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Duke Nukem Forever + Lion = Hell!

K

Kristenn

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 30, 2009
490
1
Okay, so I got Duke Nukem Forever yesterday, and started playing it late last night.

With the default settings for my computer.

2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB DDR3 RAM
250GB HD 7200rpm
Nvidia Geforce 9600M GT 512 MB vRAM

It lags like hell. Literally. Even if I turn everything down to low and the screen resolution lower than default (1400x900) it still lags, especially in firefights. I have a habit of turning sync off but I am getting no where near 60 fps anyway, so capping it at 60 and straining the hardware to do so would be utterly pointless, to say the least.

Also, it has a similar issue that World of Warcraft has been reported to have in Lion with most Nvidia cards (and some AMD card). I stopped playing WoW over a year or so ago so I cannot tell completely, but, if artifacts mean stuff bleeding through the walls and deformed models, then DNF also has this problem.

When I switch the the Nvidia Geforce 9600M (256MB shared with ram) there is no artifacts but I am forced to keep everything on low to avoid the lag the game still suffers. In fact, it is exactly like World of Warcraft and Lion. So my question is, what is up? Is it that the Nvidia drivers are just not optimized for Lion yet? CS:S, DoD:S and HL2 are more stable in Lion on the 9600M GT (512MB) than they were in SL. No more kernel panics or anything but apparently WoW users are unable to use there dedicated cards and DNF also has the same problem. The artifacts are only the first issue. The performance is just horrible all around. The game is fun so far but the lag makes it almost completely annoying to play!

I realize my processor is below recommended requirements. It fact it is only slightly faster than the minimal 2.4 GHz core 2 duo. But my ram and video are of recommended and my card (both of them) are listed as supported.

My computer is a late 2008 15 inch MacBook Pro.

Is it my processor? Amateur drivers for Lion?


Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Apparently the 9400M (9600M 256MB, whatever) is not supported but it DOES run and it doesn't give off artifacts like the ever much more powerful 9600M GT does.
 
The PC version was poorly optimised, I can't imagine how bad the OSX version is! (well I could, but I'm supposed to be busy dammit)

I noticed that the Post Processing really slowed it down. It enables that effect (the name escapes me, but it adds shadows to objects infront of the camera. 4 letters.). Totally slows down my system too no matter the game.
 
Dagless said:
The PC version was poorly optimised, I can't imagine how bad the OSX version is! (well I could, but I'm supposed to be busy dammit)

I noticed that the Post Processing really slowed it down. It enables that effect (the name escapes me, but it adds shadows to objects infront of the camera. 4 letters.). Totally slows down my system too no matter the game.
Click to expand...

it's FXAA.
 
I actually have all that stuff off. The bloom effects, everything. Performance is just horrible. Even with the textures set to medium, the game feels a bit laggy here and there. I figured that with 4GB Ram, a dual core processor and a decent 512MB card would get 50/40 fps. It is kind of silly that I have to dump down the screen res 3 times from the native to get it to run smoothly. Does anyone with Snow Leopard have better performance? I can't understand why the game suggests this stuff as defaults and it runs like utter crud. Not to mention my card is supported. I am seriously beginning to think that it has to do with Lion drivers. But I am not going to dual boot snow leopard to find out, either.
 
I have the same video card as you.

If I go to youtube and watch 1080p, the video is very choppy using the GPU, when I switch to the shared memory graphics, its not choppy.

I think it's definitely a driver issue.

Anyone else have the youtube issue with the 9600m GT and lion.

Kristenn said:
I actually have all that stuff off. The bloom effects, everything. Performance is just horrible. Even with the textures set to medium, the game feels a bit laggy here and there. I figured that with 4GB Ram, a dual core processor and a decent 512MB card would get 50/40 fps. It is kind of silly that I have to dump down the screen res 3 times from the native to get it to run smoothly. Does anyone with Snow Leopard have better performance? I can't understand why the game suggests this stuff as defaults and it runs like utter crud. Not to mention my card is supported. I am seriously beginning to think that it has to do with Lion drivers. But I am not going to dual boot snow leopard to find out, either.
Click to expand...
 
Kristenn,

I honestly don't think it's Lion's drivers that are at fault, rather it's more than likely due to your system. You're trying to run a new, rather unoptimized game at native resolution on a macbook pro with only 4GB of available RAM (the OS alone uses about half of that), and a mobile graphics card 9600m that was several generations old when you purchased your MBP. You were thinking you could get 40/50 fps? Unlikely.

I think you might find it playable if you turn all the graphic detail settings to low, reduce the resolution to something like 1280x720, turn off anti-aliasing, post-processing, an-isotropic filtering, and any other bells & whistles.
 
That's just it, though. It runs better with everyone on low on an unsupported card (9400M) Than it does on the 9600M GT (512MB) that is supported. It makes really no sense at all.

The 9400M and 9600M GT are not THAT old, they were standard in a lot of high end laptops in late 2008.


As for lag issues with DNF on Windows, it is as simple as going into the task managers and giving the priority to DNF instead of Steam. Though it does point to a badly unoptimised game, there is still a fix, on the Windows side.
 
The port was done by Aspyr, I don't think they have any good coders on staff anymore, let alone a proper QA team.
 
If you haven't contacted our technical support yet, you should do so. Send in a ticket via http://support.aspyr.com/

While the 9600M is near the low end, it should be able to handle the game on the default settings. It shouldn't be defaulting to as high a resolution as 1400x900, though.

I haven't seen any artifacts like you mention, so when you submit a ticket to our tech support, be sure to include a screenshot.
 
Thank you! =D I shall do that. I reinstalled the game and it defaults to the 1000 x resolution which makes more sense. It does put things on medium and it runs OK. As for the artifacts. They seem rare lately. But an example would be the part where you get out of the first elevator after the attack and turn left toward that big window where you see outside where the big alien ship is, you get surrounded by a brown wall. It creeps me out more than anything but, sometime tomorrow I will try submitting a ticket.
 
I'm playing it on an 21" iMac (3.06ghz Core 2 Duo/10gigs RAM) it has the NVIDIA 9400 (no "M"). I'm running it on my Snow Leopard partition, works great. I only get problems if I try to run it with all the bells and whistles, ...works fine though with a few of them enabled.

I understand that some feel the game is outdated, but for that reason alone, I kinda' like it. I used to play Duke Nukem 3D on my 2001 G4. So it brings back memories.

Next up?

The "new" version of Doom III...
 
I play Duke Nukem: Forever on my 2007 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 256MB Radeon HD x2600, and it has around 70 FPS with 10.7.2. How? OnLive. Their computers have the game, and process it, and send the video back to your computer. Duke Nukem: Forever is on sale for $10.
 
Steve.P.JobsFan said:
I play Duke Nukem: Forever on my 2007 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 256MB Radeon HD x2600, and it has around 70 FPS with 10.7.2. How? OnLive. Their computers have the game, and process it, and send the video back to your computer. Duke Nukem: Forever is on sale for $10.
Click to expand...

OnLive processes games at 30fps, not 70. Almost every game maxes at 60fps too, since that's what most PC monitors run at (there are exceptions and 3D displays too).
 
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