Graphics Tuning For Idiots...

[MetalManiac]

...or I guess AN idiot.

I'm just starting to play video games on my mac. Haven't been a computer gamer since the days of X-Com and Diablo. Games these days have a lot more tuning options and whatnot.

Anyways, I'm playing on the 2.26 Mini & 23" ACD in my sig. Specifically Lego Star Wars and Sims 2 (though of course the library will expand). Do I basically want to turn everything down or off (shadows, reflections, smoothing, etc.)? What about resolution?

I wish the Aspyr game agent could answer these sorts of questions. All it tells me is that my video card is not supported (which seems unlikely).
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MacBook Pro 13" 2.26 Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 160GB HD
Mac Mini 2.26 Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 320GB HD
23" Acrylic ACD

[macmanmacman]

Ok yes and no.

if you have the intel graphics adapter that uses shared memory even turning everything to low won't help you.

The card just can't handle it.

But if you have one of the newer macintoshes with the Nvidia or Ati graphics card in it you should be. Ok you might have to tone it down a little but not to much to distroy the gameplay.

Now with lego star wars you will need a fast machine and a good graphics card the game won't even play on the intel graphic's chipset.


Sims 2 a little more flexable the game can be run on a intel graphics card if you tone the game down but it takes nearly 20 minutes on a intel graphics card to get to the options to due so.

[MetalManiac]

Cool, thanks. I'll just start futzing around with options in the Sims. Sweeping shots of neighborhoods, it seems, will always stutter, even with everything turned down. Normal gameplay works great tho.

Oh well, too bad about Lego Star Wars. I played it on my old 1.66 with the GMA950 and it was really playable unless there was more than one thing on the screen ( ).
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MacBook Pro 13" 2.26 Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 160GB HD
Mac Mini 2.26 Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 320GB HD
23" Acrylic ACD

[macmanmacman]

Yea it has to do with the new universal binary.

Lego star wars starts to pull extense lag.