| Two Games on Clamshell iBook
I am a die-hard clamshell user and my main laptop is an Indigo 366 which I've upgraded the RAM to 576 and the hard drive to 30 GB. I have found a lot of older games work just fine on the unit, but there are two which I think should work, but don't. Keep in mind I'm running Mac OS X 10.3
StarCraft is the first one. I used to play this game on 166 Mhz pentium systems and also on an old biege colored powermac 133 Mhz unit under OS 9. Both systems were able to handle the game fine. So you'd think a 366 Mhz unit could. The funny thing is, it plays and everything runs smoothly except for some bizzare reason the game pauses every half-second or so like clockwork, then it resumes. As long as it is not in one of the little pauses, everything seems to be running smoothly. Incidently, I haven't tried the classic version since it doesn't support connectivity with newer Macs or PCs and I do not even have classic installed. However, I run the same Starcraft on my Intel-based iMac and it works fine (even though it is a powerpc program)
Duke Nukem 3D is the second one. I used to play this on a 486 PC at 66 Mhz and it was fine. Again, you'd think 366 Mhz G3 should be able to handle it. Again, it is another strange issue because the game runs at perfect speed except when you pick up a weapon or get shot. During this time, the whole screen goes red for a brief moment, which it is supposed to do. But during the time the screen is red, the computer slows to a crawl. As soon as the red is gone, everything is fine. I have tried the game on a 500 Mhz iBook "snow" model and it played fine. I suspect it is related to the video chip or driver. If I could just turn the whole red-flash feature off, the game would probably be fine.
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December 18th, 2008, 09:07 PM
