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videian28 · 01:24 PM

I know that the open gl does not work well.

However I get very "twitchy" problems in software mode as well in both my 17" PB (1024mb) as well as my emac 700mz (512mb)

We are doing multiplayer via airport, we have both tried hosting, and have the strongest singals on our airport. I do have the same problem whether I am single player or not.

They are both Lord of Destruction with the lastest updates.

any help? on nightmare level now, and reaction time is key

edit: want to add that I am running at the lowest settings possible while in software mode, 640x480 minimum everything, there has got to be a reason this is so choppy

Guy Incognito 2 · May 19, 2003, 02:25 PM

I dunno about any tweaks but I certainly hope John Stiles, lead Mac programmer at Blizzard, learns to optimize his code for christsake. Hopefully before 1.10 is released.

videian28 · May 19, 2003, 03:53 PM

lotsa views and no replies make me sad

can you transfer the D2 save game files to a pc?

rbarris · May 19, 2003, 03:55 PM

be nice to John.. if you see something you like or don't like, you can't safely assume that he is "the guy" to praise and/or berate... the team is small but it's more than one guy!

I worked on the GL rendering improvements coming in D2 1.10. 256MB RAM, OSX 10.2, and Radeon or better video card will be required for admission. We're using some new techniques that require more memory and Quartz-Extreme capable hardware and drivers.

More on this as we get closer to the end of the QA cycle.

Rob rbarris "at" blizzard.com

a2daj · May 19, 2003, 04:12 PM

Originally posted by videian28:
lotsa views and no replies make me sad

can you transfer the D2 save game files to a pc?

Have you ever thought that all those people viewing it couldn't answer your questions? Give people time. Your post isn't any more important than someone elses so don't expect people on this or any other forum to give you special treatment. If someone has answers they will try and help out.

Have you tried turning music off? The character files are binary compatible between PCs and Macs.

Rob, Guy Incogonito is infamous for his asinine and rather ignorant comments (I believe his old account was locked out), often berating developers and spreading misinformation. Try to ignore any personal commments he makes.

Is it safe to assume that any OpenGL performance tweaks will only affect the OS X version of the app?

rbarris · May 19, 2003, 05:49 PM

Originally posted by a2daj:
Is it safe to assume that any OpenGL performance tweaks will only affect the OS X version of the app?

That's right, you need OSX 10.2 to take advantage of the improved GL mode in D2 1.10. The techniques we're using to accelerate the flow of textures to the display card are not possible without 10.2's OpenGL extensions.

videian28 · May 19, 2003, 06:04 PM

all good news, yes I have turned the music off as well, was just wondering that with a game this old, that someone may have some insight as to how to speed it up a bit.

Guy Incognito 2 · 06:58 PM

Originally posted by a2daj:
Rob, Guy Incogonito is infamous for his asinine and rather ignorant comments (I believe his old account was locked out), often berating developers and spreading misinformation. Try to ignore any personal commments he makes.

It's thanks to my asinine comments that I get answers from the developers themselves.

I can't get an answer from Blizzard when I e-mail them politely so I come on these forum and wreak havoc 'till I get my answer.

If you're not happy with it, too bad. Just learn to ignore my comments. If I hadn't made that comment, would Rob have come to tell us about the OpenGL tweaks? Maybe...but I really doubt it.

If there's a game company I like the most right now, it's Blizzard. They release games in a timely manner, they release them simultaneously on Mac and PC, they even go through the trouble of changing and tweaking the games until they a good balance is met. This also forces people to change their playing strategies and increases the game lifespan.

Next to Bungie, I think Blizzard's taking second place for games bought from that company. I bought Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Starcraft, Diablo 2, Diablo 2 Expansion Set, and Warcraft III.

But don't deny that there's an optimization problem with the OS X Blizzard games, a2daj. If everyone in the world was as lovey dovey as you are towards developers, I think we'd get buggy and late games that would never get polished up or ever get released.

I suppose it's 'OK' that Neverwinter Nights isn't released yet, right?

Guy Incognito 2 · May 19, 2003, 07:22 PM

Originally posted by rbarris:
be nice to John.. if you see something you like or don't like, you can't safely assume that he is "the guy" to praise and/or berate... the team is small but it's more than one guy!

I worked on the GL rendering improvements coming in D2 1.10. 256MB RAM, OSX 10.2, and Radeon or better video card will be required for admission. We're using some new techniques that require more memory and Quartz-Extreme capable hardware and drivers.

More on this as we get closer to the end of the QA cycle.

Rob rbarris "at" blizzard.com

I can say that I'm pretty excited that you guys are working on improving the OpenGL rendering.

But I'm curious, what's so different in OS X that makes it difficult to achieve the same OpenGL performance in OS 9?

a2daj · May 19, 2003, 07:27 PM

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
But don't deny that there's an optimization problem with the OS X Blizzard games, a2daj. [/B]

Where in my reply did I deny there was an optimization problem? Trying to put words into my mouth again?
I get all of my questions I need answered fairly easily with my well mannered emails. I've written various developers, including Rob, and they've been able to answer my questions as best they can. I don't know what your problem is. Frankly, I don't really care. I don't need to take pot shots at developers unlike you.

rbarris · May 19, 2003, 07:41 PM

Originally posted by Guy Incognito 2:
I can say that I'm pretty excited that you guys are working on improving the OpenGL rendering.

But I'm curious, what's so different in OS X that makes it difficult to achieve the same OpenGL performance in OS 9?

We take advantage of new extensions to GL that allow for much faster texture replacement and sequencing, which is what D2 needs. These extensions do not exist on the OS9 (or OS 10.0, or 10.1) OpenGL.

Rob

Guy Incognito 2 · May 19, 2003, 07:45 PM

Originally posted by a2daj:
Where in my reply did I deny there was an optimization problem? Trying to put words into my mouth again?
I get all of my questions I need answered fairly easily with my well mannered emails. I've written various developers, including Rob, and they've been able to answer my questions as best they can. I don't know what your problem is. Frankly, I don't really care. I don't need to take pot shots at developers unlike you.

How about you use your incredible charms and get some answers out of Bioware and post 'em here. k thx.

Also, e-mail Gerrit Goosen and ask him what's up with sixtyforce.

Can you also teach me how to write a well mannered email?

Scotttheking · May 19, 2003, 08:47 PM

Everyone relax.

K, thanks.

Rob, I can't wait for the patch. I'm sure my nice characters are gone by now, but if it's a lot faster, it will be nice.
Just curious though, back when the OSX version first came out it was very fast, then it broke a while ago. What caused it to get so slow back then that requires more hardware to fix now?

theory · May 19, 2003, 09:13 PM

How about playing it in classic (load classic under OS X). Is the performance
in classic the same as that under OS 9.

If it is then your problems should be solved.

rbarris · May 20, 2003, 12:13 AM

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Just curious though, back when the OSX version first came out it was very fast, then it broke a while ago. What caused it to get so slow back then that requires more hardware to fix now?

It's a little more involved than I can really explain in a posting here, but here goes. The technique used in the first release of D2 for OSX relied on making some "hints" to GL and as you figured out, those hints weren't effective under 10.2.x. The new code uses explicit 10.2+ GL extensions to achieve its goal, but that extension set doesn't function on cards such as Rage 128 or older. It's essentially the same extension set that Quartz Extreme uses.

We looked at the situation and said "you know what, those Rage-128 users are probably playing in software mode anyway." - if you have feedback on this point of view I wouldn't mind discussing it.

We noticed some people throwing better and better cards and CPU's at it and not seeing noticeable advantage - the new version gets much closer to uncorking the speed you would expect as you move up the hardware food chain. Although one thing a lot of people don't realize.. is that a faster hard drive can be just as helpful to D2 as faster video hardware or CPU.

Rob rbarris"at" blizzard.com

Scotttheking · May 20, 2003, 12:33 AM

Originally posted by rbarris:
It's a little more involved than I can really explain in a posting here, but here goes. The technique used in the first release of D2 for OSX relied on making some "hints" to GL and as you figured out, those hints weren't effective under 10.2.x. The new code uses explicit 10.2+ GL extensions to achieve its goal, but that extension set doesn't function on cards such as Rage 128 or older. It's essentially the same extension set that Quartz Extreme uses.

We looked at the situation and said "you know what, those Rage-128 users are probably playing in software mode anyway." - if you have feedback on this point of view I wouldn't mind discussing it.

We noticed some people throwing better and better cards and CPU's at it and not seeing noticeable advantage - the new version gets much closer to uncorking the speed you would expect as you move up the hardware food chain. Although one thing a lot of people don't realize.. is that a faster hard drive can be just as helpful to D2 as faster video hardware or CPU.

Rob rbarris"at" blizzard.com

That makes sense. I know I recently upgraded for WC3, so I should be ok. I'm sure a lot of others have too. It would be nice to have rage128, but if you can't, you can't. If you can put some work into optimizing for those cards, it would be really nice.
I'd rather you guys put effort into new software though. Make WoW really rock, since it will probably draw a lot of D2 players away.

Hmm, faster HD...
Yeah, I've got a fast HD, good video (radeon 8500), and a G4 400

By the way, I really appreciate you taking the time to post here occasionally. It's nice to know that you guys care enough to let us know what's going on, and listen to our feedback.

--Scott

mac freak · May 20, 2003, 07:21 AM

I haven't read the entire thread, so i don't know if anyone has said this yet, but --

Restarting into OS 9 and running it in RAVE (not available in OS X as it's dead) should produce the highest framerates. Even software mode would be significantly faster in 9.2.2.

Good luck!

videian28 · May 20, 2003, 09:20 AM

So what your telling me is that there is no way to eek any more performance out of my 1ghz PB, I just find it strange that my emac 700 runs the game more fluid.

MilkmanDan · May 20, 2003, 01:09 PM

Thank God For Blizzard. Or any game company that continues to improve their games years after it came out. Now if only Lucas Arts would upgrade my copy of Sam and Max Hit The Road for OS X and to get some Open GL support, I'd be thrilled! (That last line was a joke, get it?)

oni · May 20, 2003, 08:13 PM

Sounds cool about the new patch although it wont help me as the game is playing slow in all areas of the game for me doesnt matter what settings i use. I have tried OS9, OSX, software and hardware rendering, all graphics down, all graphics up. I always seem to get the same crap performance

(barely above 20 fps down to plenty less when fighting). I have seen PCs with way less system specs than my computer run this game superbly.

iMac 350
320 MB ram
8 MB rage 128

mac freak · May 20, 2003, 08:23 PM

Hmmm... I used to run D2 on a blueberry iMac 350 with an 8MB Rage 128 VR, and I'd get 25-35 FPS on average, which was decent. Settings, IIRC: RAVE mode, thousands of colors, 640x480 (this was pre-LoD), medium lights, no perspective, no blended shadows. Low lights can help too, I guess.

Videian28 -- have you tried booting into OS 9 (and updating your video drivers) yet??

joe · 07:51 AM

Originally posted by rbarris:
...We looked at the situation and said "you know what, those Rage-128 users are probably playing in software mode anyway." - if you have feedback on this point of view I wouldn't mind discussing it.

Essentially I agree. Software mode was definitely the fastest for my Rage 128 Pro. However, I stayed with software mode even after upgrading to an OEM Radeon. RAVE certainly benchmarked faster than software mode using my Radeon, but it also bogged down worse than software mode when there were a lot of monsters on screen. Does this have something to do with hardwware rendering or was it related to RAVE. How does the new OpenGL fare when there were lots of monsters on screen?.......joe

[edit - cleaned up post]

Auto222 · 03:31 AM

somewhat off topic, but D2 related at least.. recently my carbon install inexplicably broke. it launches, goes to the druid/assassin splash screen.. but when i hit the any key to bring up the "single player/battle.net" etc menu it crashes to the desktop. what has me confused is i can play the game in classic mode (not native 9, classic) with no problems except for the obvious texture futzing. i've reinstalled and applied all the patches multiple times, I remember seeing a report about a problem like this with a fix, but i can't seem to find it now. Anyone have some insight besides boot to 9 or reformat?

edit: duh, system specs my help

Dual 1.25Ghz / Radeon 9k pro/ 1 GB ram

no extras beyond that.