View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0023086 | AI War 2 | Graphical Bug | Mar 31, 2020 4:00 am | Mar 31, 2020 4:00 pm | |
| Reporter | mvega | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Severity | crash | ||||
| Status | feedback | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 2.012 Populous | ||||
| Summary | 0023086: Unusable Screen | ||||
| Description | I have a strange problem. I'm on a MacBook Pro running MacOS 10.15. Under normal conditions, the game in fullscreen mode is unplayable. Here's a video of what it looks like to boot up: https://photos.app.goo.gl/BzcqjcCGRQ9DU59X7 However, I noticed something interesting when trying to file this bug report -- I promise there's a reason I'm sending you a video captured on my phone. When running this game with Mac's Screenshot app doing a full screen capture, the error goes away and I can play the game normally. I've tested and this is also the case with Discord's Go Live stream, though again the full screen has to be captured for it to work. Here's a video of that: https://photos.app.goo.gl/H47bHd7AN4PYnrAj7 | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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The game works fine for me on my 10.15 OSX laptop. From the first video, it looks like the application doesn't actually start properly at all when started through Steam. Try invoking it from the command line: Open terminal, cd Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/AI War 2/AIWar2.app/Contents/MacOS (as long as you installed to the default steam directory, otherwise find your steam directory) and then run ./AIWar2 |
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Wow, that's crazy indeed! I would be suspicious of graphics card drivers or something along those lines, as that's really something beyond what the game engine could cause too directly. THAT said, I've just pushed an update to Steam that will give you two options for how to play on OSX, now: OpenGLCore (how it was launching by default for you now) or Metal. If you exit steam and then restart it (to get the update faster), then clicking the play button should bring up a dialog which now asks you if you want OpenGL or Metal. I have no idea how well metal will work, but it should be fine. Generally OpenGLCore is the lower-demand more-compatible option, which is why I had not exposed the Metal option until now. However, your desktop is running in Metal in general, and possibly you're having problems with specifically when the game forces OpenGL fullscreen mode -- it may be that discord running an overlay is something that causes it to render in OpenGL to a back buffer and then Discord does the final render in the native metal mode or something. I'm not clear on how the hooks for discord and similar services work on OSX, as they usually lightly rest on top of games without interfering. But in this case it seems like it is potentially changing the game's output mode in some favorable fashion, which leads to my speculation there. Potentially if there is some problem with OpenGL on your machine or on your specific drivers, just keeping everything in metal will make it identical to your desktop mode and bypass all this. If you still have problems, then launching it from Finder instead of Steam would be another thing to try, as the hook for the steam client running embedded in it could be causing some sort of negative effect in the same way that discord is having a positive effect. I highly doubt it, but it's worth a shot since there is definitely something funky happening here. Hopefully just running it in metal mode will work for you and that will be that, but if that DOES work for you, then you might consider checking on your drivers for OpenGL support in general to make sure all is well there. Other thoughts: with something truly strange like this, it can always be a good idea to verify your local file cache for AI War 2, as perhaps steam downloaded some piece incorrectly. That would validate that your files are all full and uncorrupted, and potentially that's all it is. I've seen strange things in rare cases where a main file is partially corrupt from Steam, but the verify local files action in steam always has found and fixed those issues (which are truly very rare). If one or more of those things work, I'd definitely be interested to know for future reference what you find out. Thank you for the report! |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 31, 2020 4:00 am | mvega | New Issue | |
| Mar 31, 2020 12:38 pm | BadgerBadger | Note Added: 0056636 | |
| Mar 31, 2020 4:00 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Mar 31, 2020 4:00 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => feedback |
| Mar 31, 2020 4:00 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0056640 |
