I have tried the Uplink Demo (v 1.3.1) on three Macs of mine:
No other apps except or the Finder are running. Most sharing services are off. Game settings are the default ones. Sound is on.
PowerBook G3 Wallstreet G3/233, 384MB RAM, Mac OS X 10.2.6. 4MB RagePro LT
The game starts but is not even able to display the splash screen. No way to see any graphics, the screen stays dark. Music and Sound FX tell me that the app is running. I have tried with external screens as well, no luck. I can blindly quit the game using command-q at least.
Beige PowerMac G3/292, 384MB RAM, 10.2.6.; 6MB VRAM ATI Mach64 standard onboard graphics
This machine is able to display the game. Though it is SLOW as hell. Even unaccelerated Aqua is a LOT less glacial! You need to wait 3/10th of a second for any button to highlight and then wait until the tool tip text has run in. If you click the button before the text ahs completed the button doesn't work. (no bail out possible) So you need to blur and refocus the button again, wait for the text and then click. takes about 2 seconds for each button to click.
Same G3 as above only running Mac OS 9.2.2 using OpenGL 1.2.1 drivers.
Game performance is even worse. At least half a second for a button highlight. The OpenGL implementation in Mac OS X is noticeably faster.
iMac G3/233, Rev. B, 256MB RAM, ATI Rage II Pro with 6MB VRAM, Mac OS X 10.2.6
The game is MUCH faster, though still sluggish. When it comes to the local gateway selection the game seems to hang or wait or missing to display a button. After some trial I can dismiss the world map dialog and the game progresses. Unlike with the beige G3 I only sometimes experience the problem with having to wait for the graphics to click a button.
I can add a G4/450DUAL with Rage Pro 128 and 800MB+ RAM to that setup when I get to work on monday.
Resumée:
These three machines are very close together when it comes to processing power. The only big difference is the graphics processor. All machines have been tested in 640x480 mode and the beige one up to 1280x1024. Both 16bit and 32bit color depth setting tried with 32bit settings beeing even slower. Increasing the resolution did not change a lot. 4MB VRAM sadly is just not enough for this game. Anything from 6MB upwards can be used to at least display graphics though performance is terrible. Sound is interresting and non-annoyingly playing well on all of these Macs.
I just don't understand why such a game makes so intense use of OpenGL. Maybe someone in the know could explain to me why Uplink needs OpenGL that much! A way to reduce the blending and effects to make this game run on older hardware would be realy great.
Greetings Pepi
(Edit: Typos)
(This message has been edited by pepi (edited 05-24-2003).)
