Powermac G5 Dual 1.8
Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
1GB Ram

Everything up to Yard, over 30fps
Yard, about 25
Escort, about 15
Pattern buffer and Receiver, 8 - 15fps until most enemy are dead.

Frame rates are consistent regardless of what settings I use.

If I turn all of the settings to lowest, I get about 10-14 fps on Yard and Reciever.

Once I have eliminated all other hostiles and start fighting ants, I get 4-6 on Yard (and have much trouble issuing orders to my units)
and 4 or less on Reciever. (and it crashes every 2 min.)

My Graphics Card-

GeForce4 MX:

Type: display
Bus: AGP
Display Type: LCD
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 64 MB
Vendor: nVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0171
Revision ID: 0x00a2
ROM Revision: 1100

Everything Else-

Machine Model: Power Mac G4
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (2.1)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 2 MB
Memory: 1.5 GB
Bus Speed: 133 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.3.3f2

This post has been edited by awfwal : 16 April 2005 - 10:47 PM

Getting between 7-15 fps on most registered levels (like "Receiver"). Was getting well over 30 on the early levels.

G5 Tower 1.6 GHz
10.3.8
1 GB RAM
Radeon 9800 256 MB
1280x1024 DVI LCD + 1600x1200 VGA CRT (Playing on LCD)
ONLY Darwinia and Finder running according to dock (top will obviously differ ;o) )

I had to disable Rogue Amoeba's Application Enhancer (APE) to successfully play the "Yard" level. Darwinia crashed every time I tried to kill the ants with the armor. Disabling APE allowed me to play the level but had no effect on framerate.

Changing display settings has little effect on framerate. "Yard" ran at an abysmal 7 fps for most of the level. I can tweak down to 1024 x 768 at low quality and I still get about the same framerates.

Even when the framerate is about 15 fps, clicking is a hit or miss chore. The difference between a missed click, a successful "move here" click, and a "I held the mouse down for a long time" click is mostly luck. This is frustrating.

I can even occasionally click to move a Squad to a location, have it be IGNORED as a move here click, AND THE SQUAD WILL FIRE ITS LASER ONCE OR TWICE!!!!

Love the game, looking forward to a resolution to its performance issues.

This post has been edited by sydnius : 18 April 2005 - 02:53 PM

sydnius, on Apr 18 2005, 12:50 PM, said:

I had to disable Rogue Amoeba's Application Enhancer (APE) to successfully play the "Yard" level. Darwinia crashed every time I tried to kill the ants with the armor. Disabling APE allowed me to play the level but had no effect on framerate.

Do you mean Application Enhancer by Unsanity? If so, can you pinpoint which enhancer was causing the problems. (It also isn't ASW and Introversions fault if it crashes with APE, since APE hooks into every application and can cause things to misbehave. This would probably be better reported to it's makers instead of to ASW.)

Quote

Even when the framerate is about 15 fps, clicking is a hit or miss chore. The difference between a missed click, a successful "move here" click, and a "I held the mouse down for a long time" click is mostly luck. This is frustrating.

I can even occasionally click to move a Squad to a location, have it be IGNORED as a move here click, AND THE SQUAD WILL FIRE ITS LASER ONCE OR TWICE!!!!

Love the game, looking forward to a resolution to its performance issues.
View Post

If you have a multibutton mouse, make sure to disable one-button-mouse mode as described here.

Andcarne, on Apr 18 2005, 06:21 PM, said:

Do you mean Application Enhancer by Unsanity? If so, can you pinpoint which enhancer was causing the problems. (It also isn't ASW and Introversions fault if it crashes with APE, since APE hooks into every application and can cause things to misbehave. This would probably be better reported to it's makers instead of to ASW.)View Post

Well I crashed 3 times the same way with it on; got frustrated, looked for reasons. Despite never having had real problems with it, it's always something lurking in my mind as a potential wrench in the works. So turned it off, and for the first time in 4 tries it didn't crash. That doesn't mean it's APE's fault by any means, just that the two were coincident, and it's a potentially implicatable cause. After the fact I stumbled on others in the forums having crashes during "Yard" specifically. Their behavior sounds like mine. I don't know whether they were running it or not. I only use the audio hijack stuff for routing to nicecast.

Was it APE you disabled or Audio Hijack? They are two different products made by two different companies, and you seem to keep intermixing them. If you can pinpoint the behaviour to the program for sure, that would be great.

Andcarne, on Apr 18 2005, 08:10 PM, said:

Was it APE you disabled or Audio Hijack? They are two different products made by two different companies, and you seem to keep intermixing them. If you can pinpoint the behaviour to the program for sure, that would be great.
View Post

I disabled the APE mangler completely. Turned it off. The Audio Hijack is indeed a part of it. It is the only module for APE I have on the list of modules. It is the only module I use. I don't know if there are more modules for APE that I am not using. The whole shebang was off; at this point I have no idea whether it was responsible or not for crashing the "Yard" level. The "Yard" level seems to do that on its own. <shrug>

In other news, I tried out the "Biosphere" level. The first island went well, was getting 15 fps consistently. Second island with the prime beachhead (you know the one) went well until major engagement ensued, then down to 3 fps. The floating souls seem to really destroy it, though with as many troops as that island has I was only getting like 9 fps even before the mass carnage (yes I use F5 in these determinations).

I tried to take screens of the FPS numbers and the screen action that produced it, but the screens from both Apple's cmdshft3 and Snapz Pro are scrambled up. What's up with that?

Just discovered that Squads can make Engineers in the field. Man that makes things easier.

Saw the life intro. Best life display ever. Gratz.

LOVE the gameplay. Can't wait til it's peppier. Gotta check the FAQ for multiplayer network options, they'd rock.

G51.6 1GB 9800256MB 10.3.8

This post has been edited by sydnius : 18 April 2005 - 11:58 PM

sydnius, on Apr 18 2005, 09:57 PM, said:

I disabled the APE mangler completely. Turned it off. The Audio Hijack is indeed a part of it. It is the only module for APE I have on the list of modules. It is the only module I use. I don't know if there are more modules for APE that I am not using.

Ah, I was confused since the newest version of Audio Hijack appears to be a standalone application.

Quote

In other news, I tried out the "Biosphere" level. The first island went well, was getting 15 fps consistently. Second island with the prime beachhead (you know the one) went well until major engagement ensued, then down to 3 fps. The floating souls seem to really destroy it, though with as many troops as that island has I was only getting like 9 fps even before the mass carnage (yes I use F5 in these determinations).

Hopefully framerates in large battles should be improved in the upcoming patch. No guarantees though.

Quote

I tried to take screens of the FPS numbers and the screen action that produced it, but the screens from both Apple's cmdshft3 and Snapz Pro are scrambled up. What's up with that?

Cmd-shift-3 is garbled because it captures parts of multiple frames at once. Snapz should capture properly in windowed mode. You can also try pressing 'p' which will attempt to dump a bmp to your desktop. For some people it works, for others it makes all-black with virus screenshots. If that doesn't work, you can hit P and then take a screenshot during the second or so it freezes the screen for.

Quote

LOVE the gameplay. Can't wait til it's peppier. Gotta check the FAQ for multiplayer network options, they'd rock.
View Post

Multiplayer is not yet implemented, but it has been said that it should be coming in a future patch.

Running with everything, even Finder quit I get around 5fps on most levels. On the latest OS patches, etc.

Hardware overview:
Machine Model: PowerBook G4 17"
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.5 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.8.6f0

Memory:
SODIMM0/J20STANDARD:

Size: 512 MB
Type: DDR SDRAM
Speed: PC2700U-25330

9700 Mobility:
ATY,RV360M11:

Type: display
Bus: AGP
VRAM (Total): 64 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4e50
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-xxxxx-134

This post has been edited by SadMac : 21 April 2005 - 05:34 AM

I've also been experiencing performance issues; here's my machine spec:

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: Power Mac G5
CPU Type: PowerPC 970 (2.2)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.8 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1.5 GB (DDR400)
Bus Speed: 900 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.5f2

System Software Overview:

System Version: Mac OS X 10.3.9 (7W98)
Kernel Version: Darwin 7.9.0

PCI/AGP Cards:

ATY,RV350: (ATI Radeon 9600 Pro)

Type: display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 64 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4150
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-xxxxxx-126

Display:

Type: display
Display Type: CRT
VRAM (In Use): 64 MB
Resolution: 1024 x 768 @ 100 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color

As for the frame rates, this is what I've been experiencing:

Garden (cleared), average 60
Containment (cleared), average 40
Mine (cleared), average 30
Generator (cleared), average 25
Yard (cleared), average 16
Receiver, average 12

All of the above were played with the settings on high. I found little (if any) difference on performance by switching them all to low. Better performance was obtained by focusing in on a small area; all of the above frame rates were when viewing the whole level. I also noticed a reduction in performance by altering the sound settings up to 44kHz and increasing the number of channels (beyond what I'd expect).

Also changing the resolution down to 800x600, dropping the zbuffer or bit depth, or running in wondowed mode had no appreciable effect.

I hope this helps to get the performance issues solved! Apart from these, it's in all other respects a fantastic game. Keep up the good work!

Spiff

This post has been edited by spaceman.spiff : 21 April 2005 - 12:11 PM

(quote name='Andcarne' date='Apr 5 2005, 01:03 AM')
In an attempt to shed some light on the bad performance issues that have been reported by many, I'd appreciate it if you could reply with your system's specs ...

I'm getting between 2-5 FPS on the Temple level.

All settings on high.

Macintosh G5 2GHZ DP
1GB Memory
ATI-9800 video
MacOS X 10.3.9

:mad:

All is set to "high" setting all to the lowest option does not make a single difference in framerate, well, maybe 1 fps but certainly not more.

Getting 10 fps in the Yard level, and am unable to clean the 'ants' since then the framerate drops to 2. Here are my specs:

Machine Name: Power Mac G4
Machine Model: PowerMac3,6
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
OS: Tiger 10.4 build 8A428

--graphics--

ATI Radeon 9000 Pro:

Chipset Model: ATY,RV250
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-1
VRAM (Total): 64 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Resolution set to 1280x1024. Again, graphics settings do not have a single effect on speed in the low framerate levels. I have not experienced crashes yet, but sure encountered some bugs like the camera shocking out of control when trying to use a 'battle cannon', making this impossible.
I certainly hope this will help you solve this issue.

Issues only on Pattern Buffer. The more interaction between my thousands of Green guys and the consistent introduction of Red guys seemed to kill the frame rate. Either the firing between the two, or the number of transformed souls may be responsible for the frame rate of 1 FPS for minutes at a time..? Dr. Sepulveda's "help" (i.e. how to draw squad symbols, etc.) severely hampered the frame rate. Turning off the help in options decreased the number of paralyzed FPS incidents.

No FPS issues w/ Yard - but, then, I didn't consistently use armor; just used kamikaze squads to Air Strike/grenade ant hills... thus, many people's Yard FPS issues may be due to continued action of firing Armor in addition to # of souls..? Otherwise, radar dish control issues abounded on a few levels - violent shaking and unable to control camera once radar dish was selected.

To continue playing Pattern Buffer, I have set all graphic, sound, sound memory, and buffer settings to low. Also windowed game and set resolution to 800x600, while maintaining my own monitor's 1024x768 res at 85 hz. These settings, as well as the simultaneous decrease in the "red scares", seemed to have made the FPS somewhat more fluid - at least enough to continue Pattern Buffer level to completion...

Specs:
PowerPC G4 (version = 2.1)
Dual 867
512 RAM
OS 10.2.8
NVDA,GeForce4MX
60 GB ATA
Bus Speed 133 MHz

processors: 2

L2 Cache: 256 K (times 2)
L3 Cache: 1 MB (times 2)

Thanks for the otherwise rather brilliant game!

Whenever there's entities in the mid-hundreds or more, I start to have some serious framerate drops.

(Desktop)
1.25Ghz G4
896MB DDR-PC2600 (3 DIMMs, a 256MB, 512 and 128)
64MB ATI card

I get an average of 16fps near the beginning, but the further I get, the more entities are usually in a map, and the more my framerate drops, down to around 4 or 6fps, like on pattern_buffer, or the first map you encounter the ants on, when you blow up an anthill and a billion little souls fly out, and then it's around 4fps.

It seems it's more a processor thing, not a video card thing.
BUT, THINK ABOUT IT LIKE THIS:
Sure, things have rather simple A.I. in Darwinia, however, there are often OVER 1,000 OF THEM ON A MAP, all getting their simple A.I.'s calculated. If that DIDN'T cause some system slowdown, then I'd assume you're using a few G5's slaved together.

There are many examples of AIs that can do this on a much slower machine, as well as Darwinia itself which doesn't seem to have any problem with 5000 green darwinians happily floating around. Only a certain kind of unit or certain actions seem to kill performance.

One of the AIs I remember: 'total annihilation', an RTS with a support for 1000 units. Put in 3 AIs plus you and you have a fast reached maximum of 4000 units in a huge map which work together as well. Runs on a 266 MHz G3, and the AI surely isn't bad. The game is semi-3D as well.

It just needs a good bug fix and some optimization. I'm pretty sure you can let this game run on a 500 MHz machine with a lot of work. Time and lack of manpower for the mac port are obviously the enemy here.

Here are my specs : eMac G4 800MHz, 512 RAM, 80GB, GeForce2...

The Garden went like a charm, I liked the camera movements, everything is smooth.

Yet, as I reached the next level, I couldn't get more than 8 FPS, even with every settings set to the lowest possible option. When engaged in combat, the gameplay was very choppy, hence, not very funny. At times, I was about to bang my head on the desktop because I couldn't select the units.

Sometimes, a click is not registered because of the lag, or sometimes a single click is registered as a click-and-hold... And so on...

As for programming/performance talk, it seems that every polygon is calculated, no matter if they appear on the ViewPort or not. And I guess this could be one good area of optimization. Of course my computer is not necessarily the bomb, but I still think a GeForce2 and a G4 should be able to run Darwinia with some decent speed (8 FPS NOT being a decent speed, indeed).

Most of the 3D games will tend to accelerate when a few polygons are on the screen (for example, you get near a wall and you can't see anything else around) and get more laggy as more polygons need to be drawn for a given frame. It seems that Darwinia doesn't follow this behavior.

Another optimization option is to set far away objects into "low-resolution" mode, and as you get close to them, they are drawn with all the details. Or, to be more radical, set the cut-off drawing threshold at a given distance, either set automatically following the performance, or set as a user preference. As for now, Darwinia tries to draw everything in sight, and it can be really consuming if the world is very large.

nah, it's not the graphics. something is using the cpu - i'll bet on the shooting of the green guys with the red guys, the ai seems to eat the performance.
i'm not sure what your problem with the ants was - i did not use armor or airstrikes (did not know how to draw the gesture), just grenades and rockets to kill them.

and here's my crosspost from http://forums.introversion.co.uk/darwinia/...opic.php?t=1301

hi there,

i'm frustrated!

i played the demo: wow! what a strange, new game! great!!!!! (coming from 8bit aera).
now level three: pay me to play further... ok, that game is worth the money! so i bought it online. got my registration key, perfect, good service.

now i am in pattern-buffer and receiver. and it is UNPLAYABLE! i get 1fps displayed, but hey, it doesn't even do 1, it's more like 0.3 or less. if i am lucky i have 5 minutes to play with 5fps. but then it just drops down and down.

Requirements:
Power Macintosh G3 or better
MacOS X 10.2 or later
hey developers, that might be working with level 1....

i have a 1.67GHz 17" PowerBook with 1.5GB and this fat 128MB ATI thingie. so i thought it should work. really, i am thinking about getting my money back, i am SO frustrated! (not about the money itself but about this great game, i am not able to play)

what should i do now? reducing size, depth or anything does not help. seems to be a programming flaw, when we have to many darwinians to be steered around shooting.
any help? maybe some update? introducing BSPs maybe?

Yeah the Mac port of this game isn't exactly stellar. (not that it's entirely Introversion's fault)

It's not just the AI btw, a lot of problems are actually due to the graphics code afaik (in the Mac side I mean). Apple's GL wasn't exactly brilliant on 10.3, for example teh devs couldn't get display lists to work properly with the game even tho' they work perfectly on the Windows and Linux versions. Other graphics issues include a complete lack of hidden surface removal (this is Introversion's fault); absolutely no culling of off screen polygons happens.

Apple's sound system is hardly the same optimised thing that you'd be using if you had an nforce based PC either.

The AI really does chew CPU cycles though. However this is pretty much platform independent I would think, so it's not what really slows the Mac port I reckon. It's what causes people trouble when fighting the ants and red DGs tho'.

I ended up getting the Windows version myself, as I gave up waiting for the Mac patch to be released. Regardless it's still a damn good game.

I put Darwinia away for a while and just picked it up again (with a new powerbook), and it seems like my frame rates have dropped significantly. At the beginning of Escort, I'm getting 5-6 FPS. Here are my specs:

OS: 10.4.1
PB: 1.67 Ghz G4.
RAM: 1.5 GB

from System Profiler:
Chipset Model: ATY,RV360M11
VRAM: 128 MB

I've quit every other app, turned all the settings to Low (even audio), and dropped the display size to 800x600, and no increase at all. I don't recall having this much trouble with my 1.5 Ghz G4 PB, but I could be wrong.

Any advice is much appreciated, and if you need more system info, let me know.

The patch should be upcoming soon. (Hopefully, I know I keep saying this, but...)

Give it a try then.