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Spore running real slow on mac pro with ati 1900

P

padré

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 7, 2006
125
0
this is really really strange
the first stages as a cell went really well with all settings on high, and they my creature evolved to the ground, and in to the open world and everything is running extremely slow, but really i can count the frames, its like 7 frames a second or something like that.

i have 2 gig ram, a ati 1900 in a mac pro

:s

anybody else expierencing the same (it runs smooth when i put all the settings verry low)
 
padré said:
this is really really strange
the first stages as a cell went really well with all settings on high, and they my creature evolved to the ground, and in to the open world and everything is running extremely slow, but really i can count the frames, its like 7 frames a second or something like that.

i have 2 gig ram, a ati 1900 in a mac pro

:s

anybody else expierencing the same (it runs smooth when i put all the settings verry low)
Click to expand...

Are you playing on a Mac or PC partition?
 
padré said:
this is really really strange
the first stages as a cell went really well with all settings on high, and they my creature evolved to the ground, and in to the open world and everything is running extremely slow, but really i can count the frames, its like 7 frames a second or something like that.

i have 2 gig ram, a ati 1900 in a mac pro

:s

anybody else expierencing the same (it runs smooth when i put all the settings verry low)
Click to expand...

Most likely your bottle neck there is that antiquated ATi Radeon X1900 its a bit on the low end these days, try shopping around for a X2800 or X3870 both have mac editions with the X4870 not far away ether. In the mean time lower your in game graphics settings.
 
re

tx for the replies,

yeah i'm playing it on my mac partition, the strange thing is i can play crisis at high settings (no AA tho) so one would expect to be able to play this right ?
 
padré said:
tx for the replies,

yeah i'm playing it on my mac partition, the strange thing is i can play crisis at high settings (no AA tho) so one would expect to be able to play this right ?
Click to expand...

Mind it is a cider port of a game and not native and not optimized and that you are running a rather low performance GPU though it is on the minimum requirements but those minimum requirements are not for super high mode there for the lowest mode so because you match the box spec don't expect to be able to push the frames at settings the game was designed to push high end GPU's.
 
Runs perfect here with 8800 GT... EXACTLY the same as the Windows version.

I hate to say this, but Transgaming really DID optimized this one.
 
re

in europe its availeble since today (the 4th)

anyways i installed it on my macbook pro (with 8600 512 mb) and it runs like a dream, so i guess there something wrong with the ati drivers or something

i'll be ordering a 8800 soonish :)
 
This may also have to do with the massive graphic difference between cell and creature stages, try low or medium settings instead. Works fine on my macbook on high, so this is a bit strange (running under winXP) . I got it a day early, comes out on 5th in the UK, thank you game.co.uk
 
babyjenniferLB said:
Most likely your bottle neck there is that antiquated ATi Radeon X1900 its a bit on the low end these days, try shopping around for a X2800 or X3870 both have mac editions with the X4870 not far away ether. In the mean time lower your in game graphics settings.
Click to expand...

yeah the x1900 is an old boy right now, but seriously.... spore isnt that intense, ive played the demo on a X800GTO (even more inferior than the X1900, at least 2x slower if not more) and it played well at 1280x1024, max settings, with a dab of AA. perfectly fluid. depending on the OP's res though, it could be an issue... id be more inclined to look at the fact that the games a port.

my x800 is on XP though

does spore use DX or OpenGL? ATi havent really been known for OGL performance, least not untill more recently.... Nvidia have always been strong (plus the 8800GT is a good deal better than the x1900) at OGL so if it does use OGL, then that probably explains why nvidias cards are having a better time of it.
 
From the macbytes review...

"While its game design excels, Spore suffers from several technical problems. A major graphical error with ATI Radeon 1600- and 1900-based video hardware forces players to turn off a key visual effect, making the game look worse but run well. EA says that an OS X update will fix the problem, but Apple controls that rollout."

John.
 
babyjenniferLB said:
Most likely your bottle neck there is that antiquated ATi Radeon X1900 its a bit on the low end these days, try shopping around for a X2800 or X3870 both have mac editions with the X4870 not far away ether. In the mean time lower your in game graphics settings.
Click to expand...

gimme a break, the x1900 is still better than many of the mid-range cards out there, and should be able to run a not-too-demanding game like Spore easily.

john.burn said:
From the macbytes review...

"While its game design excels, Spore suffers from several technical problems. A major graphical error with ATI Radeon 1600- and 1900-based video hardware forces players to turn off a key visual effect, making the game look worse but run well. EA says that an OS X update will fix the problem, but Apple controls that rollout."

John.
Click to expand...

That's what I was about to link to. :) It should be fixed in the future.
 
awww!!!

MAN! i was SO looking forward to this game until now...glad i checked the forum, tho' - didn't do that with HOMMIV, and that bad experience *almost* put me off mac gaming for life! :(

Shoot - well, EA, i won't be buying this until Apple releases a fix...does anyone know if it affects JUST OS X? TIA!
 
still

still i installed the game on my macbook pro, and played it under windows and mac (no difference in performence) and i love it, its extreamly addictive and keeps me to much away from my conceptartist job.

On the other hand its really sad about the bug with the ati 1900 tho even with lower graphics the game is really sweet to play.

i really recomend buying it, or alteast try it at somebodies place

cya
 
I have this problem, I really don't want to have to resort to Windows.

john.burn said:
From the macbytes review...

"While its game design excels, Spore suffers from several technical problems. A major graphical error with ATI Radeon 1600- and 1900-based video hardware forces players to turn off a key visual effect, making the game look worse but run well. EA says that an OS X update will fix the problem, but Apple controls that rollout."

John.
Click to expand...

Any idea which 'key visual effect' needs to be turned off? I'd tried reducing them all to medium but it didn't make much difference.
 
I don't mean to steal this thread, but it makes sense to ask here instead of making a new one.

Ia anyone playing Spore on a 2.4 Ghz iMac with the ATI 2600, and how does it run?
 
Well I've just given it a go with the 1900XT in Windows and it works very nicely in Creature Mode at 1600x1200. So waiting for a fix from Apple by the looks of things, hope it makes it in 10.5.5 and it isn't too far away.


Edit: Just been fiddling with the settings on the OS X version of Spore. If you set 'Lighting Quality' to low then it works just fine, with all the other settings set to max, and doesn't look too terrible. I can certainly live with it for the time being
 
macbook pro

I have stuttering too(not as bad as you). If you have a graphics card by nvidia that is less than 256mb, then this will happen.Unless you change the graphic settings to low.
 
U can keep everything at high

exept for lightning (that has to be low)

or u can keep ightning high but u'll have to change effects to low
 
Same issue MacBook Pro 17

Disappointed that it is running so low on my MacBook Pro with the x1600 as well. Will try the fix mentioned above. Any update from ATI that will solve this problem?

Thanks in advance.
 
ndlawman said:
Disappointed that it is running so low on my MacBook Pro with the x1600 as well. Will try the fix mentioned above. Any update from ATI that will solve this problem?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Its probably not ATI's problem, but a bug in the Spore coding for mac. EA are obviously well aware of the situation so there should be some solution soon as I hate having to boot back and forth into bootcamp.


@ babyjenniferLB

Oh and yeah on XP (bootcamp) with X1900XT I am running with everything on very high so to say its the X1900XT's fault for being an outdated card is utter FUD of the highest order.
 
Hey Mac friends,

Thought I'd put in my few cents about m Spore experience on an X1900 ATI-

I downloaded Spore yesterday via EA's online service, I believe it's DirectDrive.

My system specs:

Dual 2.66 dual core Xeons, 8gb RAM, Radeon X1900 512mb.

And it ran like crap once I got to land. I was so disappointed. The Radeon X1900 is not a bad card, not the best anymore (although it was at least up there when I got the system), but it's definitely capable of running this game. It ran Prey on high settings last year, for chrissakes.

Following advice I saw on this thread, I turned the lighting setting down to "low", and this fixed the problem. Great framerates; no problems. However, the graphics are definitely not as good:

In other words, the game doesn't *look" as cool as it could with the lighting on (key visual effects there, like the bug report said). I suspect this includes all sorts of bump mapping and fun things of that nature.

I suspect this is a driver issue, considering that I can't even remember the last time a new driver came out for the X1900 / Intel combo.

(ATI/AMD are pretty much dead in the water now, by the way, for those of you who might not follow that sort of thing). Pretty sure that mac is the only company keeping ATI alive.

I am not surprised that Spore will run with no problems on systems using nVidia cards.

I suspect Mac will have to fix this issue with an update to the OS. I could be ill informed jackass, but let's hope that there is a software fix coming out after the Let's Rock Media event this week http://tinyurl.com/646trp

But, who knows, maybe we X1900 users are just screwed. But I hope not!
 
What other video cards are available for the Mac Pro? I have the ATI x1900XT but am unsure of an upgrade path for that. Not sure I'm even going to upgrade but more curious. I have the quad core 2.0 which I believe is an "early" Mac Pro.

Is the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT the only option out there? I'd prefer not to do any funky firmware flashing.
 
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