I seemed to be the only Mac-user online that experienced the problem, but VO was nearly unplayable after I updated to 10.5.2. I also downloaded the "Leopard Graphics Update". I will continue to play over the next few days to see if the problem persists. I figured in the mean time, I'd post this to see if anyone else was experiencing the same problem.

Yes, this must be a local issue. I am actually getting better framerates after the 10.5.2 and graphics update. Frightening framerates, even. Around 100 FPS close to stations and asteroid fields, and 196 FPS in open space with only ships and random asteroids.

Try some of the config.ini settings suggested in the 10.5 thread. Turning of the Full Scene Glow Effect and some of the other options suggested made a huge change for me when the 10.5 problems first occured.

Perhaps the new 10.5.2 and the graphics update have problems with some specific settings very few of us use. I know for certain that Guild and Apple are not seeing eye to eye when it comes to OpenGL optimizations these days ;-)

Yeah, there's something screwy going on. I haven't tried 10.5.2 yet but the 10.5.1 update on our G5 doesn't play VO very well at all. It may be due to only having 512 megs of RAM though. VO goes into texture thrashing mode and the framerate plummets under certain circumstances.
So, I am aware of the problem but don't have a good solution yet.

I am also going to test VO with 10.5.2. I let you know if it is better or worse or the same.

Okay. After further testing, I have some results. For reference, I am using an aluminum 2.4GHz 20" iMac with 3GB of RAM and the Radeon HD 2600 Pro GPU.

The 2 settings that were ruining my frame-rate were mpengine and dovertexbuffers (both found in config.ini). If either if those are set to 1, my frame-rate is horrible when looking at ships. If I turn away from ships and look at something else like asteroids, it's fine. Changing both those settings to 0 fixes the problem 100% and I get frame-rates above 300 fps (with full scene glow off and everything thing else maxed out). Turning shaders on or off has no effect on my frame-rate. Neither does doindexbuffers.

I did NOT have this problem until I updated to 10.5.2. It did NOT do this with 10.5.1 for some reason. I hope this helps the devs and other players.

I did not notice any radical change either way. Using a MacBook with a GMA X3100 and 4GB RAM.

I hope the latest VO update helps a little.

O)k, I have the 24" 2.8 ghz 2 gig ram aluminium iMac 10 . 5 . 2 , the graphics card of which is listed as :

Chipset Model: ATI,RadeonHD2600
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x9583
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-B2250F-219
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.219
Displays:
iMac:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1920 x 1200
Depth: 32-bit Color
Built-In: Yes
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported

This is the graphics bit of config.ini ;

[refgl]
illummap=1
envmap=1
bumpmap=1
tc=0
minfilter=9985
maxfilter=34046
specular=1
windowmode=0
textureresolution=1
texturequality=32
gamma=13
def_freq=0
tfactor_hack=0
doshaders=0
dovertexbuffers=0
doindexbuffers=1
do_compiled_vertex_array=1
do_env_combine=1
do_extensions=1
vbl=0
version=3
shaderversion=0
mpengine=0

My ping is 150-170 ish .

I am getting about 600 fps looking at open space , 200- 300 in most sectors looking at a voy , about 100 -200 at k13 sed. My , er , relatives report 50 - 100 fps in BS.

Hope that helps a bit.

Oh, and what does mpengine do ?

Those frame-rates sound comparable to what I get with the new settings, davejohn. Without making the appropriate fixes to my config.ini file, I was getting around 3-6 FPS if I stared at a single maud, and around 10-15 FPS if I stared at a single cent. Like I said above, looking away to the other direction brought my frame-rate back up to normal, around 300 FPS.

I find it interesting that mdaniel did not notice a difference between the settings. Maybe it has something specifically to do with the HD 2600 GPU? Or maybe he conducted the test after the update which may have fixed the issue? I'll have to conduct another test with the new version of VO to see if it makes a difference.

mpengine turned on the multithreaded opengl rendering engine in the OS. It doesn't benefit everyone and may be bad for some. So I took out the ability to turn it on for VO.

So the two changes are: forced mpengine to always be 0 ignoring the config.ini setting, and changed 10.5 to use ARB_vertex_buffer_object instead of APPLE_vertex_array_range when do_vertexbuffers is enabled.

If you already had mpengine set to 0 and turned off vertexbuffers, then the update shouldn't affect your framerate until you turn on vertexbuffers.

The following apple update happened today,

"Leopard Graphics Update is recommended for all users and improves the stability and compatibility of your Mac. This update requires Mac OS X 10.5.2."

Feedback to follow

I think you misunderstood. I meant to say I did not see any noticeable change in fps from 10.5.1 to 10.5.2. I do have the leopard graphics update installed. My config is this, and I never really change it:

[refgl]
illummap=1
envmap=1
bumpmap=1
tc=0
minfilter=9987
maxfilter=34046
specular=1
windowmode=0
textureresolution=0
texturequality=32
gamma=10
def_freq=1
tfactor_hack=0
doshaders=1
dovertexbuffers=1
doindexbuffers=1
do_compiled_vertex_array=1
do_env_combine=1
do_extensions=1
vbl=0
version=3
shaderversion=3
mpengine=0

PS: I preload all the graphics and have texture compression off.

That "Leopard Graphics Update" is not new, davejohn. It appeared as soon as I updated to 10.5.2. I updated both at the same time, days ago. It didn't help anything with VO, and for all I know actually triggered my specific problem.

I noticed one thing that is probably related to the GMA X3100 videocard in my MacBook: Somehow the graphics do not look as good, as smooth, as high res? Is this a lack of driver in Mac OS X? I noticed some 3D bugs also in a few other games like Command and Conquer 3.

Latest update has helped with the framerate issues on my machine under OSX; haven't had a good opportunity to see if I'm still getting the warp bug.