[bobette]

Can't wait to get my hands on it.... Should be in store later today or tomorrow in Montreal.

Anyone got it yet? Hmmm... guess you wouldn't be hanging out in the boards if you have but... just in case?

[mac freak]

Should have mine by Wednesday

------------------
Be Happy.

[bobette]

I'll be harassing the local 'puter store dudes by the hour... hehehe, luv doin' that..

Are we there yet? No.
Are we there yet? No!
Are we there yet? No.
Are we there yet? No!!!
Are we there yet? Noooo!!!!
Are we there yet? Arrrghh!!!!
Are we there yet? Yes, yes! Take the damn game already and leave me alone!!! Bwaaaaaaaaaa!!! Mommmmy!!!!

Runs well, looks great in OS 9.1 on my Beige G3 DT (upgraded with a Rage 128 and Sonnet Encore G3/500). One weird thing - the transitions seem to be independent of the transition speed settings. Some times they were smooth, some times there was no transition - just a jump to the next area.

It did not however, run well in the Classic environment of OS 10.0.2. I ran into horrendous audio skipping that resulted in my fleeing back to OS 9. Looks like I'll be spending a lot of time back in OS 9.

[Sean7]

I read somewhere that an update would be out soon to carbonize it.

So no worries.

[bobette]

I've read horror stories on Winblows, no video, crappy sound, unexpected quits, the whole 9 yards...

And mine, besides minor video glitches, works perfectly on OS 9.1! Wahahahahahahaaaa!!!!! Wooohohohohohohoooo!!!! heheheheeeee...

*wiping off tears of laughter*

ahem......... *choking*

WWWHAAAAAAAHahahahahahahaahAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

Well you PC weenies, ya should have purchased a Mac...



Now, let's go back to that plant cycle puzzle... hmmmm...

[mac freak]

It doesn't work with QT 5.0.1 though... had to downgrade to 4.1.2 before it would run without freezing every time it tried to play a movie.

But anyway, it's one helluva pretty game.

------------------
Be Happy.

[bobette]

Weird, I've got 5.0.1 on two machines and they work fine... Both are pro versions though.

[mac freak]

Hmmm... upgraded to pro here as well.

What specifically are the machines? I'm on a DP450...

------------------
Be Happy.

[bobette]

iMac 400 DV-SE 192 OS 9.0.4
iBook 466 DV-SE OS 9.1

Weird.... Did you do a full install of QT?

[bobette]

Don't know if this has anything to do with it but, what about the Bink Shared Library? Is it in your extensions folder?

[Steve Bosell]

Runs kinda crappy for me, it crashes right at startup if I try to use OpenGL, so the water looks crappy when I play in software mode. 1024 resolution would be nice, and free movement like realMist would be cool too.

g4/533 geforce

[bobette]

oh man, that sucks...

did you try:

1) turning off VM (if any)
2)maxing out the allocated RAM?
3)tried software mode?
Turned off AppleTalk?

[mac freak]

Ah-HA!

The "Bink Shared Library" is in my Myst 3 folder, but not my extensions folder... I didn't read anything anywhere about copying it to the Extensions folder, but I'll try copying it over in a bit...

It was a full Pro install of QT5 BTW.

------------------
Be Happy.

[bobette]

That's probably it, QT 5 doesn't seem to install the bink extension, and all videos are in bink format (.bik, found inside the *.m3a files inside the invisible data folders of the four cds)...

Now I know where I got it! When I installed Oni, if my memory serves me right.

Now if I could only find a way to rip those bink files. Gotta be a few Easter Eggs in there.

BTW, here's a cheap way of getting the soundtrack: using resedit, make the M3Data folder visible (in the M3 folder on your drive), drop the thing on Sherlock, and search for .mp3. Voila! Order by size and you'll get the full music tracks... Even the squee sound (in .wav) makes a great system sound. Squee!

Enjoy! I know I am.

[Skywalkers new Hand]

I narrowed the problem down a little more. With VM ON in 9.1 it will crash. With VM on in 9.04 it is fine.

It is very buggy with QuickTime 5.01 Pro on G4's with 9.1.

You do not need to install the Blink extention, it is fine withough it. That is for special hardware that I am looking into.

With a CLEAN 9.1, VM off and QuickTime 4 it is fine though.

------------------

[bobette]

Cool!

Enjoy!

[mac freak]

Ok, copied over the Bink extension... still does not work correctly from my primary system folder

DP450/9.0.4/VM on(+128MB)/QT 5.0.1 Pro

But it does work from a secondary system folder...

DP450/9.0.4/VM on(+1MB)/QT 4.1.2 Pro

Go figure.

------------------
Be Happy.

[bobette]

Damn that's bizarro... I guess, as long as it works in one way or another...

Anyway, enjoy! And tell me whatcha think! I'm about 2 thirds done. So far? It has Myst's linking book navigation with Riven's graphics and design creativity. Puzzles are a cross between the two. Good sequel to my taste.

Can't wait to hear more about Mudpie though...

[Skywalkers new Hand]

This is the only option to clear ALL the problems for me. Downgrade to system 9.04 and you can leave VM ON.

With 9.1 VM MUST be OFF. This also includes RAM doubler.

So try this: OS 9.1, Quicktime 4 and No VM of any kind. Also boot from 9.1 Base or All extentions set. No 3rd party anything. That shoud do it. Let me know.
P.S. So far this game looks real nice but it is so much easier then Riven. I am 80% through the game and I have only been playing for 7 hours. AHHH!

Also, that new CD will not help us. I talked for an hour to UbiSoft on Friday and they hadn't even heard of any Mac bugs.

------------------

[Alex Duffield]

I get the arrow curser AND the hand while playing.. This is very distracting. Is there a way to get the arrow curser to be invisable??

[bobette]

Try switching your screen resolution to 640X480 manually before starting the game. Should resolve your problem.

[Skywalkers new Hand]

Originally posted by Alex Duffield:
I get the arrow curser AND the hand while playing.. This is very distracting. Is there a way to get the arrow curser to be invisable??

What Quicktime are you using? Have you tried the above solutions?
Are you running 3rd party apps like A-Dock?

Switching to 640x480 before you launch does not help.

------------------

[bobette]

That's weird, switching the res works systematically for me, on both my machines.

hmmm... I'm starting to think they were in a hurry to get this product on the shelves.

[mac freak]

Ya think?

[zac4mac]

Runs Beautifully on my DP550/Radeon/Orion.
Was gonna check RAM setting, but Myst is open now and lokked up on the #2 monitor.
That's cool, I like the music.
The rides at the end of each age are good enough to make you blow chunks. Just finished Amateris, wow.

This game is the first time I've seen a performance difference between the Radeon and the Orion.
Very smooth on the Radeon. Choppy to the point of being unplayable on the Orion.
Now to see if this will go out with half my Mac lokked up.
That was weird. Got out of it without having to reboot too.cool.

TIP: 1)If you run dual monitors, move your OS tool bar to the monitor/card you want to use with monitor CP.
2)set your monitor to the fastest 640x480 refresh rate you can. Myst sets up at 67Hz if you start in a reaolution higher than 640x480, I set the refresh rate to 120Hz before starting the game.

This game seems to be very hardware hungry. Bet it looks sweet on a GeForce3

DP 500(@550) BTO Radeon OS 9.1
1 GB RAM

------------------


[This message has been edited by zac4mac (edited 05-13-2001).]

[bobette]

zac:
make you blow chunks?

LMAO!

[zac4mac]

I save the Age right before the ride so I can go back and enjoy it again. The rides are my favorite part. The puzzles are a necessary evil that I begrudgingly put up with.

Did anyone gere ever play Morpheus? It was better than Riven and beat it out by a year or two but didn't get any publicity. I couldn't even play it when I got it, had to wait for a G3 and an Orion for my old 8500.

[bobette]

Morpheus? Aaahhh...seems interesting. What company produced it?

[zac4mac]

"Morpheus, a world where screams never die"
3 CD's p/n MOR10CBSP1
Piranha Interactive Publishing
1997-98

[bobette]

Cool, I'll check it out... Thanks!

[Skywalkers new Hand]

Here is a copy of my letter to Ubisoft:

Hello,

I purchased Myst: 3 Exile on Friday only to come home and not be able to play it due to a collection of serious bugs.

After talking (and paying long distance charges) to UbiSoft’s technical soft for nearly an hour they offered no useful suggestion other then “Allocating as much memory as I can to the QuickTime extensions”. They hadn’t even heard of any Mac Specific bugs as of Friday night. I have been browsing the web and have found countless other Mac users having the exact same problems so I know that I am not having a rare or isolated case.

My symptoms are as follows:
The game launches and 2 cursors are visible, 1 is my normal Mac OS arrow, the other is the games hand cursor. They are not the same distance from one another consistently and only one of them functions.
The games video is very choppy and the sound cuts in and out.
The game hard crashes right after the into. Or when loading a saved game.
When quitting the game the monitors resolution is restored from 640 x 480 but it loses all of your pop-up folders and your desktop in a complete mess.

My computer meets and exceeds all of the system requirements.
The system which I am experiencing all these problems on are as follows:

PowerMac G4, 450MHz
448 Megs of RAM
15’ LCD Studio Display
Mac OS 9.1 with all the latest software updates (problems experienced with Mac OS 9.1 BASE and 9.1 ALL extensions sets. No 3rd party installs)
Itunes and Disk burner installed.
40 Gig hard drive with 30 Gigs free.
QuickTime 5.01 Pro

After receiving no useful help from Ubisoft’s technical support I spent the next few hours trouble shooting the situation. This is the conclusion that I have have come to to solve all the problems.

The double cursor error can be caused by a dialog box appearing in the background when the game is running. Such as when the game first launches the Finder gives notification that your Pop-up folders will be lost as the game changes the resolution. Quitting Myst and dismissing the dialog then relauching should solve the problem. A-Dock control panel also can cause this problem if you move your cursor to the bottom of the screen when the game is running.
The choppy video and some crashing is caused by QuickTime 5.01. Downgrading to the QuickTime 4 that is on the Myst disk 1 should solve the problem.
The Myst read me says that if you only have 64 megs of RAM then enabling Virtual memory will offer improved performance. This is what causes the crashes in many cases. Virtual memory works fine if you have system 9.04. If however you are running VM in 9.1 then you will experience a hard crash the second any QuickTime movie loads.

So far the ideal solution to get rid of ALL errors for me is to run Mac OS 9.1 with VM off, no third party extensions and QuickTime 4.

Unfortunately it took me hours and countless crashes to figure this out. I am extremely disappointed in Ubisoft for not properly testing the game before shipping it. The QuickTime 5 error is understandable as it had not shipped yet when the game was being printed. However the tech support staff should have tested it in the past 20 days that QuickTime 5 has been out and posted a note on the site. It also seems as this game was only tested on a 9.04 system in their labs as VM on in 9.1 crashes the game instantly.

I also do not feel good about the fact that I purchased this game to enjoy and not to do hours of beta testing for UbiSoft.

On Saturday Ubisoft posted a note on their support site letting you order a free replacement Disk 1 that fixes a majority of the bugs (which they do not list). As they hadn’t heard of any Mac bugs on Friday night, I have a hard time believing that this will fix any Mac related problems.

If you could please pass this entire or partial report on to your readers it may help with their frustrations and help get the problems fixed sooner.

Thanks for your help.

[BigMark]

early adopters...tsk,tsk,tsk. Well, I never!

[Skywalkers new Hand]

Originally posted by BigMark:
early adopters...tsk,tsk,tsk. Well, I never!

We are eager

------------------

[rogerkylin]

RevA ibook 288Mb RAM.

Runs reasonably well (even though it recommends a 6Mb graphics card). The voices at the beginning were screwed up...high pitched and skipped, but I haven't seen it since.

I only run when starting under OS9. First because of the sound issue on some ibooks/imacs, second because it is very choppy when running through classic under osx.

impression of game..

i really like that now there is a continuous 360 degree view, versus the discrete views. Panning is surprisingly smooth considering I'm using the original ibook.

[TomG3AKAMacguyver]

Please stop by and fill out a review form for it. I believe there are a few Mac gamers (including myself) who are slightly on the fence about getting this game. I'd love to hear what it's about and what people think of it. The reviews will stay up for the present and future benefit of other Mac gamers inquiring about the game.
http://www.macgamersreview.com/
(down under the "other" heading)

Cheers,
TomG3

[Ybot]

Hey everyone, just wanted to post my success story with Myst 3. The system I'm running it on is:

400MHz AGP PowerMac G4
16mb ATI Rage Pro (I think, it's whichever card came with the computer)
192mb of Ram
Mac OS 9.1 full (not 9.x updated to 9.1)
QuickTime 5.0.1 Pro
Bink extension enabled
Virtual Memory ON

Contrary to other people with similar configurations, Myst 3 works flawlessly for me. I did experience that two mouse pointer (the hand and the actual regular pointer) issue, but a reboot solved that. So all in all I am very pleased! This game is already consuming my free time. The graphics are stunning and the puzzles are very clever. Definitely fun!

-Y

[bobette]

Well, I just finished it!
One word: whoa.

Verrrryyyy cool.

[iBorg]

Did you get the v 1.1 patch from UbiSoft? http://www.ubisoft.com/support/myst3faq.php

You can also sign up on their website to get a free upgraded "Disk 1" that "addresses most of the known bugs."



iBorg

[zac4mac]

bobette-
Your brain must be fried and your seat sore.

Been playing almost all my spare time and just got to Edanna yesterday.
Probably done by the weekend so I can go riding in the mountains (read- have a life again).
Can't wait to see the finale after that ride out of Amateris.

------------------

[pead]

After reading some of the above horror stories, just wanted to post my success story with Myst 3.
System setup:

450MHz AGP G4
Rage Pro AGP
640mb of Ram
OS 9.1
QuickTime 5.0.1
Bink extension enabled
Virtual Memory OFF
Minimal Extensions + Wacom Tablet Mouse
Dual 19" monitors with second Rage Pro (but just turn the second monitor off, and the speakers up loud! ;-)
Did allocate 150mb ram to Myst3, doubt it needs that much, but no problems running at all so far.

After installing the full verison 4 CDs of Myst3 onto the HD, I did experience the two mouse pointer (the hand and the actual regular pointer) issue when first attempting to play under full extensions, but a reboot to the minimal set solved that.
Also, had an error message at startup saying ATM didnt support one or more true type fonts (giffordshand.ttf and some other fonts that the game needs.) Upgraded to ATM 4.6.1 from 4.5.2 seems to have resolved that issue.
Minor annoyance is that it does screw with your desktop going in and out of 640x480 mode.

The graphics and sound are STUNNING.
The Open GL hardware mode that enables the water textures makes for a great experience, so much detail.
I have to say that so far, I am as blown away on this one, as I was on the original (and that was just still frames!)
Spend a lot of time just looking around in the 360 mode and marvelling at all the hard work that went into this sucker.
Am just in the first age, so cant really comment about the game play or the puzzles, but if you're into eye candy, this game is definitely worth the price!

Cya

[pead]

Originally posted by iBorg:
Did you get the v 1.1 patch from UbiSoft? http://www.ubisoft.com/support/myst3faq.php

I went there, but couldnt find a mac version. The one they have for download is an .exe.

[bobette]

zac4mac:

Oh man, this game is way kewl... And the rides at the end of each section? hehehehehe...hehehhHEHEHEeeee..... WWaaahahahaAAAAA!!!!

*wipes drool off chin*

OK, no laughing, I'm a new gamer. I'm stuck at the broken globe in Amateria. I assume it's balance I'm supposed to attain but can't grasp it.
HELP!!!!!

[bobette]

Check out the new thread:
http://forums.macnn.com/cgi-bin/Foru...ML/000960.html

I (as well as many others, I'm certain) will be answering your questions there.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

http://ggc.dyndns.org/~hitman/myst3-walkthrough.txt

------------------

[zac4mac]

BWa-ha-ha
Finally finished.
Got a disappointed rebuke from Atrus, then got killed, then I finally saved Releeshan.
Hoooooray I can go outside again.

Didn't even use "severed"'s cheat sheet.

[bobette]

Congrats Zac! The world is now a safer place....

Till they pump out another one!


Wahahahahaa!!!