PanzerCorps on mac

PC : Turn based WW2 goodness in the mold of Panzer General. This promises to be a true classic!

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mjslat
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PanzerCorps on mac

Post by mjslat »

When I play PanzerCorps on my MacBook pro the machine heats up and burns thru the battery charge very quickly. Is this normal? Can this hurt my computer? Can this be fixed?

Thanks much.

Mike
proline
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Re: PanzerCorps on mac

Post by proline »

The Mac version was outsources to a 3rd party, likely in a foreign country. That 3rd party slapped together a pretty rough port of the iPad version a year and a half ago, updated it exactly once, then walked away. It is riddled with bugs. Text often shows up improperly, it is missing features of the PC version such as the casualty screen, there's a bug that makes it difficult to rename units, and, as you found out, it call for the discrete graphics card to be run at 100% power even though it works fine on machines with integrated graphics and even though there is a simple variable you can add to the app plist that would make it run on integrated graphics while on battery power.

It also uses 32 bit code, which means it may well not even open on macOS 10.15, to be released in September, yet Slitherine is happy for Mac users to pay full price for a game that could be broken in a few months.

In summary- you can't fix the issues, it won't hurt your Mac because Apple watches the temperature, but be careful not to overheat your testicles which can damage your fertility. It can be fixed, but nobody is willing to do so.
heinzrondorf
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Re: PanzerCorps on mac

Post by heinzrondorf »

mjslat wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 1:27 pm When I play PanzerCorps on my MacBook pro the machine heats up and burns thru the battery charge very quickly. Is this normal? Can this hurt my computer? Can this be fixed?

Thanks much.

Mike
I also run the Mac version on a MacBook Pro. I think you should get the version called 1.30a in case you have not already. When I bought Panzer Corps I bought the Gold edition which had the PC and Mac version bundled together. For some reason the version I got then from Slitherine was the "old" 1.30 version which had even more bugs. In that version you could not disband units in the deployment screen, bring up unit info, rename them etc. Those bugs have at least been fixed in version 1.30a.

I also found the old 1.30 version to make the computer get warmer than 1.30a but maybe it's just my imagination. I am not sure it's been fixed.
It still drains the battery very quickly though and there is no way to get around that I know of as of today.
heinzrondorf
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Re: PanzerCorps on mac

Post by heinzrondorf »

proline wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 3:33 pm it call for the discrete graphics card to be run at 100% power even though it works fine on machines with integrated graphics and even though there is a simple variable you can add to the app plist that would make it run on integrated graphics while on battery power.
How do you do that? Will it reduce the battery drainage?
proline
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Re: PanzerCorps on mac

Post by proline »

heinzrondorf wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 4:28 pm
proline wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 3:33 pm it call for the discrete graphics card to be run at 100% power even though it works fine on machines with integrated graphics and even though there is a simple variable you can add to the app plist that would make it run on integrated graphics while on battery power.
How do you do that? Will it reduce the battery drainage?
It's too complicated to really explain. You have to add the NSSupportsAutomaticGraphicsSwitching boolean to the app's plist with a values of YES. That will break the app's checksum, but there's a way in the command line interface to recalculate the checksum so the app will open again, if you bought the non-app store version. I haven't tried it with the App Store version. After I did try this, the battery usage went down while on battery power, because NSSupportsAutomaticGraphicsSwitching will allow the OS to select the integrated graphics in that setting. However, this "fix" does not turn on integrated graphics ALL the time, which is what we want. The app remains extremely power inefficient, it presumably has a bug somewhere that makes it that way because an iPad can run all day no problem.

The fact that I could improve the app with a one-liner is testament to just how bad the Mac version was made. It saddens me greatly, because I love this game so much I paid twice, for all the content, for Mac and iOS. And the Mac has so much potential, because I love playing on the big screen. But Slitherine just doesn't take pride in their work sometimes, and this is one of those times. They won't even implement a one-liner that would take like 5 minutes. Slitherine will say "oh, it's a five year old game don't expect updates" but the reality is that they are happy to take your money today. Right now. With zero support.
heinzrondorf
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Re: PanzerCorps on mac

Post by heinzrondorf »

proline wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 11:40 pm
heinzrondorf wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 4:28 pm
proline wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 3:33 pm it call for the discrete graphics card to be run at 100% power even though it works fine on machines with integrated graphics and even though there is a simple variable you can add to the app plist that would make it run on integrated graphics while on battery power.
How do you do that? Will it reduce the battery drainage?
It's too complicated to really explain. You have to add the NSSupportsAutomaticGraphicsSwitching boolean to the app's plist with a values of YES. That will break the app's checksum, but there's a way in the command line interface to recalculate the checksum so the app will open again, if you bought the non-app store version. I haven't tried it with the App Store version. After I did try this, the battery usage went down while on battery power, because NSSupportsAutomaticGraphicsSwitching will allow the OS to select the integrated graphics in that setting. However, this "fix" does not turn on integrated graphics ALL the time, which is what we want. The app remains extremely power inefficient, it presumably has a bug somewhere that makes it that way because an iPad can run all day no problem.
Interesting, I'd like to try it out. Where is the plist file stored by default and how do you recalculate the checksum?
Thanks for sharing this!
proline
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Re: PanzerCorps on mac

Post by proline »

heinzrondorf wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2019 11:12 am
proline wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 11:40 pm
heinzrondorf wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 4:28 pm

How do you do that? Will it reduce the battery drainage?
It's too complicated to really explain. You have to add the NSSupportsAutomaticGraphicsSwitching boolean to the app's plist with a values of YES. That will break the app's checksum, but there's a way in the command line interface to recalculate the checksum so the app will open again, if you bought the non-app store version. I haven't tried it with the App Store version. After I did try this, the battery usage went down while on battery power, because NSSupportsAutomaticGraphicsSwitching will allow the OS to select the integrated graphics in that setting. However, this "fix" does not turn on integrated graphics ALL the time, which is what we want. The app remains extremely power inefficient, it presumably has a bug somewhere that makes it that way because an iPad can run all day no problem.
Interesting, I'd like to try it out. Where is the plist file stored by default and how do you recalculate the checksum?
Thanks for sharing this!
The plist can be found by right clicking on the game, going show package contents, and then into the contents folder. I don't recall how to recalculate the checksum, but was able to find it via Google.
mjslat
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Re: PanzerCorps on mac

Post by mjslat »

Thanks so much for the detailed information. At least I now understand that the problem is inherent in the mac version and not something on my mac book pro. Disappointed in Slitherine however.
proline
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Re: PanzerCorps on mac

Post by proline »

mjslat wrote: Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:43 pm Thanks so much for the detailed information. At least I now understand that the problem is inherent in the mac version and not something on my mac book pro. Disappointed in Slitherine however.
Yeah, like I say Panzer Corps is an awesome game and Rudankort and the various campaign designers did amazing work. That Slitherine chose to contract out the Mac version and not stand behind their product like most other companies is, however, a bad sign and a reason why I have never bought any of their other titles.
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