[xyber233]

I think a new patch came out today. Look at one of the changes .

- Added PowerPC optimizations and MacOS X 10.2 specific
acceleration to the
graphics engine.

WOW! Just tried it. What a performace boost! I can actually play in X now !

[blizzard]

Cool man! Thanks for the heads up.

[juanvaldes]

Damit you beat me to it! stupid class...

There was a article about how when Apple showed blizzard 10.2 with the new OpenGL dev tools in 15 minutes they were able to give WC3 a 25% speed boost. I am VERY pleased to see this actually being rolled into the game. Yet another reason Blizzard is my favorite game developer.

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by juanvaldes:
Damit you beat me to it! stupid class...

There was a article about how when Apple showed blizzard 10.2 with the new OpenGL dev tools in 15 minutes they were able to give WC3 a 25% speed boost. I am VERY pleased to see this actually being rolled into the game. Yet another reason Blizzard is my favorite game developer.

That was awhile ago...how do you know this 25% boost wasn't in the initial release of WC3? Or was it 10.2 OpenGL dev tools?

I swear I heard that quite awhile ago...like 3 months ago. Why wouldn't didn't these speed tweaks make it in previous updates to WC3?

[Deicide]

I have not noticed any speed improvement on my 800Mhz imac. I will try it on my dual533 at work tomorrow.

[Rob Barris]

Re War3 optimizations, couple of categories actually.

a. Some things we were doing in our code that was inefficient, that were rooted out prior to product release, with the help of GL Profiler. There was in particular one extra call we were making needlessly each frame that was burning lots of cycles. Hats off to the Apple OGL team for hooking us up with the pre-release version of the tool so we could find that.

b. Stuff we could not take advantage of until 10.2 came out. Simply put, new OpenGL extensions that offer us a faster path to shovel vertex data into the video card, i.e. animated geometry. No changes yet that have anything to do with texture downloads or any of that.

Category 'a' issues were mostly found in Jan-Feb 2002 before 1.0 release. Category 'b' issues have been addressed to some extent in the 1.03 patch.

Rob

[villalobos]

Originally posted by xyber233:
I think a new patch came out today. Look at one of the changes .

WOW! Just tried it. What a performace boost! I can actually play in X now !

Whatever. The multiplayer is still not playable on a DA 533MHz. That's a shame.

villa

[Rabid Duck]

Hmm, the game is still noticeably faster in OS 9 than 10.2.1 on my G4/733 with GF2mx. Guess I'll keep having to switch between the two

[Adam Betts]

It's definitely playable in OS X than it is before. I'm running on TiG4 400mhz w/ 512mb of RAM and FPS is sufficient enough. OS 9 is '5 fps' faster than OSX but that is not bad. I hope with newer drivers for both ATI and nVidia in 10.2.2, we'll see more speed boost

[xyber233]

How do you find the framerate? Thanx.

[Deicide]

xyber233:


You can't show the framerate within the game.

--------

The game has always been playable under MacOS X for me, but that doesn't mean it's actually enjoyable. Once you have played it on the PC or MacOS 9.x the MacOS X version feels crippled. On a 533Mhz celeron with a Geforce1 sdr the game is smooth even with large battles. Now under MacOS 9.2.2 the game plays almost as good as the PC version. The thing that doesn't feel right is the curser. Does anyone here even play on Battle.net under MacOS X? There is no way you can be competitive with the curser skipping during battles.

[xyber233]

Oh well. At least I can play in os X now. Plus, I like all the balance changes in the new patch. Good job blizzard.

[Rabid Duck]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
It's definitely playable in OS X than it is before. I'm running on TiG4 400mhz w/ 512mb of RAM and FPS is sufficient enough. OS 9 is '5 fps' faster than OSX but that is not bad. I hope with newer drivers for both ATI and nVidia in 10.2.2, we'll see more speed boost

I'm glad you find it playable in 10.2-- I prefer not having the cursor skip around during large battles (when it's most crucially needed). *Sigh.* Sorry, just ranting. Where did you get that 5 fps figure from?

On a related note, i've been eyeing that Flashed PC-Radeon 8500 thread for awhile now... does anyone have any experience with the 8500's performance in WC3? I have a stock Geforce 2MX card in my G4/733 and though most 3D games run acceptably (if not in 10.2, then at least in 9.2.2), WC3 is the noted exception, even with settings turned down.

[villalobos]

Originally posted by Rabid Duck:


I'm glad you find it playable in 10.2-- I prefer not having the cursor skip around during large battles (when it's most crucially needed). *Sigh.* Sorry, just ranting. Where did you get that 5 fps figure from?

On a related note, i've been eyeing that Flashed PC-Radeon 8500 thread for awhile now... does anyone have any experience with the 8500's performance in WC3? I have a stock Geforce 2MX card in my G4/733 and though most 3D games run acceptably (if not in 10.2, then at least in 9.2.2), WC3 is the noted exception, even with settings turned down.

Rabid, I have a flashed Radeon 8500, in my 533 MHz. I have the same issues as you: the game is not playable as soon as larger (not necessarily large, just larger) battles arise.

Not sure how much a difference the 733 would make (obviously close to 30-35%, but who knows).

Hope this helps.

There is another thread on xlr8yourmac.com in the forum concerning these flashed cards.

Villa

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by Rabid Duck:
I'm glad you find it playable in 10.2-- I prefer not having the cursor skip around during large battles (when it's most crucially needed). *Sigh.* Sorry, just ranting. Where did you get that 5 fps figure from?

Sorry I wasn't explaining clear enough. It was playable in one player but you're right, it does skip in large battles online

I guessed the FPS by the way it looked. In OS9 it seem to run at around 25 fps and it is slightly slower in OS X so I'd say I lost around 5 fps there. I wish there is an option that let me view the actual FPS Perhaps in future version of WC3?

[Rabid Duck]

Argh, just got finished playing another LAN game in which I couldn't warp out via TP scroll in time because of the crazy skipping. it just frustrates me so much when my PC buddies w/ the same video card have none of the skipping and low frame rate issues I have to deal with. Is OpenGL really that far behind DirectX right now? Makes me long for RAVE support...

[Weezer]

Ive got a 933 G4, 768 RAM, Ge 4MX and I get flawless WC3 under osx with 1.03 and all visuals turned on high.

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by Weezer:
Ive got a 933 G4, 768 RAM, Ge 4MX and I get flawless WC3 under osx with 1.03 and all visuals turned on high.

You lucky b@stard!

[Gul Banana]

Well, I get it flawlessly with a dual gig and geforce 4, but I got that before the patch However, with my new radeon 8500 for my lesser G4 (400 MHz) and the patch, it is indeed nice and playable in 10.2. Not with all settings at full, of course, but I don't have to turn them all the way down either. This is on battle.net, too, not just singleplayer.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by Rabid Duck:
Hmm, the game is still noticeably faster in OS 9 than 10.2.1 on my G4/733 with GF2mx. Guess I'll keep having to switch between the two

Exact same setup (768 MB RAM) and the same problem!

I did not notice any performance inprovements at all with the new patch. I have to boot into OS 9 to play it. When I play in OS X and try scrolling around (even in the beginning of a game!) the camera chop every other second or so, which is very disturbing. In OS 9 however the game is silky smooth (compared to X performance anyway) and there is no problem at all with the scrolling. The only time it slows down at all is in large battles.

Category 'b' issues have been addressed to some extent in the 1.03 patch.

I hope a future patch will make the game playable on my comp. Otherwise I'll have to buy a new graphics card..

[CIA]

Does warcraft 3 take advantage of 2 processors? I know OSX at it's core runs better on two G4's, but in OS9 is there a difference between dual and single machines? (example.. Dual 500 vs. single 500)

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by CIA:
Does warcraft 3 take advantage of 2 processors? I know OSX at it's core runs better on two G4's, but in OS9 is there a difference between dual and single machines? (example.. Dual 500 vs. single 500)

not exactly. The main thread that does all the heavy lifting can only be on one CPU. But other things like Sound, Networking, compAI, etc, can go on the second CPU leaving more cycles for the first.

[CIA]

Quote:

not exactly. The main thread that does all the heavy lifting can only be on one CPU. But other things like Sound, Networking, compAI, etc, can go on the second CPU leaving more cycles for the first.
-----------------

I'm guessing you are talking about OSX and not OS9....

[bborofka]

Yesterday I got WC3 for my eMac/700MHz with a GF2MX and 256MB of RAM. The first thing I did was download and install 1.0.3.

I tried playing it in OS 10.2.1, only to find it was miserably slow after the first few stages of the campaign.

I booted into OS 9.2.2, and performance was much better. But after playing on battle.net with some friends, performance became horrible slow in big battles. I could hardly scroll around, let alone select any of my guys or a building. I'm on 56k.

What's the deal? Why is performance so poor on my Mac? And why is it so poor on Mac OS X? Wasn't X supposed to be much better at rendering 3D and such? I'm not running any other programs when I play.

This is very disappointing. I played WC2 on a 60MHz Performa for years and it was just fine. Now I can hardly play WC3 on a brand new eMac. Is it going to get better any time soon? I'm going to mess around with it tonight some more, but I'm probably going to return it if I can't get it to run any better.

[a2daj]

Keep in mind that OS X is a preemptive multitasking system and that OS 9 is a cooperative multitasking system. In OS X, the OS is in charge of dishing out CPU usage, so that one app can't hog all of the CPU cycles. So if you have anything running that might eat up CPU cycles, such as the automatic update stuff, or any types of server daemon, that can have an impact on gaming performance.

In OS 9, the apps themselves are in charge of CPU usage, so a game can hog all of the CPU cycles, so background tasks may not affect performance as much.

So if you have iTunes running in the background while you're playing WC3, I'd recommend turning it off.

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by eVo:
Yesterday I got WC3 for my eMac/700MHz with a GF2MX and 256MB of RAM. The first thing I did was download and install 1.0.3.

I tried playing it in OS 10.2.1, only to find it was miserably slow after the first few stages of the campaign.

I booted into OS 9.2.2, and performance was much better. But after playing on battle.net with some friends, performance became horrible slow in big battles. I could hardly scroll around, let alone select any of my guys or a building. I'm on 56k.

What's the deal? Why is performance so poor on my Mac? And why is it so poor on Mac OS X? Wasn't X supposed to be much better at rendering 3D and such? I'm not running any other programs when I play.

This is very disappointing. I played WC2 on a 60MHz Performa for years and it was just fine. Now I can hardly play WC3 on a brand new eMac. Is it going to get better any time soon? I'm going to mess around with it tonight some more, but I'm probably going to return it if I can't get it to run any better.

try turning on 1 mb Virtual memory and then increase the memory for war3 with 100 mb. That will help, I think.

[bborofka]

Originally posted by a2daj:
Keep in mind that OS X is a preemptive multitasking system and that OS 9 is a cooperative multitasking system. In OS X, the OS is in charge of dishing out CPU usage, so that one app can't hog all of the CPU cycles. So if you have anything running that might eat up CPU cycles, such as the automatic update stuff, or any types of server daemon, that can have an impact on gaming performance.

In OS 9, the apps themselves are in charge of CPU usage, so a game can hog all of the CPU cycles, so background tasks may not affect performance as much.

So if you have iTunes running in the background while you're playing WC3, I'd recommend turning it off.

I know this. I'm not running anything else in the background. I'm not even connected to the internet and the speed is just annoyingly slow.

try turning on 1 mb Virtual memory and then increase the memory for war3 with 100 mb. That will help, I think.

1MB of VM was already on. I increased the RAM alotted to WC3 in OS 9 from 160MB to 200MB. Scrolling still became laggy when I was looking at a mid-sized battle, and the mouse was choppy enough to make me have trouble selecting guys, whether playing on bnet or not. Come to think of it, the mouse is choppy just about everywhere, even when I launch the game and navigate the menus. It's just not silky smooth like in the menus for Q3A, for example.

I waited for 1.0.3 to buy WC3, because everyone complained about the speed of the game, and claimed 1.0.3 was much faster. But 1.0.3 is still not as fast as I want for my computer. And I'm not going to just keep waiting around for updates, the game is probably going back.

My friend with a 1.6GHz P4 and a GF2MX, 256MB RAM has much smoother gameplay than I, and I thought my eMac was roughly as fast as his. Either my eMac is too slow for WC3 (for my standards) or there just needs to be more optimizations from Blizzard and/or Apple. Whatever the case, I'm not going to wait to find out. I could use the $60 for something else. Maybe I'll buy the game again in a year when things might be faster.

[a2daj]

The eMac lacks an L3 cache, right? That can have a serious effect on performance with the 745x G4s.

What resolution are you using when playing?

[Deicide]

eVo:

Some people just have lower standards then people like you and me. WC3 plays the exact same on every Mac. It allways has a constant lag and gets worse as more stuff happens on the screen. Like I said above, a lowly 533Mhz celeron with a Geforce1 plays WC3 better then any Mac. It's sad but true. I think it is a WC3 problem because Quake 3 plays just fine.

[bborofka]

Originally posted by Deicide:
eVo:

Some people just have lower standards then people like you and me. WC3 plays the exact same on every Mac. It allways has a constant lag and gets worse as more stuff happens on the screen. Like I said above, a lowly 533Mhz celeron with a Geforce1 plays WC3 better then any Mac. It's sad but true. I think it is a WC3 problem because Quake 3 plays just fine.

I noticed you said you were going to try it on a Dual 533MHz. Was it any faster?

I wish you weren't right, but it sounds like you're speaking the truth. Whatever platform has the most marketshare will get the most programming resources, hence WC3 runs much better on Windows.

I guess my only question is, how long until the Mac catches up, if ever?

[bOOzo]

Originally posted by Deicide:
eVo:

WC3 plays the exact same on every Mac. It allways has a constant lag and gets worse as more stuff happens on the screen.

That is not true. It works great in OS 9 for me. But the symptom you describe do happen in OS X though, which is a shame. I have a G4 733, GF2MX and 768 MB RAM.

[Rabid Duck]

Originally posted by bOOzo:


That is not true. It works great in OS 9 for me. But the symptom you describe do happen in OS X though, which is a shame. I have a G4 733, GF2MX and 768 MB RAM.

I have almost the exact same setup as you: G4/733(digital audio; unlike quicksilver 733 it does have L3 cache), GF2MX, 512 MB RAM. Performance is definitely better in OS 9, but when there's a battle, or when a bunch of units are on the screen at the same time, it lags horribly. This is unacceptable in multiplayer, as to be competitive you need to micromanage, which you can't do when your cursor is jumping around like in those really old DOS games. If the game truly does work great for you during medium-to-large sized battles, please post your secret here... I, and dozens of other disgruntled mac gamers, would like to know.