CoH on My new IMac 27 inch

Hey all. This thread is probably less informative than most but I just thought I'd share my experience.

I've been playing CoH on a Mac for a while now. Bootcamped on my Imac 20in 2.0 Ghz. Then when the Mac client came out I played it natively (if that is even a word) I max it out at 4 GB of RAM. It ran ok, but still choppy. Especially in WW and Cimerora. I wish I could remember the average frame rate. I'll get it later. I gave my GF this computer when I bought the new Mac. With the new 27 inch 3.06 Ghz 4GB Ram and ATI Radeon 4670 (i think) with the 256 MB dedicated OMG I could not believe how smooth it ran. I even maxed out the graphics (world detail and character detail max res not windowed) This things runs so great. I never thought I'd get it to run so smooth. I cannot wait for the Ultra Mode. Later today I will post statistical data.

Would like to echo that.
Incredibly happy with the performance on the 27 inch imac.
Went for the i7 version with 8gb, but was worried that the graphics card would still give me issues.
I guess that the CPU is just such a beast that it makes up for it with sheer brute force lol.

Would ask though - have you had any random crashes? I have had 2 in the last couple of days when playing.
The system will just lock up completely, game freezes, mouse and keyboard stop responding, even the caps lock key doesnt light up.
Cant tab back to the desktop and force quit does not respond.
Only way out is to hard reset the mac.
I HATE doing this. Even a crash to desktop would be more acceptable than actually having to physically power cycle the machine.

Curious if you have seen this problem.
Would have thought the mac client would be more stable than the PC one, after all -there are only a relatively small number of possible hardware configurations you can have with a mac. Would have thought this would have led to a more stable client.

I know from reading the forum that there were problems months ago, I assumed they would be fixed by now.
Anyone know anything?

Complete freezes are very rare for me with the Live client. Check your Console Log (Applications > Utilities > Console Log) after the next freeze/reboot and post the last few lines here.

Also Show Log List (you don't have to wait for the next crash to do this part) and expand /Library/Logs - not the one with the ~ in front of it - and see if there's anything recent in the PanicReporter section. If you have one of those, post as much of that log as you can fit - only the first paragraph or so is useful anyhow.

I'm curious as to what graphics settings you use. I have the i7 quad core with 8 gigs of ram (so the monitor is 256x144 and the vid card has 512 megs) and I *struggle* finding good settings. I think I've finally settled on running at 19x10 with most everything set at a middle setting. If I don't have either FSAA or Ambient Occlusion on, I get about 15FPS. If I turn AO on to the lowest settings, I get 12FPS.

Strangely, if I turn on FSAA 2x, I get 40-50FPS.

This wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't get such different results in Bootcamp. With a Win7 setup, I can run at 25x14 with AO turned on to middle settings and most other settings a lot higher.

Perhaps this marks me a traitor, but when I play WoW with everything just about maxed out (graphically), I always stay above 60fps in 25mans on the Mac client. (I haven't downloaded the windows client as the mac client suits my purpose rather well.)

bleh... rambling.

So, yeah... why is yours glassy?

And could it be related to why my macbook runs more smoothly than my i7?

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").

So, with ATI's HD4850 and 512 megs of ram, I can pull about 45 FPS on a zombie/traps MM with everything blaring in Granville running at
19x10 resolution
FSAA 2x
Shadow Mode: Shadow maps at Medium Quality
Environmental Reflections at Medium
Water Effects at High
Ambient Occlusion off
Particle Physics Off
World Texture Quality High
Character Texture Quality High
World Detail at 1
Character Detail at 1/2
Max Particle count at 1/2
anisotropic 2x
texture crispness smooth
shader quality high
depth of field off
bloom regular
desaturation enabled

Interesting notes:
When I do enable Ambient Occlusion, it leaves visual artifacts everywhere. (like when you stare at a bright light and then look away, how the afterimage stays burned in and overlays everything you look at? That.)
Also, when I enable Depth of Field, two fixed fuzzy bands appear on the screen that have nothing to do with distance.

Neither of these happens when I play in Boot Camp.

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.

I've been thinking of getting a new iMac lately so this has been on my mind. Between ultra mode and Steam launching on the Mac, I may be doing some more gaming (w/o bootcamping). Currently I'm using a 3 year old MacBook Pro. CoH freezes and dies alot and Ultra mode isnt so ultra for me.

Of course the eternal question is buy one of the current iMacs or wait for the fall upgrades which will undoubtedly have newer video hardware...

COH runs so smooth on my i7 27inch iMac. I love it and am returning to COH!!!!