X3: Reunion for Mac OS Re-released

[Toastie]

EGOSOFT is very pleased to announce that Virtual Programming Ltd, its Mac OS programming partner, is re-releasing X3: Reunion. VP Ltd have painstakingly re-written the game code, not using Cider this time, bringing it up-to-date with the latest version of the game. The good news for gamers that had already purchased X3: Reunion for the Mac, is that they will get this new version of the game for FREE!

EGOSOFT Managing Director, Bernd Lehahn, said about the release, "We are excited that VP ported the game a second time to improve the experience for our MAC customers and bring it to the same level as Terran Conflict."

"We weren't happy with X3: Reunion's performance when using Cider, and it turned out many of our customers weren't either," said Virtual Programming CEO Mark Hinton. "As a gesture of goodwill, we re-engineered the game as a native port that's a free update for existing customers. Starting today, new X3: Reunion customers will receive the non-Cider version of the game."

System Requirements:

Mac OS X: 10.5.8 or higher
Intel CPU, 2 GHz or faster
1 GB RAM
GeForce 8600, Radeon X1600 or newer 128MB
4GB Hard Disk space
Internet connection for product registration

Find out more about X3: Reunion for the Mac and VP Ltd here.

[Leviathans_Fury]

I was hoping it would come out on mac because on my laptop its so slow...

[EDIT]
Oh... wait... it already did...
My bad.....

THANK YOU ANYWAY!

[Aro]

Wow. Egosoft sure found good people to work on the mac version.

Wonder if it will be included in the Superbox.

[frymaster]

bloody hell

I don't have a mac, but that's an astonishingly gutsy call by that company

good on them

[chunder]

Great move Egosoft/VP Ltd, and thanks - although it started off happily enough, my poor little Mac mini was starting to struggle under the load of the previous version (Ore Belt was a no-go area once I'd built all my complexes, and having around 100 ships flying around was beginning to cause problems elsewhere!). The new version looks and feels snappier - albeit when I started a new game from scratch to see what was different, rather than playing in a busy universe...

[EDIT: Following great support from VP Ltd it turns out that the following problems were entirely my fault - user error as is so often the case. Not all of the scripts had been copied across, and once copied, everything works perfectly]

Unfortunately I have a few questions/problems and hopefully sharing them here will help me, and perhaps some others.

1) Upon first load and register, I was prompted to update; I don't know what version is is now at (the launch window just says v2.5, and the "File>About X3 Reunion" menu is greyed out) - and I'm not sure whether this version include all of the bonus packs/scripts? Having loaded a saved game and found that some of the ship extensions were listed with a weird name (looked like a variable "NEW_SOFTWARE_004" or somesuch, from memory) I assumed that they weren't, so I copied over the missing files from the 'T' folder of the old installation into the new. Is this all that's required?

2) I presume that it is possible to transfer save games across? I've found the old X3R save games location (~/Library/Preferences/Cider X3 Preferences/p_drive/My Documents/Egosoft/X3/Save) and the new location (~/Documents/Egosoft/X3/save) - and having copied all of the files, they show up in the 'Continue' list... but some of them don't seem to allow me to undock my Hyperion properly (including the latest one, typically enough!). I can navigate through all the station menus without problem, but when I select Undock, the HUD goes and all keyboard input is ignored. I have discovered (through trial and error) that the delete key will bring back the HUD (well, the guns/missiles display and the speedo) and then some keys will respond (r Q O S L , .) but nothing else. I can't move, redock, jump, shoot, target, command, etc. This happened both before and after copying across the scripts.

3) I've had a couple of lock-ups already (without actually playing properly yet) - once when I managed to find a save where I could fly, and I started shooting something, and once just when I was scrolling through the list of saves to load (from the 'L' load command whilst flying). Weird.

Anyone else having any similar issues? Anyone have any useful thoughts or suggestions??

Cheers!

[Nanook]

Unfortunately, we can't offer much support on the technical details you're asking about. You really need to take that up with VP. Egosoft has very little to do with any Mac port of their games beyond licensing it to VP. Glad the new version works well for you though. I tried running VP's original Reunion on my 3 year old MacBook Pro, but finally opted for the Windows version running under Bootcamp/WinXP. Much, much better.

[chunder]

Cheers Nanook - that was going to be the next step, but I figured that there's a lot of bright folk here who may have had similar issues elsewhere... plus this is the go-to place for all things X3, and maybe (like me) the first place people may look if/when they get stuck!

I'm in the process of setting up a decent spec Windows machine which once ready will probably only ever be used to play X3 - hopefully I won't have any problems like this on that machine (although I suspect that some of the same questions still apply - i.e. transfering saves games, etc. - although the installation of the bonus pack scripts is much, much easier on Windows...)

[Nanook]

...
I'm in the process of setting up a decent spec Windows machine which once ready will probably only ever be used to play X3 ...

Exactly what I did for TC when it first came out. Everything else is done on either my personal MacBook Pro, or on one of my Macs at work. Windows 7 is nice, but Snow Leopard is still better.

[malinson]

GESTURE OF GOOD WILL!? A gesture of good will is when somebody dose something beneficial to another apart from self interests. What they did they HAD to do in order to save their dying reputation. The X-games are so poorly written and designed, that had they a second chance they may never have tackled the game to begin with.

The X-games are a nightmare for tech support, especially for those who don’t know jack about the game‘s inner workings. Even with the redistribution I doubt the company will ever recover.

Speaking of make believe gestures of good will, how about Egosoft rewriting TC to take advantage of multiprocessor computers…which accounts for pretty much any PC you would find today. That would undoubtedly loosen the noose around their otherwise squeezing necks.

-Malinson

[BigBANGtheory]

That's a bit harsh isn't it?

[Ketraar]

Speaking of make believe gestures of good will, how about Egosoft rewriting TC to take advantage of multiprocessor computers...

You mean more than they do now? I'm pretty sure TC will run better in any multi-core PC then in single core ones.

A gesture of good will could be as simple as not posting random nonsense in random topics, like posting about the design of a Windows based game in a topic about a Mac port and its Reunion on top of things, not TC.

Asking Egosoft to rewrite the game engine to use multi-threading is at least naive.

MFG

Ketraar

[malinson]

I'm pretty sure TC will run better in any multi-core PC then in single core ones.

Pretty sure?! You obviously don't realize that the game was designed to run on only one channel. You could have twenty CPU's and it wouldn't make a difference. The claim that the game runs better on 'multi-core' processors is just plain wrong!!

Of course, I'm not here to belittle your inadequate understanding of this horribly written program, but to point out a simple fact. Fact is that they took a big PR hit because of this game, and the fact that they did what they did only shows their desperation. Like I said though, I doubt seriously that they will ever recover.

-Malinson

[Rapier]

The game itself will only run on one processor but the more processors a PC has, the greater the share of processor time the game will get (as other processes get shipped to the other cores). A pedant could argue for or against 'the game running better on a multi-core CPU' by altering the definitions of what the phrase means. What can be said is that running the game on a system with a dual-core processor will give better performance that a system based on a single core processor with all other things (including core speed) being equal.

As for who wrote a load of rubbish; who do you think wrote what? Are you saying TC (written by Egosoft) is a load of rubbish or the Mac port (written by Virtual Programming) wrote a load of rubbish?

[Toastie]

Can we please keep this on the topic of the re-release of X3: Reunion for MacOS?

I'm sure there are better places to debate multi-core processors and X3:TC.

Thanks.

[Sheva-no_quam]

Nice one. But I'm rather waiting for a good Mac version of TC. But still, I had tested Reunion on my Mac and I didnt had any better performance. Good, that it is out, but I'd rather like to see TC.

Maybe Egosoft should give the code right away when "X4" or "The next big thing" is out, so that in a short period of time a good version of the game is also available for Mac.

The merket share of macs are rising. They would not only sell more games to the people who already run the X-series on boot camp, they would also profit from the tiny game market with such an astounding game. I think it would be worthwhile, besides it wont get so much income return like the windows versions. But it also counts as a good advertising, because of the small numbers of games that are out for the mac.

Good news I think.

[malinson]

the more processors a PC has, the greater the share of processor time the game will get (as other processes get shipped to the other cores).

The game dose not 'ship' to other cores, nor do other cores assist in the processing of the game. This is a wide misconception of the game functionality that has lead to so much discord with the tech department of our Mac sponsor here.

We can pick this up in the tech section of the forum so I will end that issue here on this thread.

...and to answer the question, yes...TC is a horribly designed game in my opinion. At any rate, we can continue this else where. I said what I needed to say here and I will depart.

-malinson

[Cycrow]

the more processors a PC has, the greater the share of processor time the game will get (as other processes get shipped to the other cores).

The game dose not 'ship' to other cores, nor do other cores assist in the processing of the game. This is a wide misconception of the game functionality that has lead to so much discord with the tech department of our Mac sponsor here.

We can pick this up in the tech section of the forum so I will end that issue here on this thread.

...and to answer the question, yes...TC is a horribly designed game in my opinion. At any rate, we can continue this else where. I said what I needed to say here and I will depart.

-malinson

you seem to be misunderstanding what people are saying.

multi-core cpu's do help, and it does improve the performance of the game.
thats y its written in the recommended specs.

it doesn't matter that the core of the game is single threaded.
with a single core, it means the game shares the cores processing power with the rest of the system, but with dual core, it can have a whole core to itself, while the rest of the system can use the other core.

also, you keep going on about TC, this is about Reunion, not TC. And also, Egosoft didn't make either of the Mac versions.

[chunder]

Just a quick (on-topic ) follow-up, the re-release version runs very nicely - much better than the original; I'm able to push up the graphics levels a fair bit (compared to before) and everything still plays well. On a Mac mini, too. Blimey. Still can't go into Ore Belt though

I've edited my original post in this thread to clarify that the problems I was having was entirely because I hadn't copied all of the necessary files from the old version to the new. Oops, sorry.

[g3nut]

Nice one!
That's it then the only thing stopping me from buying a Mac was that I couln't play 'X'. No excuse now.... Bye Bye PC
How much are the new 27" iMac's....
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