PlaneShift

Support => Mac OSX Specific Issues => Topic started by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 23, 2008, 12:44:59 am

Title: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 23, 2008, 12:44:59 am: So I'm on a 2nd Gen MacBook which means:

Core 2 Duo @ 1.83 GHz
2GB RAM
160GB HD
Intel GMA950 integrated graphix
OS X 10.5.4

Anyway, when I'm playing PS, and it seems to only happen then, my whole system lags up and random intervals. And I mean my whole system. Wifi flickers on and off, or if I'm on ethernet that flickers. I can't move my mouse, or type anything. Video becomes very jerky/frozen. Sound does the same. Basically every speck of hardware lags for about 5-15 seconds. It's very annoying, and impossible to recreate. Some days it will happen every five minutes, sometimes it won't happen all day. From my experiments, multitasking doesn't seem to be a factor. Has this happened to anyone else? Do we have a fix?
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Caarrie on July 23, 2008, 01:21:47 am: have you run the updater?
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 23, 2008, 01:38:23 am: Yup.
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Caarrie on July 23, 2008, 01:52:25 am: do you have texture downsampling on 1/2 or further to the right in pssetup?
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 23, 2008, 02:10:00 am: No, it's 1/1. Should it be further right?
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Caarrie on July 23, 2008, 02:59:03 am: Quote from: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 23, 2008, 02:10:00 am
No, it's 1/1. Should it be further right?

try 1/2 and keep going and see if that helps, it helped me from crashing
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 23, 2008, 03:06:11 am: Nope, fired up PS, not five minutes in and it happened again.

Decrease it moar, or other suggestions?
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Caarrie on July 23, 2008, 03:23:35 am: what map are you trying to load? have you tried other characters?
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 23, 2008, 03:27:08 am: Yes, I've tried two characters, it happens in Hydlaa (plaza and Kada-Els) and the arena, as well as in Gugrontid.

After some googling it seems that MacBooks and Mac mini's with Leopard seem to have a problem with Blender, that still hasn't been resolved. If I'm not wrong PS uses Blender? Maybe that's the problem...
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Caarrie on July 23, 2008, 03:39:30 am: blender is the application used to make the characters and items ingame, blender is not shipped or part of the ps engine.
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 23, 2008, 03:41:52 am: Heavysigh.

Then I'm at a loss. No other Mac users experience this?
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Caarrie on July 23, 2008, 03:53:01 am: Quote from: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 23, 2008, 03:41:52 am
Then I'm at a loss. No other Mac users experience this?

I know of one other but this user does not have the same system stats as you so i am not sure if their issue is the same as yours.
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Anumesa on July 23, 2008, 03:13:19 pm: I definitely have the issue with the wifi flickering...though i just assumed it was my modem or something.
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 26, 2008, 01:20:11 am: I think this has something to do with heat, or moreso the overheating of components. This happened again so I picked my Macbook up by the bottom and nearly burned my hand it was so hot. Since then whenever I play PS, I put an ice pack w/ a towel on it under my Macbook and I haven't had the problem. I'd love to send it to Apple, but my warranty is expired =\
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Anumesa on July 26, 2008, 01:37:25 am: yeah mine overheats with PS too o.O good idea with the icepack though
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Oriten on July 26, 2008, 06:29:11 am: Have a look at your Processor Performance - Open up System Preferences, click on Energy Saver and then click on the Options button. There should be a selection menu next to Processor Performance. Try setting it to Automatic.

I used to have problems a while back with my imac sounding like a jet taking off and just generally overheating until I set it to Automatic... It might help...
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 26, 2008, 11:21:18 pm: Okay, that system preference isn't available with a MacBook on Leopard. Just thought I'd say.

Anyway, so today I thought that perhaps the problem was that my fans were clogged with dust. I hadn't cleaned them since I got my Macbook over a year ago, so I opened it up (which would have effectively voided my warranty, had it not already expired) and found that my fan vent was completely blocked with dust. And a thick layer of it at that. I cleaned it out, and am running PS now, we'll see if the problem pops up again...
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Caarrie on July 27, 2008, 12:20:22 am: Quote from: Timmothy Perriwinkle on July 26, 2008, 11:21:18 pm
since I got my Macbook over a year ago

If you have the gma x3100 graphics card, make sure you put texture downsampling at 1/2 or further to the right in pssetup that will fix some crashes of the client.
Title: Re: PS Lags Whole System
Post by: Lamiathan on July 27, 2008, 01:43:21 am: Make sure you are careful with the icepack thing, if your comp ends up sitting in a puddle of water, that is not good for it(can cause damage). I believe that you can buy cooling pad things that you set your laptop on and it will cool your laptop with extra fans and heatsinks and such. These things can also be bought for either Mac or PC laptops. As far as the MacBooks go, I have heard of several examples before of overheating, and supposedly it was a problem with the board. Even if your MacBook is no longer under warranty, you may still be able to have it fixed without breaking your wallet. I would look into that a little more.