[MAC] Blinking graphics problem

[pizzutifederico]

Hello all.
I am an owner of a Mac Book Pro (5.5) with the NVidia GeForce 9400M graphics card. I am able to play the game and all, but there is a general flickering of flags and models on the map. I know this problem is known, and a solution would be to use bootcamp, but I currently can't go that route (I need linux for my compsci course, and there is a finite space on my hard disk . Also running on wine makes things so much slower I'll rather have flickering things.
I would like to know if there is anything I can do about the problem, or I must just accept the fact and hopefully wait for a fix that I fear will not come anytime soon (I guess it's a driver problem and apple...has a bad history in gl drivers, if I'm not mistaken)

Thank you for your time!
P.S. I accept very hackish solutions as well...doesn't have to be pretty!

 

[Sweordweras]

There's not much that you can do. System requirements for Mac OS X list a GeForce 9600 as minimum. The 9400M might run it, but it is probably not officially supported and will exhibit some graphical bugs just as you described. Most likely the VRAM is stuffed. Updates to CK2 or graphics drivers might improve things in the future or not, but as you said, they won't be around soon.

 

[pizzutifederico]

Thanks a lot for the quick reply!
I guess it's good that I don't really care that much for graphics and the like (although I have to say, it does run on a bootcamp version with no blinking (same card of course)
Thanks again!

 

[AndrewT]

Have you applied the 1.07b patch?

 

[unmerged(503140)]

Have you applied the 1.07b patch?

I have the same problem and I have the 1.07b patch.

 

[pizzutifederico]

I did apply the 1.07b patch.

 

[AndrewT]

I did apply the 1.07b patch.

OK then, because that did fix known problems in this area. I can only assume it is because your video card is under-spec, as StoneTheCrow says. M cards (mobile) are of course much less powerful and capable than the non-M version of the same card, so 9400M is much weaker than 9600.

You could try turning trees off, if you haven't already - edit settings.txt to say draw_trees=no .

 

[pizzutifederico]

Already tried. Makes thing runs smoothly, which i like, but not much more. Also disabled citysprawl and all. And since 1.07b...event pictures are all fuzzy! The only thing that annoys me a little is that while I know this graphics card is "underpowered" for running the mac version of the game, it's fine for the windows one. I wouldn't have this problem in the first place if I didn't have to get rid of my bootcamp partition and get archlinux in (running on wine...it just can't!Unplayably slow!)
But it's fine really, I don't care that much. It was just to see if I was missing something mac version-wise.

I endure and enjoyed playing dwarf fortress in ascii mode. I can handle my super-blikning models (at least the rest of the interface looks cool).

 

[AndrewT]

while I know this graphics card is "underpowered" for running the mac version of the game, it's fine for the windows one.

This is something we've all been discovering. Pre-1.07 it ran fine on the Intel HD3000 under Windows but not at all on the same car din a Mac. The answer turns out to be that the OpenGL drivers Apple use are simply not as good for gaming as the DirectX drivers that Windows uses. There are many facilities used by games in DirectX that OpenGL simply doesn't have (or sometimes, that Apple have no included, for whatever reason).

And since 1.07b...event pictures are all fuzzy!

This is a known bug and has been frequently reported.