any Mac user running with an NVIDIA 32 meg card? I need help...

[busboy]

Hello all, its been a long while since I've posted, let alone played CM. The reason I've been away is because ever since I got my new Mac I have had some graphics glitches, and I was hoping that maybe someone knows the solution to my problem.

I've got a Mac G4 433 mhz, 256 megs RAM and an NVIDIA 32 meg graphics card.

In CM, graphics in the game have some bad problems because of my graphics card. While it works well, I suffer from the following VERY distracting problems:

-sky and horizon are replaced by black

-text in both boxes (such as the hotkey list) and in the game (such as landmarks) are horribly distorted.

-unit info text is warped and/or vanished to the point of uselessness.

The only way I have found to play CM without these problems is to disable my graphics card and run with a very crappy software rendering that doesn't allow transparencies and pixelates everything to HECK.

I've been all over the NVIDIA site and I don't see any new drivers. Is there any way I can fix my problem? If anyone needs pictures I will gladly take them and send them to someone who could host them for me.

Thanks in advance for your help...

[David Aitken]

As Apple has only recently adopted Nvidia cards as the Mac standard, I suspect that the drivers are not quite up to scratch, and I have heard speculation to this effect. You may find more information on these websites:

http://www.macfixit.com/

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/

[busboy]

Hmm, I've been told that, but I appreciate hearing it again. I'm checking out those websites you were kind enough to give me as I write this.

I have oddities in other games as well. In the "Warbirds III beta" that iEN is testing is suffer from a green tinted screen and text doesn't show up. In a little violent viking game called "Rune," my card doesn't show transpariencies correctly, instead it looks like a yellowish tinting.

Is it possible that the software doesn't know how to properly "use" the cards, or is it purely a card problem that can be fixed when-and-if the appropriate drivers come out?

[David Aitken]

It is up to the card manufacturers to provide compatibility with the protocol employed by your software. Combat Mission uses Quickdraw 3D RAVE, which was the Mac OS standard until a year or two ago when they suddenly switched to OpenGL and killed off RAVE (their own technology). 3Dfx's Glide was the 'other' technology alongside RAVE, but of course 3Dfx has bought it as well, leaving OpenGL. OpenGL is good, because it's Open, unlike for example the PC standard DirectX, which belongs to Microsoft. There are other technologies out there but none come to mind, and certainly none really matter on the Mac.

So anyway, Mac games should now all use OpenGL. Either a card supports OpenGL or it doesn't, that's nothing to do with the software you're using. Indeed you can have such trouble due to dodgy software, but a proper company is unlikely to release software exhibiting the problems you describe, so it is usually down to your graphics card. By the same token, there is not usually anything fundamentally wrong with graphics cards, so it comes down to the drivers. As Nvidia is new to the Mac, their drivers obviously need a bit of work.

[busboy]

Thanks for your words sir. The thing thats been frustrating me is that there have been no driver updates that I can find for the Mac. I mentioned that "green screen" problem in WBs above, lots of folks are having that problem and iEN says "they are working with mac to fix the problem."

I just hope that when the fix for that comes out, CM mysteriously works perfectly too...

[Schrullenhaft]

I'm not familiar with the drivers NVidia has provided to Apple for QuickDraw & OpenGL on the Mac. On the PC side however, several people have had problems with the FSAA settings, often needing to disable them for text to appear properly. If there is such a setting for the Mac GeForce, I'd suggest disabling FSAA (or whatever it may be called for Antialiasing).

As for driver updates, you'll most likely have to go to Apple for them. ATI has been the primary video chip supplier for Apple for quite a while now and the drivers that they usually post on their website (ATI's) are usually older than what you get from Apple's Updater or OS patches. So unless Apple is going to give a bit more free-reign to the driver development teams of the various video hardware companies (namely the OEMs that provide hardware directly to Apple), expect to see applicable video driver updates only from Apple.

[David Aitken]

Good idea, the actual settings of the card would be something to look at.

The driver situation is nothing to do with Apple. It is the reason Apple ditched ATI – because they were so poor at keeping their drivers up to date. We should expect regular driver updates from Nvidia, or through Apple, but certainly not older updates from Nvidia, as was the case with ATI.

[Schrullenhaft]

Although ATI is definitely slow & incomplete with getting updates out, I believe that Apple desired QA control over their release (the driver updates). So the drivers only came from Apple and not directly from ATI. Why ATI even bothered to post older drivers on their site - I don't know. All the drivers were written by ATI, while Apple ran them through their QA process before release.

You will not find any Mac drivers on NVidia's website, hence I assume that Apple is still insisting on the QA/distribution agreement with NVidia that they had with ATI. That is only a guess however. So while the updates from NVidia may be a bit more frequent, expect Apple to slow down the releases quite a bit (especially compared to the number of PC Beta releases that come out).

I assume that Apple will continue to use ATI's products, but start using NVidia more often, especially for performance setups (if the relationship works out). A little competition between suppliers can only (generally speaking) be a good thing for Apple.

[David Aitken]

The issue of competition was doubtlessly a serious factor in Apple's reckoning. They are still offering the ATI Radeon as a built-to-order option. They are still using the RAGE 128 (outdated though it may be) in low end systems, and the RAGE Mobility in portables. Nvidia cards are the default for G4 systems, but ATI is certainly still there. Previously they had a complete monopoly on Apple systems, so this was a timely kick up the backside. And, of course, there are rumours that Steve Jobs simply got pissed off at ATI, especially when they pre-empted his announcement that Apple would have a new line of machines with the Radeon. He never made the announcement, whether or not he was going to, and ATI was promptly sidelined in favour of Nvidia.

[busboy]

I really appreciate the words of wisdom posted here.

I've been over the Apple site plenty of times and I don't see ANY drivers unfortunately. Maybe I just don't know where to look.

As for the setting suggestion, unfortunately there are no graphics card settings on the computer itself, however some games do have an option regarding antialiasing or whatever its correctly called CM however has no graphic options screen.

Again, thanks.