS's control. Faulting them for that is completely unrealistic.

Your whining won't magically produce some sort of fix from BTS for the problems that are happening. It was realized that OS X would produce some problems for CMBB... that's why BTS states that they don't support that OS. This was a bit of a gamble since OS X was already being pushed by Apple and RAVE was recognized as being a dead API. But it was felt that the game could be released and most Mac users could play it.

The changes that Apple keeps coming out with CAN'T be accomodated for with a RAVE game. This is why the engine rewrite is the next project and not some sort of CMBO/CMBB combo game.

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Originally posted by yunfat:

Unless a fix is in the works, I consider BTS to have abandoned the Mac platform... whether or not apple hoodwinked them.

The people to complain to are ATI (and since they don't provide much response), Apple.

It isn't BTS's fault that ATI isn't following the standard.

I suspect we have to soldier on until the engine is rewritten for the new drivers.

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Happily, my 3 month old Mirrored Drive Door, dual processor 867 with G4MX video card runs the game just fine.

Without a doubt it would be really great if we could snap our fingers and Apple would make Rave work in OSX and that BFC would do what it needed to do to run under OpenGL. Sadly that won't happen. Given that most windows laptops have never satisfactorily run CM we have been lucky with our Apples. I am certain that BFC would truly love to make it come true and are indeed working on it with the next engine. Given the size of the staff we will just have to wait.

ATI is trying to give you a excellent business machine that runs modern applications for the modern OS, not an older game that uses what is now a very dated engine.

Should Apple, Nvidia and ATI work harder to ensure better compatibility with older software, yeah they should. This is not the only product I have trouble with under X and Classic mode, I have hundreds of pieces of childrens software that is of very limited use on a machine that only gets booted into 9.2.2 when I want to run CM. Ultimately this was bound to happen, backward compatibility cannot feasably go on forever, anyone got a 8track? how about a cassette? Pretty soon a music CD will be a dinosaur as well, such is life.

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Hi All

I spoke to an Apple Software Enginner today who happened to be giving a presentation at our local Apple User Group. I described the situation and his suggestion was that because of the new cards and hardware calls for graphics, CM or OS 9.2.2 was probably not recognising it or using the wrong calls. The fix will need some sort of extension either from Apple or ATI. His other suggestion is doing a search on the net for such an extension.

Anyone want to give it a go? Try OS 9 and ATI 9000 etc...

In the meantime, I am keeping my G3 Powerbook to play CM and using my new Ti PB for everything else.

Cheers

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What is the fastest Apple laptop you can play CMBB/CMBO on with the BAD psychadelic graphics?

Is the 500mHz TiBook ok?

how about the iBooks (low end video cards)?

:confused:

My question is what is the optimal Mac Laptop for CMBB? (being that the latest TiBooks that will still boot into OS9 are so FUBAR'd! :mad:

has anyone thought about this?

any suggestions

I am on a 400 mHz G3 (black laptop) now and the graphics are GREAT (LCD) but the game is slow. I have tested CMBB on a 867 mHz TiBook and its SCREAMING faster but it all looks like those Black Light graphics I posted on the first page of this thread.

I have not been able to make ANYTHING work on the 867 TiBook I have been "practicing" on. None of the suggestions in this thread help the graphics situation on the 867 TiBook. It boots into OS9 NO problem and the game is Stable and Fast (VERY fast Crunch times, double what I am used to) BUT the graphics look like Black Light MUSH :(

Who is playing CMBB on a TiBook that works?

Thanks

-tom w

[ February 02, 2003, 10:54 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

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Who is playing CMBB on a TiBook that works?

I don't have any trouble on an 800 MHz / 1 GB RAM / 60 GB disk TiBook. It uses the 32MB Radeon Mobility 7000 graphics card (AGP). Haven't had any display problems running 9.2.2.

It will also run CMBO in Classic, but only with software rendering when Classic is booted with Classic RAVE disabled. CMBB will not run in Classic (claims to require a minimum of 800x600 -- can this be fixed in a patch?). Trying CMBB without disabling Classic RAVE gets as far as the "Loading 3D Graphics..." screen, but the letters are replaced by rectangles, and it then hangs. I forget what CMBO does, but it doesn't work.

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Originally posted by tar:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Who is playing CMBB on a TiBook that works?

I don't have any trouble on an 800 MHz / 1 GB RAM / 60 GB disk TiBook. It uses the 32MB Radeon Mobility 7000 graphics card (AGP). Haven't had any display problems running 9.2.2.

It will also run CMBO in Classic, but only with software rendering when Classic is booted with Classic RAVE disabled. CMBB will not run in Classic (claims to require a minimum of 800x600 -- can this be fixed in a patch?). Trying CMBB without disabling Classic RAVE gets as far as the "Loading 3D Graphics..." screen, but the letters are replaced by rectangles, and it then hangs. I forget what CMBO does, but it doesn't work. </font>

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Originally posted by gibsonm:

Relief on the way?

Normally I don't put much credence on these things, but you never know rumoured 10.2.4 features:

"Insiders said that 10.2.4 will include updates to OpenGL, QuickDraw, and Bluetooth, as well as a variety of video bug fixes, some of which will resolve issues with Keynote."

And maybe CMBB too?

QuickDraw is the legacy windowing & 2D graphics API for Carbon apps & pre OS X stuff - Any update to that will not have much, if any effect on CM, any update to QuickDraw will likely just improve the redraw of Classic mode apps. Hopefully QuickDraw 3D (aka RAVE) will get an update also.

Gyrene

[ February 05, 2003, 04:11 AM: Message edited by: Gyrene ]

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well 10.2.4 is out and the answer is ......

No Change.

I haven't tried "Don't Panic's" partial solution above and this was with CMBB 1.01 but still the same, LSD inspired, display.

I'll try with 1.02 (doubt if it will make any difference) and "Don't Panic's" solution over the weekend, but if any one wants to try before me - be my guest.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

After an evening of trying various combinations of old ATI drivers and different screen resolutions and different ram settings I have made no ground.

I know the Radeon 8500 displays CM perfectly, but unfortunately those drivers will not work for the 9000.

Infact, if anyone is contemplating getting a 9000 Pro for a mac, I advise against it. So far the performance across most games has been SUCKFUL. :(

EDIT - The 9000 Pro drivers for OS 9 are shyte. But it seems the drivers for OSX are good, particulary the ones included in the 10.2.4 upgrade. That REALLY sucks, because I doubt the OS 9 drivers will ever be updated. And I doubt CM or CMBB will ever be OSX capable.

[ March 17, 2003, 09:37 PM: Message edited by: tecumseh ]

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Considering that the powers that be have stated that they will not update CMBO or CMBB to OpenGL drivers anytime soon, that probably means that they have orphaned the Mac side.

Too bad.

If that's the way they want to do it, fine. I will go back to playing minatures.

The way to lose customers is to piss them off. Basic Business Rules 101.

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