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FL on Macbook

The place to ask for technical help with running the demo or the full game...

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belail620

Post Sat Apr 14, 2007 3:28 pm

FL on Macbook

I was wondering if anyone had experience running FL on a Macbook. Im a big fan of Starlancer on the Dreamcast and wanted to start to play Freelancer, however I don't have a pc, I have a Macbook instead. I have it set up with a triple boot system, running OS X, Linux, and Vista. I have installed games before on Vista, all of which I played successfully. However, Freelancer has been giving me a lot of trouble. I currently have the trial version, to test it out. The game runs fine, with no lags or anything, but I have a major problem with flickering lines covering my screen. This mainly happens while flying, in the options menu, and while buying equipment. The game also crashes randomly. I've tried everything that I've read about in the forums, but nothing has worked. Everything is up to date, and I have reinstalled repeatedly. The quickfix patch only makes it crash more.

My system is has follows:
Apple Macbook
2.0 Dual core
1gb ram
Integrated Graphics(Intel 945GM Express, and no, it cant be upgraded)
Windows Vista Business

I guess its cause of the integrated graphics and that theres nothing I can do, but I wanted to see if there was anything I could do. I know that my computer can handle playing it. I believe im going to reinstall XP.

As a sidenote, the games ive played on my macbook:
Oblivion(runs, just lags alot)
Half-Life 2: Episode One (same as oblivion-runs a little better)
SimCity 3000




Edited by - belail620 on 4/14/2007 4:33:44 PM

Chips

Post Sun Apr 15, 2007 4:39 am

I'm not overly up to date on the vista status, but I have heard of people having issues running vista - and some (like finalday) reverting to XP because of it...

Fraid I can't help with suggestions, but if you go back to XP, please let us know how it fairs then

Ogu

Post Sun Apr 15, 2007 7:00 pm

I hear a lot of people with the 945GM can't play FL properly. I can't help you with the mac thing though.

Rankor

Post Mon Apr 16, 2007 5:49 am

When Microsoft built Vista, they apparently didn't take into consideration the
"backward" compatability issues required to run Freelancer.
I suppose they didn't stop to think long enough to realize that there would still
be a large player base still playing this game.
I don't think they even wanted to consider it.
WIth that in mind...
Freelancer was designed for XP at the latest and built to be compatable with
older OS platforms.
I honestly don't know if Microsoft will earnestly address this particular issue
with Vista. So, that leaves us with Xp and older OS's.
If they want to sell their product to us Freelancer Fanatics..they'll have to, but
I fear our player base is nowhere near the population of regular users for Microsoft to consider it.

If you want to play Freelancer, Vista is not providing a solution for us as of this time since they have "bigger" fish to catch. (We are just a small population)
So, to really play Freelancer you'll have to refer to the OS requirements on the BOX that the CD came with.
I don't know if MAC has addressed the XP boot issue for sure, but it seems you have a handle on it.
For now, I would not depend on Vista at this time.

Louva-Deus

Post Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:02 am

What does the fl-client-errors.log file say after a crash? Make sure you grab the latest Hardware Update from the =EOA= website. The update I posted last night focused on Intel Chipsets.

Question Asker2044

Post Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:54 pm

LOL, I am very sure the guys who built Vista were sitting in their office and went "Hey guys I got a great idea! Let's screw over the Freelancer Community just for the fun of it!".

belail620

Post Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:55 pm

Thanks for the help. I think I will go ahead and reinstall XP whenever I have time to. I'll also post the log up as soon as I can. I played it today for around 30min. and it didnt crash once. Im sure it will soon though.

belail620

Post Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:16 pm

Sorry it took me so long to post back. I reinstalled XP and tried out the game and it ran perfect. Im running it with everything maxed out, including 3d sound which i heard causes some problems. No stuttering at all. Ive even upgraded to the actual retail game. Jury is still out if I like it more than Starlancer.

As a sidenote, I was wondering if FL can run at a widescreen resolution? My macbook has a native screen resolution of 1280x800 and it would be great if I could play the game at that resolution. I tried it before, when I still had vista installed, and it didnt work right. The screen sorta stretched beyond my monitor.

Thanks.

Rankor

Post Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:14 am

This particular laptop is running a "wide screen res" of 1280x768 at 32bits.
A little stretched from side to side, but the renderings are excellent.
The card is a Radeon Express 200M.

runtman

Post Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:28 am

Likewise, running at 1024 x 768 on a laptop, looks fine. And I believe it was mentioned higher up that people with a 945GM chipset had troubles... thats what I'm running, and it's given me no problems whatsoever.

belail620

Post Sat Apr 28, 2007 5:58 pm

I was wondering if anyone could tell me the default values of the cameras.ini file in the data folder. I was playing with it while trying to set FL up to run in widescreen but it didnt work out, and i didnt backup the file first, so now its messed up running 1024x768. thanks.

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