System lag in Steam games on mac

Viale · 07-31-2012, 05:41 PM

Hi,

I'm trying to help my flatmate fix his mac when trying to run steam games.

His computer meets specs for all his games and beyond. I have a lot of experience with computers but not a lot with macs. The internet is healthy, as is his connection. We have a fibre optic connection and it's really fast (for him, too). All lag is system lag.

TF2 has a lot of stuttering and load times of 3-5 minutes.

He has reported similar lag in 'the witcher' and 'left 4 dead 2'.

Those are all the games he has, reducing TF2 to the point that it looked like pixelated feces seemed to smooth it out but the settings were so low that fps drops wouldn't have affected much.

I have searched google and this forum and have had no luck with any similar issue. Some user posted the exact issue we have (long load times and fps drops) with TF2 but his evidently magically disappeared- something I'm not willing to hope for.

Thanks for any advice. I don't have his password to hop on and check the specs, but I have looked in the past and will mention that his are well above anything those games require.

Also the witcher doesn't allow reduced resolutions in a maximised screen so it has to run at 2560x... because that's his desktop resolution and he should NOT have to change that just to play one game.

Cheers

apdonato · 07-31-2012, 06:08 PM

mind telling us his specs? hard to diagnose his problem without knowing what he has...

people complain about TF2 in mac os x all the time, and rightfully so... TF2 happens to be the least optimized source game for the mac, considering i get 100+ fps in portal 2 (2011) and barely get 60 fps in TF2 (2007) tells you something

maybe its not thats its poorly optimized for mac in particular, it just might be poorly optimized period

btw, loading times are horrible, now i can confirm thats a problem only us mac users have

Viale · 07-31-2012, 09:00 PM

Ok this forum deleted my entire post before I submitted it.

imac released 2011
i5 CPU 2.7ghz
4GB ram
amd radeon HD6770m 512mb

Thanks for clearing up the info on TF2.

But the witcher wont let us change resolution without letterboxing the entire screen (the whole way around it, so its a box sitting in the center) for some really odd reason.

It also starts up and the mouse isn't there, just randomly it seems.

The witcher crashes on cut scenes with a wine error - why does wine have anything to do with it?

The program witcher.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to be closed, we're sorry for the inconvenience. This can be caused by the program or a deficiency in wine....

apdonato · 08-01-2012, 02:56 PM

yea i have the same video card as you... (only in a mbp) to answer your question, basically... tf2 was done poorly...

google some fps saving command lines, those can help (they work for windows and mac)

the witcher for mac is actually the windows version in a compatibility layer known as wine... the crashing and resolution problems are common with a port like this... frankly i could make a better port myself

Hedy Lamarr · 08-01-2012, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apdonato

tf2 was done poorly...

How so?

Quote:

Originally Posted by apdonato

frankly i could make a better Witcher port myself

Let's see it.

cupboardoflove · 08-04-2012, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hedy Lamarr

How so?

It was built upon Carbon coding rather than Cocoa.
It doesn't utilize the graphic drivers that Snow Leopard, Lion or Mountain Lion has support for.
It sucks.

I've just made the switch to playing all Steam games on my Boot Camp partition. For example, I average anywhere from 120-150 FPS on Team Fortress 2 at max settings while playing under BootCamp. If I play the game on OS X under max settings, it won't cap 60 FPS.

Tell your friend to grab a copy of Windows 7 and install a BootCamp partition until Steam/Valve fully optimize their software/games/whatever for the OS X platform. Boom, problem solved.

apdonato · 08-04-2012, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hedy Lamarr

How so?
Let's see it.

the port of the witcher that you download on steam uses an older 1.3 wineskin engine, replace it with a newer 1.4 or 1.5 engine and there you go... that would mean better performance you smart alec... as for the resolution problems, changing the screen options to virtual desktop may help...

zing!

apdonato · 08-04-2012, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cupboardoflove

It was built upon Carbon coding rather than Cocoa.
It doesn't utilize the graphic drivers that Snow Leopard, Lion or Mountain Lion has support for.
It sucks.

I've just made the switch to playing all Steam games on my Boot Camp partition. For example, I average anywhere from 120-150 FPS on Team Fortress 2 at max settings while playing under BootCamp. If I play the game on OS X under max settings, it won't cap 60 FPS.

Tell your friend to grab a copy of Windows 7 and install a BootCamp partition until Steam/Valve fully optimize their software/games/whatever for the OS X platform. Boom, problem solved.

although i + rep you for your explanation, i'd like to point out that grabbing a copy of windows 7 just because of one unoptimized game is ridiculous, even if you could get it for free, as many of us have Mac OS X because we dread of ever using that mess of a operating system known as windows

cupboardoflove · 08-05-2012, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apdonato

although i + rep you for your explanation, i'd like to point out that grabbing a copy of windows 7 just because of one unoptimized game is ridiculous, even if you could get it for free, as many of us have Mac OS X because we dread of ever using that mess of a operating system known as windows

I think Windows is absolute garbage and that's why I've always used Macs, but to do any serious gaming outside on my iMac, I need Windows. While I continue to applaud Valve's decision to build and code for OS X, outside of Portal 2, everything else has been pretty much inconsistent.

I'd rather deal with Windows 7 and Boot Camp to play Team Fortress 2 rather than dealing Valve's inconsistent updates for the game that make the game inoperable.

07-31-2012, 05:41 PM	#1
Viale Join Date: Jul 2012 Reputation: 0 Posts: 2	System lag in Steam games on mac Hi, I'm trying to help my flatmate fix his mac when trying to run steam games. His computer meets specs for all his games and beyond. I have a lot of experience with computers but not a lot with macs. The internet is healthy, as is his connection. We have a fibre optic connection and it's really fast (for him, too). All lag is system lag. TF2 has a lot of stuttering and load times of 3-5 minutes. He has reported similar lag in 'the witcher' and 'left 4 dead 2'. Those are all the games he has, reducing TF2 to the point that it looked like pixelated feces seemed to smooth it out but the settings were so low that fps drops wouldn't have affected much. I have searched google and this forum and have had no luck with any similar issue. Some user posted the exact issue we have (long load times and fps drops) with TF2 but his evidently magically disappeared- something I'm not willing to hope for. Thanks for any advice. I don't have his password to hop on and check the specs, but I have looked in the past and will mention that his are well above anything those games require. Also the witcher doesn't allow reduced resolutions in a maximised screen so it has to run at 2560x... because that's his desktop resolution and he should NOT have to change that just to play one game. Cheers

07-31-2012, 06:08 PM	#2
apdonato Join Date: Dec 2011 Reputation: 66 Posts: 797	mind telling us his specs? hard to diagnose his problem without knowing what he has... people complain about TF2 in mac os x all the time, and rightfully so... TF2 happens to be the least optimized source game for the mac, considering i get 100+ fps in portal 2 (2011) and barely get 60 fps in TF2 (2007) tells you something maybe its not thats its poorly optimized for mac in particular, it just might be poorly optimized period btw, loading times are horrible, now i can confirm thats a problem only us mac users have Last edited by apdonato: 07-31-2012 at 06:13 PM.

08-01-2012, 02:56 PM	#4
apdonato Join Date: Dec 2011 Reputation: 66 Posts: 797	yea i have the same video card as you... (only in a mbp) to answer your question, basically... tf2 was done poorly... google some fps saving command lines, those can help (they work for windows and mac) the witcher for mac is actually the windows version in a compatibility layer known as wine... the crashing and resolution problems are common with a port like this... frankly i could make a better port myself Last edited by apdonato: 08-01-2012 at 03:00 PM.

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07-31-2012, 09:00 PM	#3
Viale Join Date: Jul 2012 Reputation: 0 Posts: 2	Ok this forum deleted my entire post before I submitted it. imac released 2011 i5 CPU 2.7ghz 4GB ram amd radeon HD6770m 512mb Thanks for clearing up the info on TF2. But the witcher wont let us change resolution without letterboxing the entire screen (the whole way around it, so its a box sitting in the center) for some really odd reason. It also starts up and the mouse isn't there, just randomly it seems. The witcher crashes on cut scenes with a wine error - why does wine have anything to do with it? The program witcher.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to be closed, we're sorry for the inconvenience. This can be caused by the program or a deficiency in wine....