The Essential Guide to Mac Toontown (Performance Inclueded!)

[rmsuperstar99]

I have recently answered several posts, mostly dealing with performance problems on people's Macs. If you have a mac and are experiancing performance issues, or planning on buying one, read on.

The Essential Guide to Mac Toontown
The Right Mac Spec

You need a reasonably speedy computer to run Toontown. This is not so complex. I will start you with a brief list of models, and their graphics cards. The graphics cards are usually the cause of most performance issues complained about here. Intel Integrated Graphics are not good for running Toontown, or even Photoshop or any other game for that matter.

Laptops:
MacBook - Intel 950GMA - Not good for running Toontown or even Photoshop.
MacBook Pro - ATI or NVIDIA graphics with 128 or 256 MB of VRAM - Fine for running Toontown or any other game.

Desktops:
Mac Mini - Intel 950GMA - Not good for running Toontown or Photoshop.
iMac 17 "($999) - Intel 950GMA - Not good for running Toontown or Photoshop.
iMac 17"($1199) and iMac 20" - ATI Graphics 128 / 256MB VRAM - fine for running Toontown or any other game.
iMac 24" - NVIDIA 7300 with 256 MB VRAM - fine for running Toontown or any other game.
Mac Pro - choice of NVIDIA or ATI Graphics - all cards fine for running Toontown. - The more graphics cards, the merrier. If you plan on buying the stereo, i do not believe that it works with Toontown.

There are a couple of other things to look out for.
-Processor
Any new Mac has an Intel Processor. All Intel Proccessors are good, so this is not an issue.
PowerPC Processors, A G4 1Ghz or more is required for decent performance.
-RAM
512MB or more to get decent quality.
-OS
10.4.6 or newer.

Optimizing Performance At Game Time
If you have 512MB of RAM or less, I would recommend you quit as many applications as possible. Launch Toontown with the Finder by going to Macintosh HD>Applications>Toontown. If you never played before, use Safari to go to the Toontown website, and do as you would on a PC. It will download, and install. Safari will start the game. If it is too slow, try starting it from the Finder.

Tricks
Dock Tricks (not related to Toontown)
If you've never used a Mac before, it may be useful to know that you can remove things from the dock by dragging them away or to the trash, and add applications to it by dragging them to it. To delete something (or eject a disk/iPod), drag it to the trash. The trash is where the Microsoft got the Windows Recycle Bin from. Internal hard disks can also be unmounted by dragging them to the trash (they will remount when the system is rebooted).

Remain in a beanfest by using an Apple keyboard
You can place an object on the ctrl key, or use a glitch in Windows to remain jumping forever. But on a mac, the glitch doesn't work. There is another glitch though. If your keyboard has an Fn Key, then this will work. Hold down any arrow key, and press and hold FN. While holding FN, release the arrow key. You will continue going in the direction you pressed. To stop, press the key in the direction you are going while FN is not pressed. This seems to be due to an issue with Python programs (Toontown is written in Python, and uses Panda3D, another Python program) and Mac OS X.
What's really going on behind the Scenes?
This is a rather funny trick. You can actually see what Toontown is doing behind the scenes by playing with it's debug console open. To get this, go to your Applications Folder (Macintosh HD>Applications). Secondary Click (Right-click, or hold down mouse button for 1-2 seconds) on Toontown, and choose Show Package Contents. Toontown.app will appear in a new Finder Window. Go in Contents>MacOS. You will see the single file, "Toontown Launcher". Double-click it. The launcher will appear, and a terminal window will appear. The terminal window tells you what is really going on. If you want to get to this more easily, secondary click the Toontown Launcher file, and choose "Make Alias" (That's how you say Shortcut in Mac language). You can drag the Alias to the desktop, or put it in the Dock (It can be put next to the Trash, where the minimized windows and Apple website button are). Note: If you close the terminal window or the launcher window, the Toontown game will close instantly. Toontown should also be in windowed mode, so you can see the terminal while playing.

I will continue to add to and edit this guide. Please keep tuned to it. I hope it will be of help to you. -RMSUPERSTAR99 :9b:

Additions:
1-30-07: Added Fn Key for Beanfests
1-29-07: Created Guide
Please Sticky - this will hopefully reduce the number of threads about these few subjects.

[::Quick::]

Originally Posted by rmsuperstar99

I have recently answered several posts, mostly dealing with performance problems on people's Macs. If you have a mac and are experiancing performance issues, or planning on buying one, read on.

The Essential Guide to Mac Toontown
The Right Mac Spec

You need a reasonably speedy computer to run Toontown. This is not so complex. I will start you with a brief list of models, and their graphics cards. The graphics cards are usually the cause of most performance issues complained about here. Intel Integrated Graphics are not good for running Toontown, or even Photoshop or any other game for that matter.

Laptops:
MacBook - Intel 950GMA - Not good for running Toontown or even Photoshop.
MacBook Pro - ATI or NVIDIA graphics with 128 or 256 MB of VRAM - Fine for running Toontown or any other game.

Desktops:
Mac Mini - Intel 950GMA - Not good for running Toontown or Photoshop.
iMac 17 "($999) - Intel 950GMA - Not good for running Toontown or Photoshop.
iMac 17"($1199) and iMac 20" - ATI Graphics 128 / 256MB VRAM - fine for running Toontown or any other game.
iMac 24" - NVIDIA 7300 with 256 MB VRAM - fine for running Toontown or any other game.
Mac Pro - choice of NVIDIA or ATI Graphics - all cards fine for running Toontown. - The more graphics cards, the merrier. If you plan on buying the stereo, i do not believe that it works with Toontown.

There are a couple of other things to look out for.
-Processor
Any new Mac has an Intel Processor. All Intel Proccessors are good, so this is not an issue.
PowerPC Processors, A G4 1Ghz or more is required for decent performance.
-RAM
512MB or more to get decent quality.
-OS
10.4.6 or newer.

Optimizing Performance At Game Time
If you have 512MB of RAM or less, I would recommend you quit as many applications as possible. Launch Toontown with the Finder by going to Macintosh HD>Applications>Toontown. If you never played before, use Safari to go to the Toontown website, and do as you would on a PC. It will download, and install. Safari will start the game. If it is too slow, try starting it from the Finder.

Tricks
Dock Tricks (not related to Toontown)
If you've never used a Mac before, it may be useful to know that you can remove things from the dock by dragging them away or to the trash, and add applications to it by dragging them to it. To delete something (or eject a disk/iPod), drag it to the trash. The trash is where the Microsoft got the Windows Recycle Bin from. Internal hard disks can also be unmounted by dragging them to the trash (they will remount when the system is rebooted).

What's really going on behind the Scenes?
This is a rather funny trick. You can actually see what Toontown is doing behind the scenes by playing with it's debug console open. To get this, go to your Applications Folder (Macintosh HD>Applications). Secondary Click (Right-click, or hold down mouse button for 1-2 seconds) on Toontown, and choose Show Package Contents. Toontown.app will appear in a new Finder Window. Go in Contents>MacOS. You will see the single file, "Toontown Launcher". Double-click it. The launcher will appear, and a terminal window will appear. The terminal window tells you what is really going on. If you want to get to this more easily, secondary click the Toontown Launcher file, and choose "Make Alias" (That's how you say Shortcut in Mac language). You can drag the Alias to the desktop, or put it in the Dock (It can be put next to the Trash, where the minimized windows and Apple website button are). Note: If you close the terminal window or the launcher window, the Toontown game will close instantly. Toontown should also be in windowed mode, so you can see the terminal while playing.

I will continue to add to and edit this guide. Please keep tuned to it. I hope it will be of help to you. -RMSUPERSTAR99 :9b:

Please Sticky - this will hopefully reduce the number of threads about these few subjects.

I doubt this will be stickied. Most of this stuff is common sense, not relavent or has been stated before many times.

[Domino Freckleflip]

I beg to differ. I used to run Toontown on Intel Intergrated Extreme 3D graphics on a Dimension 2350 with barely any noticable lag. The Intel GMA950 actually has a 400MhZ core, and although it does use shared RAM, it still runs fine with Toontown. Toontown is more taxing on the CPU as opposed to the graphics cards. Some games will not run well on the GMA950 because they need a heavy-duty graphics card. Toontown is not one of them.

My thoughts,
Dom