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OS X XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Elite Edition Coming to the Mac

Solomani said:
Out of curiosity, is it possible for you guys to fix bugs in your Mac game (a PC-to-Mac port) assuming that the bug originated from the original PC code?
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Yes but it depends on the bug and how it occurs if we can make a Mac fix, we usually have at least a few Mac only fixes in our ports but it depends on the game and the seriousness of the bug.

Solomani said:
Not trying to fan the flames further. I'm actually curious about what types of bugs you are able to fix in a game that was ported to OSX.
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We have fixed or added many types of things into our ports.

A few examples of Mac fixes / improvements include:

1. AI improvements (fixing corrupt saves and some crashes) in Empire, Rome, Railroads! Things like "end turn" crashes in Empire & Rome we altered the logic to gracefully handle problems where possible.
2. Language string issues in Tropico 3
3. Gamepad support into BioShock 2 (PC version was keyboard only).
4. Tested and included previously unreleased DLC in GRID
5. Extra gamepad supported in most games
6. Soundtracks with full meta data and HQ AAC in Deus Ex and XCOM.
7. LAN mode version mismatch error corrected on Mac in XCOM.

I could probably name a couple for every game we have ever ported but above is a flavour of the additions and extra fixes we do. Usually they are low key but add to the overall polish of a title.

Edwin
 
Hi guys, I have a late 2011 15'' MBP with a ATI 6750 GPU (512 MB VRAM). Has anyone tested the game on this or on a similar machine?

I'm not super picky with performance, but I would like to run at least medium settings on my 1680x1050 screen, with 20-30 fps. Do you think this is possible?
 
thundersteele said:
Hi guys, I have a late 2011 15'' MBP with a ATI 6750 GPU (512 MB VRAM). Has anyone tested the game on this or on a similar machine?

I'm not super picky with performance, but I would like to run at least medium settings on my 1680x1050 screen, with 20-30 fps. Do you think this is possible?
Click to expand...

I've been running XCOM in Bootcamp/Windows 7 on my late 2008 MBP w 9600m GT and 4GB RAM for a few months now, without any complaints (apart from very occasional slow-downs at the beginning of a level - restarting the game fixes that). As much as I'd like to support Mac developers more, I find that with my aging machine, going the Windows/Steam route is usually more reliable. Imho your MBP should run it quite well compared to mine.
 
thundersteele said:
Hi guys, I have a late 2011 15'' MBP with a ATI 6750 GPU (512 MB VRAM). Has anyone tested the game on this or on a similar machine?

I'm not super picky with performance, but I would like to run at least medium settings on my 1680x1050 screen, with 20-30 fps. Do you think this is possible?
Click to expand...

The game is supposed to run on Intel HD4000 class gpus, and the 6750M is very much faster, so I believe that it will run just fine at 30+ FPS on medium+ settings. This is just an educated guess, but from the requirements it should run perfectly well. That to be said, it's a turn based game, so even 20FPS would be playable
 
thundersteele said:
Hi guys, I have a late 2011 15'' MBP with a ATI 6750 GPU (512 MB VRAM). Has anyone tested the game on this or on a similar machine?

I'm not super picky with performance, but I would like to run at least medium settings on my 1680x1050 screen, with 20-30 fps. Do you think this is possible?
Click to expand...

Yes, your laptop is fine on Medium settings, remember resolution is a setting so if you want highest possible resolution you might need to turn down the eye candy a little. One of our test laptops is the same spec as the one you own and it ran the game just fine during testing and development. :)

Edwin
 
barrett14 said:
Hey Edwin,

I haven't heard anything on my issues yet.. Do you have any updates?

Thanks
Click to expand...

We have a 1.0.1 patch with some fixes coming very soon, it should improve a some of the random issues. We have fixed an issue with the save games no longer being ordered correctly once you get 100 saves which made some users think they had lost save games. This was a PC bug but the Mac now orders correctly even after you make 100 saves.

Drop me a PM if you would like to try the beta ahead of time, and I will see if we can get you a special build.

Edwin
 
Well not impressed so far,the freezes all over place in choosing option screens, so I contacted Feral and they pretty much throw the problem back at me.

Before I post the reply all other games that I run have no freeze or graphics issues at all.


Here is their reply.

-------------------------
From the attached report, I can see that the graphics card is not being recognised correctly. I believe that you are using an ATI Radeon 6870 card, but it is appearing incorrectly in the report as 'ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series'. The card driver appears as 'AMD Radeon Barts XT Prototype OpenGL Engine' which indicates that it is not an official driver for this card.

Please ensure that the card driver is correct for the card - we can only support devices that are installed correctly using officially supported drivers from the manufacturers.
-------------------------

I'm lost on this and have no idea what to do about it as as far as I am aware there is no official driver for the card - HELP!
 
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Washac said:
Well not impressed so far,the freezea all over place in chokosing option screens, so I contacted Feral and they pretty much throw the problem back at me.

Before I post the reply all other games that I run have no freeze or graphics issues at all.


Here is their reply.

-------------------------
From the attached report, I can see that the graphics card is not being recognised correctly. I believe that you are using an ATI Radeon 6870 card, but it is appearing incorrectly in the report as 'ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series'. The card driver appears as 'AMD Radeon Barts XT Prototype OpenGL Engine' which indicates that it is not an official driver for this card.

Please ensure that the card driver is correct for the card - we can only support devices that are installed correctly using officially supported drivers from the manufacturers.
-------------------------

I'm lost on this and have no idea what to do about it as as far as I am aware there is no official driver for the card - HELP!
Click to expand...

I am sorry you have a problem but.... I think before I get into detail we should be clear by your post it appears that your Mac has a Windows graphics card which has no official Mac support and is using "Prototype" drivers.

OK, I have had a look into this, the graphics card you are using is not (according to the support information you gave us) an officially supported card on the Mac. The Radeon 6870 you have installed appears to be a Windows graphics card installed into a MacPro, as you said yourself the driver has the word "Prototype" in the name which usually means it is far from fully tested and supported.

We test our games against officially released Mac hardware, if you are using none Apple compatible hardware that has been installed into a Pro then we cannot guarantee support. Usually it will work great but we can't guarantee it as the graphic card is not a Mac card.

Our support I think have been clear on the facts, they have stated you need to have officially supported hardware to play the game, I don't think it is unreasonable you need to be using OS X certified hardware to play our games, it's not really feasible for us to test and fully support cards that are not even supported by the manufacturers themselves.

Have you tried the game with Mac hardware including the graphics card? If you are having an issue with the graphics and your card is designed only for Windows and your driver uses the word prototype I think the problem is likely with your unofficial card not the game.

Do you have a supported graphics card to test the game with? It would be good to confirm that this issue is down to the unsupported Windows PC card you have installed.

Based on a few threads about using Windows cards on the Mac issues like graphics side effects and crashes can happen due to the unofficial and unsupported nature of the card/drivers.

UPDATE: Looking at the unofficial drivers using Google, it appears they have not been updated since they were released over a year ago (by an unknown hacker called Bart), compared to official ones which get improved with every OS update and include many Feral specific bug fixes. This means even if you are running the latest version of OS X on your Mac your graphics drivers will not be updated meaning although your OS is up to date your graphics drivers are frozen in time. That's the problem with using unsupported graphics cards as you miss out on things like official support and driver bug fixes from AMD.

We work closely with AMD, Nvidia and Intel when developing games to make sure the game is fast and stable and any bugs in the drivers are fixed in OS updates. This is the reason people with Apple supported AMD 6000 cards don't have any problems with XCOM and your unofficial card does.
 
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You got it in one, except it was yourself who said my card would be OK.

This was your reply on my card.

-----
"Yes you are fine, if your graphics is NOT on the list of unsupported cards you are supported, simples!

In fact on your graphics card the game will play on nice and shiny high settings."
-----

I edited this post as yes it is a windows card but it works in a Mac Pro out of the box, with NO extra drivers installed.
 
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Washac said:
You got it in one, except it was yourself who said my card would be OK.

This was your reply on my card.

-----
"Yes you are fine, if your graphics is NOT on the list of unsupported cards you are supported, simples!

In fact on your graphics card the game will play on nice and shiny high settings."
-----

Nevermind, think I maybe learning that just buying a Windows card to save a bit of cash maybe not the thing to do, but this is the first game/software I have had trouble with.


Thanks.
Click to expand...

Sorry, you did not state it was a PC hacked card so I just read it as a Mac with a 6000 series card (of which there are many) which I know will run XCOM fine. As you own a Pro I should have asked if the card was a Mac card or not on the off chance you had a PC one.

Please feel free to deactivate the game and request a refund. You can then put the money towards the slightly more pricy PC version if you wish.

Edwin
 
edddeduck said:
Sorry, you did not state it was a PC hacked card so I just read it as a Mac with a 6000 series card (of which there are many) which I know will run XCOM fine. As you own a Pro I should have asked if the card was a Mac card or not on the off chance you had a PC one.

Please feel free to deactivate the game and request a refund. You can then put the money towards the slightly more pricy PC version if you wish.

Edwin
Click to expand...

To set the record straight it is NOT a hacked card in any way, it works in a Mac Pro out of the box without installing any extra drivers and or hacking or flashing, all it has missing is the EFI bootscreen.

After lots of messing with my machine, which was done because that is what yourself and support pointed towards maybe being the problem.

My card in the system profiler is now recognized as an AMD Radeon HD 6870 not just 6xxxx series.

This made no difference to the freezing.

Then what you posted above struck me, " Deactivate the game " so I did and then realised I could still play via the DVD which I did, I then messed with the in game options, lowered some of the graphics setting, set it to Windowed mode. I have now gotten the furthest into the game so far with only one freeze which was not very long before it got going again.

Could these freezes be loading issues because they are worse when I activate the game than running using the DVD, rather than a graphical issue/issues.

Again I apologize for getting a bit up tight, I just feel that people are not hearing what I am trying get across regarding this issue.
 
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edddeduck said:
Yes, your laptop is fine on Medium settings, remember resolution is a setting so if you want highest possible resolution you might need to turn down the eye candy a little. One of our test laptops is the same spec as the one you own and it ran the game just fine during testing and development. :)

Edwin
Click to expand...

I downloaded it from the App store yesterday. Game runs fine on medium settings on the native 1680x1050 resolution (late 2011 MBP, for those who read this). I'm still in the tutorial but it's already pretty addictive. Thanks for bringing the game to the Mac!
 
Constant crashes

The game is great but it crashes constantly during the turn based part.

It worked perfectly up to a point, but now it's so bad I can't finish a mission without haveing to reload from an auto-saved game after the games quits.

edddeduck, you mentioned you had some fix in the works. Will we be able to keep the savegames from the 1.0 version or should we start over?
 
Barts is the codename on the 68xx series AMD core.
The 6970M is also a Barts chip.
The 6870 runs straight out of the box on Mac Pros tho, since it's pretty much identical to 6970M. (The 6970M is a reduced 6870, with 960 unified shaders compared to 1120 on the 6870)
 
cluthz said:
Barts is the codename on the 68xx series AMD core.
The 6970M is also a Barts chip.
The 6870 runs straight out of the box on Mac Pros tho, since it's pretty much identical to 6970M. (The 6970M is a reduced 6870, with 960 unified shaders compared to 1120 on the 6870)
Click to expand...

Good post, simply explained.

They told me this :
--------------------------
From the attached report, I can see that the graphics card is not being recognised correctly. I believe that you are using an ATI Radeon 6870 card, but it is appearing incorrectly in the report as 'ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series'. The card driver appears as 'AMD Radeon Barts XT Prototype OpenGL Engine' which indicates that it is not an official driver for this card.

Please ensure that the card driver is correct for the card - we can only support devices that are installed correctly using officially supported drivers from the manufacturers.
---------------------------

I have tried to put into words what I think about this reply, I just sat staring at it when I received it as I am doing now, lost for words.
 
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Washac said:
Good post, simply explained.

They told me this :
--------------------------
From the attached report, I can see that the graphics card is not being recognised correctly. I believe that you are using an ATI Radeon 6870 card, but it is appearing incorrectly in the report as 'ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series'. The card driver appears as 'AMD Radeon Barts XT Prototype OpenGL Engine' which indicates that it is not an official driver for this card.

Please ensure that the card driver is correct for the card - we can only support devices that are installed correctly using officially supported drivers from the manufacturers.
---------------------------

I have tried to put into words what I think about this reply, I just sat staring at it when I received it as I am doing now, lost for words.
Click to expand...

I can understand that they don't want to support unofficial cards, because it can be more errors on the user side, and I understand they don't want to test a game on unsupported hardware. Spending much time on testing and supporting hardware that less than 0.1% of their customers use just don't make sense.

Just to make a comparison, I mailed Aspyr about GTX285 (which is an officially supported card for mac) and they said they don't support it because it was never sold as a standard config for any mac (it was a custom option for mac pros ..), the same goes for CDProject RED.

To put it simply, if you use unsupported hardware, you won't get any help. And even if you use supported hardware, but that it's kinda uncommon, you might also expect to not getting support..

Offering a refund is however a very nice gesture, and if the same happened on f.ex steam, you would get nothing at all.
 
Cluthz, you have a great way of explaining things, I wish others including me could be the same.

Yes the refund offer is/was a good gesture, I now seem to have gotten the game freezes down to a minimum so I will carry on playing.
 
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Solomani said:
Oh? Hmm, so does Steam have a no-refund all-sales-are-final policy? Just curious, as I've never installed Steam (yet).
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Steam, I no longer have anything to with them after finding out about their policies a while back.

IE: If you leave Steam and no longer wish to use their services you cannot take your games with you.

Seems that on Steam you are buying a license to play the games you actually own NOTHING.
 
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Washac said:
Good post, simply explained.

They told me this :
--------------------------
From the attached report, I can see that the graphics card is not being recognised correctly. I believe that you are using an ATI Radeon 6870 card, but it is appearing incorrectly in the report as 'ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series'. The card driver appears as 'AMD Radeon Barts XT Prototype OpenGL Engine' which indicates that it is not an official driver for this card.

Please ensure that the card driver is correct for the card - we can only support devices that are installed correctly using officially supported drivers from the manufacturers.
---------------------------

I have tried to put into words what I think about this reply, I just sat staring at it when I received it as I am doing now, lost for words.
Click to expand...

I don't understand why you are lost for words when this information identifies your graphics driver as a "Prototype" driver. Why would you be surprised when an issue comes up in a graphical app when using a prototype driver to begin with?

Why don't you download and install the most current stable officially supported OS X driver for that card, assuming one is available, and then see how it goes? Hopefully that would cure your problems and you could go on to enjoy the game. As long as you are not running a stable supported OS X driver release, you cannot fairly expect the game to work properly nor Feral to have tested that configuration never mind support it. That just isn't a fair thing to expect of them.

The beauty of the Apple Macintosh world is standards - both hardware and software. This is what makes things "just work" typically. Mess with that and all bets are off, you know?
 
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