MBP 15" constant graphic stuttering while gaming

[zerixar]

whenever i've talked to them the second i say anything about the problem with windows games they go "oh we don't support anything remotely related to windows, what trouble are you having on the mac side" and it gets me nowhere. .

slightly off topic, anyone else here playing warhammer online? i loaded the game up yesterday expecting a beautiful game, and logged in to see rather unimpressive graphics. especially when other ingame objects like monsters and other players get about 50 feet away the quality of their movement animation goes down, and at 100 feet or so the characters look almost runescape-like. also enemy monsters, like harpies, have horrible wing animations and whatnot, to where they almost look like something that was made with flash. is this my system somehow not taking advantage of it's resources, or does the game kind of just look like that.

 

[RobLS]

A couple weekends ago when I visited friends, I stopped by the gaming cafe to see one of my friends there playing the new warhammer game. I have to say I was pretty unimpressed with how things looked. Maybe it will get better over time though, I don't know. I'll stick with getting on world of warcraft every now n then.

 

[Stridder44]

A couple weekends ago when I visited friends, I stopped by the gaming cafe to see one of my friends there playing the new warhammer game. I have to say I was pretty unimpressed with how things looked. Maybe it will get better over time though, I don't know. I'll stick with getting on world of warcraft every now n then.

You spoke of them as if they were different games. Warhammer is a WoW clone. Reminds me of my friend who plays WoW all the time. He has tried to break away from it, complaining about this or that, and will try a different MMO (he's a bit addicted). He tried Age of Conan, Warhammer, and a few others, and always went back to WoW after a week. Even with it's faults, you gotta admit WoW is the best MMO out there right now (has been for a while).

 

[RobLS]

Lol actually i was thinking the same thing. it looked like a cheaped up version of it

 

[zerixar]

actually, WoW is a clone of warhammer, warhammer has been around for a loooooong time, and wow admittedly took a lot of their inspiration from the gamesworkshop game's theme and lore. also wow, while it used to be about being an amazing game, now has become just a huge time sink and cash cow for blizzard. the only reason they are releasing wotlk so soon is to compete with WAR. as people in the beta can tell you, there are whole zones that are barren with no monster placement, no npc's, not a living thing, just barren unfinished game. but they're rushing the developement process to get it out there in the same timeframe as WAR so that they can grab up some of that new release money from them. as for the "cheapened up graphics", yea admittedly it doesn't look jaw dropping, wow's a bit shinier, but when you get into a 200+ person battle, you'll understand why they've been dumbed down a little. one more thing is that a lot of people who switched to war did so because wow has become tedious, and the pvp is beyond broken with no real plan to be fixed... ever. i myself played wow for 3 years, had a 70 lock and 70 warrior, and i finally just couldn't take how cheap and un-fun it all was and i cancelled my account. Warhammer's business plan for makin their game essentially turns into "take all the things that blizzard's game sucked at and fix it". while it may not be as visually appealing, all in all i believe the point is that this is not just another wow clone, it's a completely different game based on completely different goals and mechanics, and it's a LOT more fun.

Even with it's faults, you gotta admit WoW is the best MMO out there right now (has been for a while)

i disagree. it's faults are significant, and unless you have countless hours to sink into it this game is pretty mediocre. sure it's shiny, i believe pre-bc wow was the greatest mmo to hit the shelves, but now with every expansion i forsee wow just becoming a more unoriginal yawn-fest and cashcow for blizzard.

 

[jerryrock]

Apple offers free repair for defective Nvidia graphics chip in MacPros:

http://www.macworld.com/article/136002/2008/10/nvidia.html

 

[Stridder44]

i disagree. it's faults are significant, and unless you have countless hours to sink into it this game is pretty mediocre. sure it's shiny, i believe pre-bc wow was the greatest mmo to hit the shelves, but now with every expansion i forsee wow just becoming a more unoriginal yawn-fest and cashcow for blizzard.

Fair enough, but what would you consider to be a better MMO than WoW?

 

[RobLS]

So back on topic, Apple has come out and said there are probs with MBPs with nvidia chips. Told ya. Now go see about getting yours fixed or whatever. Now back to off topic, I think WoW is pretty fun and the lore is pretty in-depth and captivating. As for the beta, I am currently enrolled in that as well and I don't see much of a prob. that you think is going on. It's much better than the BC expansion and it just brings more depth to WoW itself.

Anyways, go see what can be done about your MBP now. Hope everything turns out swell for you

 

[zerixar]

i'll give apple a call, but i think that nvidea problem is more that the cards have been causing comp failure, as in like they overheat and die, so until that happens i don't think they're gonna have anything they can do. god i wish they'd just switch it out for an entirley different model of card, but they wont, they'll just put another 8600 in it.

Fair enough, but what would you consider to be a better MMO than WoW

well it depents what you're looking for. i tend to focus more on pvp experience, and for that there's no game that can or will ever top Knight Online. ever. WoW's pvp was sort of thrown together as an afterthought like "oh yea, people like to kill other people.... well.... here's some rediculously unbalanced arenas and... um... have fun."

as for pve, WoW's probably top there, but like i said, it's a huge time sink, and if you look at the differences between pre bc and post bc, the pre bc raids and instances were amazing complex dungeons and stuff (for instance brd(instance) and molten core(raid), where the post bc ones are simpler, less imaginative (run down hallway, kill boss, run down other hallway, kill next boss). it just seems wow is pushing out new content for money rather than for improved game experience.

don't get me wrong, i liked WoW, a LOT in the beginning, but after a couple years of playing it just lost its appeal, and i doubt i will play wotlk.

 

[NateEssex]

WARHammer

Fair enough, but what would you consider to be a better MMO than WoW?

I've played a LOT of MMORPGs.

Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, EVE Online, Shadowbane(BEST PvP), and Wow. I'm now playing WARhammer and having an AWESOME time. You can run scenarios and get faction and exp. I HATED grinding faction in Wow. I work for a living and it was TOO much like work.

Try Warhammer if you like PvP. It's awesome. Oh, the Public Quests are great too!

 

[Brandon Heat]

i know exactly what you're talking about..

I have a white iMac g5... 2.0/2gb ram...

I also installed counterstrike via bootcamp and xp... And it ran exactly how you described.. I did this back when bootcamp was in beta.. I thought this problem was just because of the fact it was beta and dismissed it... Uninstalled xp and forgot about it... I'm now in the process of trying to get keyboard and mouse to work on my xbox via xfps/xim1 and came to these parts of the forum to brush up on any boot camp info... Sad to hear that this issue isn't fixed yet... Definitely keep us updated!

My personal opinion? I don't think it's hardware related, so sending it back and forth isn't worth it... I'm gonna get leopard this weekend and hopefully xp and I'm gonna install cs again and I'll post what happens...

jus doin the followup... ive installed leopard and xp... ran cs and its perfectly fine...

 

[zerixar]

just my luck. apple announced the new 15" macbook pro yesterday >.<
it's been less than a month since i got the replacement for my original one, when i get home today i'm gonna call them and try to arrange a trade in, or get my money back and buy the new one. it's like the same price, maybe a little less for the new one too with shockingly better hardware. a 9700 gfx card, a 2.8ghz processor..... vs the old faulty 8600 and 2.6.... jeeeeezus.

 

[e7e]

have you tried turning off the power mizer settings in the nvidia controll panel? I got the same problem with a game called PES 2008, choppy and all. But once I turned off the powermizer, the game ran smooth as silk.

Oh btw I use the driver from laptop 2 video, 179.13.

 

[TheCakeIsALie]

To the OP:

Your teammate animation stuttering problem in CSS is not a hardware problem, so asking it on a Mac forum probably won't get you much help.

The problem with the game is that the server update rate is much lower than your frame rate. This doesn't usually happen online because most dedicated Source game servers have the "cmdrate" and "updaterate" set to much higher than the default. You are running an offline server on your own computer, therefore the default setting for the server update rate retains (which if I remember correctly is only at about 20-30 times per second, less than half of your average frame rate).

I've had this issue on my PC, and it is easily fixed. Read this article here to get more information about tweaking your rates in CSS. What I usually do is I create an "autoexec.cfg" file in my "Program Files\Steam\steamapps\username\counter-strike source\cstrike\cfg" folder and write the following code in it.

cl_updaterate 50
cl_cmdrate 80

Hope this helps.

 

[zerixar]

To the OP:

Your teammate animation stuttering problem in CSS is not a hardware problem, so asking it on a Mac forum probably won't get you much help.

The problem with the game is that the server update rate is much lower than your frame rate. This doesn't usually happen online because most dedicated Source game servers have the "cmdrate" and "updaterate" set to much higher than the default. You are running an offline server on your own computer, therefore the default setting for the server update rate retains (which if I remember correctly is only at about 20-30 times per second, less than half of your average frame rate).

I've had this issue on my PC, and it is easily fixed. Read this article here to get more information about tweaking your rates in CSS. What I usually do is I create an "autoexec.cfg" file in my "Program Files\Steam\steamapps\username\counter-strike source\cstrike\cfg" folder and write the following code in it.
Code:

cl_updaterate 50
cl_cmdrate 80

Hope this helps.

thanks i'll try this when i get home after work today.

also, i called apple yesterday and arranged to do the exchange and get the brand new macbook pro with the 9400 and 9600 gfx cards and 2.8ghz processsor. gonna be some more downtime while i send this one back and wait for the new one to come.

 

[waffl]

? Free upgrade?

thanks i'll try this when i get home after work today.

also, i called apple yesterday and arranged to do the exchange and get the brand new macbook pro with the 9400 and 9600 gfx cards and 2.8ghz processsor. gonna be some more downtime while i send this one back and wait for the new one to come.

Are you getting a free upgrade to the new version because of the 'faulty' nvidia chip?? Or are you 'returning' the old one and buying a new one?

 

[soLoredd]

Just ran through this thread and had to laugh. Everytime someone comes up with a genuinely good idea to troubleshoot, the OP sends in the MBP for exchange. How in the world will anything get figured out?!

 

[zerixar]

I'm getting the upgrade to the new version because my 30 day money back thing isn't quite up, and they agreed to exchange it instead of giving me money and then me having to place another order. honestly, can ya blame me for upgrading to the new and better hardware?

and i haven't sent it back in yet, still playing phone tag with apple to get my shipping labels. was going to try the cs:s fix that was posted but my internet was down last night and i couldn't access this thread to do it. aaanyway, i'm going to try it before i send it in, but the point remains, 30 day money back / return / exchange policy offering me a better computer is > than solving current problem in the next week or so, so now that's my first priority.

 

[zerixar]

success, ok that worked, i didn't make autoexec files, i just typed it in in the console in the game, and it solved the problem. jeez..... well whateve,r i'm still getting the new one since it's just got better guts, but thank you for solving this problem for me

 

[hashilli]

the troll says...

Being condescending gets you no where.

ha ha ha. told you your posts were useless =P

 

[The Flashing Fi]

ha ha ha. told you your posts were useless =P

Couldn't have been any more useless then you bumping the thread to post something as inane as that nonsense. I at least made an effort to help the guy.