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Shrapnel Games latest newsletter includes a brief status update on a patch for the Mac version of Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. After a delay, work on the Mac update has resumed. No specific release date has yet been set.

Mac Weird Worlds fans will be happy to know that work has picked up on patching the Mac version.  No ETA on the patch, but it has not been forgotten.  You can check in on how it goes by visiting the Weird Worlds forum.

To be specific, the problem is that Apple has taken over the OpenAL implementation on the Mac, and rewritten it substantially, but in the process, they have changed something about how it deals with larger numbers of sounds that made it much less efficient. I have a full universal binary version running, but the sounds don't play properly because the sound takes up most of the CPU. I've reported a detailed bug to Apple, but no response. So, my options are to try to build a Universal binary of an older version of OpenAL, try to fix OpenAL myself, or try to find a Universal binary version of older OpenAL that doesn't have this problem. As Fingers says, it's going to be a bit before I can get to that (and he may beat me to it with his work ripping out OpenAL).

Weird World Forums: Mac OS X Patch For Testing

Digital Eel

Shrapnel Games

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space

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