Forums | MacLife

Confirmed: grass causes insta-crash on the Star-Forge planet, and also on a couple spots in the Shadowlands of Kashyyyk.

This on mac-mini w/OEM Radeon 9200. OS X.3.8

I'm also using a 9200M. I found the game to be very playable on Taris, but once I got to the area outside of the Jedi Enclave the game became unplayable. I'd move a char and the game would freeze and I'd end up all the way across the map stuck to a wall.

My system stats are as follows:

12" iBook ATI 9200M
768MB Ram
MacOSX 10.3.8

All of the game settings are at thier lowest. And I've set my CPU performance to Highest using the Energy Saver Panel.

Any suggestions on how to improve performance, or atleast get around the areas on Dantooine would be appreciated.

Thanks,
FR

I'll try using the ATI Displays application tonight. I noticed that ATI seems to have a Driver update and a ROM update for OSX:

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBA … ionID=3379

Have you tried using these?

FR

Well thats a Mobility chip so it won't do anything. Apple has put out some R9200M update patches but your machine is already up to date. I know cause I tried with mine. The GPU in your iBook is just really crappy.

Try using Displays 3D Overrides to change some things but don't expect much. I finally checked the other KOTOR thread in the Games forum and it looks like KOTOR pushes the Vertex shaders too much. All the RV2x0 series GPUs are affected.

I'm kinda holding some hope for X.4 but we'll see when it comes out.

Brad Oliver wrote:

frojas wrote:

Any suggestions on how to improve performance, or atleast get around the areas on Dantooine would be appreciated.

Downgrading to 10.3.7 will make a big difference.

Talk about night and day! I downgraded (less painfull than I thought it would be) and dantooine runs much better now.

Thanks
FR

So downgrading involves using your original 10.3 install CDs. Use the "Archive and Install" option. Make sure that you opt to save the user and network settings. Then download the 10.3.7 Combo Updater from:

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ … 0_3_7.html

It took me about two hours to reinstall. Mostly because a lot of the updates that need to be applied require a restart.

Most applications will not be to reinstalled.

FR

NightCougar_37 wrote:

Try using Displays 3D Overrides to change some things but don't expect much. I finally checked the other KOTOR thread in the Games forum and it looks like KOTOR pushes the Vertex shaders too much. All the RV2x0 series GPUs are affected.

While it's true that KOTOR pushes the hardware, it's very kind to the r200 hardware with the latest patch. The issues with performance in 10.3.8 are driver performance regressions at this point, rather than KOTOR just being a dog.

frojas wrote:

Hopefully 10.3.9 and 10.4 will fix the problems. Does this have to do with the changes they made to make World of Warcraft run better? Or is it just a bug in the 10.3.8 drivers?

I don't know yet - still waiting to hear back from my ATI contacts. Either scenario sounds equally plausible to me though - they could have optimized WoW and not realized they broke something somewhere else or it could just be a regular old bug.

All indication are that there will be a 10.3.9 According to macrumors.com and thinksecret apple is sending test seeds of 10.3.9 to developers.

Well, I am actually playing KOTOR now, but it isn't on my computer. My brother got a PC for free through this program, and he got KOTOR also... Because it is a PC it'll probably run better, but now he plays the game a ton, and uses the computer a lot, so I'm not going to be able to play it very often I'm still on Taris, (He is too though, and he's been playing it a long time) but I haven't even gotten to the Undercity yet (not to mention almost all of the quests, I basically just got to Taris...

Yeah, I'm loving this though. I was thinking about getting this game, but I don't really think its worthwhile to go buy it for my mac when I can just play it on my brothers computer (And spend the $50 on like Tiger or SW BF )


Yeah, this game rocks. Quite a bit like Neverwinter Nights.

Hey jeap, would you loan my your G5 for a month so I can play KOTR?

_Nik

Awesome. Oh there is an issue in KOTOR2 you need to know tho if the both of you play it.

It won't allow you to load other saved games after you start a new one. Probably is a work around by messing with some of the files but I wouldnt know it. So you'll have to do it one at a time. Oh also, use return key in conversations. Mouse more often than not causes things to skip. KOTOR2 for PC is just really buggy. Its surprising they havent posted an update yet.

Brad if you port this to Mac and get some of these issues worked out, you are truely da man .