[Cougar]

So the first thing I did after installing Snow Leopard today was try some old games. AC starts up fine, then the Firaxis logo's colors get inverted, as does everything else.

What's interesting is that it changes back to normal for a split second when I quit. I'm guessing it's a problem with the 256 colors.

If you run the game in a window, the problem is fixed. However, animations do not play. The game does seem to be playable, however.

Save me, Brad Oliver! Do not let my AC conquerings be limited to my powerbook, which is slow and hath but a short live remaining on this earth!

(Also interesting was that apparently the new cocoa finder didn't know what to do with the old OS 9 AC icon and replaced it with a generic app icon. Don't think it's specifically related to AC though because it happened with a few of my other apps with proper OS X icons.)

[teflon]

can't you pre-invert all the colours in Universal Access? That might have the desired effect..

[Cougar]

Nope. The universal access inverted look and AC's invertedness is not quite the same. It's inverted, and messed up. Nice idea, though.

[dojoboy]

Hey Brad, while you're saving SMAC for the Mac, can you do something about the porn on the board? I don't like mixing gaming and porn.

[teflon]

Cougar, on August 29th 2009, 02:08 PM, said:

Nope. The universal access inverted look and AC's invertedness is not quite the same. It's inverted, and messed up. Nice idea, though.

Yeah, it would have been a pretty sweet work around if it had worked...
shame

Maybe Brad can half fix it so that you have to do this to play the game properly?
Have you considered playing in black and white in addition to white-on-black mode? That could give you a more usable experience, perhaps...

[orca]

I gasped with fear when I logged in after installing Snow Leopard to see a generic application icon in my Dock where SMAC should have been. When I started my installation, I checked the Rosetta box thinking, "I know I'll need this if I hope to run SMAC!" I usually play in windowed mode, but the initial launch seemed ok. I didn't have a chance to try to actually play yet.

[Cougar]

Let me know if you have no animations when you do try it. I fear that Brad has abandoned us.

[clocknova]

I understand the PC version works fine in Crossover Games. Get it.

[Cougar]

clocknova, on September 3rd 2009, 03:41 PM, said:

I understand the PC version works fine in Crossover Games. Get it.

I don't think you can anymore, the game is so old. I suppose there is always torrents. I guess I'll just stick with playing it on my PB for now.

[Eric5h5]

Cougar, on September 3rd 2009, 12:34 PM, said:

I don't think you can anymore, the game is so old.

I just did a quick search on ebay and got 44 results, many of which are new/mint (or at least claim to be).

--Eric

[Cougar]

Eric5h5, on September 3rd 2009, 06:05 PM, said:

I just did a quick search on ebay and got 44 results, many of which are new/mint (or at least claim to be).

--Eric

Cool, you can get the original + expansion for less than 8 bucks. Never did get around to getting Crossfire. Unfortunately, the Crossover website lists the game as "known not to work."

[Brad Oliver]

clocknova, on September 3rd 2009, 07:41 AM, said:

I understand the PC version works fine in Crossover Games. Get it.

Hah! We patched Mac SMAC to 1.5 - a patch the PC never got. I believe I noted all the wonky PC bugs we fixed in that patch on the Mac.

But in all honestly, just run SMAC in a window and forget about the animations. It's so old that it wants to switch to 256 colors, and that's apparently breaking more and more with each OS update.

[Cougar]

Brad Oliver, on September 7th 2009, 07:03 PM, said:

But in all honestly, just run SMAC in a window and forget about the animations. It's so old that it wants to switch to 256 colors, and that's apparently breaking more and more with each OS update.

Aww, that's too bad. Starcraft, Age of Empires II, and Diablo II all rely on 256 colors, and both are doing fine in SL.

Here's to my Powerbook having a long, happy life...

[Hansi]

Cougar, on September 7th 2009, 10:34 PM, said:

Aww, that's too bad. Starcraft, Age of Empires II, and Diablo II all rely on 256 colors, and both are doing fine in SL.

Here's to my Powerbook having a long, happy life...

I'm sure it depends on which driver is being used. 10.5.7 lost 256 support for multiple nvidia cards.

[Janichsan]

Cougar, on September 8th 2009, 12:34 AM, said:

Aww, that's too bad. Starcraft, Age of Empires II, and Diablo II all rely on 256 colors, and both are doing fine in SL.

But all those got specific fixes for the problem that Hansi mentions. Seems that helps for SL, too.

[Bob Kiwi]

Glad to see it still works though!

Seems rather bright- wonder if SL Gamma changes are why? There is a Gamma section in the A/V prefs though.

Also, how do you make icons for Mac programs? I'd like to try and replace the now dull icons for SMACX and Civ II (wow, that game still works too!).

Found a great image I'd like to make the icon at http://img276.images.../i/smac4xk.png/

[Janichsan]

Bob Kiwi, on September 10th 2009, 02:31 AM, said:

Seems rather bright- wonder if SL Gamma changes are why? There is a Gamma section in the A/V prefs though.

Yep, SL changed the default gamma from 1.8 (which was the default on Macs since - well - almost the Stone Age) to 2.2 (which is the Windows default). I've read some bollocks explanation by some Apple executive for that somewhere, that the brighter gamma of 1.8 would no longer be necessary - for what reason ever.

Quote

Also, how do you make icons for Mac programs? I'd like to try and replace the now dull icons for SMACX and Civ II (wow, that game still works too!).

Found a great image I'd like to make the icon at http://img276.images.../i/smac4xk.png/

The simplest way: img2icns. Drop the image on the program windows, et voila! Then you can copy & paste the new icon in the Finder's "Information" window to the games.

[teflon]

Its not so much b*ll*cks as a decent reason.
Basically, when they decided on 1.8 Gamma is was so that Apple's laser printer (I forget the name, laserwriter?) would exactly match what was on the screen.

Of course, back then everything was still black and white, so the 1.8 Gamma wasn't disturbing any colours. But now, when you've got colour managed printers, programmes, and the need to be able to see what colours everyone will see your website/photo/film in, conforming to the standard is quite important.

Plenty people had already switched over to 2.2 Gamma for these reasons anyway, and those that hadn't probably don't notice or care (probably), so for Apple it was a fairly sensible move (compared with the tinkering they did in iTunes 9).

If you want to revert, just go to the display's system preference pane, colour, then calibrate. The 4th or 5th step will let you change the gamma from 2.2 to 1.8.

[thedoctor45]

I made some 512x512 icons for this:

http://www.mediafire...php?gwvlgzjxncw

hope you like them

cheers

[Bob Kiwi]

Exactly what I was looking for! Playing in Windowed Mode isn't the greatest thing at 2560x1600, but it is much better than not at all.

Also, the game won't crash on save because of the swap out of full screen, so that's also a plus! Did you use that img2icns program? I'll probably need to make Civ II Gold icns sometime myself.

Thanks!