CuppaManga

Follow these instructions:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=199092

Check to see what your current Macbook is selling for on eBay - Apple computers retain a lot of value, you might be able to get some money back after you upgrade to a newer model.

The patcher on my Mac seems to be faster downloading than my PC, so it's not platform related.

I know it seems strange, but if you're using wifi try changing the broadcast channel the base is using - you might be getting interference, slowing down the connection. If it's wired, try using a different cable or a different port on the hub.

CoH will very often use over 90% of CPU just because it needs a lot of power for what it does. Games are like that in general.

Your Intel GMA X3100 is ok for light gaming but if you want to see all the latest graphical bells and whistles you're going to need something more powerful - a "discrete" graphics processor. The Intel GMA is an "integrated" one.

If you're trying to balance affordability with power, probably the recent iMacs are the best compromise. A lower-end Macbook Pro (nVidia 320M) will give you decent playability, a higher-end one (nVidia 330M GT) will be a very powerful gaming machine for less than a Mac Pro.

Unfortunately the PowerMac G5 has a PowerPC processor which is not supported by CoH - it requires an Intel processor Mac.

Good find, YBNormal. That's very similar to the workaround I discovered shortly after I17 went live (but due to the invasive nature of it, I didn't want to publish it without approval).

Keep sending Support requests (help.ncsoft.com) - it's how the devs track an issue and how widespread it is.

Follow the instructions here:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=199092

Try throwing out your preferences in Users > (yourname) > Library > Preferences > City of Heroes Preferences.

And also send a support request to help.ncsoft.com so they can track the issue.

That's a new one. Is your sound mode set to Performance or Compatibility?

I updated the first entry in the top post to reflect recent tests I've run:

- Due to changes in graphics technology, your old settings may now be invalid. This may cause you to start CoH with a black screen. If that happens, go to Users > (yourname) > Library > Preferences and throw out your City Of Heroes Preferences. The issue seems to be more common with ATI-video-based Macs, and Macs using the nVidia 8600M GT and nVidia 9600M GT (they're similar generation). This issue may occur repeatedly, IF you change graphics settings in-game frequently.

For the more tech inclined and devs reading this:

It appears this issue is two-fold:

- Cider seems to be having trouble getting the proper OpenGL feature list out of the video driver on some ATI-based Macs, and on the nVidia 8600 and 9600 based Macs. When it does it wrong, it seems to overwrite what looks to be OpenGL shader feature cache files (Users > -yourname- > Library > Preferences > p_drive > User > Local Settings > Application Data > NCSoft > CoX > shaders) with incorrect ones, and those persist until the preferences are deleted. This seems to be what caused both the black screen, and the random graphics corruption that persist even across reboots, since early beta. For some reason launching another CoH client (like the Training Room) that has correct cache settings causes the video driver detection to reset, which forces the bad one to reset (overwrite again, only with correct values this time) when re-launched.

- Cider also seems to be not deleting existing feature cache files when the driver changes with an OS update, or if the game's graphics engine changes. This causes an excessive number of feature cache files over many CoH and OS updates, and can theoretically undermine the stability of CoH as OpenGL features are reported incorrectly.

- A similar caching issue may be what causes powerset color files not to show up properly when deleted or added, only with a slightly different file location (Users > -yourname- > Library > Preferences > p_drive > User > Local Settings > Application Data > NCSoft > CoX > cache).

- I haven't yet discovered why the cursor is displayed as Mac native on the Live client but not the Training Room client.

Follow the instructions in this thread:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=199092

I'm still working on a foolproof workaround, assuming we don't have to wait for a new release of the Mac client. Thanks to another Mac user's clue, I kind of know what the source of the problem is, but not a real solution yet.

I didn't know that Depth of Field was available on the Mac client (maybe it's ATI only?). I'd turn that and Ambient Occlusion off for now, and send a support request to help.ncsoft.com so they can track the issue.

Cmd-Return switches to windowed mode and back.

The issue should have vanished with I17 publishing to Live.

What kind of video do you have elmanthira?

My settings (trying to recall blindly since the game's not running right now) are:

FSAA off (it's a 15" Macbook Pro, on that small a screen it makes little difference), Shadow Map/High Quality, Environmental Reflections/Low Quality (there's very little difference on Low, and higher uses a lot of CPU), Water Effects/High Quality (ultra makes them draw at distances greater than objects, which is annoying to me), and Ambient Occlusion Off (it makes things look "filthy").

"Careful use" means *after* approximately every 2nd or 3rd zoning. Using it before zoning can actually increase the chance of a crash.

After a while using it, you start to get a feel of when things are getting too laggy and when to use it.

After even further investigation (this is going to get complicated):

Thanks to a clue provided by Eldman, it looks like Cider is improperly caching the video card settings (not the game settings, but the actual video card's settings).

The problems occurring currently with black screens, corrupted graphics, etc seem to be caused by two separate events which occurred in quick succession: Apple upgrading the graphics drivers in Snow Leopard 10.6, and then again in 10.6.3; and the new graphics engine in Issue 17 using never before used video driver instructions to provide things like shadows and reflections.

Cider has probably been caching the settings improperly since Day 1. We just didn't see it before because the parts that were wrong were not visible anyhow.

That said, there is a temporary fix: You're going to have to toss out the preferences in Users > (yourname) > Library > Preferences > City of Heroes. After that, reboot before running CoH again. It's temporary, because it's possible Cider may cache the settings improperly again, and you'll have to repeat the workaround.

This workaround does NOT fix the non-native cursor issue, though. That's only fixed by the current build on the Training Room, which hasn't made it to Live yet. I hope it publishes soon, because the workaround for *that* is excessively complicated and prone to really breaking things good.

Speaking of caching, I also discovered that Cider caches quite a lot of files and their contents in an SQLite database. This could possibly be the cause of saved power customization profiles not being visible after creation, or not being deletable, as well as similar issues that were present in the Mission Architect. That file, called Cache.db, is located in Users > (yourname) > Library > Caches > com.transgaming.cityofheroes. Don't delete that file just yet! I'm not sure of what that might cause at the moment.

I've been working on something that might fix things temporarily, but only for the bravest and most careful of Mac users - it involves messing with things a bit. Unfortunately because of that fact I can't post any details of it without permission. I can't even *use* it myself without permission.

Most likely (hopefully) the fix is a waste of time, since the newer Mac client may publish as early as Monday or Tuesday. If it can't, for some reason, I'll see if the devs will allow me to post the temporary fix with lots of warnings plastered all over it.

It's on the Graphics one, the last tab, in Options. About halfway down.

Which MacOS version are you using? I'm not sure how much variance there is yet, but from what I've been reading there's a possibility the black screen is more common with Leopard than Snow Leopard.

You might have to turn those options off and THEN reboot. The graphics corruption issue can be caused by those options, but it can also occur randomly too.

A secondary cause is if the game crashed once, wineserver may still be running. Launch Activity Monitor (in Applications > Utilities) and sort the list alphabetically by Process Name. If you see "wineserver" listed, click it and use the Quit Process button in the toolbar, then select Force Quit.

I tested this issue on an nvidia 9400 and an nvidia 9600 (with Snow Leopard 10.6.3), and on both the black screen did occur once - a reboot fixed it. The issue seems to persist because it gets the video processor stuck in a state that it can't recover from without a reboot.