2880 replies to this topic

[dr.zeissler]

Laurensvo, on 07 November 2019 - 01:49 PM, said:

You don't need DVDs for Steam. Wait...arn't cracks illegal?

It's not about steam, I own original DVD-Games that I can't play because they require online-activation and the servers are down,
or the licence is activated on an old machine I sold years ago and the publisher does not make any support on those old games.

in short, the games on dvd are USELESS...so in this comparison even steam could be the better choice. got it?

[Frigidman™]

Camper-Hunter, on 07 November 2019 - 03:16 PM, said:

Trouble is, the Epic Store UI is even worse.

Hehe true that! But the difference has been lessened

[Laurensvo]

dr.zeissler, on 07 November 2019 - 03:36 PM, said:

It's not about steam, I own original DVD-Games that I can't play because they require online-activation and the servers are down,
or the licence is activated on an old machine I sold years ago and the publisher does not make any support on those old games.

in short, the games on dvd are USELESS...so in this comparison even steam could be the better choice. got it?

Got it. Have you tried contacting the contacting the developer for a Steam version?

Frigidman™, on 07 November 2019 - 09:19 PM, said:

Hehe true that! But the difference has been lessened

Plus there are not alot of Mac games. Does IMG have something to Steam?

[dr.zeissler]

Yes, but aspyr has not made any info about my ticket.

[Cougar]

In the past, Aspyr has sent me MAS keys. I just sent them my original receipts.

[MrUNIMOG]

Curious what happened to the BioShock 2 Remaster.. That’s the „Save Poor Bob If You Please“ blip, right? I feel like that’s been on the radar since like forever.

What I'd like to see even more than that, If they could do the Borderlands GOTY Remaster... Or at least bring the game to 64bit.

[jeannot]

Matt Diamond, on 05 November 2019 - 08:39 PM, said:

Brad Oliver posted on twitter: "Glad to see this one finally ship. A lot of interesting under-the-hood new tech powering this one!"

Presumably if things had been less "interesting" it might not require Catalina..

Apparently, Feral has developped specific libraries to port DX12 games. I haven't seen reports on performance of the macOS version, but the Linux version of the game is basically as fast as the DX12 version. I suspect the Metal version will not run as well because Metal is quite different from DX12, but Feral again did an awesome job with this port.

[Boland]

jeannot, on 10 November 2019 - 11:06 AM, said:

Apparently, Feral has developped specific libraries to port DX12 games. I haven't seen reports on performance of the macOS version, but the Linux version of the game is basically as fast as the DX12 version. I suspect the Metal version will not run as well because Metal is quite different from DX12, but Feral again did an awesome job with this port.

He said DX12 Like apis, Not straight DX12.... It sounds like they were using calls from further up inside the engine, and calling metal from there. Metal3 has many features that are similar to what you’ll find in dx12, which is why the game requires 10.15.

The Mac version runs on intel gpus... Can’t say the same for the Linux version.

[galad]

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a pretty good porting, if only all the games on macOS were so optimised… I get more fps in Shadow than on some crappy Unity games that display five polygons on screen.

[Frigidman™]

galad, on 12 November 2019 - 02:15 AM, said:

...crappy Unity games...

Well. Yes.

[Frigidman™]

If the Mac version of Shadow of the Tomb Raider is (or is not) working as you like, be sure to toss a public rating you see fit at the game on MGS (shameless plug):

https://www.macgames...nitive-Edition/

[nick68k]

Frigidman™, on 12 November 2019 - 07:42 AM, said:

Well. Yes.

hard to hear you over the noise of the fan, sorry

[galad]

("crappy" as in "poor performant", the games gameplay/ideas are often good)

[Matt Diamond]

galad, on 13 November 2019 - 02:27 AM, said:

("crappy" as in "poor performant", the games gameplay/ideas are often good)

A generalization.  You can browse an (incomplete) list of Unity games on Wikipedia and see plenty of games that ran just fine.

I think some of this reputation comes from the fact that historically speaking, Unity lowered the bar for entry into the game market. A smaller less-experienced team could produce a game with it than before, but they don't necessarily have the expertise or manpower to tune the game really well. So there is a grain of truth to it, but its not a rule.

Whereas the bar for entry is higher when teams use a custom game engine or the Unreal engine. So since those teams tend to be larger and more experienced, you are much less likely to see a poorly tuned game from them. Especially if they are putting out a sequel to a beloved franchise, like Batman say, or Borderlands. :-)

[dr.zeissler]

On my MacMini 2011 i7 Quadcore 2,0->2,9Ghz 16GB Ram 1TB SSD Sonnet 550 eGPU RX470 8 GB:

- Tombraider runs like crap on it. If I choose Medium I get 7-9fps. I can optimize it to disable most features and set only 16AF and High-Textures and get about 12-17fps sometimes 25 fps. CRAP!
  It does not help if choosing "old opengl" in the settings. I have to run the mac_32Bit beta 1.0 because the standard-steam installation does not work on 10.13.6 which is max on that mini.
  I can change from 640x480 to 1920x1080 and I get exact the same fps.

- Rise of the Tombraider runs beautiful on that same machine. I mostly get 60fps locked in Full-HD with High-Details.

Any idea what that is? Perhaps the older Tombraider does not benefit from quadcore? it requires faster dualcores? Is it the mac32bit beta?

[ozzy]

It’s clearly not using the eGPU. I had some issues with OpenGL games not using the eGPU on my setup previously. Can’t remember if I ever solved it (I generally was playing metal games). Have you used the set-egpu script on this site to set the preferences for each application? Also might be worth trying to see if there is a way to disable the internal gpu through some of the scripts and workarounds and build guides for tat machine on this site.

[dr.zeissler]

I am 100% sure that it uses the eGPU. The HD3000 is not capable of Tombraider. To bad the "testpanel" is not showing more information like the later ones do.
"specificationSummery" tells me AMD is found and used. Also "OpenGL-renderer" 470 = true, VRAM more than 5400MB = True.

I have changed the the thermal paste and optimized the cooling so that there will most likely be no throttling through the CPU's, but the framerate ist still very low.

On my iMac 27" late 2012 this game is 60fps, but the iMac has 3,4 Ghz Quadcore and MX680 2GB, this RX470 should be much more powerful, but the CPU is not as fast.
I only want to know, if I can optimize it, or have to except it like it is, but it's really not enjoyable playing it between 9-15fps.

What is this "configure idx" about?

[galad]

You are stuck between a rock (the metal version of tomb raider requires 10.14) and a hard place (older OpenGL games often can't get good performance with a egpu).

[dr.zeissler]

Hm, the later game (rise of the tr) runs with 10.13.6 and metal and the older one does require 10.14 for metal?
I thought using a egpu is a no brainer especially for old games?!?
So am I driven to go for a later Macmini? The 2012 i7 quadcores are EXPENSIVE!

[dr.zeissler]

btw: https://www.macgamer...-of-mac-gaming/

ok, now it's clear why Shadow of the TR is so damn good on my setup https://9to5mac.com/...ctive-egpu-mac/

Hopefully they patch older released games so that they will work on 10.13.x upwards....if they will require 10.14 then I am out