27 replies to this topic

[Janichsan]

Get it here.

[alkar]

Another crappy port by Feral. Although FPS are good, you can't enable Depth of Field (at least on the 8800 GT) so no blur effect at all

Why is that so ? I can on the WIndows demo.

Hopefully the final version isn't as buggy.

Oh and for some reason i'm stuck in 1280x768 after enabling special effects and i cannot choose 1280x1024 (my max rez on that monitor) anymore, great !

Thanks for putting out this demo, i'm glad i didnt waste my money on this buggy port.

PS : yeah you are gonna think i'm a Feral hater, I don't care what you think, because what i'm stating are FACTS. Just try it and you'll see how buggy the port is (versus the original Windows version), feels like a Cider port (i like binkw32.dll in the data folder) although the exe has been recompiled mach-o.

EDIT : if i try to edit ~/Library/Preferences/Lucasarts/LEGOIndianaJonesDemo/Preferences Data and to force my rez to 1280x1024, it seems to work but graphics are blurry (as if it was in 1024x768 or smthg like that) so not really 1280x1024. Although 1280x1024 works fine as long as i dont enable the special effects (aka PS2 version of the game).

Janichsan, on December 18th 2008, 01:10 PM, said:

Get it here.

[Eric5h5]

alkar, on December 18th 2008, 06:46 PM, said:

Another crappy port by Feral.

I don't know about Lego Indy, but nearly all the Feral games I have are quite excellently done, so I don't know what you mean by "another".

--Eric

[alkar]

As long as they keep porting their games with their built in Cider (recompiling the EXE to macho isnt enough), performances will be one step under Windows. Even on old game like Fable lags during some scenes.

BTW, i've just finished the demos and i take out what i ve told about the FPS. The game isnt constantly smooth, sometimes it drops at 20 -30fps for no reason, specially when Indy takes the golden statue (I guess it lags because the game has to renders floating particles that their homemade Cider doesn't like).

Well, it was a total disappointment, because I was looking forward to this port and we get some GTA 4 style port.

Eric5h5, on December 18th 2008, 06:08 PM, said:

I don't know about Lego Indy, but nearly all the Feral games I have are quite excellently done, so I don't know what you mean by "another".

--Eric

[Mister Mumbles]

Seems to be running just fine on my Macbook. In fact it runs better than the LEGO Star Wars II demo, which has lower requirements. Hmmm. I'm still debating whether to pick up either one (or both) titles. They do seem to be quite fun.

[Janichsan]

alkar, on December 19th 2008, 12:46 AM, said:

... i cannot choose 1280x1024 ...

Hmm... could that be because the aspect ratio of 5:4 is so unusual that barely any game really supports that?

[edddeduck]

alkar, on December 18th 2008, 04:46 PM, said:

Another crappy port by Feral. Although FPS are good, you can't enable Depth of Field (at least on the 8800 GT) so no blur effect at all
Why is that so ? I can on the WIndows demo.

Depth of field on your card cannot be activated due to a bug in Apple's OpenGL / Drivers which drives the performance down / glitches on this card due to the methods used in the original game. On other cards (depending on VRAM and type) it is enabled. When this is fixed or the performance is improved we will patch the game to enable it.

alkar, on December 18th 2008, 04:46 PM, said:

Hopefully the final version isn't as buggy.
Oh and for some reason i'm stuck in 1280x768 after enabling special effects and i cannot choose 1280x1024 (my max rez on that monitor) anymore, great !

This is because you are running in enhanced mode. This has extra options that put very heavy load on the GL renderer so we had to limit the resolutions so you would not get any major performance issues. We thought it was better to limit your settings than allow you to play with settings that might stop you from playing the game. Again the limits are based on what is possible to run while giving everyone a good level of playability.

I stand by the idea it is better to only offer options and resolutions that will work on your machine instead of offering all of the options even if they don't work or will run very very slowly due to hardware or software limitations.

alkar, on December 18th 2008, 04:46 PM, said:

Thanks for putting out this demo, i'm glad i didnt waste my money on this buggy port.

So far you mentioned no bugs just the fact that you had some features disabled or not available on your system... I don't mind if you don't like the game but I think using the word buggy is a little unfair.

alkar, on December 18th 2008, 04:46 PM, said:

PS : yeah you are gonna think i'm a Feral hater, I don't care what you think, because what i'm stating are FACTS. Just try it and you'll see how buggy the port is (versus the original Windows version), feels like a Cider port (i like binkw32.dll in the data folder) although the exe has been recompiled mach-o.

No I don't think you are are a Feral hater however I do think you are a little misinformed and you are maybe making conclusions without the advantage of having a technical background of game programming and the ins and outs of specific game code, graphics cards and OS versions. Most of your posts on IMG do contain nothing but complaints about our games but the internet allows everyone the freedom to post what they want and this is a gaming forum after all. However I do think it is a little harsh saying a port is buggy when in fact what you mean is some features are disabled when using your specific system.

The Bink.dll (as you might know) is used to play Bink files this is not used on the Mac and was an oversight (i.e. it should have been deleted) when we made the demo as the data folder is very similar to the PC one and we just missed the Bink dll when deleting the PC only files.

Finally I don't know any Cider port with built in software update, iChat and iTunes interaction, automated support systems, support for Apple+Tab (including icon screenshot in the dock), full pad support and a special extra mode only on the Mac to allow the game to run on GMA 950 cards. Granted the GMA 950 is not officially supported but we did modify the game engine and tweak the shaders just so people on older MacBooks and all minis can play the game. Granted some of the high end resolutions are not available with enhanced graphics turned on due to limitations of different hardware but we always strive to make the most polished and Mac friendly games we can.

alkar, on December 18th 2008, 04:46 PM, said:

EDIT : if i try to edit ~/Library/Preferences/Lucasarts/LEGOIndianaJonesDemo/Preferences Data and to force my rez to 1280x1024, it seems to work but graphics are blurry (as if it was in 1024x768 or smthg like that) so not really 1280x1024.

As I mentioned before the higher resolutions came across performance and other issues due to the differences in the features available in Mac and PC hardware/software. The game has checks for the graphics settings and card resolutions and if you try and force the game to do something it knows will not work it will try to give you a version that will work.

If you try and force the game to do something it knows is wrong (like you did) instead of crashing it tries to get as close to what you want, it could have just crashed. We don't stop all hacks to the preferences but game will try and over-ride any options that will just plain not work instead of having a user with a crash dump or a black screen.

alkar, on December 18th 2008, 04:46 PM, said:

Although 1280x1024 works fine as long as i dont enable the special effects (aka PS2 version of the game).

With the enhanced effects (which are fairly subtle) disabled you can have all the other options on (so you are mostly missing depth of field) this means you have shadows, bloom, and high res textures on which are not items the PS2 render has. All these on with 4X FSAA can give you a HD output on upto a 30" Apple display which I am sure even you will agree is a little better than a PS2!

alkar, on December 18th 2008, 05:17 PM, said:

As long as they keep porting their games with their built in Cider (recompiling the EXE to macho isnt enough), performances will be one step under Windows. Even on old game like Fable lags during some scenes.

Firstly, yes I admit some areas of Fable are not perfect on certain cards, on others you get great performance. In fact we are working on a patch for Fable to improve the stability and maybe some performance issues we can improve due to the updated drivers since the first release, but this is a thread on LEGO indy so I will leave Fable at that.
Cider uses a windows compiled executable with a collection of all the dll files required to run the game, you could think of it as a very small version of windows that has just enough to get the window app running on a Mac.

Our ports of games have no dll files required and only use 100% Mac native calls for everything in the game. The game engine is the same as the PC, PS3, XBox 360 or Wii version (nearly all games use the same engine on all platforms just with different settings depending on what the system can support). We obviously don't rewrite the game engines!! but this as I mentioned is the same for all versions of the game, you just modify the parts around the engine so the game can run on your platform. Some companies port the game to PC or PS3 (usually in house) we port the game to the Mac.

Doing things like supporting PPC in Pirates is something that is impossible for Cider style games. The main difference is Direct X is designed for gaming on one of the biggest console platforms, whereas OpenGL is not designed for gaming on any console platform in the same way. This is the main difference between Mac and PC and also the main area where most of the work is required to get the performance the same on the Mac.

alkar, on December 18th 2008, 05:17 PM, said:

BTW, i've just finished the demos and i take out what i ve told about the FPS. The game isnt constantly smooth, sometimes it drops at 20 -30fps for no reason, specially when Indy takes the golden statue (I guess it lags because the game has to renders floating particles that their homemade Cider doesn't like).
Well, it was a total disappointment, because I was looking forward to this port and we get some GTA 4 style port.

Again the slowdown will be down to the drivers and OpenGL features, it has nothing to do with Cider or any emulation like system. I am sure if the game was written from scratch just for the Mac (and no other platforms) you could get some more speed as anything is possible with unlimited funds but as original development costs many millions of dollars it is not something that is currently possible for the Mac version.

So to conclude you are unhappy that you don't have all the same options on your Mac as in Windows and have decided to say the game is buggy as on your Mac the features are not identical. I hope this post will help other readers of this thread to understand your claims in more detail and put them into context. For you I hope you can at least agree we do strive to make the best Mac games possible. Even if they don't meet the very high levels you demand, and miss on some points I hope you will be more understanding of the challenges we face and be a little less aggressive and scathing of our work. Everyone at Feral works flat out to make the best games that are possible and it is never nice to be told all that you don't care and just release buggy titles without a second thought.

To everyone who does like the demo and our other games - great, your positive comments are really appreciated by the team especially when we are doing overtime for a Xmas release like Indy I hope to have some more cool announcements of some great titles at Macworld along with some more demos in the new year!

Pegasus, on December 18th 2008, 07:22 PM, said:

Seems to be running just fine on my Macbook. In fact it runs better than the LEGO Star Wars II demo, which has lower requirements. Hmmm. I'm still debating whether to pick up either one (or both) titles. They do seem to be quite fun.

We spent a large amount of time making sure all MacBooks and minis could play LEGO Indy and I am glad you enjoyed the demo. I think a few stores in the US and online (including our own store) have bundles deals for the two combined.

If I don't post again Merry Christmas everyone!
Edwin

[alkar]

First  of all eddeduck, I have to agree your answer made me feel a little bad and I'm glad you took your time to finally answer me.

And, you are admitting too this port is missing features from the Windows version, but basically you are stating that all this because Apple has a broken OpenGL. I know Blizzard is working with Apple to make them fix/add new features till Diablo 3 / Starcraft 2 are released because the Direct3D version have effects OSX cannot handle (same for WoW shadows as far as I know).

I call these bugs, you call these "features removed", well you can understand me i'm not happy to have such a powerful GPU without being able to enjoy the game in its full glory.

Can't you at Feral put some pressure over Apple to finally improve OpenGL ? I can finally understand all these limits you have put to the Mac port are because of crappy drivers/OpenGL from Apple and I can understand that. In fact, it makes sense that the main problem is Apple and not Feral, because all mac ports (aspyr etc) have in common crappy fps compared to their Windows counterpart. Since DoF is buggy with OSX, I guess it's a long way till you port a game like Tomb Raider Underworld which requires this and other special effects.

Well anyway, thanks for all these clarifications, I understand you feel bad because of all my critics, but you can understand me I really hate to play a dumbed down version of a game months after the PC version (yes, even for 2 effects) because -in this case- Apple didn't do their job. Specially when I saw the Lego Indiana Jones annoucement back then on your site : I was expecting a game with as much features as the PC version and I really wasn't expecting all these OpenGL problems at all.

BTW, most of my posts are complains against Feral because you are actually one of the only company porting more than 1 mac game a year, that's all (yes, that was actually a compliment !) I'm sure if Aspyr put out more than 1 game every decade, it'll be the same (i'm not happy on how CoD 4 port turns out, although Depth of Field works with this game, i.e. when zooming, it blurs everything around the gun).

[teflon]

TR:A used Depth of Field. As edwin said, it depends on how the game engine tries to implement the effect, and for many effects theres different ways of getting it done.
UT2004 didnt have specific pixel shaders for quite some time because Ryan Gordon waited for Apple to add the ability to get it done in a particular way. Similar story there.

As for getting Apple to fix stuff, Blizzard has a lot more influence because a big name title like SC2 or D3 has to look favourable on their platform, instead of getting a bunch of bad press for running badly. Feral and Aspyr often have to pester for months on end to get the features they need, usually ending in delays because they have to get an extra few rounds of optimisations in before release.

Personally, I think the game looks fantastic at max resolution with FSAA and bloom etc. etc. turned on. I really dont think the depth of field effect missing detracts anything from the game. Though, I do look forward to it being fixed by apple and in turn Feral.

[alkar]

Seems Feral is porting Tomb Raider Underworld : http://www.tombraide...mp;postcount=26

Early annoucement I guess from Eidos

Please Feral, don't mess this one up, i've really high expectations on this one !

In any way, thanks for working on this game, you really get things moving with new games it seems.

[mattw]

alkar, on December 19th 2008, 03:08 PM, said:

Seems Feral is porting Tomb Raider Underworld : http://www.tombraide...mp;postcount=26

Early annoucement I guess from Eidos

Please Feral, don't mess this one up, i've really high expectations on this one !

In any way, thanks for working on this game, you really get things moving with new games it seems.

I got to try the demo today on my Mum's iMac and it ran great. I have already purchased the full game but don't have an Intel Mac yet to play it. I have a nice collection now for when I upgrade what with TR Anniversary, TOCA3, Midway, COD4

I know in an ideal world every good game would get a Mac port with every feature in the window version and would have identical performance but unfortunately it isn't that simple. Feral have been doing a terrific job and I for one am really glad they are working so hard to give Mac OS X some quality titles. Times are obviously tough for Mac game companies with Boot camp, the rise of consoles, integrated graphics and Open GL bugs to fight.

I for one don't really want to be forced into running and maintaining Windows - rebooting all the time or gaming with a joy pad and tying up the TV by going with a console so I will continue to buy quality Mac titles.

[teflon]

Also, when its possible, Feral will add more features/novelties to a game.
Back in the day, when XIII was released, it had all the multiplayer options from all the consoles and the PC in one, whilst the consoles each had only some. Pirates! came with a bunch of neat folder icons and backgrounds etc. etc.

so its quite obvious that being forced to leave out a fairly major feature of the game engine because Apple have got the odd glitch in their drivers, or havent got round to adding support for a particular feature yet, is going to be pretty frustrating for Feral (and obviously any other porting house).

[Brad Oliver]

alkar, on December 19th 2008, 05:19 AM, said:

BTW, most of my posts are complains against Feral because you are actually one of the only company porting more than 1 mac game a year, that's all (yes, that was actually a compliment !) I'm sure if Aspyr put out more than 1 game every decade, it'll be the same (i'm not happy on how CoD 4 port turns out, although Depth of Field works with this game, i.e. when zooming, it blurs everything around the gun).

I'm sitting right here!

Seriously, 2008 lineup for Aspyr: some Guitar Hero games, CoD4, Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, futureU, Neverwinter Nights 2. I'll grant it's not a dozen titles, but that's not a shabby lineup, is it?

With that said, if you have a complaint about CoD4, start a thread in the shooter sub-forum and we'll take it from there.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue to listen to Edwin preach it (can I get an AMEN!) about the benefits of "real" Mac ports vs. Cider.

[Janichsan]

Artist Formerly Known As Brad Ol, on December 23rd 2008, 07:31 AM, said:

Seriously, 2008 lineup for Aspyr: some Guitar Hero games, CoD4, Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, futureU, Neverwinter Nights 2. I'll grant it's not a dozen titles, but that's not a shabby lineup, is it?

Well, I don't want to sound too naggy, but considering that two of those were originally slated for last year and only made it into 2008 due to tremendous delays (ETQW and NWN2) and one of those has a rather limited appeal to the broader masses (futureU) that's really not that much.

Quote

In the meantime, I'm going to continue to listen to Edwin preach it (can I get an AMEN!) about the benefits of "real" Mac ports vs. Cider.

A-MEN!

[Brad Oliver]

Janichsan, on December 23rd 2008, 01:26 AM, said:

Well, I don't want to sound too naggy, but considering that two of those were originally slated for last year and only made it into 2008 due to tremendous delays (ETQW and NWN2) and one of those has a rather limited appeal to the broader masses (futureU) that's really not that much.

I'm going to ask tBC to change your handle to Nagichsan.

[Janichsan]

Artist Formerly Known As Brad Ol, on December 23rd 2008, 04:17 PM, said:

I'm going to ask tBC to change your handle to Nagichsan.

I might have to smite you with all my doctoral might.

[oddysseey]

Feral,

I just wanted to let you know that you've done a wonderful job porting LEGO Indiana Jones to the Mac - it sure rocks my world.
Also, the original developers (lucasarts, I think) did great work capturing the Indy style, making it really fun to play. The cut scenes just crack me up every time.

Wonderful, wonderful job! Greatly done.

Regards,
Matthias

[edddeduck]

oddysseey, on December 24th 2008, 08:25 AM, said:

I just wanted to let you know that you've done a wonderful job porting LEGO Indiana Jones to the Mac - it sure rocks my world.
Also, the original developers (lucasarts, I think) did great work capturing the Indy style, making it really fun to play. The cut scenes just crack me up every time.

Wonderful, wonderful job! Greatly done.

Regards,
Matthias

Thanks for the comment, glad to see you really enjoyed the game.

Edwin

P.S. The original developers are called TTGames, they made the LEGO Starwars series as well as the LEGO Indy & Batman games.

[Eric5h5]

It was better when they were Travelers Tales...how come companies do that?  Electronic Arts -> EA Games, Travelers Tales -> TT Games...boring....  At least TT still makes good games though.  

--Eric

[Frigidman]

Janichsan, on December 19th 2008, 03:20 AM, said:

Quote

i cannot choose 1280x1024

Hmm... could that be because the aspect ratio of 5:4 is so unusual that barely any game really supports that?

Not sure where you are getting that from. Before I got a widescreen monitor, 1280x1024 was standard that all my pc games ran under, it was even my desktop res.  Its one of the most widely offered res to choose in games (apart from 1024x768). It was offered more so than the 1152x870. I cant recall the last time I saw 1280 x 960 offered in a game that wasn't also widescreen compatible. Go figure.