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tinmeigut

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 3, 2013
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I've just downloaded the game to my 15" MacBook Pro. Its screen's native resolution is 1680*1050 but the settings only let me play the game at 1280*800 max. Are they doing this intentionally to the Mac version or do I need to do something to play the game at native resolution?
 
I've just downloaded the game to my 15" MacBook Pro. Its screen's native resolution is 1680*1050 but the settings only let me play the game at 1280*800 max. Are they doing this intentionally to the Mac version or do I need to do something to play the game at native resolution?

I am using a 27 inch iMac and the max resolution I can get is 1600 on the long end. I wonder what is going on?
 
It seems Aspyr have limited the resolution to keep performance up. You can edit the config file and change it yourself though... But you can't do it in game.

You'll find it here.

Library/Application Support/Bioshock Infinite/XGame/Config/
 
same thing happened to me with borderlands 2... the game wouldnt let me choose a resolution more than 1440.

What I did was quit the game and go to the desktop and increase the resolution of my dispaly to the resolution i wanted to play the game. In my case 1920 x 1080.

Then i restarted the game and ALAS, i was able to choose a resolution up to 1920 x 1080.

Maybe sinice it is the same developer, the same applies to Bioshock Infinite?
 
Did anyone play it yet on 15" rMBP? Can you select 1920x1080 resolution on it? Can it run fast enough under that resolution?

I find that most Mac native games seem to somehow screw up resolution selection on rMBP as they don't understand what the screen resolution actually is. Because of this I'm weary of buying any of these bigger 3D games for Mac. There's no guarantee whatsoever anything will work they way it should, or at all.

Even with smaller games it's hit and miss. Last game I bought from MAS was Another World, and no matter what resolution I would choose it was running at maybe 1440x900 with big chunky pixels. I spent an hour getting my PC version of the game running under Wine wrapper, and I was able to get it working in 2800x1800, and needless to say it looked night and day better.
 
It seems Aspyr have limited the resolution to keep performance up. You can edit the config file and change it yourself though... But you can't do it in game.

You'll find it here.

Library/Application Support/Bioshock Infinite/XGame/Config/

This is correct. We were seeing issues with NVIDIA cards on upper-end resolutions and after many weeks of optimization, we elected to remove some of the upper end resolutions at launch. Luckily Bioshock scales extremely well, so the difference is very slight.

That said...we are seeing better performance with 10.8.5, and we are very much looking forward to Mavericks which will introduce the new OpenGL support. We expect to be able to add back in the resolutions soon with those updates.

As Jordan suggested, try out the upper resolutions and let us know what your experience is. Just remember to change the file back if you ever need to call in for support ;)
 
This is correct. We were seeing issues with NVIDIA cards on upper-end resolutions and after many weeks of optimization, we elected to remove some of the upper end resolutions at launch. Luckily Bioshock scales extremely well, so the difference is very slight.

That said...we are seeing better performance with 10.8.5, and we are very much looking forward to Mavericks which will introduce the new OpenGL support. We expect to be able to add back in the resolutions soon with those updates.

As Jordan suggested, try out the upper resolutions and let us know what your experience is. Just remember to change the file back if you ever need to call in for support ;)
Can you elaborate a bit more on the performance and resolutions? I've seen this game run at pretty respectable 40-50FPS in 1680x1050 and Medium settings on 15" rMBP when running under Windows. How does your native Mac version compare to that?
 
That said...we are seeing better performance with 10.8.5, and we are very much looking forward to Mavericks which will introduce the new OpenGL support. We expect to be able to add back in the resolutions soon with those updates.

Hi Blair. Does Aspyr have plans to "test" (and possibly update if needed) your more recent OSX games for Mavericks compatibility? Borderlands 2, Civ 5, CoDBlops, Bioshock Infinite, etc.
 
Extremely disappointed…

I am an owner of a rmbp 15" and I am very very disappointed with Bioshock Inifite for OSX and Aspyr's handling of this port.

While I was satisfied with Borderlands 2 port from the same company and I could run the game on 1920 x 1200 with almost everything on max settings, bioshock infinite turns out to be a fiasco to say the least.

First of all we are dealing with false advertising… the game indeed has locked resolution and all options dont let you go more than "normal" settings. There should be a warning about this in the description… I am buying a computer game to enjoy better gfx than consoles…

Even then, and at a resolution of 1440, the game has horrible performance and fps drops below 20 far far faaar too many times.

I am sorry but this is unacceptable… the game runs on the same machine in windows with 40 fps at 1680 resolution and with a lot of gfx options on high.

I would advise everyone to not to buy this game for OSX and I am waiting for Aspyr to actually do something about this. I actually feel that i have been ripped off…

I seriously hope the game gets fixed, but until then, again, I have to advise the community NOT to buy this game.
 
Hi Blair. Does Aspyr have plans to "test" (and possibly update if needed) your more recent OSX games for Mavericks compatibility? Borderlands 2, Civ 5, CoDBlops, Bioshock Infinite, etc.

Absolutely! We are running tests right now actually. Mavericks is super exciting because we will finally get support for more recent OpenGL versions. This will allow us quite a bit more flexibility with coding natively for our games.

For example, BioShock Infinite was coded on the PC in DirectX 11 which would be the equivalent to OpenGL 4.3 or 4.4. Apple currently supports 2.1 and 3.2. We of course used 3.2 for Infinite and it was quite the challenge.

So Mavericks will be a big step forward for Mac Gaming. One thing to note however, the old toolsets are also being dropped by Apple as they move forward with Mavericks. This will likely force a lot of publishers to drop support for 10.6.
 
Extremely disappointed…

I'm sorry you are having issues Valkyre. I have a rMBP and of course that is one of our focus test machines, and while not 1 to 1 with the PC (see DirectX 11 to OpenGL 3.2 discussion above) the performance is quite acceptable. The only slow down we have seen is on heavy firefights, and thus far we've received the same reports from early users and press.

Also to your point on BL2, please know that those are 2 VERY different games. Infinite is quite a bit more graphically intensive, calling on more complex shaders and texture maps, hence the much higher system requirements.

Have you given thought that you might have something else going on? Our support team would be glad to dive in and attempt to help.

That said, we are and will continue to look at ways to optimize Infinite on the Mac, especially as new tools open up to us with future OS X iterations (Mavericks).
 
I'm sorry you are having issues Valkyre. I have a rMBP and of course that is one of our focus test machines, and while not 1 to 1 with the PC (see DirectX 11 to OpenGL 3.2 discussion above) the performance is quite acceptable. The only slow down we have seen is on heavy firefights, and thus far we've received the same reports from early users and press.

Also to your point on BL2, please know that those are 2 VERY different games. Infinite is quite a bit more graphically intensive, calling on more complex shaders and texture maps, hence the much higher system requirements.

Have you given thought that you might have something else going on? Our support team would be glad to dive in and attempt to help.

That said, we are and will continue to look at ways to optimize Infinite on the Mac, especially as new tools open up to us with future OS X iterations (Mavericks).

Ι appreciate the reply, i really do.

But the game is sub par… the performance is simply not acceptable. The same game on windows plays so much better. I know OSX doesnt help , I know that, but I expected better. And I still do.

My machine works perfectly, nothing is wrong with it, every game plays nicely.

But this should be better, you need to find a way to improve the frames. You said something about 10.6, are you talking about performance gains? Can we expect a big improvement in Mavericks, or just a small one?
 
Ι appreciate the reply, i really do.

But the game is sub par… the performance is simply not acceptable. The same game on windows plays so much better. I know OSX doesnt help , I know that, but I expected better. And I still do.

My machine works perfectly, nothing is wrong with it, every game plays nicely.

But this should be better, you need to find a way to improve the frames. You said something about 10.6, are you talking about performance gains? Can we expect a big improvement in Mavericks, or just a small one?

Thanks for understanding. We are always working on ways to make the frames better on all our new releases. BL2, BLOPS, and Civ V are constantly tweaked for performance, Infinite wont be any different.

Performance is always subjective, but please understand Valkyre that if the MBPr at default settings ran poorly in our tests, we certainly would not have supported it as gamers. We are absolutely hardcore about not supporting hardware sets that aren't up to snuff at default settings. I worry that this is a bug for you specifically, because we are not having any reports of poor performance on that hardware set from users or press yet.

I'm not suggesting your system runs poorly on anything else, every application is completely different, I'm suggesting that its possible something weird is causing your issue (I've seen some crazy stuff). If you'll let support take a look, they might be able to help. Every support agent we have is also a tester, so they run sweeps on issues all the time (especially at launch.)

The jury is certainly still out on Mavericks...but it looks very promising.:apple:
 
I'm having a blast with the game, I have it on the high presets and while I'm not running it at the highest resolution possible it still looks and plays great. I look forward to the future updates!
 
This is correct. We were seeing issues with NVIDIA cards on upper-end resolutions and after many weeks of optimization, we elected to remove some of the upper end resolutions at launch. Luckily Bioshock scales extremely well, so the difference is very slight.

That said...we are seeing better performance with 10.8.5, and we are very much looking forward to Mavericks which will introduce the new OpenGL support. We expect to be able to add back in the resolutions soon with those updates.

As Jordan suggested, try out the upper resolutions and let us know what your experience is. Just remember to change the file back if you ever need to call in for support ;)

Thanks for the info, it's great to see a developer post here and provide such information. I was curious as to why I couldn't put the resolution up to 1920x1080 on my external monitor, but I was also pleasantly surprised that it looked fantastic even at 1600 resolution. I hope Mavericks will allow some more optimization for even better performance. Congrats on a great release. It's really nice to have more big titles on OS X.

Ι appreciate the reply, i really do.

But the game is sub par… the performance is simply not acceptable. The same game on windows plays so much better. I know OSX doesnt help , I know that, but I expected better. And I still do.

My machine works perfectly, nothing is wrong with it, every game plays nicely.

But this should be better, you need to find a way to improve the frames. You said something about 10.6, are you talking about performance gains? Can we expect a big improvement in Mavericks, or just a small one?

I also have a rMBP and haven't had any of the performance issues you mentioned. It runs fantastic and I'm more than happy with it running at this level in OS X instead of restarting in Windows. Acceptable performance is really subjective, though, and what one deems to be great another might deem to be subpar. Since I haven't found a good FRAPS equivalent in OS X I'm not sure of the frame rate, but it seems to be keeping an average of 30+, which for me is just fine. I hope you can eventually get it working in OS X at an acceptable level for you, otherwise at least there's Bootcamp.
 
Valkyre, try resetting SMC and PRAM. For the longest time OSX had a really nasty bug on mBPR where upon starting certain games, performance would become crap for any game you run from that point on, probably half what it should normally be - until you reset SMC. I do think this issue has been dealt with on 10.8.4, but it never hurts to try.
 
Thanks for understanding. We are always working on ways to make the frames better on all our new releases. BL2, BLOPS, and Civ V are constantly tweaked for performance, Infinite wont be any different.

Performance is always subjective, but please understand Valkyre that if the MBPr at default settings ran poorly in our tests, we certainly would not have supported it as gamers. We are absolutely hardcore about not supporting hardware sets that aren't up to snuff at default settings. I worry that this is a bug for you specifically, because we are not having any reports of poor performance on that hardware set from users or press yet.

I'm not suggesting your system runs poorly on anything else, every application is completely different, I'm suggesting that its possible something weird is causing your issue (I've seen some crazy stuff). If you'll let support take a look, they might be able to help. Every support agent we have is also a tester, so they run sweeps on issues all the time (especially at launch.)

The jury is certainly still out on Mavericks...but it looks very promising.:apple:

I will try and look more into it (reseting SMC), but I hope you guys can improve the overall performance. It really kills me that I cant go beyond 1440 resolution and that all gfx option are on NORMAL quality at best. I really think this thing needs to be tweaked.

But at the same time I thank you for actually taking the time to reassure me that you will. Looking forward to it then.

I also have a rMBP and haven't had any of the performance issues you mentioned. It runs fantastic and I'm more than happy with it running at this level in OS X instead of restarting in Windows. Acceptable performance is really subjective, though, and what one deems to be great another might deem to be subpar. Since I haven't found a good FRAPS equivalent in OS X I'm not sure of the frame rate, but it seems to be keeping an average of 30+, which for me is just fine. I hope you can eventually get it working in OS X at an acceptable level for you, otherwise at least there's Bootcamp.

Can you please provide me with information on the settings you play the game on your retina macbook?

I am playing on 1440 resolution with every option on NORMAL, except ambinent occlusion which is in LOW and Shadows also at LOW.

I get good framerates when not many things happen on screen, but when big firefights start with all sorts of effects, things get really choppy, and I mean well below 20 fps.

It is such a shame really as the game is simply an art marvel and when things get so choppy you just cant enjoy it. Or atleast me, that is.

I havent tried resseting the SMC, i will do, but i dont think it will change anything, since Borderlands 2 and all other games play just fine.
 
It's all subjective, hence one person says the performance is fine while another says it's unacceptably jerky.

Personally I wouldn't want to play this or any first-person shooter at anything less than 60fps. Just drop the resolution and turn down the effects until you get it running at 60fps. That's basically Bioshock Infinite as your Mac can handle it.

A smooth framerate at low res looks better to me than jerky high res.
 
whats the easiest way to see frame rates in the game.


on my 2011 imac 3.1 ghz its running really smoothly, and looks beautiful but when i look in settings its defaulted to low graphic settings. ive stuck it up to medium and it looks even nicer and seems as quick to me. any way of checking?
 
It seems Aspyr have limited the resolution to keep performance up. You can edit the config file and change it yourself though... But you can't do it in game.

You'll find it here.

Library/Application Support/Bioshock Infinite/XGame/Config/
I bought mine on MAS, and I don't have a 'Bioshock Infinite' folder in my Library folder.
Where would it be? Really annoyed about the 1600x900 restriction on my iMac.
 
I bought mine on MAS, and I don't have a 'Bioshock Infinite' folder in my Library folder.
Where would it be?

Select the "Go" menu in Finder. When it's open, press and hold Option. While doing this, select Library, and the Application Support subfolder where you'll find Bioshock Infinite will be there.
 
Select the "Go" menu in Finder. When it's open, press and hold Option. While doing this, select Library, and the Application Support subfolder where you'll find Bioshock Infinite will be there.
Thanks, but as I said in my original post, there is no 'Bioshock Infinite' folder in my User/Library/Application Support.
It must be different for the MAS version.
 
whats the easiest way to see frame rates in the game.


on my 2011 imac 3.1 ghz its running really smoothly, and looks beautiful but when i look in settings its defaulted to low graphic settings. ive stuck it up to medium and it looks even nicer and seems as quick to me. any way of checking?

I don't think there is one on Mac. In Windows you can use lots of different apps, such as MSI Afterburner or FRAPS, but in OSX you're pretty much limited to in-game performance monitoring, which Bioshock Infinite doesn't have.

If it looks acceptable to you, the framerate is good enough. Personally, I notice it if it goes below 50 for any length of time, but I think consistency is important. Console games that display at 30 fps are fine if they stick to 30 fps. It's the shifting between framerates that really offends the eye.
 
Absolutely! We are running tests right now actually. Mavericks is super exciting because we will finally get support for more recent OpenGL versions. This will allow us quite a bit more flexibility with coding natively for our games.

Fantastic! :)

Will you guys be looking at adding in any of the D3D11 effects into Infinite for Mavericks?
 
Thanks, but as I said in my original post, there is no 'Bioshock Infinite' folder in my User/Library/Application Support.
It must be different for the MAS version.

If purchased from the Mac App Store, the Bioshock Infinite configuration file can be located along the following very lengthy path:

Users/Library/Containers/com.aspyr.bioshock3.appstore/Data/Library/Application Support/Bioshock Infinite/XGame/Config/XUserOptions.ini

Open the XUserOptions.ini file with TextEdit, scroll down to the very end and adjust the ResolutionX and ResolutionY parameters to your desired values. I was able to successfully change this to match the native 1920X1200 resolution on my iMac and the game launches with these new display settings. However, as already mentioned in previous posts, you cannot change the display resolution in-game.

Hope this works-please post back with your feedback!
 
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