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Spore black out

So I just updated to Mountain Lion and the first thing that happens is that the game Spore has audio but no picture. Anyone having any trouble with non Apple Apps/games?


I checked with the Spore site and there are no patches yet. I'm checking to see if everything else on my computer still works.

imac, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Jul 26, 2012 8:21 AM

Reply
17 replies

Jul 26, 2012 9:36 PM in response to mlegge

When I started up Spore for Mac in Mountain Lion with all patches installed, the screen went white with horizontal lines flashing on it. No problems with audio.


I was able to resolve the problem by enabling "Use FBO for Backbuffer" in the Transgaming Cider preferences box. This is the box that goes away if you have disabled the "Display this on subsequent starts" option. I was not able to get it to come back on another account where I had disabled that option. Instead I had to go into the file "Library/Preferences/SPORE Preferences/config" with a text editor and change

"fbobackbuffer" = "0"

to

"fbobackbuffer" = "1"


After that everything worked fine.

Feb 1, 2013 5:31 AM in response to mattw gx

Where the heck is this preference file!? I can't find it anywhere (I am new to Macs, so maybe I'm not looking in the right spot). Can someone help me find this file? I was able to play the game once (but it took more than 15 minutes to load) and haven't been able to get it to work since (black screen but can see curser and hear game music). Help!

Jul 14, 2013 9:41 AM in response to mlegge

Hey guys Matt's idea works great... However I have had the same problem afterwards where it asks to debug the problem..... If its not playing when you click on the spore icon then DO THE FOLLOWING.....


Click in the "GO" tab.

Go to "APPLICATIONS" then click on the "SPORE" folder.

Right click on spore and go to "SHOW PACKAGE CONTENTS".

Now click on the "CONTENTS" folder.

Now click on the "MacOS" folder.

Now double click on the "cider_noui" folder and the game should start that way!!!

Apr 3, 2015 3:03 AM in response to gandmemars

I'm having trouble finding this folder also. I was taking a look at the start-up sequence by starting it through the cider and noticed that there were a lot of null errors while searching for the dvd source. I got my copy of Spore through digital download. I was hoping that it might show me where it is writing the config for the game so I can find that file to edit it but... alas.


After uninstalling and reinstalling the game to get it to work, it played fine before I patched it (with the exception of being unable to alter my creature after it had evolved from the sea but that's a separate problem entirely). After I ran it and patched it up, it began to run horribly slow. It seemed like a serious frame-rate issue. I tried to follow the instructions of matt but I am unable to find the Spore Preferences/config file. I've looked in both Library folders and cannot find a Spore Preferences folder.


Please advise.

Spore black out

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