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Mac games and Anti Aliasing

DrD

DrD

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 9, 2007
34
0
I decided to make my primary computer a mac after having a mac laptop for quite some time. I purchased a few mac games as well, including Quake Wars and Unreal Tournament 2004. However, I cannot figure out how to get anti aliasing to work. On any game.

I've spent a good deal of time googling this subject, and it hasn't been too helpful. I've dug around in Quake Wars's setting, and there is an "anti aliasing" drop down menu. However, "disabled" is the only option for some reason. UT2004 simply has no setting that I can find regaurding AA.

In case this comes up, I have a brand new 24 inch imac with the 8800 GS installed (BTO option that gives this thing quite the 3D acceleration horsepower). I haven't done anything "funny" to my system preferences or settings in general.

I can't see the Aspyr or Macsoft not including this feature in their ports - it's bread and butter stuff, and excluding it would mean they do a terrible job with their ports. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming there's some trick I just haven't found.

If I find out that I can't enable AA on my mac games, I'm going to club this baby seal. Plus I'll be sad.



(note - that last part was a joke)
 
AA can sometimes be called multisampling, but I've noticed a few things regarding AA in general on my MBP. In civ 4, for example, any AA setting at all causes the leader models to become invisible. It's an Aspyr port, so maybe that is the sticking point, but I thought I'd throw my experience out so you know you aren't alone.

Please don't club anything.
 
DrD said:
I can't see the Aspyr or Macsoft not including this feature in their ports - it's bread and butter stuff, and excluding it would mean they do a terrible job with their ports.
Click to expand...

At least as far as Aspyr is concerned, you may not be too far off the mark (I've had bad experiences with them, and others suggest their stuff's only gotten worse).
 
When I first read the title of the thread, I immediately thought "ATi graphics card". ATi cards in general have great difficulty with anti-aliasing (at least until their very latest models came out). Looks like that isn't the problem, though, since you have an nVidia card. I have heard a lot of related complaints regarding Aspyr though.
 
waffle911 said:
When I first read the title of the thread, I immediately thought "ATi graphics card". ATi cards in general have great difficulty with anti-aliasing (at least until their very latest models came out).
Click to expand...

No, not at all. In fact ATI cards used to come with a utility called ATI Displays that let you force anti-aliasing (among other things like anisotropic filtering) for most games that didn't support it natively. It sort of went AWOL with the Intel switch though for some reason.

--Eric
 
Thanks for the replies. Sounds like Aspyr may spit out half baked game ports. That pisses me off; it's actually pushing unacceptable if that's true. The game costs the same as the PC version, you should be getting essentially the same damn thing. Not some half-baked port with missing features.

The most uncanny part of this whole issue is that I googled it and can't even tell if or when this has ever been brought up on any other forum! I find that to be pretty strange; I'd have thought this would have garnered some attention already.

I'll try to call either company (macsot or aspyr) and see what they have to say.
 
Eric5h5 said:
No, not at all. In fact ATI cards used to come with a utility called ATI Displays that let you force anti-aliasing (among other things like anisotropic filtering) for most games that didn't support it natively. It sort of went AWOL with the Intel switch though for some reason.

--Eric
Click to expand...

My reference comes from the PC gaming realm, where when AA is enabled, ATi cards eat nVidia's dust. They can do it, but they take a serious performance hit, at least up until their latest generation (HD 4k series). HD 3k series and under become unplayable very quickly at high resolutions. Check Tomshardware.com for more details.
 
I called Macsoft as well as Aspyr.

Oddly enough, the tech support agent in both cases wasn't really sure at first how to answer my question. I let them know that I was dealing with an issue we were discussing in an online forum and thought they should investigate the matter.

Both agents came back after several minutes and told me they were informed that their game port doesn't include anti aliasing features.

Heh.

I explained that as long as this is the case, I won't be buying games from these companies. I also told the tech support agents not to take it personally at all, but just to pass it along.

Want to let them know what you think as well?

Aspyr: (512) 708-8100
Macsoft: (763) 231-8055

PS. Please remember that the tech support agents you are talking with are just working there on the front line and don't make decisions that affect what you are calling about. You want them on your side; just let them know what it is you'd like to see change and see if you can get them to pass it along to the guys who do make decisions.
 
Lack of AA is my one real gripe with ETQW on Mac. Hopefully Aspyr will remedy it in the future but for me, it's not a deal breaker.
 
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