Macintosh

Coming here as every day since 4 February I have struggled to enter Eve Online. The character selection screen is blank and the dock is flickering. If i leave Eve open and go to a firefox screen that flickers. I can enter the game if I can click on the correct bit of a totally black screen, but I'm having to run windowed with my bottom modules hidden if I do get in and it's hard work.

I cannot fathom the mac client logging. There's nothing I can see in the launcher log. Looking at my mac's logs I am getting a lot of Nvidia errors, many times a second:

08/02/2014 10:51:50.000 kernel[0]: NVDA(OpenGL): Channel exception! exception type = 0xd = GR: SW Notify Error

This is an example of the graphics problems I have had http://imgur.com/8Yp0YYa

I'm running on a 2009 pre-recession 13 inch macbook pro with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M. It worked (except station environment) until Tuesday :(

Simply opening up the launcher freezes the computer for several minutes. Haven't had hardly any problems until the last update. Le sad.

The issue I experience seems to arise when right clicking in space and going to a drop-down menu (such as Asteroid Belts) and there are a TON of options - then the bottom half of my screen flickers black. Having a second account online and clicking there seems to stop it. However when I return to the first account - all the graphics are, for lack of a better term, ****** up. Hitting the ESC menu and back seems to resolve the graphics problem. However I'm still unable to click said item (Asteroid Belt).

My machine is using the GeForce 9400m which Dev stated is now below the minimum spec which could mean that this is the end of my EVE career as i cannot afford to replace the entire computer just for the sake of one game (as important as that game might be).
Must say i'm a little disappointed - It was announced with Rubicon that the minimum specs had changed however that was some months ago and i had assumed my machine had (just) made the grade. Was willing to sacrifice and drop all my settings to minimum. This however looks like the month i've just paid for (on 2 accounts) will be a complete loss and waste of money and that i will ultimately have to un-sub..... a very sad day for me.

I have a similar issue on Mac OS 10.6.8.

I log in and launch: it shows the loading box as normal, but I then I get a black screen with a mouse pointer (which I can move). If I Cmd/Shift + Tab and get out of Eve at this point the lower part of the screen is flickering. If I Cmd/Shift + Tab back into Eve I get black and white stripes all over the place. If I don't kill Eve quite quickly the whole machine becomes unresponsive and I have to do a hard reboot.

I don't have great specs, but prior to this problem I could play the game fine most of the time. I have had an occasional issue with freezing, but now I'm consistently unable to get to the character choice screen.

Edit: I'm also using NVIDIA GeForce 9400M which a lot of other people on this thread are using.

I'm a bit disappointed if Eve has suddenly become game completely unplayable with this graphics card - I've just paid for the month of play and it seems I won't be receiving it.

I'm having no problems logging in, and the game plays well until—this is the pattern that’s been emerging over the last couple of days—I go to change anything in my overview settings. The moment I click that overview settings button, the screen starts flickering and everything freezes up. Playing in windowed mode, I can just let this sit for a while and see what happens, and it usually comes out of the freeze after 10 to 15 seconds for a moment—just long enough for me to see that there’s movement and maybe hit a Dock-command—but with totally wiped out graphics—some textures unloaded, or changed beyond recognition (a bright pink Caldari Food Processing Plant, anyone?)—before freezing up again for another period.

Have to admit that I, too, am playing with the sub-spec GeForce 9400M card on a 2009 MacBook. We were given plenty of warning when the system requirements were increased that the 9400M wasn’t going to cut it in the long run. So if this is hardware related, no worries: I need to upgrade at some point anyway. If it’s a software problem, though, looking forward to the fix. In the meantime, I’m only changing overview settings in windowed mode and close to a station (of whatever colour).

Snorlax, could you take a look at the map bug too?

Thanks in advance

You tested the other macs for the freezing client locking up computer screen as well? Not just the black screen of death?

I don't have any Blackscreen of death, my client freezes up all the time if I'm in space and many ships are there.

Try testing at the Amarr undock and move the camera around, within a minute the client will freeze up the entire computer screen by flickering.

Grateful that I don't seem to have it as bad as others. I seem to be able to login OK. I can't play as normal though. I'm not taking any fleets out and risking other players ships, because I can't pull up the map, I can't really go into low or null sec safely.

Today I had my first "right click crash" where right clicking in space was all that was needed to generate another hard crash. I crash 3 or 4 times a day now. Takes out the whole computer. In just about every case for me it happens when a window is being called/opened. Be that a Map window, a web browser window.

I'm also grateful CCP has someone like CCP Snorlax keeping us up to date. We know your working on this. People in this thread have also all been really helpful and for the most part, kept it very positive. As a developer myself I know it makes CCP Snorlax's job much easier when he can focus on the problem and not have to deal with difficult people.

As we approach a full week of major issues that pretty much affects the entire Mac platform, (sure, it's not the largest, but still no less important than other segments) of not of not being able to play as normal, it might be worth considering reverting to the old code that was in place before the problems started? That is ultimately the common thread. Everyone's problems started after the 1.1x patch.

I know that companies set deadlines and goals that need to be met. Sometimes things get pushed out the door before they are ready to meet a deadlines. This may not have been the case here, I am not in a position to know. I just know that sometimes it happens.

While initial efforts to fix the problem are greatly appreciated, at some point there will come a time where it is better to save face and revert to the old code . Resolving the problem in the short term while development continues to fix the code and bring back the latest updates.

I don't know when the point in time is. A week, a week and a half, two weeks? The potential is there for this to become an even bigger customer service issue for CCP. I don't want to see that happen and hope that CCP has a date set, were if you can't resolve the issue, you revert the code (short term fix) and keep that segment of your customer base positive. I would not think negatively of CCP if they did this. On the contrary I think it is the right thing to do.

Having a lot of angry customers who are paying for something and not getting what they are paying for is really bad for any company for so many reasons. CCP has been very responsive and without question has shown to take this issue very seriously. I have nothing but good things to say about their whole approach to the problem. I know they are on our side and while it's only a game, it's still a product / service that we subscribe to and pay for. I'm not asking for my money back. I'm very patient. I just don't want to get to the point were patience runs out, not just for me but for this entire market segment.

So please, set a date if you have not already. A deadline. Where either a solution has been found and deployed or revert the code. Don't just rule it out and say it's not possible. It’s not just old Macs that are affected. And while you're at it, hop on Craig's list and go buy a couple old used Macs. In the grand scheme of things, the cost of a couple of old used Macs is far less aggravating an entire segment of your user base.

In the mean time, I'll keep testing the patches and giving you what ever feedback I can and hopefully what I have written here has remained positive like some many other posts before mine.

Thank you for all you are doing to get us fully back up and running, crash free.