Dragon Age:Origins announced for Mac!

[Huntn]

I agree with you, that's why I mentioned it's what I was hoping for in Mass Effect. After playing games like Star Control 2, which had no limits on the star systems and planets I could explore, I was a bit let down that ME locked me out from so many points on the map and that many planets were just a lame block of text. I was hoping ME2 would address this, but it seems like that might not be the case, as Bioware has gone more of a shooter route this time around.

I own Oblivion, I bought it for only $12 new. But I have yet to install it. I've played it on a demo, but it didn't draw me in. It was only after I bought Fallout 3 and eventually reached a point that I was enjoying its gameplay that I bought Oblivion.

Anyways, I like exploration, but I also like character interaction, so I'm OK if I can't go everywhere in a game, as long as the people I talk to don't feel generic, if you know what I mean?

Forgive me if you know all of this all ready...
Some people have issues with Oblivion. I admit it is not perfect. Besides some limited events, the world is mostly static. The main quest, dealing with the Oblivion gates (portals to Oblivion) can be ignored as long as you like without any dire consequences. Inside the Gates, was very disappointing for me, it is the same environment over and over with different layouts in each gate. However part of Imperial City does change as a result of the main quest. And there is a farm, if you help a couple of brothers reclaim it, gets fixed up! Mobs scale with you, but you can still get yourself into trouble if you don't level correctly.

It's single strongest feature is the ability to explore a couple of square miles of Cryodill a space that feels as large as a county. See that mountain way over there? You can ride over to it, climb it, and once at the top look at the panorama before you without any section loads. Along the way you can gather herbs and animal parts to become a master of potions and a master of spells. Mob encounters on the road while traveling are random (highway men, and critters) and the environment is just superb. The weather changes with sunny skies, overcast, and down pours. I found it very appealing and could go out and just ride around checking out the sights. You can become head of the Mage Guild, you can become the Arena Combat champion, or you can be bad, very bad in the Thieves guild, killing and robbing, and you can become a vampire by accident or on purpose.

I'm thinking about starting it over.

 

[JackAxe]

Nope, don't know much about the game beyond my first impressions, but what you describe sounds great. When I first tried it, the stiff controls turned me off, but as noted, Fallout 3 has opened my eyes to the fun Oblivion has to offer, so I'm going to give it the time it needs to suck me in. Fallout 3 took me about 4 or 5 hours before I really started to enjoy it.

I love the weather system and day and night cycle in The Witcher and it's what I miss in DAO. So that's cool that Oblivion has one in place. I do plan on playing it, I just need to finish DAO first, then The Witcher, which I'm about a 3rd of the way through. I always play it for a stretch then step away. The game is really enjoyable, but even more time consuming than DAO in some respects.

 

[JollyRogers]

OK. well I just pre-ordered from D2D. Hopefully the bandwidth will be suitable enough to get the whole D/L today...

 

[xantir]

I consider buying this for my MacBook Pro.

Anyone tested it yet? I've played it through BootCamp XP with no problems, but it'd be awesome to play it in OS X.

I wonder if the port is decent, or if it's choppy and gets random weird errors like some ports do.

 

[MBP09]

I am also waiting for reviews on the performance for the Mac before i purchase it. I enjoyed the PC version but would like to install it on the Macbook Pro so i can play it anywhere.

 

[txa1265]

As I alluded to either in this thread or the other Dragon Age thread, I am anticipating getting a review copy for this game soon. I have already played through with my Mage and Paladin-like characters, and have started a new Mage character ... all on my unibody MBP in WinXP in Bootcamp. So I'll be able to get a decent feel of how things have changed from PC to Mac in terms of performance.

 

[Cougarcat]

As I alluded to either in this thread or the other Dragon Age thread, I am anticipating getting a review copy for this game soon. I have already played through with my Mage and Paladin-like characters, and have started a new Mage character ... all on my unibody MBP in WinXP in Bootcamp. So I'll be able to get a decent feel of how things have changed from PC to Mac in terms of performance.

Great, I'm really interested to know as I'm on the fence as to what version to get. I also would like to know if PC mods/addons are compatible. On the dragon age website all the addons are listed as "*Not available as a separate download for the Mac version of Dragon Age: Origins," which is rather disturbing.

 

[JollyRogers]

I'll post something here tonight. I will have the game downloaded in about an hour... I am installing it on a 08 Mac Pro w/ATI4870 and RAID 0, so my performance may be different then say on a MacbookPro... but I will have a general idea in the differences as I have been playing since release day rebooted into windows.

 

[alexstjo]

I cannot seem to get direct 2 drive to accept any of my credit cards!!!

 

[JollyRogers]

I had the same problem!!! I posted to their support and opened a ticket. Apparently they have some special review process for a CC. I cancelled and used paypal instead. I was not happy about it either, but understand it is some sort of fraud protection or something in those lines.

 

[kchau2]

I'll post something here tonight. I will have the game downloaded in about an hour... I am installing it on a 08 Mac Pro w/ATI4870 and RAID 0, so my performance may be different then say on a MacbookPro... but I will have a general idea in the differences as I have been playing since release day rebooted into windows.

What browser are you using to download from D2D?

 

[JollyRogers]

What browser are you using to download from D2D?

Safari.

 

[kchau2]

Safari.

Do you know why I can't click the download now button?

 

[txa1265]

I'll post something here tonight. I will have the game downloaded in about an hour... I am installing it on a 08 Mac Pro w/ATI4870 and RAID 0, so my performance may be different then say on a MacbookPro... but I will have a general idea in the differences as I have been playing since release day rebooted into windows.

Excellent - can't wait to compare and contrast our experiences!

 

[JollyRogers]

Do you know why I can't click the download now button?

I used the download button from "My Account" after purchasing. My Safari (which I have setup to pop a D/L window up) opened another window and started the download. They specifically state to disable the pop-up blocker, which I had already done for my current session. It is under "Safari -> Block Pop up Windows" or shift - command - K. After that my D/L just started. You cannot use "their" download manager on a Mac!

 

[rmaine]

Hi Jolly. Recognize you from usenet.

I'm about 30% of the way through downloading from direct2drive. I actually already bought the game for Windows (running on BootCamp) and am part way through my second character. If I knew there was going to be a Mac version, I'd have waited. As it is, I went ahead and bought the Mac version anyway if only to encourage developers to make such Mac versions. (I'm not going to fuss about the technology used; if it runs without my having to reboot to Windows and it performs decently, I'm happy).

I'm thinking maybe I'll give my Windows version to my son (who has a Mac laptop, but a Windows desktop).

Hmm. Wonder if it will work to copy my save game from my windows version to this new Mac one. Guess I'll see.

 

[JollyRogers]

OK. Well the install is done nicely. The DLC that comes with the purchase does not have to be downloaded via the in game DLC manager. It is part of the setup. I think separate DLC will actually work. The performance is noticably not as good as the native PC version... and the kicker for me! Sound does not work properly through my Bose Companion 5's. My Bose work for EVERYTHING else except this game. Sound works fine if I plug a set of speakers into the 3.5 mm jack on the back and also if I use a seat of headphones. This in itself is not what I was hoping. Can deal with the less performance as there are a few work arounds, but I need my sound to work right.

Edit: I found this on the EA support websight. NOTHING forwarned me about this. It should be in the system requirements: Does not work with USB sound! This is BS as it does on EVERYTHING else I have ever used... Crossover Games and Wine. How is it that Ciderized games have issues with sound. I actually have played DAO through Crossover Games and NOT had any sound issues, but have had texture issues.

QUESTION
Why are my speakers making distorted or crackling sounds?

ANSWER
Currently we do not test our Mac titles with USB speaker systems. We have encountered issues with USB speakers and our games having distorted or crackling sounds. We recommend using the default speaker layout for your Mac when playing Electronic Arts titles.

 

[MRU]

So if this is just a repacked cider port, is there a good chance of us being able to cider port it ourselves if we have the pc version ?

I managed to get my pc copy of Braid working in cider, but nothing more advanced.

 

[rmaine]

Working nicely for me. No observed problems. Yes, I was able to copy my characters from my Windows version.

Performance is smooth at max quality settings for most things. This is on a new 27" iMac with the 4850 card, so I'd expect decent performance. I can maybe detect that it is a hair less responsive than under bootCamp, but not enough that I'd swear it wasn't my imagination. I've got the resolution stepped down to "only" 1920x1280, but that's not for performance reasons; that's so that the ingame text is large enough for my eyes.

One thing I'm not yet sure of is patch status. The PC version patches are distributed as Windows executables, which doesn't seem likely to work... I don't think. Hmm; I wonder...

 

[TDHXXX]

Working nicely for me. No observed problems. Yes, I was able to copy my characters from my Windows version.

Performance is smooth at max quality settings for most things. This is on a new 27" iMac with the 4850 card, so I'd expect decent performance. I can maybe detect that it is a hair less responsive than under bootCamp, but not enough that I'd swear it wasn't my imagination. I've got the resolution stepped down to "only" 1920x1280, but that's not for performance reasons; that's so that the ingame text is large enough for my eyes.

One thing I'm not yet sure of is patch status. The PC version patches are distributed as Windows executables, which doesn't seem likely to work... I don't think. Hmm; I wonder...

So would you say that it is playable at 2560? I was considering getting this...

 

[rmaine]

Sure. Plays fine at 2560. I just now set it to that and ran through a quick battle to make sure. You just need either better eyes than mine for the text (or to sit closer to the monitor than I do), but it plays fine. This is with the 4850 card - not the default one, but then the 4850 is the card you would hopefully have gotten with a 27" iMac if you wanted much hope of doing games decently.

I quoted the rez wrong in my prior post, but that's presumably obvious as I quoted one that doesn't exist. I'm running it at 1920x1080 (not 1920x1280)

 

[TDHXXX]

Sure. Plays fine at 2560. I just now set it to that and ran through a quick battle to make sure. You just need either better eyes than mine for the text (or to sit closer to the monitor than I do), but it plays fine. This is with the 4850 card - not the default one, but then the 4850 is the card you would hopefully have gotten with a 27" iMac if you wanted much hope of doing games decently.

I quoted the rez wrong in my prior post, but that's presumably obvious as I quoted one that doesn't exist. I'm running it at 1920x1080 (not 1920x1280)

alright awesome, i was thinking of getting this as a christmas present so I want to know that it runs well. Of course I have the 4850 as well

I read somewhere that this game benefits from multithreading, as much as a 75% increase in speed, is this true?

 

[JollyRogers]

Well ended up grabbing an extra male-male 3.5mm cable to go from line-out on my Mac Pro to the BOSE controller vice the USB and selecting line out under System Config - sound. The sound sucks in comparison, but it works.

The install is typical Mac interface. The DLC that is included was downloaded/included with the Digital Download version and did not have to be downloaded separate, which is what I had to do with the PC retail version. The installer just asks if you want to install the extra DLC, asks for your EA account and the key for the DLC and tells you where it is installed (~/Documents/Bioware/Dragon Age/. It has an option to authorize/de-authorize the computer you have installed/playing on, so I can de-authorize prior to uninstalling. Not sure how this effects the included DLC.

Saved games will transfer over by copying you character folders over. However, here is the catch. If you were playing a game that used DLC and it had DLC that is not included with the Mac version, you either can't play your saved game or there is an option to force it. For example, I had a lot of the DLC on the PC side, but the big ones, Warden's Keep and the Stone Prisoner, I have for both Mac & PC. When I transferred my saved games over it listed all the other extra "stuff" I had and gave me the option to force it. This was good as I really didn't care about it all except the DLC quests. IMO, it looks like if you are familiar with how to manually install DLC, you will be able to install it on the Mac version. Looks like community stuff will work, however I have not checked yet to see DAUpdater.exe is on the transgaming drive for installing mods, but I know how to get around all that.

I am running it at 2048x1144 at full settings, Frame Buffer Effects enabled, and Vertical Sync disabled. Same as my PC side. It is very comparable, though a slight notice in fps slower. Videos do seem to stutter some in comparison. I get just the hint of a stutter in windows, but in Mac it is noticeable. When I first enable Frame Buffer Effects, the lighting was terrible (it doesn't do this on the PC side) but adjusting the gamma helped and it actually looks pretty darn good now. I had to weak my mouse settings to make it usable in game. Took some tweaking to the game mouse settings and also my System Settings. I use a Death Adder, and it allows me to adjust on the fly. Great mouse BTW.

I read somewhere that this game benefits from multithreading, as much as a 75% increase in speed, is this true?

Also, it is using all 8 cores on my machine at about 130% CPU usage, so more cores looks like better performance, which is on par with what it does in windows.

Other then the sound not working w/ Bose Companion 5's in USB mode, its plays pretty good, not as good as windows, but definitely playable. Cider/Transgaming has come a long way since my Linux days. This is a great game and will have a lot of life over the next 2-3 years... consider supporting it

Wife is in playing it now... and I am watching my skins get their tale kicked by G-men.

 

[Huntn]

Working nicely for me. No observed problems. Yes, I was able to copy my characters from my Windows version.

You copied the Bioware>Dragon Age>Characters folder from your Windows Document folder to the appropriate place on your Mac (where ever it's kept on the Mac?

 

[rmaine]

I read somewhere that this game benefits from multithreading, as much as a 75% increase in speed, is this true?

I have no way of either confirming or denying that. It isn't as though there is a simple obvious option to turn multithreading on/off and compare. Well, maybe there's a way to do so somewhere in the OS X kernel, but that's certainly not anything I would ever have experimented with or looked for. And even if I did, I haven't quantitatively measured the game performance. I just tried playing it briefly and it seemed smooth; I'm not going to be able to give you percentage numbers based on that.