Mac: Trying to Help Friend

[oldsmoboat]

I am trying to help a friend that knows nothing about computers and I know nothing about Macs. He isn't local so I can't go to his house.

His specs are:
Yosemite
2.66 CPU
8 GB RAM
He is running the game at the lowest resolution you can select, which is about 640X480.

Issue:
Can play Rust and everything looks great but he has to run in a 4" window and he can't read any text (need to see text). Any larger of a window or full screen and the game crashes. He also has to try multiple times to get it to load. We have decreased map size and that seems to help.

The min specs for the game are:
OS: OS X Lion 10.7 (he has a newer OS)
Processor: 2 ghz (his processor is faster)
Memory: 8 GB RAM (matches his Mac)
Storage: 2 GB available space
My note: No mention of video processing

Recommended specs:
OS: OS X Mavericks (he has a newer OS)
Processor: 3 ghz (his is 2.66)
Memory: 8 GB RAM (matches his Mac)
My note: No mention of video processing

Question:
Any idea where to start?
TIA

[paultakeda]

What resolution is the monitor (4 inch window doesn't say much)?
What settings does he have for graphic options?
Is he trying to run windowed because he wants to do other things while playing? What happens if the display is set to fullscreen?

Try sliding all the graphic options to fastest/lowest and see if it can go full screen. If it can, you have your answer. You can then increase the settings depending on the detail desired until you find the sweet spot.

If none of that works then you may want to check if the game has a patch or update for Yosemite. Since Apple dictates when a video driver gets to be updated there may have been one and Rust needs to be patched.

[oldsmoboat]

Thanks. He runs in a window because it won't load or run otherwise. I'll check on his resolution.

[oldsmoboat]

He is running the game at the lowest resolution you can select, which is about 640X480.

[paultakeda]

He is running the game at the lowest resolution you can select, which is about 640X480.

Yes you mentioned that. But what resolution is the display/monitor?

Also, has he dropped all graphic options down to fastest /lowest? Resolution is one thing, running it with all the graphic bells and whistles is another.

[UEDan]

What model is his Mac? Good chance it's the gpu is inadequate.
consider bootcamping it. Steam games run like crap on Mac compared to Windows.

[paultakeda]

If it's a 2.66 GHz machine I'm going to guess it's an older one sporting a Core2Duo chip, either a 20" or a 24".

Rust only needs a Core2Duo 2GHz so it should be okay, though you may be right that OSX is just crap when it comes to games but it's not a Steam game. You can run it without Steam -- which is another option. Find the actual game and launch it without running Steam and see if performance improves.

[Librarian]

Sounds like the mid-2009 laptop I'm using.

Since I'm not a gamer, it's never been an issue for me, but a quick look on line suggests the probable graphics card, Nvidia Geforce 9400M 256 MB, isn't really up to the job.

http://www.game-debate.com/games/ind...9210&game=Rust suggests a graphics card with 1 gig, 4x what that nvidia has.

Also, this seems useful: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-optimiz...ing-1451773588

ETA - specs on the 9400M - http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/...eForce%209400M and the page that got me there, http://www.game-debate.com/games/ind...yGpuRunIt=Rust, says the 9400M does not meet minimum requirements.

[stilly]

I am trying to help a friend that knows nothing about computers and I know nothing about Macs. He isn't local so I can't go to his house.

His specs are:
Yosemite
2.66 CPU
8 GB RAM
He is running the game at the lowest resolution you can select, which is about 640X480.

Issue:
Can play Rust and everything looks great but he has to run in a 4" window and he can't read any text (need to see text). Any larger of a window or full screen and the game crashes. He also has to try multiple times to get it to load. We have decreased map size and that seems to help.

The min specs for the game are:
OS: OS X Lion 10.7 (he has a newer OS)
Processor: 2 ghz (his processor is faster)
Memory: 8 GB RAM (matches his Mac)
Storage: 2 GB available space
My note: No mention of video processing

Recommended specs:
OS: OS X Mavericks (he has a newer OS)
Processor: 3 ghz (his is 2.66)
Memory: 8 GB RAM (matches his Mac)
My note: No mention of video processing

Question:
Any idea where to start?
TIA

Every time that I have seen that issue, where you have to run a game in a small window or on the minimum resolution, it has been because the CPU is doing nearly 100% of the work. SO I would guess that there is NO graphics card being used. If it is a MAC then that would explain it. If it is a LAPTOP MAC then that would really explain it.

But the first thing I would do would be to start looking at the video specs. I did not think that MACs are gaming machines though and it does not mater how basic a game seems to be now-a-days, you still need a current video card to play and keep up simply because of things that are added and used all of the time.

I had a 285 when playing Skyrim and I was happy, but then when i upgraded to a 570 I was able to see FIRE and MIST and weather changes not to mention snowstorms and other cool particle filled things. The 270 GT did not have those even built in when it was made and no way of showing them apparently.

One thing you can do would be to look for a benchmarking program and run it on the MAC- Maybe one like this: https://www.primatelabs.com/geekbench/

I bet it tell you that the graphics suck...

[Librarian]

Well, that was an adventure.

Downloaded geekbench and ran it but no graphics card tests. (At least, I didn't recognize any of the tests to be graphics tests.) Here's the results with the 9600 on line: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/7407794 Only 32-bit tests are available in geekbench tryout mode.


Did learn that a mid-2009 MacBook Pro has 2 gpc, the 9400 M and the 9600M GT, but each has just 256 meg.

Nvidia says can't use both at the same time. And therin lies a tale ...

Had some links and things in a post, and saw one could switch between the 9400 and 9600 - it's in the Energy Saver System Preference panel - choose higher performance over better battery life - but it warns you you have to log out.

And you do.

And it won't let you post your content, though exiting other programs lets you 'save'.

So anyway, I thought I'd try the 9600. Seems to be running about 10 deg F warmer inside.

Maxon Cinebench runs in 64-bit; my 9600M GT gets the CPU rendering to work, eventually, but the GL cannot run - the card supports OpenGL 2.1, but the test requires 3.2.

For Rust, the developers want a Nvidia GTX 980 - OpenGL 4.4 ... Minimum GTX 650, OpenGL 4.3

[stilly]

Wow. Open GL is still around? I thought everything was all about direct-X now. It used to be one or the other.

Oh wait, direct-X is a MS thing. I forget there is a better world out there beyond this MS one I am in. Heh, looking forward to paying it another visit soon.

I am not good with MAC stuff. I actually hate MAC and Apple and all they make actually, but usually most benchmarking programs I have seen for PC have had a graphics test built in as well.