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Baldur's Gate 3 coming to Mac OSX
- Thread starter Solomani
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If you buy the game on Steam, you can use the "Steam Overlay" to show the frame rate in a corner of your screen. Start up the game and once it's fully loaded (IOW, past the splash and loading screens) hit Left Shift + Tab to bring up the Steam Overlay. Click on the "Settings" menu at the bottom of the screen, then click on the "In Game" tab. Make sure "Enable Steam Overlay" is checked, then set the "In game FPS counter" to a corner of your screen. I recommend checking the "High Contrast" option.
I'm not sure how other Mac gamers collect fps info, but I'd love to hear about it...
Just as a word of warning for those expecting a Baldur's Gate experience (I'm glad I googled it first); from what I'm reading Larian did NOT implement anything other than the pure turn-based play mechanics of Divinity. So this will be the first Baldur's Gate / IWD / Planescape game that I won't buy or play. Even if I liked purely turn-based (I don't), I simply don't have the time for that type of combat system (it takes forever).
Here is hoping the backlash is sufficient that the will implement the proper Baldur's Gate series experience; i.e. anything from purely-turn-based like it currently is, all the way to real-time-with-pause, with finely-grained options between those two extremes.
Here is hoping the backlash is sufficient that the will implement the proper Baldur's Gate series experience; i.e. anything from purely-turn-based like it currently is, all the way to real-time-with-pause, with finely-grained options between those two extremes.
The massive "backlash" from a single writer clutching his pearls that his beloved RTwP is gone? Hardly.
If you don't like turn-based, that's fine. In my opinion, RTwP sucks. It always did and still does in the recent games emulating the old Infinity engine series.
Well, here is hoping. It's possible for a game to include both options along with a myriad of options between the two extremes BTW, as my post mentioned. That's exactly what the Infinity Engine games did. So your argument is basically "I happen to like "X" and because I only like "X" I only care about "X". My argument is "X" is only one subset of "XYZ" and whereas some people love only "X" other people love "Z" other people love "Y" and other people love something between "X and Y" and it's perfectly, 100% possible to implement a system that covers "XYZ" so why not do so. One of these arguments is inherently more inclusive and takes into consideration the wants, needs, and desires of other persons. The other argument is inherently selfish and exclusionist. I'll let you figure out which is which.
My problem with RTwP is that it doesn't really simulate the D&D experience. Aside from that, RTwP makes casting AoE spells pretty pointless because between the time you start casting your spell and the time the animation ends, your target has moved 60' away from his buddies and is smack dab in the middle of a bunch of friendlies. No thanks.
It's also annoying to realize how many opportunities I miss with RTwP. Everything is happening so fast and furious, that I forget about that spell, magic item, or ability that could have given me a sure victory instead of a TPK. Yes I know the pause option is there, but everything happening at the same time makes party and AoE management much more difficult. This is a strategic element in turn based play that I greatly enjoy.
A CRPG using the Pathfinder ruleset (Kingmaker) presented similar issues for me; I had to actually download a mod to give the game a proper turn based mode. And sure enough, the 'enhanced edition' re-release of the game shipped with an official turn based mode, by popular demand.
It's also annoying to realize how many opportunities I miss with RTwP. Everything is happening so fast and furious, that I forget about that spell, magic item, or ability that could have given me a sure victory instead of a TPK. Yes I know the pause option is there, but everything happening at the same time makes party and AoE management much more difficult. This is a strategic element in turn based play that I greatly enjoy.
A CRPG using the Pathfinder ruleset (Kingmaker) presented similar issues for me; I had to actually download a mod to give the game a proper turn based mode. And sure enough, the 'enhanced edition' re-release of the game shipped with an official turn based mode, by popular demand.
Not without massive rewrites of the game's engine which in this case is build from the ground up to be turn based.
Sanctimonious, hypocritical blah-blah.
Your very first statement in this thread was how you will never play BG3 no matter what as long as it's turn based. This is exactly and almost word for word the argument "I happen to like 'X' and because I only like 'X' I only care about 'X'" you accuse me of.
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BG3 was a reason that made me finally upgrade to Catalina. Another was my 2018 mini freezes from time to time when playing DOS2 thru Steam. Yesterday was a multiple freeze occasion. Add that to the fact after SU 2020-005 for Mojave my eGPU no long boots with video attached without issue (ie the whole cable swap fiasco). So I decided to upgrade in hopes Catalina had better eGPU support as well as newer graphics drivers. Unfortunately, DOS2 had multiple graphical glitches, so I ended up going to Big Sur. So far, DOS2 works better and does not exhibit the same issues I experienced with Catalina, although I did not have a lot of time to play last night after the upgrades.
Also, I spoke to a friend about BG3 last week and he said the game is really good, although maybe not quite ready yet. He is a big fan of the BG and DOS series, but he stated that at certain points the game could only be continued after you restart multiple times. So, I am waiting a bit before I spend money on BG3.
More impressions of the game is welcome.
Also, I spoke to a friend about BG3 last week and he said the game is really good, although maybe not quite ready yet. He is a big fan of the BG and DOS series, but he stated that at certain points the game could only be continued after you restart multiple times. So, I am waiting a bit before I spend money on BG3.
More impressions of the game is welcome.
I installed Catalina on a Macbook, it is going to be put back to an earliar OS as I found quite a few programs no longer worked.
Do we really need a new OS every year or so ?
@iAssimilated Honestly, I'd stay away unless you're a real fan of the series. While I haven't hit any gamestoppers yet, I have run into a couple of bugs that have cost me hours of gameplay. Pathfinding can be really stupid, with party members blithely wandering into fire, poison or just jumping off walls for the heck of it. You can't play any of the 'origins' characters (the ones with a detailed backstory) yet, and right now the only available party members are evil (maybe neutral in a couple of cases.) And there are only a few classes available at launch, namely Cleric, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Wizard and perhaps one other I can't remember ATM. At least there's a good selection of races to start off with.
And a pet peeve of mine: no proper implementation of psionics, though to be fair DND 5e doesn't really have a system for it at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, when the game is working it's a blast to play. But keep in mind you're not getting a complete game; only Chapter 1 is done, and there's currently a level cap set at 4th level.
And a pet peeve of mine: no proper implementation of psionics, though to be fair DND 5e doesn't really have a system for it at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, when the game is working it's a blast to play. But keep in mind you're not getting a complete game; only Chapter 1 is done, and there's currently a level cap set at 4th level.
Has anyone else here run into their Mac saves getting corrupted? At first I just thought it was the "cross-save" functionality that lets you play your Mac saves on a PC. But it seems like I'm having to start a new character every couple of days on my Mac. The only way I can make legit progress is to play in Boot Camp or on a PC.
Of course this is early access, so there are no guarantees. But it still sucks not to be able to play on my MBP with HDR. The game looks really good in HDR, which seems to be MIA in Boot Camp.
Of course this is early access, so there are no guarantees. But it still sucks not to be able to play on my MBP with HDR. The game looks really good in HDR, which seems to be MIA in Boot Camp.
I have a max spec 2017 15” MacBook Pro. After watching some Youtube videos and reading on forums with people who are playing with 2016 systems, or even systems with the Iris Pro graphics, my system runs this game like complete crap compared to those even though it’s above the minimum specs. I’ve even dumbed down the graphics to 1200x800 resolution on low settings. The only thing I can think is I’m running the game off of an external Sandisk SSD connected using USBC 3.1 connector. Is this my bottleneck? I would think it would only affect load times, not gameplay so much. Would a thunderbolt drive perform better or clearing enough space on my internal drive for the 150GB file? I really want to be able to play this game, and I’m not thrilled about possibly having to build my own low cost windows system to run it. Thoughts on what I should look at doing on my current system to improve?
@scottwiz105 I'd look at Activity Monitor to see if any background tasks are using up system resources (CPU cycles, RAM, GPU, etc.) Does your MBP have a Vega or Radeon GPU?
Nothing looks suspect when I checked it when I first ran the game. I literally have nothing else running other than system level stuff. I have a Radeo Pro 560 with 4GB of memory. I’ll check again a bit later after a reboot and see what it looks like.
If nothing else works, consider an eGPU over thunderbolt 3 instead of a whole entire PC. That way you can keep playing on your mac but have the advantage of a better graphics processor.
Running on my internal 560X on my 2018 gave pretty crap performance too. Keep in mind some areas of the game are not optimized, such as the druid enclave, but it really is that these graphics cards are low end. My 5700 XT in an eGPU runs the game on high at 60 FPS+ 3440x1440 (external monitor) though on my laptop.
Edit: Also check the .lsx graphics setting file in your Documents/Larian Studios/Baldur's Gate III folder. Some settings don't like to stick for some reason.
Thanks. Nothing has seemed to work so far. Like I said, I’ve seen YouTube videos of machines with lesser specs run it fairly smoothly. I get extreme lag and fragmented graphics, even on the initial menu screens. Even once I was able to get into the game, I wasn’t able to to do much without a lot of performance issues.
I bought this machine mostly for photo editing as I thought my gaming days were over once I had kids, but then this game came along. Rather than invest in an eGPU though, I bought it on Stadia, which isn’t ideal, but it works at least. Since there’s no target of when the rest of the game will be made available, I figured it would be the least amount of investment to see if I like it enough to keep going. I’ll give it a shot on my direct machine if they make strides in optimization
Did you try deleting the game and redownloading? There was a patch on the 30th that a few folk complained about (I so far am not running into issues). Maybe something in the download was corrupted.
BG 3 at Ultra settings 1080p on M1 in this video at 6:45: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/tech-talks/10859/
Impressive. Stinks though that a top end computer from 3 years ago can’t even run this thing at it’s most base settings though. For the lowest entry point cost of an M1, I could also get a DIY build PC that would be future upgradeable. I still think going the Stadia route is still cheapest of all for casual gaming at this point.
Inquiring minds wonder...will an eGPU work with an M1 Mac? Are there ARM AMD graphics drivers lurking in Big Sur?
EDIT: Answering my own question: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/11/10/apple-silicon-m1-macs-do-not-support-egpus
EDIT: Answering my own question: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/11/10/apple-silicon-m1-macs-do-not-support-egpus
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I am hoping this is just a limitation with the low end models with M1... we will see though.