Call Of Duty 2: playing horribly on a 2.5GHz MacBook Pro - how come?

[robegian]

Hi all,

I've just bought COD2 (from eBay - ugraded to v. 1.3) and, to my great surprise, on my 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.5.4, 512M GeForce 8600M GT equipped MacBook Pro it is almost unplayable, since the graphics are badly jerking and stuttering even at 1024x640 or lower resolutions.

I'm surprised because COD4 runs smoothly on the same MBP (via BootCamp, on Windows XP).

Am I experiencing some peculiar (hopefully fixable) problems, or is the Mac version of this game this bad?

[hankolerd]

I am running v1.3(not very often, but I have before) on my system with the settings turned all the way up, and it runs fine. So I know the mac version can run fine. I don't know why it won't for you though, yours should run twice as good as mine.

[nagromme]

It may not be something simple, but the two simplest things that come to mind when a game runs surprisingly poorly on a laptop:

1. Heat. Are you running on a soft surface or in hot conditions?

2. Certain particular settings may kills the speed of that GPU. Maybe you can turn MOST settings up but not all, and experimenting by turning one setting up at a time may help you to know. (I often find anti-aliasing is not worth it on mine for instance--but it's not the same machine.)

Do other games/demos run better? Maybe try the Quake 4 demo?

[robegian]

Actually, Quake 4 Demo, Prey Demo, Halo UB, Unreal Tournament 2004, Ford Racing 2 run beautifully on my MBP, so I can't figure out why COD2 doesn't. Definitely annoying - I bought the Mac version of COD2 because, although I have also a working partition with Windows XP Pro on the same MBP, I prefer to stay in the Mac OS X environment, and I didn't expect to have to face this sort of problems!

[lag1090]

The Mac version of CoD2 seems to have problems with the newer MBPs (Penyrn and newer). For whatever reason, the game's graphics renderer is not completely compatible with the NVIDIA graphics chipsets in the MBPs, causing jittery video. When the Penryn MBPs were first released, Aspyr blamed it on Apple's drivers, but subsequent driver updates haven't solved the problem.

My best advice for you is to attempt to get a refund for your copy since it's obviously negligent on both companies' parts. After you get your refund, purchase the Windows version; it'll run much more smoothly.

[nagromme]

Or hope for better drivers to come via future update :o

[robegian]

Indeed it does look as a driver problem - sometimes I even get artifacts, if I activate certain options in the Graphics section of the game.

Since other games work fine, I suspect Aspyr being the «culprit» here - and I guess there is no hope for an upgrade fixing the problem.

I'll erase COD2 from the MBP and install it in my iMac, then - but I don't know if it will get that better, since it's a humble 2,1GHz G5 iMac with a 128MB Radeon X600 XT... :-D

[cluthz]

Indeed it does look as a driver problem - sometimes I even get artifacts, if I activate certain options in the Graphics section of the game.

Since other games work fine, I suspect Aspyr being the «culprit» here - and I guess there is no hope for an upgrade fixing the problem.

I'll erase COD2 from the MBP and install it in my iMac, then - but I don't know if it will get that better, since it's a humble 2,1GHz G5 iMac with a 128MB Radeon X600 XT... :-D

10.5.3 and 10.5.4 has a video driver issue, many ppl does still stick with 10.5.2 for better performance

[robegian]

I tried COD2 on my iMac G5 (http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/stats/imac_g5_2.1_20.html) (2.1GHz, 2.5GB RAM, Mac OS 10.5.4), and it's unplayable even at the lowest settings. Anyone playing it on a similarly specced Mac?

[CPAKWOOL]

I just bought COD4 and loaded it on my mac book which I have set up with bootcamp windows XP. The game loads ok but when we attempt to play it we get an error message saying ther is a problem with the video card hardware or we need to update a driver. My com specs are:

Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB21.00

Anyone have this problem and know how to fix it?

Thanks

Chuck

[CPAKWOOL]

rr

[robegian]

I just bought COD4 and loaded it on my mac book which I have set up with bootcamp windows XP. The game loads ok but when we attempt to play it we get an error message saying ther is a problem with the video card hardware or we need to update a driver.
I'm afraid the MacBook is below the minimum system requirements because of its video card.

On the MacBook Pro plays fine, instead :-)

P.S. Anyone tried to play COD2 on a single core single processor Mac - like my iMac G5?

[eXan]

I'm afraid the MacBook is below the minimum system requirements because of its video card.

On the MacBook Pro plays fine, instead :-)

P.S. Anyone tried to play COD2 on a single core single processor Mac - like my iMac G5?

I've played COD2 on my lower-spec-than-yours iMac G5 2 GHz, 1.5 GB, Radeon 9600 and it was ok. Sometimes reached 40+ FPS indoors!

I played at 1440x900, everything max, except for render method (I think thats what its called), but strangely enough, lowering the graphics settings didn't help at all lol :confused:

Normandy landing mission ran at single-digit FPS though.

[muldul]

That's weird, it plays great on my blackbook

[robegian]

OK, it's quite old stuff, but I think it's a good thing to post here a viable solution for the COD2 issue, as discussed here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=408093

SIMPLE fix: select the main app icon, do a "get info" on it and check the box "Open using Rosetta".

Now COD2 runs smoothly — albeit not blazingly fast, it's definitely playable!

[jason221]

CoD2 and CoD4 for Mac are ports and will not run as well as the Windows version of each game. However, CoD2 does run great on my early 2009 iMac listed in my signature.

[jbyun04]

CoD2 and CoD4 for Mac are ports and will not run as well as the Windows version of each game. However, CoD2 does run great on my early 2009 iMac listed in my signature.

Modern Warfare 1 runs surprisingly decent at 1920x1080 on mine. I would bet good money that if I boot camped and played the Windows Version it'd be a lot better especially since I could OC my CPU and GFX in Windows.

[mac2x]

CoD2 and CoD4 for Mac are ports and will not run as well as the Windows version of each game. However, CoD2 does run great on my early 2009 iMac listed in my signature.

CoD4 runs extremely well for me...I don't know why people are always claiming it doesn't. :confused: