Is it my Mac or ... ?

[Iaga]

Hi Mac People

I have a question I'm hoping someone with some tech know how might be able to help me with. I'm playing on a relatively new iMac. The game runs but I have a couple questions.

It takes almost 5 1/2 minutes from the time I click the DDO short-cut to being able to move my character in game. Switching instances is a crapp shoot I frequently lose. Some times, it's quick (and by quick, I mean, I load the instance at the same time as the rest of the party) but most times it's painfully slow (rest of party is well into the next instance/quest - 1-2 minutes for my instance to load). And finally, the freezes mid-game are frequent and last 4-5 seconds at a time. I don't think this is the game-lag people complain about - if I'm ahead of people and sprint boosted, then freeze, the group will be ahead of me. I'm assuming this is just me?

So my question ... is this just the price of gaming on an iMac? Is it because I'm playing on a Wifi connection with 2 teenage girls and multiple Wifi connected Tvs in the house?

And most importantly, is there anything practical I can do?

My gaming experience is getting painful. Playing harder content on a caster .. freezes are bad bad bad.

Thanks for any help (ideally in small words, I am painfully not tech savvy).

[Iaga]

For any other tech noobs out there that come across my post ...
I swapped to an ethernet cable with significant improvements.
Not sure if there is more that I can do - but this at least made the game tolerable.

[PpalP]

For any other tech noobs out there that come across my post ...
I swapped to an ethernet cable with significant improvements.
Not sure if there is more that I can do - but this at least made the game tolerable.

Yes, the ethernet cable is always a better option than WIFI. I'm using a 2013's imac and runs perfectly so maybe its because your mac is too new? I mean, what is your OS? I hear that Catalina has a lot of problems with programs. What's your RAM? Are you running DDO with other apps running too?

[Iaga]

Yes, the ethernet cable is always a better option than WIFI. I'm using a 2013's imac and runs perfectly so maybe its because your mac is too new? I mean, what is your OS? I hear that Catalina has a lot of problems with programs. What's your RAM? Are you running DDO with other apps running too?

Learning more and more as I try and figure this out ... I'm on an iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017) with a whopping 8GB of RAM. Thinking the 8GB is a problem, so I looked into what it would take to upgrade that. From what I can figure out, I can't upgrade the RAM in my iMac easily. The usual port doesn't exist on this @#&*($^ machine so I either have to take the thing apart and void the warranty OR bring it to Apple along with my car, many dollars and likely my first born child to have them do it.

Can't figure out what OS I'm running, but it's not Catalina - based on the little I know and what I've read here, that would be a bad upgrade for me.

Not sure if an external SSD would help? I have one of those lying around? Input and an idiot proof guide on how to make it happen would be appreciated.

[Xanom]

Learning more and more as I try and figure this out ... I'm on an iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017) with a whopping 8GB of RAM. Thinking the 8GB is a problem, so I looked into what it would take to upgrade that. From what I can figure out, I can't upgrade the RAM in my iMac easily. The usual port doesn't exist on this @#&*($^ machine so I either have to take the thing apart and void the warranty OR bring it to Apple along with my car, many dollars and likely my first born child to have them do it.

Can't figure out what OS I'm running, but it's not Catalina - based on the little I know and what I've read here, that would be a bad upgrade for me.

Not sure if an external SSD would help? I have one of those lying around? Input and an idiot proof guide on how to make it happen would be appreciated.

I don't think the RAM is a problem. I've run on two different machines with 8 Gb and haven't seen anything that looks like a low RAM issue.

To find out your OS version, go to the Apple menu and choose "About this Mac" (the first menu item). Your OS version will appear as the first thing on the "Overview" tab.

I've run fine on both an internal and external drive. Note that "running off an external drive" doesn't actually do very much - everything except the launcher itself is downloaded into <user>/Library/Application Support/com.standingstonegames.ddo/ , so an external drive will only save you 2.9 Mb.

My main issue with the older client was a tendency to get rendering errors after a couple of hours - depth calculations would get screwy so I'd have un-textured walls show up. I could walk through them, but not see or target through them. I've not seen this with the newer client, but I've found I can only play full-screen - I can't get into windowed mode. Also, I can't click any of the check-boxes in the launcher. Otherwise, it works OK for me. Running on a Mid 2012 Mac Pro with 8 Gb RAM and 10.12.