BF2142 for Mac: how does it perform?

[harveypooka]

I've had BF2142 for Mac since release and it's never performed well on any of my Macs. I first played it on a first gen Intel iMac, now I have a Mac Pro with a 4870.

The game stutters and FPS can be erratic, making the game largely unplayable. Boot into Vista - 100FPS, stutter free.

I've contacted Transgaming and they're unsure what the problem could be. I know the game had issues at release, but has this changed?

I'd like to see what it plays like for other MR users; what system are you using, what graphics options are enabled, how does it perform?

UPDATE: Come on! I know some MR users play it...

 

[Pur3 Macs]

I've got a 24inch imac with nvidia 9400m geforce and I use bf2142 on vista ultimate via bootcamp and it can run everything at maximum level(shader, shadows etc) because when your using windows your grpahics card goes from using 256mb of ram to 512mb of ram which is very good for gaming!

 

[harveypooka]

I've got a 24inch imac with nvidia 9400m geforce and I use bf2142 on vista ultimate via bootcamp and it can run everything at maximum level(shader, shadows etc) because when your using windows your grpahics card goes from using 256mb of ram to 512mb of ram which is very good for gaming!

I meant BF2142 for Mac, as in running the game under Mac OS X.

I too have the game for Windows and it runs well - 100FPS. Of course there are the usual DICE/EA crashes, but that's another matter.

 

[pprior]

I have played the game on my two mac pro starting with ATI x1900 (played fine), then "upgraded" to the Nvidia 8800 (horrible performance, completely unplayable). Then got ATI3870, played fine again. I then got a brand new mac pro which came with a new 8800 nvidia card - unplayable again. Most recently I'm on a 4870 card and again it plays wonderfully on highest settings, except I keep AA at 2x (can't tell difference anyway).

I only run 1600x1200 because that why my monitor is, so higher resolutions I can't speak to.

My kids imac (20" 2 years old) plays it just fine, but on somewhat reduced settings.

In short, it seems to be perfectly playable, so long as you stay away from the nvidia cards, in my experience at least.

 

[harveypooka]

In short, it seems to be perfectly playable, so long as you stay away from the nvidia cards, in my experience at least.

Very strange.

If you play online would mind opening the console in game and typing in "renderer.drawfps 1" without quotes and tell me what your FPS is - low and high - and what game mode you're playing?

On release BF2142 got quite a bit of bad press - that's why I'd like to hear from users now to see how it's performing.

 

[Zakkk8]

I have a unibody Macbook Pro, 4gb Ram, 512mb graphics card, 2.5 ghz. I play in a lower resolution windowed mode with all the graphics on medium and low and it still runs pretty terribly. It did the same on my older generation Macbook Pro, with a 256 MB graphics card. I think that the reason for this is that EA did a terrible job porting it.

 

[harveypooka]

I have a unibody Macbook Pro, 4gb Ram, 512mb graphics card, 2.5 ghz. I play in a lower resolution windowed mode with all the graphics on medium and low and it still runs pretty terribly. It did the same on my older generation Macbook Pro, with a 256 MB graphics card. I think that the reason for this is that EA did a terrible job porting it.

EA didn't port it. The Windows .exe is wrapped up in Transgaming's Cider technology. The poor performance has to be from Cider, maybe coupled with driver issues.

 

[pprior]

Very strange.

If you play online would mind opening the console in game and typing in "renderer.drawfps 1" without quotes and tell me what your FPS is - low and high - and what game mode you're playing?

On release BF2142 got quite a bit of bad press - that's why I'd like to hear from users now to see how it's performing.

That listed 2 numbers. The top one ranged from high 30's to mid 70's with mostly around the 40's range. The bottom one was as low as 10-15, but I was not getting that low of a frame rate, that's for sure.

Normal maps, not titans. I know with the Nvidia cards if I flew a gunship up to attack the titan guns, when I got close to to titan my frame rate would plummet to probably 5-10 FPS and it was horrible. I don't get that at all with this card. The other problem I had before was during any artillery barrage my frame rate would drop so low I was a sitting duck. Again I don't see that here.

 

[harveypooka]

That listed 2 numbers. The top one ranged from high 30's to mid 70's with mostly around the 40's range. The bottom one was as low as 10-15, but I was not getting that low of a frame rate, that's for sure

Number on the left is your FPS. right number is something like buffer or time between frames, can't remember.

You can enable the Cider FPS counter, I'll find out how.

 

[munkees]

I purchased an iMac 2.8 extreme back in 2007, to run BF2142, and it ran with all switched on perfectly.

Graphics is a ATI HD 2600 pro with 256 mem

 

[aced411]

nvidia

Just wanted to jump in and say it runs great on my unibody MBP. Nvidia 9600GT w/ 256MB. Previously I ran it on a 20" aluminum imac w/ ATI HD 2400XT w/ 128MB and it ran ok with lower resolution settings.