busboy Posted October 19, 2000 Share Posted October 19, 2000 Hello all, Last night I tried a little CM on a friend's PC and the graphics thouroughly trounced my Mac. I was wondering if there was anything I could do to improve my current "lower" graphic quality. Really, my main comment is that if you get up close to a building or a tank, the textures look like "chipped vomit on toast." There is a great deal of pixelation, and the colors seem smeared around. However, on my friend's system you could see everything with perfect clairity. A good example of this is, say, the stuart. On my computer the suspension system looks like "blah" and the roundell star looks like a white blur. On my friend's PC everything was perfectly clear. Now, I have DLed some high resolution vehicle textures, and they seem to help BIG TIME. However, the graphics "out of the box" on my fiend's system were still better. I'm just wondering what the difference is. Resolution is an issue, I know. My monitor, a NEC MultiSync 5FGe, can only support one really strange resolution (832x624) However, I don't think this is a problem as CM simply would use one of its three resolution options, in my case 800 x 600. This is the same as my friends. Anyone have any ideas what is causing my pixelation problems, and how I can fix it? ------------------ busboy CO, 99th Dragons A Warbirds Squadron 'We will heat you up' "It is well that war is so terrible, else we would grow too fond of it." -Robert E. Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 19, 2000 Share Posted October 19, 2000 The "sharpness" of the graphics you are looking at is a function of the amount of VRAM your video card has and other features of the video chip and drivers. I believe BTS mentioned that some of the data for the textures is scaled down depending on the amount of VRAM available. This may be especially true on a number of Macs. In order to improve your graphics you're probably going to have to invest in some new hardware. Depending on which Mac you have you may be able to purchase a video card with 16Mb or more of VRAM. ATI and 3dfx are the primary choices out there for the Mac (ATI's Orion and 3dfx's Voodoo 4 & 5 series). If you have an iMac, then you may not have a whole lot of opportunity to upgrade your graphics. Some of the iMac models support additional VRAM modules (going from 2 to 6Mb as the max, IIRC). There are also some Voodoo2 cards out there for some of the iMacs, but I wouldn't really recommend them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chupacabra Posted October 19, 2000 Share Posted October 19, 2000 I'd suggest checking what video cards both you and your friend use. The difference between one video card and another will make a big difference in the way CM looks. There is a much greater choice of video cards for PCs than for Macs, currently, AFAIK. I believe Macs ship with ATI Rage Pro cards, which aren't exactly super. The Voodoo line of cards is available for the Mac, but the support is pretty laughable, the last time I heard. ------------------ Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 19, 2000 Share Posted October 19, 2000 Actually there is one advantage to buying a 3dfx Voodoo card for your Mac over an ATI. Baboon2 is a member of this board and he is the RAVE developer over at 3dfx for the Voodoo line. CM's functionality on the Voodoos is very important to him. So as long as CM remains a RAVE-based game on the Mac you have some real good driver support. ATI on the other hand is nearly universal in Macs and so it enjoys a bit more support from Apple than anything. A number of their cards could work with the generic drivers that Apple supplies with the OS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busboy Posted October 20, 2000 Author Share Posted October 20, 2000 thanx for the answers all, I was kina plannin' on upgrading my Mac a bit. I think I'm gonna invest in some more RAM and one of those new Voodoo 5 3D cards, but they've got a hefty price tag right now. ($350) Well, I was hopin that It wasn't that but oh well. I suppose I'm overdue anyway. I've currently got an ATI 128 in a G3 300mhz tower. I just wish there was some place locally that sold this kind of stuff. Well, tally hoe! I'll just drool at eye candy on my bud's PC while I kick butt on my Mac... Time to start some PBEMs... ------------------ busboy CO, 99th Dragons A Warbirds Squadron 'We will heat you up' "It is well that war is so terrible, else we would grow too fond of it." -Robert E. Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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