Is it me or is the game quite CPU bound? In the Yard level I'm getting a constant 8 FPS.

Specs:

Power G5 1.6Ghz
Radeon 9600
1.5 Gb RAM

Setting the graphics to lowest from the highest setting gains 1-2 FPS. Likewise with the sound, setting it from the highest to lowest gains another 1-2 FPS.

Erm.. yeah...So the only conclusion I can think of think of is that the AI is eating the processor alive.

Saad.

It's a feature, not a bug.

Basically, you'll just have to cope. Destroy the triffids as quickly as possible.

There are a couple hundred ants running around, and plenty more viruses, spiders, etc. It'll get faster as you wipe out the rogue processes. Think of it as motivation to succeed, eh?

And with a framerate like that you could have days to play through the hard parts of the game. Imagine how easy it'll be.

Shrout1, on Apr 4 2005, 06:57 PM, said:

And with a framerate like that you could have days to play through the hard parts of the game. Imagine how easy it'll be.
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Main problem I'm having right now is drawing the symbols to start programs. Sometimes takes 6-8 attempts to create a Squad. Little chance of switching to Air Strike mid-battle, and I've never managed to revert to Grenade...

N.B. I believe this is down to the slow response time of the system, rather than incompetence on my part. I was fine in the Garden level.

This post has been edited by Michael B : 04 April 2005 - 03:14 PM

Michael B, on Apr 5 2005, 07:14 AM, said:

Main problem I'm having right now is drawing the symbols to start programs. Sometimes takes 6-8 attempts to create a Squad. Little chance of switching to Air Strike mid-battle, and I've never managed to revert to Grenade...

N.B. I believe this is down to the slow response time of the system, rather than incompetence on my part. I was fine in the Garden level.
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Yeah, this WAS pissing me off too. Just make sure to hold the option key for a little longer. If you are screwing up it should give you a syntax error. if you screw up and it says nothing, your not holding option long enough. Be patient and give it a try.

Agent_Vast, on Apr 3 2005, 07:22 PM, said:

It's a feature, not a bug.

Basically, you'll just have to cope. Destroy the triffids as quickly as possible.
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I hope you're not being serious there!

It has to be the quality of the Mac port that is at fault. I get no similar slowdown effects on similarly specced PCs to my Mac.

I was just playing Yard. The speed was managable up until I started blowing up anthills.

With one anthill gone, it slowed down significantly. Once I blew up a second, it was down to 2-3 FPS.

Then the entire game sort of shrugged, gave up, and crashed. blackbox.txt follows:

=========================
DARWINIA BLACK BOX REPORT

VERSION : macosx-full-1.1.0
ERROR : 'Fatal Signal (10) Received
'

=========================
====== STACKTRACE =======

retAddress = 0x6dbc4
retAddress = 0x6dcc8
retAddress = 0x6da10
retAddress = 0x6d730
retAddress = 0x90025048
retAddress = 0x142384
retAddress = 0x8763c
retAddress = 0x0

Yard has been the most frustrating level from a speed standpoint for me. Once the souls have been released from an anthill, the task mangler gesturing STOPS WORKING. I had to wait until they floated off to make more units. This is on a G5 with 1GB RAM, Radeon 9800. No other apps running. Repeat the main point: The gestures WOULD NOT WORK when an anthill has demolished. Frustrating.

Played it on my PC with a 9700 in on max details and very high resolution and I get a solid 60+ FPS at all times. What is going on with the Mac port?

Is Apple's GL that bad? Is it their sound system?

Something definitely seems to be wrong with the mac port. It is being investigated.

The slowdown I can deal with. It's the crashing that annoys me. Three times now, Darwinia has crashed before I can destroy all the anthills. The third time, I waited for the speed to come back up after each successive anthill destruction before proceeding, and it still crashed when I had two hills left.

Plus, the "auto-save" thing seems to be based on when you capture buildings; every time I load up again, all the anthills but one are back AGAIN.

Well, that settles it. I'm not playing Darwinia any more until the patch it out. EVERY SINGLE TIME I PLAY, the game crashes randomly (Signal 10) at some point before I can destroy all the ant hills in the Yard.

This last time, when I had two left, I waited until all the spirits had gone, and the game sped up again. Then it randomly crashed for no discernable reason whatsoever, AGAIN.

If I can't beat the frikkin' level without it crashing, what's the point of trying?

Whoever was in charge of beta-testing this port really screwed up, I'm sorry to say.

This post has been edited by Lindley : 19 April 2005 - 12:05 AM

Just wait a few more days for the patch to come out.

As for the beta testing, as hard as it is to believe, these issues can be missed. I know there were a lot of dedicated testers working on it, and it was somehow missed.

Of course issues can be missed.

But framerates literally dying when an anthill is destroyed? Crashes which consistently occur in the same place, preventing one from beating a level?

That's not just missed issues. That's incomplete testing.

The crashes occurring are a problem with the armour. It should be resolved in the next patch.

Is it something I can fix myself in game.txt? I'm not actually using Armor when it occurs, it's all just sitting back there at the factory.

For that matter, Armor doesn't seem terribly effective againt ants. It just sits there blasting away, while the ants come and carry away the Darwinians inside.

It's rubbish against ants unless you upgrade it because of its terrible range. This is another thing being changed in the patch. (the starting range of the assault mode). They also stop the factory pumping out too many Armour units causing them to get very confused.

I ended up just charging squads into the area and appearing non-hostile to the ants until they marked me as a threat when I got close to the hives, then launching several airstrikes at the nearby hives.

This post has been edited by SadMac : 23 April 2005 - 11:14 AM

It did take me several tries, due to crashes, to beat the Yard level. When I went to the Escort level next, though, it still kept crashing. I hope that new patch comes out soon. The armour was useless for me as well, except against the final anthill. Personally, I found the airstrikes to be very useless, and the rockets I had to upgrade before they'd fly far enough away before exploding to not kill my squad.

Yeah. The rockets have a really stupid starting range. You can't actually fire them without killing yourself. They also do very little damage unless you fire all six of them. The airstrikes I liked cause of their immense range and the sheer power of the galaxian's attack.