Helper for running Planeshift on old macs with MacOSX 10.4 (Tiger)

[player_of_games]

Getting Planeshift to run playably and reliably on an old G3 mac is not easy.
This Helper aims to give thorough and detailed advice of how to tune your
Planeshift installation to the demands of older macs running Mac OS X 10.4.

To achieve this, it makes sure you are all set (sections I. and II.). Please check
all the things outlined there, before starting with the tuning (sections III. and IV.)

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Helper to running Planeshift on old macs with MacOSX 10.4 (Tiger)
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I. WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE ALREADY

- Registered on http://www.planeshift.it
- Downloaded and Installed PlaneShift 0.4.01 (Steel Blue) for MacOS X
- read the 'README-osx' file, which is in your planeshift folder
- read Cha0s' guide to 'Running Planeshift on Mac OS X': http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?&topic=14416
- read Trymm's essential fixes: http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?&topic=31743
- Checked you have at the very least 512MB RAM


II. WHAT YOU NEED

1. Make sure Tiger is up to date, that is, your version is fully updated:
- Run 'Software Update...' from the apple menu, then follow instructions

2. Update Planeshift:

a) Get the newest updater:
- download the 'Updater patch for MacOSX' from http://www.planeshift.it/download.html
- unextract the zip file (double click) and put the 'psupdater.app' in your planeshift folder, replacing the old file there.

 b) Run the updater:
- Navigate to the Planeshift Application Folder
- Right click (if on a laptop or one button mouse CTRL + click) on the 'psupdater' then click 'show package contents'
- from there navigate --> 'Contents' --> 'MacOS' --> Double click on 'psupdater_static' (wait ... it will tell you when it is finished)

3. Make sure your Planeshift application (the client) can connect to the server:

a) if the firewall is enabled (it should be!):
- Run System Preferences from the apple menu, and choose 'Sharing'
- The Sharing Panel has 3 Tabs, select 'Firewall'
- click on the 'New...'-button
- click on the drop-down menu and select 'other'
- enter port number '7777' in both of the fields below and something in the description field, click 'ok'
- make sure you tick the little box next to your newly created connection in the overview window of 'Firewall'

b) If you have installed some other special programs that prevent connections to the net,
make sure you enable any network connection to port '7777' for the client.


III. TUNE GRAPHICS SETTINGS FOR SPEED (and stability)

1. Run the pssetup application (in your planeshift folder):
- leave the Color Depth at 32bit
- turn off sound or leave it on and turn off ambient sounds in-game in the options
- turn of vertex-buffer --- important for stability in certain areas of yliakum
- turn off multisampling and set its slider to zero
- set anisotropic filtering to 1.0
- set texture-downsampling to a fraction of 1 (1/4 works for me)

2. Downlod 'ati Displays'
download: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/drivers/radeondisplayutilities.html
install: follow instructions
- choose 'System Preferences...' from the apple menu, click on the 'ATI Displays' control panel
- from the left panel select '3D' and 'add' an application profile, choose 'psclient.app'
- click the first three boxes, set performance to speed, turn FSAA off, turn anisotropic filtering off

3. Modify configuration files (in Planeshift Folder)
- open 'psclient.cfg' with TextEdit and make sure the following line ends in '= false'
Video.OpenGL.UseExtension.GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object = false
- open data/config/r3dopengl.cfg and delete the ';' from the beginning of the following line:
;Video.OpenGL.UseExtension.GL_ARB_texture_compression  = false
- for other modifications see Trymm's list of fixes

4. Modify graphic options in-game
- select 'details' from the graphics panel, turn on 'adaptive camera'
- set 'min-distance' (first slider) down to 20-30 in very laggy areas (hydlaa for example)


IV. AVOID CRASHES

1. Disable 'Vertex Buffer' in the 'pssetup' application. It might prevent crashes.

2. Navigate to your planeshift-folder and find the file 'psclient.cfg'.
Open it with TextEdit make sure the following line ends with '= false':
Video.OpenGL.UseExtension.GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object = false

3. Maybe turning off ambient sounds in-game may prevent some crashes,
so may turning down fancy light-effects, texture-details, etc...

4. If crashes persist: happy experimenting!


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Thanks to Cha0s, Trymm and all the other helpful forum-posters not mentioned here,
you enable me to run planeshift on a six year old ibook G3.

Feedback is welcome!
player_of_games
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[Trymm]

Nice to see a proper write-up of what is needed in order to get performance up also on older hardware. Good job!


-Trymm.

[Mrokii]

Great job! Not only for "really old" Macs. Might help others too

[pseudoprometheus]

If the moderators agree with player_of_games's advice, perhaps this thread should be made a sticky?

[player_of_games]

Well thanks for the feedback. In any case I will try to keep this updated
to any changes that suggest themselves to be necessary with 0.4.01.
player_of_games

[iriss]

Maybe just add how to get the texture compression problem solved:

-Open the file data/config/r3dopengl.cfg in a text editor.
-Locate the following line and delete the leading semicolon:

;Video.OpenGL.UseExtension.GL_ARB_texture_compression  = false

should be:

Video.OpenGL.UseExtension.GL_ARB_texture_compression  = false

-Save the file (be sure the file is saved as text only).

[Cha0s]

I don't want too many stickies, but I have added a link to this thread from the Guide. Keep up the good work!

[player_of_games]

I don't want too many stickies ... but I have added a link to this thread from the Guide.

I think that is a good solution Chaos.

Iriss, I integrated your suggestion in short form, thanks. 

[iriss]

Maybe add this section too, as it does not reflect in your guide:

Disable the Vertex Buffer in your PS Setup save and start the client. It might prevent the crashes.

If you have done all that is required as per README file, download this updater, open the updaterinfo.xml file and change the top line to be "true" instead of "false"and then run it

http://www.psmirror.org/repo/psupdatermacosx.zip For PPC and Intel mac users, using OSX 10.4 or 10.5

http://www.psmirror.org/repo/psupdatermacosx1039.zip For PPC mac users using OSX 10.3

[player_of_games]

Ok, it has been some time, holidays, real life, you know...

Thanks to Iriss' ongoing effort, the helper now better fits the 0.4.01 version of planeshift
and includes a way to update ps that actually works. Thanks for Timmothy Perriwinkle's
user-friendly description of how to start the 'psupdater_static', without 'Terminal'.

[Caarrie]

just so ALL know the --fullbright option no longer works with any maps so dont complain if it does not work and in the next release there _will_ be ingame gamma control.

[player_of_games]

fellow mac planeshifters,

I am very happy to write this on a (not soo) brand new spanking good macbook,
however, my trusty ibook actually had a hard-drive failure one week before it arrived,
therefore I had to leave the computer with the repair-guy for a good price on saving my precious data.

In other words, I can no longer contribute towards testing and tuning the troublesome little bugger
that is currently still the PowerPC version of Planeshift. It would be really nice if someone where to
take over this thread when the new release comes out, in case that should prove a sensible thing to do.

With 4.0.3, for me, there was little to do for PPC testing, it just crashed regularly and in any case the textures
were messed up if it had not, an issue which was not solvable by the regular tricks and fixes us PPC users had gotten used to 

regards, player of games