The Mac Gamers Age Of Conan System Compatability Guide

[Dorfdad]

I would like to make an exclusive thread covering the Age of Conan and compatibility issues / tweaks and more for those of us interested in getting this game as it comes out on May 20th 2008....

I personally have an 2007 24" iMac with 4 Gigs of Ram and the ATI 2600 PRO 256mb video card so I will be reporting on the compatibility for that system.
If anyone was in the beta or played this on Bootcamp already please feel free to give us your system and recommendations.

 

[Huntn]

When my schedule settles down, I'm going to try it on my MBP. I'm curious about performance on XP, vs Vista 32bit, Vista 64 bit.

 

[Dorfdad]

from everything I have read Vista is slower due to many factors...
I would be more interested in XP Sp2 vs SP3 performance...

 

[jakeguy99]

MBP 2.4 Ghz 2GB Ram Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT

I am currently playing the early access with little to no problems. Settings under high I get about 15-25fps (you would think this is slow, but there was no lag). Under low settings (which still look amazingly good) i was averaging around 40 fps. The game is still a bit buggy, but they have most of the kinks figured out. There was also a small issue with the drivers, so make sure you are updated to insure no problems. So far i love the game and am currently level 30, hope to see you guys out there.

 

[iPapa]

Mac Pro (8-core 2.8Ghz, 10GB RAM, nVidia Geforce 8800GT)

I play via Bootcamp (I have not installed or upgraded any other Windows drivers - just using the standard Apple shipped ones). My Windows partition is Vista Ultimate (64 bit), and I run the game on a 23" ACD (1920x1200) without troubles at all.

Framerates never dip below 18fps on high settings (DX10, shader 3, mostly default high settings, but I've pushed some of them higher, and lowered slightly a few others). Normally the framerates are firmly placed between 30 and 50 fps (a patch for AoC was released on Sunday night which really improved the framerates).

The game is very stable. Last night I played some 4 hours without one single glitch. Load screens between zones are quick, graphics look great, servers are stable (I've tried three servers in Europe so far - Crom, Bori and Aquilonia).

 

[Dorfdad]

wow seems even with 8800 cards people are getting low frame rates. Im scared to fire it up now on my ATI 2600 HD pro (256).. If I can scrape by with lower settings and have it look good still I will be happy. Not looking forward to putting out 600+ for a new machine for this one game...

 

[iPapa]

Truth is the framerates have been very varied the last couple of days. Last night I played some 3-4 hours continously, and framerates at high settings (see my specs a bit higher up on this page) hovering around 50 all the time. A couple of times they went down into the 30s.

Earlier this week I got framerates down to 18. That said, the game is very tweakable. Sure you can run it on high settings and it looks great, but framerates won't be very high if your graphics card isn't up for the task.

The cool thing then is the fact that you can fiddle around with the settings and get (much) higher framerates if you lower for example shades, distance views and so on. Even when doing so, the game continues to look great. Either way your iMac shouldn't have troubles with this game. Just adjust your video settings within the game and settle for something that offers both good fps and graphical beauty.

 

[Dorfdad]

Picked this up last night and I have to say a few things.

#1. I have an Imac 2007 2.4ghz Core Duo 2 with the Ati 2600HD card and YES YES YES you can play the game decently on this system. I have 4 gigs of ram and have Vista 32bit installed. I may revert to XP SP3 with DX9 as the game does not support 10 yet may by End of year (they pushed it back)

#2. Im running at 1900x1200 on low settings I turned off shadows and increased the view distance to 1750m or close to that as the draw in up so close was annoying to me.. and Im getting good speeds even in town with other people running around.

I still have alot more tweaking to do, but for those on the fence in Bootcamp this game is playable and even on low settings I feel it looks as good if not better than WOW.

On a Side not after installing Vista and the game within 2 days I aldreayd have spyware crap on my PC not from the game but just windows. So im already cleaning up the system!!!

Know I remmember why I wanted a MAC!

 

[Huntn]

Can frame rates be displayed in-game or does it require 3rd party software like Fraps? Thanks.

 

[Dorfdad]

can be displayed in game easily using a few keys..

I wanted to let everyone know that I got some improvement to the game again using the 2007 Imac with the 2600 XT card this is very playable guys!

I wnet and downloaded ATI drivers from ATI's website and forced a new set of updated drivers into Vista for some reason the driver on there now is June 2007 or something close to that.

The newest driver is from May 2008 and it has given me a slight boost. You have to update your driver and point it to the directory when you extracted the files the .inf and select your video card it will not automatically install the newest for you.

Ive had no other issues using this driver so far..

 

[johngardiner]

hey guys, thought i'd report on my macbook pro findings.

I just bought my new macbook pro last night... 2.5ghz 512mb 2gb ram (ps i love it) and installed conan almost immediately.

I'm playing on native resolution 1440x900 and on low settings (i played on medium for a while but there really isnt too much difference.. just put it on low then up the draw distance to like 800m). I'm getting between 25-45fps so its very very playable. It was good fps on medium too but sometimes dragged down a bit so that's why I went down to low. Apparently the shadows in the game cause a lot of people problems so if your fps is struggling, try disabling them.

No matter what resolution and detail level you chose, the game is gorgeous, theres no denying that... also if anyone wants to look me up im a guardian on bloodspire... drop me a pm!

 

[Olvenskol]

Can frame rates be displayed in-game or does it require 3rd party software like Fraps? Thanks.

The game has two ways of reporting frame rates. Either hover your mouse over the lag meter, or type a key combination (I forget the keys, something like Alt - Ctl - F). Obviously, I always use the former.

BTW, my very playable 25-ish FPS dropped to 10-15 when I left Tartage after hitting level 22. I'm now looking for ways to improve that (even on low settings, I'm getting only marginally better than that). I'm not using a mac to play, btw, just thought I'd mention the big change I saw.

 

[Huntn]

hey guys, thought i'd report on my macbook pro findings.

I just bought my new macbook pro last night... 2.5ghz 512mb 2gb ram (ps i love it) and installed conan almost immediately.

I'm playing on native resolution 1440x900 and on low settings (i played on medium for a while but there really isnt too much difference.. just put it on low then up the draw distance to like 800m). I'm getting between 25-45fps so its very very playable. It was good fps on medium too but sometimes dragged down a bit so that's why I went down to low. Apparently the shadows in the game cause a lot of people problems so if your fps is struggling, try disabling them.

No matter what resolution and detail level you chose, the game is gorgeous, theres no denying that... also if anyone wants to look me up im a guardian on bloodspire... drop me a pm!

Great news! Yeah, those pesky shadows...

The game has two ways of reporting frame rates. Either hover your mouse over the lag meter, or type a key combination (I forget the keys, something like Alt - Ctl - F). Obviously, I always use the former.

BTW, my very playable 25-ish FPS dropped to 10-15 when I left Tartage after hitting level 22. I'm now looking for ways to improve that (even on low settings, I'm getting only marginally better than that). I'm not using a mac to play, btw, just thought I'd mention the big change I saw.

Thanks for the info!

 

[Doozer13]

My comp: iMac 24" 2.33 GHZ, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 7600 GT (2nd generation dual core iMac)

Very very preliminary report- I finished DLing the early entry and installing this morning and went right to playing with default settings, running around the beach. The intro videos were very choppy and not pleasant to watch- felt like my experience with games from 5+ years ago.

***************

At the default settings, full screen 1920x1200, the game was super super choppy- easily below 10FPS, probably about 5-7, maybe less, but didn't look impressive at all. From the demo videos I found on the site, this game really shines in it's fluid graphics and at the default settings I could hardly appreciate any of that. I'm used to playing WoW with all settings maxed (except for the Alias setting) full windowed mode at around 30-50+ FPS- running a ton of add-ons.

I quickly tried the medium settings- getting probably around 10 before dropping all the way to low. Even at the lowest basic setting, full screen was still choppy and not really playable IMO.

I wanted to see how I could get the best FPS, so I went windowed mode at the absolute lowest screen resolution 1070ish x 800 I think. I tooled around with some of the distance and effects options in advanced, trying to cut out anything that would probably slow my machine down. The good news is I was easily getting 40-50FPS- bottoming out in the low 30's during a very quick camera turn.

Unfortunately at these settings the game is hardly impressive to look at and I'm essentially playing on a 14"(?) monitor in the windowed setting. This seems to be the strangest thing for me, because everyone is saying the game looks great at any setting, but I'm not seeing it. The colors all seem kind of dark, feels more like a clean console game than a revolutionary computer title. I don't have much to compare it to, but visually I would say it reminded me of an old Xbox title like Prince of Persia- just more fluid movement.

I'm having some friends ask around their IT departments and see what other Mac gamers might recommend for tweaks. I really couldn't stand to run AoC lower than 30FPS after playing WoW at 15-20 FPS prior to buying my iMac. If I really can't improve the visuals, the gameplay would really have to kick a$$ for me to take this game over WoW.

More testing to come when I get home from work.

 

[Dorfdad]

My comp: iMac 24" 2.33 GHZ, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 7600 GT (2nd generation dual core iMac)

Very very preliminary report- I finished DLing the early entry and installing this morning and went right to playing with default settings, running around the beach. The intro videos were very choppy and not pleasant to watch- felt like my experience with games from 5+ years ago.

***************

At the default settings, full screen 1920x1200, the game was super super choppy- easily below 10FPS, probably about 5-7, maybe less, but didn't look impressive at all. From the demo videos I found on the site, this game really shines in it's fluid graphics and at the default settings I could hardly appreciate any of that. I'm used to playing WoW with all settings maxed (except for the Alias setting) full windowed mode at around 30-50+ FPS- running a ton of add-ons.

I quickly tried the medium settings- getting probably around 10 before dropping all the way to low. Even at the lowest basic setting, full screen was still choppy and not really playable IMO.

I wanted to see how I could get the best FPS, so I went windowed mode at the absolute lowest screen resolution 1070ish x 800 I think. I tooled around with some of the distance and effects options in advanced, trying to cut out anything that would probably slow my machine down. The good news is I was easily getting 40-50FPS- bottoming out in the low 30's during a very quick camera turn.

Unfortunately at these settings the game is hardly impressive to look at and I'm essentially playing on a 14"(?) monitor in the windowed setting. This seems to be the strangest thing for me, because everyone is saying the game looks great at any setting, but I'm not seeing it. The colors all seem kind of dark, feels more like a clean console game than a revolutionary computer title. I don't have much to compare it to, but visually I would say it reminded me of an old Xbox title like Prince of Persia- just more fluid movement.

I'm having some friends ask around their IT departments and see what other Mac gamers might recommend for tweaks. I really couldn't stand to run AoC lower than 30FPS after playing WoW at 15-20 FPS prior to buying my iMac. If I really can't improve the visuals, the gameplay would really have to kick a$$ for me to take this game over WoW.

More testing to come when I get home from work.

your a generation behind me on the Imac I have the 2007 with 2600 HD 256 and I can play it very nicely!


Here is a screen shot of it running on my macine in 1600x1050 32FPS dips to 19-20 in heavy sections so far...

 

[gfoster610]

My comp: iMac 24" 2.33 GHZ, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 7600 GT (2nd generation dual core iMac)

Very very preliminary report- I finished DLing the early entry and installing this morning and went right to playing with default settings, running around the beach. The intro videos were very choppy and not pleasant to watch- felt like my experience with games from 5+ years ago.

***************

At the default settings, full screen 1920x1200, the game was super super choppy- easily below 10FPS, probably about 5-7, maybe less, but didn't look impressive at all. From the demo videos I found on the site, this game really shines in it's fluid graphics and at the default settings I could hardly appreciate any of that. I'm used to playing WoW with all settings maxed (except for the Alias setting) full windowed mode at around 30-50+ FPS- running a ton of add-ons.

I quickly tried the medium settings- getting probably around 10 before dropping all the way to low. Even at the lowest basic setting, full screen was still choppy and not really playable IMO.

I wanted to see how I could get the best FPS, so I went windowed mode at the absolute lowest screen resolution 1070ish x 800 I think. I tooled around with some of the distance and effects options in advanced, trying to cut out anything that would probably slow my machine down. The good news is I was easily getting 40-50FPS- bottoming out in the low 30's during a very quick camera turn.

Unfortunately at these settings the game is hardly impressive to look at and I'm essentially playing on a 14"(?) monitor in the windowed setting. This seems to be the strangest thing for me, because everyone is saying the game looks great at any setting, but I'm not seeing it. The colors all seem kind of dark, feels more like a clean console game than a revolutionary computer title. I don't have much to compare it to, but visually I would say it reminded me of an old Xbox title like Prince of Persia- just more fluid movement.

I'm having some friends ask around their IT departments and see what other Mac gamers might recommend for tweaks. I really couldn't stand to run AoC lower than 30FPS after playing WoW at 15-20 FPS prior to buying my iMac. If I really can't improve the visuals, the gameplay would really have to kick a$$ for me to take this game over WoW.

More testing to come when I get home from work.

A few questions:

1. Is you iMac running 10.4 or 10.5?
2. Was your Boot Camp partition created when you got the machine or later?

The reason I ask these two questions is because of drivers. If this is the original Boot Camp install under 10.4 there might be better drivers for you r card on the Leopard DVd if you have it. Also, I would suggest hitting NVIDIA's web site to see if there are updated drivers for your card. This might help with some of the issues that you're facing.

 

[Doozer13]

your a generation behind me on the Imac I have the 2007 with 2600 HD 256 and I can play it very nicely!

Here is a screen shot of it running on my macine in 1600x1050 32FPS dips to 19-20 in heavy sections so far...

I took some screen shots this morning and then a few more when I went home from lunch. My brother is running the same card on a PC without a dual processor and he tells me my screenies are laughable and I'm doing something very wrong.

A few questions:

1. Is you iMac running 10.4 or 10.5?
2. Was your Boot Camp partition created when you got the machine or later?

The reason I ask these two questions is because of drivers. If this is the original Boot Camp install under 10.4 there might be better drivers for you r card on the Leopard DVd if you have it. Also, I would suggest hitting NVIDIA's web site to see if there are updated drivers for your card. This might help with some of the issues that you're facing.

I Partitioned my drive during the bootcamp Beta many months ago. I upgraded to Leopard a few days ago, so I figured I'd be okay. Could that be a problem? Should I repartition a drive again using Leopard's Bootcamp? Man I'd hate to go through all the trouble of reintalling- could I just drag the AoC folder to my mac and then back over if I did repartition?

I also went to Nvidia's site to collect new drivers, first one that was 169.?? and then another my brother said I should get that was 175.??. I think that helped a bit. The lowest settings look better (For example I can now see the muscles definition on the back of my avatar, but my bro still tells me it's not as good as it should be). Still, I only get 20fps(turning fast)-40fps(standing still) at the absolute smallest windowed resolution, 8-15FPS at full screen, and low 20FPS average at 1600x1200.

Found this link to help tweak Advanced settings:
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=13390&7900

I'll try to upload some screen shots when I get home.

 

[Doozer13]

your a generation behind me on the Imac I have the 2007 with 2600 HD 256 and I can play it very nicely!


Here is a screen shot of it running on my macine in 1600x1050 32FPS dips to 19-20 in heavy sections so far...

If you'd be willing, I'd be curious to see screen grabs of your advanced settings if you've tweaked them. Anything special you had to do as far as video card software, bootcamp tricks, stuff that isn't obvious?

 

[Dorfdad]

If you'd be willing, I'd be curious to see screen grabs of your advanced settings if you've tweaked them. Anything special you had to do as far as video card software, bootcamp tricks, stuff that isn't obvious?

Sure. I downloaded the newest video drivers from ATI for the ATI HD 2600 XT and installed them manually through Bootcamp in VISTA 100 GIG NTFS partition.

If you drop the resolution to 1400x900 you will get about 45FPS I like 1900x1200 better though I drop some frames It only effects me in town where there is smoke or steam when I drop to 17-25 everywhere else im over 30fps.

4 Gigs of ram as well.

hope this helps. Turn off water reflections to gain a few more FPS... I just did this as well..

Im on Stormbringer server Azrular if you want to join up im level 16 now Guardian..

 

[Doozer13]

Thanks so much, I'll compare your settings to mine, but looks a lot like what I'm doing. I think my shader model quality is set at 2(lowest?) and I have High Quality View Distance at 25% which is probably too high. I reached Tortage last night so I compared your screenie to mine and it's fairly similar graphically speaking (I don't think I get as much detail, but then again I'm playing at a gimped resolution. I guess I'm so used to playing WoW, with all the bright comic colors, this realism thing doesn't seem quite right to me.

My brother helped me tweak some of the advanced settings and I seem to be running 20-30FPS very consistantly, with some spikes here and there when I turn fast or multiple people/NPCs run by. Very very playable, even if I have to sacrifice a lot of on screen real estate (1200 x 800 on my 24") At full screen I still chug along at 10-15FPS, which isn't good. Wonder how much the additional RAM helps, i've read anything over 3 isn't really doing anything, but then I'm still a gig short.

Only graphics issue I still have is the rendering of NPCs. Seems like sometimes when I'm running around Tortage NPCs take far longer than they should to appear- even in the Inn I've noticed this. Doesn't always happen, but when it does it's a little annoying.

ToS is great fun!

 

[Dorfdad]

for those interestd I found some more tweaks that help.

#1 TURN OFF PARTICLE DRAW DISTANCE this is the #1 Killer for FPS I found on my machine well maybe not the #1 but damn close..

#2. Play at 1600x1050 and 1400x900 with these settings and turning off Particles has resulted in me getting upwards of 65FPS in multiplayer situations.

Anywhere WIDE OPEN with lots of building meaning TOWNS you are going to take a hit without the best hardware but Im able to keep 27-30 FPS for the most part in town now..

Ive not booted into OSX in the last 3 days Im living in vista with SP1 and I have to say Im liking it...

 

[Dottore]

Any of you guys have trial key so I can try AoC on my iMac and see how it goes, please ?

 

[Dorfdad]

Any of you guys have trial key so I can try AoC on my iMac and see how it goes, please ?

Buddy Keys are not allowed yet. They are allowing users who bought the game play for a while, and also patching all the exploits and bugs first before allowing others to play... If you have a circuit city near you just go get it for 39.99 I got my local EB to price match well worth it even for 1 month!

 

[cluthz]

I'm playing om my MBP 2.2 GHz with 2GB ram and AoC runs decent.
I'm above 20 fps all the time and its normally around 25 I guess.
No lagging, but it could be a bit faster tho.

 

[MrOmelet]

I have a little older Macbook Pro (It's a 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo [2GB RAM] and the ATI RadeonX1600) and was curios if it would even be possible to run AoC under bootcamp.

I'm guessing I can't since it's a bit outdated, but curious if anyone has installed it with the same setup.