19 réponses à ce sujet

[lunayconsuela]

Since there is no Mac Tech Support forum, and I see some people have the same problem Windows PC's, I'm posting here.

My system: latest fully beefed-up MacBook Pro 17": 3,06GHz Intel Core2 Duo, 8Gb 1067Mhz DDR3, NVidia GeForce 9600M GT with 512MB Ram (it also has a 9400M, but I have the 9600 enabled).
I use a 24" LED Cinema Display and have the laptop display off (lid closed).
Both screens resolution is 1920*1200. Running on Snow Leopard

I close all applications down when running the game, except a few things in the tray which use  about 1--2 % of processor speed.

Game settings: I lowered the resolution to 1280*800, have both Graphical and Texture Detail set to max, Anti-Aliassing off, Frame-Buffer on, V-Sync off. 

Problem: When I start the game it runs fine and smooth for the first few minutes, but then fans start to blow at top speed, CPU temperature goes up to 85ºC and DAO takes up to about 195% of processor speed (which means  full use of both Cores I guess). In game this means slow-motion and hampering, too low fps it seems.

I don't think that I should lower the settings even further since my computer's specs are more than enough and the game runs fine whenever I restart the game.
I also read on these forums that some Windows users have the same problems and even have their machines shut down.
Also, I am able to run WoW smoothly with all settings at max except for Anti-Aliasing which is at 2 times.

Can Bioware confirm this is a known problem and can we expect a patch, for the Mac version also?
Otherwise, all I can say is that this game is a real gem and I'm happy to see a Mac version! 

Merry Christmas to everyone!  

[LonePhaedrus]

I am having the same issues. My current setup is the latest macbook pro 15inch running 2.53gb intel duel core, nividia 9400m and 4gb ram.



With all settings on low, I can play for around 15 minutes before it becomes impossible to play (and even while playing, it isn't very fun because of poor visuals) due to overheating (85c+).



I've since loaded a program that lets me manually change the speed of the computer fans, and when set at around 6200 RPM, I can play for a good 30 minutes uninterrupted.



Having spent what I consider a great sum of money on this game I thought my computer would be more than capable of handling, I am hoping these issues can be resolved, as an unusable 60$ program is quite a waste of money.

[lunayconsuela]

LonePhaedrus,



I did some testing yesterday and the using the 9400 video card instead of the 9600 seemed to be a little better ... go figure ...

By a little better I mean that I could play twice as long before the framerate dropped so low it gets too choppy to play.



Then I checked system profiler and saw that DAO is a 32-bit program.

As I had configured my Mac to boot with a 64-bit kernel instead of the normal 32-bit, I rebooted in 32-bit.

If I now set the DAO video settings low enough, I can continue playing at an acceptable framerate, though both fans run at max.

Nevertheless, I should be able to play at much higher graphics quality like I do with the newest Prince of Persia: 1920 * 1200, graphics quality at max, runs really smooth and the fans run normal.



So if you turned 64-bit kernel, turn it off again for the moment and let's hope for a patch.

[lunayconsuela]

I would suggest sending an email to tech support for anyone having the same problems, so they know it's not an isolated issue.

here is the link:

http://customersuppo...WdlPWFzay5waHA*

Modifié par lunayconsuela, 26 décembre 2009 - 09:25 .

[LonePhaedrus]

I just received an Email regarding my issue, they told me that it is a system problem and therefore not something they deal with, and told me to contact my manufacturer...



Needless to say, I am disappointed

[lunayconsuela]

I received an email too, probably automated and telling me how to fix problems with "Spore", along with some general tips on de-activating programs and some stuff about connecting to their server which has nothing to do with this problem.



Pretty sure no one even read the mail I sent.After seeing this I think it would be fair to call their (Mac) support non-existant.

Copy of the mail below.



Hi Pascal ,



Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts Technical Support.



You may be getting this error if you have MacOS Parental Controls feature active and set to deny access to some or all websites. You will need to add the Spore game and website so that you can download the license from the server.





If that doesn't work try the steps below to get the license from the server:





1) Open a terminal.



2) Go to the /etc-directory (cd /etc).



3) Edit the hosts-file and remove the 127.0.0.1 proxy.novafusion.ea.com line (sudo nano hosts).



4) Save the file.



5) Close the terminal and go play Spore!





If you have a variety of programs running in the background on your computer, they may be using a considerable amount of system resources. Closing these unnecessary background processes will help boost system performance in your game, as well as free up system resources which may be conflicting with the game.



1. From the Finder menu open the Go menu and select Utilities.



2. Open the Activity Monitor program.



3. In the top right cornor, make sure the My Processes option is selected from the pull down menu.



4. Highlight the programs listed one at a time and click the Quit Process button in the top left.



5. When the confirmation window appears select Force Quit to close the program.



6. Repeat those steps until only the following four are listed:





Dock



Finder



LoginWindow



Activity Monitor





Note: there will be other programs that either will not close, or will re-appear after being closed. Those processes can be skipped.



7. Close the activity monitor and attempt to run the game.





Be aware that this is only a temporary change, restarting the system will restore it to the default state. If closing these programs helps resolve performance issues you may want to go through them one by one to narrow down which program is causing the conflict.





Also, if the above troubleshooting steps does not work, please reply to this email with the following information.





1. Click on the Apple menu.



2. Select "About This Mac".



3. Click the "More Info..." button within the "About This Mac" window.



4. Select "Save as..." from the "File" menu within the System Profiler application and save the report using the Rich Text Format.



5. Finally, attach the document saved to your email reply.





Next we need to check if you're having problems connecting to our servers so please do the steps below.





1. On the Finder Menu click Go.



2. Click Utilities.



3. Double click on Network Utility.



4. Click on the trace route tab.



5. Enter the server name you are trying to connect to and click "trace".



6. Copy the results in text edit and save as a rtf file on your desktop.



7. Attach the file to the reply to this email.



Thank you,



Mitchell

EA Online Support

[Axeaman]

This sucks, I got the same problem :-/



My specs are over the minimum!

[casadechrisso]

From my experience with the PC version (running on a Mac Pro in Bootcamp) I can at least tell you that there is certainly a memory leak or two in Dragon Age, and after a while loading times increase a lot and the gameplay can get a bit choppy. However, that happens after hours, not minutes, so there's definitely something else not right in the Mac version.

Over the christmas days I played a little bit on an older Macbook Pro (2.4Ghz, 8600M GT (256MB) ), again in Bootcamp, and even though I had to lower the settings a bit and got long load times, it was definitely not unplayable at all.

One thing you might try is disabling Frame Buffer effects (the game looks darker and grittier that way, matter of taste). This increased performance a lot for me, and who knows, maybe it's even the source of your problems.

[Funky Monnett]

I have the same issue with my (5 day old) macbook pro



I was able to come up with sort of a fix



after a fresh reboot the game "heats up" at all saved games,

however if you create a new character from scratch and sit trough the intro

run around a little bit until you are sure you don't heat .. you can then load your original saved game without any issues and play for hours and hours without the slow / heat



unfortunately it doesn't work all the time so it takes a while before you can actually play

then again the game is worth the trouble when it works :-P



hope it helps you guys .. its pretty annoying but better then nothing until a patch is made to fix it

[lunayconsuela]

Thanks for the info casa and Funky.

I tried disabling the frame buffer but it doesn't help all that much.

The little it helps doesn't really compensate for the decrease in brightness tbh.

I have to disable just about everything and run at way to low res to make it playable, and even setting all to its lowest still heats up the processor, I'm always running the game at about 195% processor power.



I'll try the trick with the savegame just to be sure, but I doubt it will work since the processor starts to heat up in the startup screen already, before loading any savegame.

Just leaving it on the startup screen for a few minutes already makes my computer sound like a vacuum cleaner.



Lets hope we get a fix, I mailed tech support back and told them that their answers had nothing to do with my problem. Hopefully they will read the question before answering this time.

[Welnic]

I ended up running the Mac version on an older MBP around Christmas. I was able to play after installing scmFanControl in order to run the fans at max speed. If I didn't do that then it would throttle back because it was overheating. The fans will go to 6000 rpm, but the normal setup only gets to 5000 before it gets throttled.



DA runs fine in XP on the same machine. The problem isn't the hardware, or the game, it's that you have windows software running in some emulation mode in OSX. It's not surprising that it doesn't work that well, and I don't think that there is going to be a patch to fix it.



Having Spore installed on a machine was way easier to fix than the Mac version of Dragon Age.

[lunayconsuela]

Welnic, you're kidding me right? This is just the windows version with an emulator built around it?
Are all/most Mac games built this way?
This makes me seriously reconsider installing Windows under Boot Camp, something I always tried to avoid.
But in case I do, would it be possible to get my saves into the windows version?

Modifié par lunayconsuela, 30 décembre 2009 - 07:35 .

[Welnic]

All you have to do to move your saves is copy the folders in Documents\\BioWare\\Dragon Age\\Characters to the same folder in Windows.

Most if not all of EA's games are done this way. I think that there are games that it works okay for. I have PC gaming rig and XP on my MBP so I have no reason to buy OSX games that use Cider. I only ended up with this because I lost the PC DVD and thought I would try the Mac version.

There are companies that do their own OSX versions in house parallel with the PC version like Blizzard and Id. That works well. Other companies farm out the port to places like Aspyr and then they do the OSX version. That works okay, it is what BioWare did in the past with the BG series.

But the ease of the Cider solution has definitely meant that it is used a lot.

[lunayconsuela]

Thanks a lot for the info Welnic, I'll keep it in mind when buying games.

Glad I can keep my saves though!

I think I'll give BootCamp a go, probably with Windows XP.

Have heard nothing but bad news on Vista and installing Windows 7 with BootCamp seems to be problematic too.

Are most new games still running on XP? Or are there games that require Vista/7?

[Welnic]

XP still works for most games and probably will for a while. There have been a few Vista only games, but that was more Microsoft pushing Vista than anything real. If there is a game that actually has to have Win7 it would not run well on your graphics card. The only problem right now with Win7 is the bootcamp drivers do not officially support Win7, so there are some window guru tricks you need to do to get some of the drivers installed. Apple said on Win7 launch day that they would support Win7 in bootcamp by the end of the year but that hasn't happened yet. If bootcamp supported Win7 I would go ahead and get that, but since it doesn't if you are in a hurry just throw XP on there.

[casadechrisso]

I got sick of bad Mac ports and bad game support and installed XP via Bootcamp the day I got my first Intel Mac. And I have no regrets. It's the most trouble-free and fastest solution for gaming, it's not that a single reboot into XP is totally killing my mood.

As a gaming platform, XP still serves me more than well and iT's still the fastest solution, something to keep in mind on Macs too because we never get the latest and greatest gaming hardware and might actually need those few extra FPS.

Of course with XP you'll miss out on DX10 and DX11 effects, but I've not been in a situation where I missed them. If I'd use Windows for my everyday stuff too, I'd probably upgrade to Windows 7 now because it seems to run reasonably well and got much praise, however just to get my games started, XP still works fine.

[lunayconsuela]

Did some searching around on Bootcamp + Windows.

Win7 not supported yet like you said and 64 bit will not be supported, though there are a few hacks around to get it working.

Reading the advice you both gave me, I'll go with XP, I still have a license lying around here anyway.

I won't be using Windows for anything else than games, I can do all my work and personal stuff in OSX just fine.



Any idea how Bootcamp handles Time Machine?

Does it only back up the OSX partition or both?

Is it possible to use TM on the Win partition?

Is there a backup program you can advise me to back up the Win partition?

Preferably bootable backups like SuperDuper on the Mac, but not sure that is possible in Windows.

Has been quite a few years since I used Win.

[casadechrisso]

I don't think there's a way to get TM to back up the Windows partition, afaik it only backups your Mac volumes. Since Windows is mainly a game starting environment here, I'm not too worried about it, I'm also the kind of person who rather reformats and reinstalls Windows instead of trying to repair the bloody thing. As for my documents, savegames and stuff from the Windows partition, I simply keep a FAT-formatted backup drive lying around where I regulary save the stuff I need most.

Windows itself comes with a backup programm though, I have never tried it nor do I know if you can make automated backups with it. I assume there are programs available, like Retrospect or some free tools like Carbon Copy Cloner for the Mac. A google search will surely turn back a lot of results.

[lunayconsuela]

Yes, I'll keep a backup of my saves separately too, but a system backup might be handy.

I found this little free tool that lets you make an image of your windows partition from within OSX.

http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/

[aegispotae]

I just installed win7 in bootcamp and they work fine.



I tested dragon age under win7bootcamp (i wanted to run some cheats) and i think it runs better than my mac version of DAO under cider - saved games from mac can be moved without problems (you just need to watch if you have all addons)



I am thinking if I can legaly use my mac version on windows? - because I can copy all game files (win files hiden in DAO.app) from mac to win partion and the same with save games and preferences.



I expect that the serial is not different for mac and win version.