X³: TC and AP - Mac support thread

Ask here if you experience technical problems with X³: Terran Conflict, X³: Albion Prelude or X³: Farnham's Legacy.

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timon37
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X³: TC and AP - Mac support thread

Post by timon37 » Wed, 4. Sep 13, 16:57

X³: TC and AP - Mac support thread

To post in this forum you need to register your game with the forum account, right click on the game in steam select "Register game", which redirects you to an egosoft site with the key copy and paste in your account settings under "Game Registration Code".

Please attach savegames for almost any issue, it'll help a lot. In case you can't or don't want to include it in the forum post, my email address is: tim13on ( on ) egosoft.com, of course remove the 13 and ( on ) is @ (hope not many spam bots figure that out);p

Generic information:

The game can also be launched directly without steam, however it won't have the steam overlay.
Savegames are by default stored in "Documents/EgoSoft/X3TC(or AP)/save/" in your home directory.
Windows and Linux savegames should be three-way compatible and shouldn't be flagged as "modified", if there are any issues please report a bug.

Additional shortcuts:
  • cmd+f toggles fullscreen/windowed mode
  • cmd+m minimizes the game
  • ctrl+g toggles cursor grabbing in windowed mode
Joystick setup:
X3AP supports up to 8 axes, you can set which of your actual joystick axes are mapped to which internal X3 axes in the input config dialog (before starting the game). You can also see the resulting current state of the given axis.
To disable an axis set the "Source axis:" to Disabled.
To invert an axis set the scale to -1, if you set scale to e.g. -1.2 or 1.2 it will "saturate" it by 20% (it will reach minimum/maximum value before the physical movement limit).
The throttle axis is special and should be used for "slider" controls (those that don't center automatically).
The triggers axes exist only in AP, these are meant for controls that "go from 0 to 1", or in other words center on one end instead of the center of movement (e.g. Xbox 360 LT and RT).

You can map the actual function of each internal X3 axis inside the game's control settings (start a new game or load a save, in flight press escape or if docked select options, select "Controls", select second tab "Controls").
The deadzone is also set in the in-game settings menu.

Certain joysticks may have a hand sensor that will confuse the game and result in very fast keyrepeat and menu navigation.
With Albion Prelude you can disable the button in the button remapping config dialog.
With Terran Conflict to disable the button currently you'll have to edit the hidden configuration file in "Documents/EgoSoft/X3TC/.config.yaml"
and set "Joy Button<button number> Src' to '-1' for the offending buttons, keep in mind they are numbered from 0.

Gamepad mode:
X3AP supports a gamepad mode tailored for the Xbox 360 controller.
If you have the controller connected it should be correctly enabled by default, if it isn't please report a bug and in the meantime clicking "Reset to Xbox controller" should enable it.
If you have a different gamepad you can still use the "controller mode", however you'll probably need to remap the axes and buttons in the config dialog.

Known issues and missing features (in rough order of fixing priority):
  • Issue: Screen goes white when launching
  • Issue: Config file is saved on quit, which can be annoying when testing
    Postponed: It unfortunately has to, at least for now.
Bugreporting etc:

Please attach savegames for almost any issue, it'll help a lot. In case you can't or don't want to include it in the forum post, my email address is: tim13on ( on ) egosoft.com, of course remove the 13 and ( on ) is @ (hope not too many spam bots figure that out);p

There's lots of console output that may look bad, in general don't worry or report it unless you get a crash or I asked for it.

If you notice any graphical anomalies, please (if you can) first try to confirm that they don't happen on windows, take screenshots (the windows ones may appear transparent, but are correct, so attach them anyway). If possible attach a savegame as close as possible to the offending situation/cutscene (use salvage insurrance and preferrably have some left so I can make a save at a later point).

Build history:

AP:
2015-03-30 1:30 UTC - Build 16:
- Fixed potential crash on undocking
- Fixed missile trails
- Partially decreased stutter (at the cost of longer initial game start)
- App-Store (to be released later): fixed script editing and MacOS 10.7 compatibility

2014-05-23 14:45 UTC - Build 14:
- Fixed crash when launching boarding pods
- Fixed achievements
- Includes build 11 (when you press play in steam you can select it)

2013-10-04 10:15 UTC - Build 13:
- Hopefully fixed recent texture glitches and crashes
- Includes build 11 (when you press play in steam you can select it)

2013-09-28 23:30 UTC - Build 12:
- Fixed "run in background"
- Performance improvements on intel drivers, around 0-2%

2013-09-10 21:45 UTC - Build 11:
- Fixed potential instability in missile changing gui
- Fixed cursor image being offset to right from actual click point
- Improved glow performance, about 2-8% more fps

2013-07-29 10:05 UTC - Build 10:
- Initial release

TC:
2015-03-30 1:30 UTC - Build 24:
- Fixed potential crash on undocking
- Fixed missile trails
- Partially decreased stutter (at the cost of longer initial game start)
- App-Store (to be released later): fixed script editing and MacOS 10.7 compatibility

2014-05-23 14:45 UTC - Build 22:
- Fixed achievements
- Includes build 19 (when you press play in steam you can select it)

2013-10-04 10:15 UTC - Build 21:
- Hopefully fixed recent texture glitches and crashes
- Includes build 19 (when you press play in steam you can select it)

2013-09-28 23:30 UTC - Build 20:
- Fixed "run in background"
- Fixed whirls staying visible on UFJD jump to "A New Home" plot sector (unless you've got less than 1.2gb of memory)
- Minor performance improvements on intel drivers, around 0-2%

2013-09-10 21:45 UTC - Build 19:
- Fixed potential instability in missile changing gui
- Fixed cursor image being offset to right from actual click point
- Improved glow performance, about 2-8% more fps

2013-07-29 10:05 UTC - Build 18:
- Initial release
Last edited by timon37 on Mon, 29. Jun 15, 09:26, edited 7 times in total.

costalfy
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Post by costalfy » Fri, 6. Sep 13, 08:59

Good news :)
I played last night with my MB Pro late 2011 13' (i5, 4Go, Intel HD3000) in 720p and it was rather fluid in full detail with AA x2 and Anisotropic x2
Good job :)

I noticed a few problems (music introduction is very hight and it's impossible to listen the french voice when you begin a new game in TC, NPC voices that stop during breifing in TC, lots of lag when approaching a station during docking TC and AP,...) but I will test more deeply the next few days

lukegriffiths
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x3ap

Product Key Rejection

Post by lukegriffiths » Mon, 9. Sep 13, 12:36

Bought X3 TC from steam and found it wouldn't open, downloaded the VP patch to fix this which appears to work but it now asks for a 34 character product code and the one steam gave me is only 24.

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

costalfy
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x3ap

Post by costalfy » Mon, 9. Sep 13, 12:44

uninstall and reinstall completely via Steam
It worked out of the box for me with steam on my MBPro

timon37
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Re: Product Key Rejection

Post by timon37 » Mon, 9. Sep 13, 13:37

@lukegriffiths

It's a completely different version from what VP has made, so that won't and shouldn't work. Unless their patch is basically a full binary then I guess you could try mixing it with the data files but it's not a good idea.

My first guess for why it wouldn't work is that you're on Macos 10.6?
Show me the steam system information (top menu/help/system information).

lukegriffiths
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x3ap

Post by lukegriffiths » Mon, 9. Sep 13, 17:30

i am not savvy with this kind of stuff at all as a heads up

http://i.imgur.com/9qfoXAA.png
http://i.imgur.com/wBY1rNU.png

thats the system info.
I'm pretty sure you're right with the it shouldn't work, since VP don't deal with it anymore so i dunno bit of a mess there.

timon37
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Post by timon37 » Mon, 9. Sep 13, 17:58

@lukegriffiths

Ohh that's a pretty old macbook with a core 2 duo, isn't it?
While the cpu is ok, I'm afraid the integrated graphics card is significantly not good enough:(

blaughw
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Post by blaughw » Tue, 10. Sep 13, 05:43

Just want to say, HUGE thanks for the in-house Mac port. I'm playing AP on my retina MBP 15", knocked down to 1680x1050 in game, and it's silky smooth.

The only bad part is I'm playing on the bus on the way to work, and the lack of a real mouse makes fighting TOUGH.

luke,which macbook is it?

Regardless, any of the old intel Q45 or whatever graphics won't cut it. You can try Reunion.

timon37
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Post by timon37 » Tue, 10. Sep 13, 11:15

I'm guessing even Reunion is too much since it reports opengl 1.4:(
Even if I added support for 1.4, it might still be too slow.

It was intel's first "very programmable unified shader gpu" and in practice it was often slower than the older 945 in older games that didn't require proper shaders. And for games that required shaders it was too slow to be useful, and the drivers were always horrible (on windows).

I've actually written drivers for my hobby os project a long time ago for this exact gpu, and the architecture was pretty awesome, if anything it was too programmable, the shaders were responsible even for triangle setup.

blaughw
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Post by blaughw » Wed, 11. Sep 13, 03:46

I just had my textures go krazy when the Tokyo in Interworlds blew up in the first part of the Argon AP plot. I was running Build 10 of AP for Mac, so let me know if you want a formal bug report. I'll try to reproduce and see what happens.

I came here after and saw that there was a new build, so I updated.

I kept screenshots if you want them.

timon37
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Post by timon37 » Wed, 11. Sep 13, 15:06

@blaughw

Yeah send the screenshots to my email, or better upload them somewhere and post links here (then others will be able to say if they saw the same issue).
This could have been fixed by b11, but it could also be something else.
What gpu do you have?

blaughw
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Post by blaughw » Wed, 11. Sep 13, 20:18

IMG 1: Google Drive
IMG 2: Google Drive
Savegame: Google Drive X01.sav

The savegame SHOULD be right before jumping into Interworlds. I haven't tested yet or been able to reproduce.

phantomrock2
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Game Still Running in the Background

Post by phantomrock2 » Thu, 12. Sep 13, 02:39

I had the game set to not run in the background & it sure was...
Things that I had copied from PC in the X3AP Bonus Package are not showing up correctly also

Other than that so far this is a GOOD GREAT JOB! I am impressed immensely!
[" thank you "]

phantomrock2
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Space In Sector The Moon Goes All Black

Post by phantomrock2 » Thu, 12. Sep 13, 23:22

It is coming somewhat evident that I cannot do anything in The Moon without the space in the sector going all black to the point where I cannot see where I am going but I can still some of the stations....

I saw all sorts of dazzling colors at one point & it was taking a long time to get to the station where I needed to dock

Then when I logged in to post this issue in the MAC beta forum I kept getting directed to the home page of the forum...
[" thank you "]

CBJ
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Post by CBJ » Fri, 13. Sep 13, 09:36

If you keep getting redirected to the home page from any part of this site then clearing your browser cache will usually solve it.

Meanwhile, I'll merge this into that thread for you.

phantomrock2
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Soundtrack File Folder

Post by phantomrock2 » Mon, 16. Sep 13, 00:08

When I looked in this folder to see if I could delete some of the selections I would rather not hear I found out that when I click on them to play there is no sound but something that sounds like a facsimile machine sending a message... :o

Most of them are coming in at about 2 or 3 MB but do not play out like they are that size
[" thank you "]

timon37
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Re: Game Still Running in the Background

Post by timon37 » Wed, 18. Sep 13, 12:09

@phantomrock2

Ohh yeah I completely forgot about that "run in background" bug, need to cleanup my todo list (it's there I just missed it).

Hmm a bit strange about the bonus package, how did you copy it exactly?
Best to extract it into an new folder with a just an X3AP.exe file.

Can you post some screenshots? What's your graphics card?

The soundtrack is actually ogg/vorbis files, just named mp3 due to steam and packaging issues. Try changing the extensions to .ogg, also I'm not sure if iTunes supports ogg/vorbis, so you might need a different music player or a plugin.

phantomrock2
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Great!

Post by phantomrock2 » Wed, 18. Sep 13, 12:40

Is it ok if I send the screenshots to your email. Oh as a matter of fact when I copied the files from a PC over to the Mac all did was navigated to the steam folder on PC & found where the bonus package files were... I merely the files & voila!

Also when I'm in commonwealth space I don't have screen/display issues but I jump into Terran space sectors such as the moon, Saturn or Uranus & it's like waiting to exhale lolz. But I like the balancing now. Before this Mac port there were too M3 Cutlass just hanging out in Mars. I don't know if it's because I have a lot of investment in Terran space with factories & what not but when I'm in the core sectors I just brace for it!

Other than this I am so glad egosoft is handling the Mac port now & you have done a magnificent job at porting it over!

Video Card: Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB
[" thank you "]

phantomrock2
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A Heads Up On Bonus Pckg Copied

Post by phantomrock2 » Fri, 20. Sep 13, 13:47

I just copied the Bonus Package to the add-on folder on Mac & the game doesn't want to see them. When the previous port was in effect there was a X3AP folder that had the addon folder & I put it in there & it saw them...
[" thank you "]

timon37
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Post by timon37 » Fri, 20. Sep 13, 15:01

Sure send the screenshots to my email.

Regarding the bonus pack it's probably best if you just give me a week to check what's the status of the steam DLC and enable it for mac.

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