EQMac.com

Looking for a Mac to play eqmac, was looking at a Power Mac G5, but hear of this sound crashing problem. Does sound crash with music off sound effects on for you guys? I can live without music.. but not with no sound.

So post your experiences please, with sound on/off music on/off.

thanks

http://www.eqmac.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8506

Some additional posts there.

From what I know early on at the release of EQMac it was thought that the Miles sound library used by the EQMac client had a leak and was at the heart of the sound issues. At the time there were issues with the Miles library in other titles.

Further down the road I believe that it was determined that the interface in the EQMac client to the Miles library was flawed. Any Mac will have issues with sound turned on, though depending on model, OS version, amount of memory it has been seen that some combinations seem to anecdotally do better than others.

I play with a variety of machines, including a 17" Macbook Pro w/2GB, a PowerMac G5 2x2.5GHz w/4GB, and a Mac Pro 2x2.93GHz Quad w/16 GB. All crash with sound on, the Mac Pro appears to go maybe 10-20% longer most of the time before there's any issue, the G5 and Macbook Pro seem about the same, no more than an hour or three and a crash.

I tend to play more on the G5 as there really is very little difference in performance from the Mac Pro, and if a work related issue comes up it's just easier. I've heard others say the newer Mac Pro's go much longer without sound issues, that's not been my experience, but my time on the newer machines is limited.

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My new mac mini never crashes with just sound on..i can be on for 12 hrs straight and its ok. Music is a different story though It will crash after a couple hours with music on usually.

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[65 Deceiver] Diirk (Dwarf) Ascendancy> ZONE: povalor LFG
There is 1 player in Everquest.

Hmm, the issue seems to be global for everyone I guess then. Good thing we brought up this topic lol. Now I can buy any Mac without having to worry that it will be defective

I play on a circa 2002, G4 imac , power pc, 500mb ram. It never crashes with music and sound on. It also lets me be one of the slowest zoning players on Al'kabor.

This is the computer that looks like a lamp with a swivel monitor.

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Echofinder

Ranger of Tunare
65 crossings of the stream

<Destiny>

I'm playing on a hackintosh and have yet to crash with both sound and music on. Although, I'm sure that doesn't really help you any. Just thought I would add my experience.

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"Ah, how we shall laugh at the troubles of parting, when, at last, we meet again."

Sihon Rephaim

WROTE THIS ON ANOTHER THREAD:

Anyway, here is a trick to know when to turn off sound in EQ mac.

Most of you will not be able to do this, because it requires Mac OS 9. Yup, I said it, Mac OS 9.

Mac OS 9 a legacy operating system lacks the modern ability to multi-task programs. If you used programs that used up more memory than the system could allow, you could crash or severely slow your system down.

Even though EQ Mac uses an average of 500-550MB at one time, according to Mac OS 9, EQ Mac's sound issue is a memory leak, therefore, it gobbles up more memory needed to run the system over a short period of time. The amount used is accumilating by almost (lets say) 100MB and hour. That said, if you had 1000 available ram on your system, in 5 hours you would expect your game/system to crash because the leak + what was needed to run EQ mac had reached the MAX the system could run.

If you are running MAC OS X with classic built in (Mac OS 9) and you turn on Mac OS 9, you can see the available ram you have to run Mac OS 9 programs. Let's say your system memory is large like Utdaan's and you have 3.5 GB of physical Ram. Mac OS 9 & 10 will leave you with only 2.8GB left according to OS9, and when you turn on EQ on OSX, you see that you only have 2.2GB left. 2.2GB ram is a lot of Ram left if you have nothing else turned on, you can safely play EQ for another 20+ hours before it crashes due to the sound memory leak. Of course there's probably other factors involved as well, but thats the gist of it. (oh yeah, while it's building up the leak, you might experience lag as well). Turning off the application resets the leak.

I am just using 100MB per hour as the leak figure, but thats just a number I pulled from the sky.

I will go home later and check what the actual leak is, and let you all know.

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Waamblem of Sanctuary, lv 63 Ranger - I will celebrate 65 one day.
http://sanctuary.guildportal.com/
"For Honor and Valor"

The music and sounds are a big part of the game.

I REALLY hope I do not experience these sound/music crash bugs...

Please read the stick thread regarding posting guidelines and non-Apple hardware discussions.

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Nikolai Lianfyrr,
Khati Sha Feral Lord.
GM Tailor (250), GM Smith (250), GM Brewer (250), GM Potter (250), GM Fisherman (200), GM Jeweler (250), Fletcher (220), Chef (200)

sorry.. i was just telling, not guiding.

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Waamblem of Sanctuary, lv 63 Ranger - I will celebrate 65 one day.
http://sanctuary.guildportal.com/
"For Honor and Valor"

Nik wasn't talking to you.

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Proud member of Temerity
GM Fletcher (250) Jewel Craft (234) Brewing (226) Smithing (224 + 15%) Pottery (234) Baking (246) Pure Hell (226)
Wulfgar - Lvl 52 Barbarian Warrior, LFG in PoFire!
chown -R us ./base

and here i thought i was important and all lol

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Waamblem of Sanctuary, lv 63 Ranger - I will celebrate 65 one day.
http://sanctuary.guildportal.com/
"For Honor and Valor"