Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

by bubblescrubber27
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Original Post

Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

★ Novice

When launching spore for the mac, I'm getting a black screen. The blue "spore mouse" indicator is there (not just the generic mac mouse indicator). I am also hearing all the appropriate sounds for startup (theme/background music, etc).

 

But no graphics!

 

I have tried the following:

-- rebooted the computer

-- Shut down all programs but spore

-- downgraded my display resolution

-- installed all mac updates, checked that I am running latest version of spore (CiderBuild number is 2756)

 

I have tried looking on the forums, but many of those issues pertain to much older versions of spore (from 2011 or earlier), or they pertain to the windows version. I just bought this game and it is currently unplayable. Please advise.

 

Thank you.

Message 1 of 32 (15,494 Views)

Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

★★★ Newbie

I have had the same problem and have been in communication with ea since December.  They promised to get back to me with a fix.  They never did.  Since about February, all of the communication has been one way (me to them).  No response.  I purchased the game in December since it said it would work on the Mac (Mountain Lion), but it clearly doesn't.  I made the purchase since the version I had did not work on the Mac.  Turns out that I bought the same version I already had (which was already the latest).  I've uploaded all the patches, etc. etc. etc.  It has been about five months since I first asked for a refund (see "February") above.

 

Spore is a great program, but it's too bad that the technical support sucks!

Message 2 of 32 (15,277 Views)

Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

★★★ Newbie

From Finder, click on the "Go" menu and select "Go to Folder..."

Type "~/Library/Preferences/SPORE Preferences/" without the quotes and hit enter

double click on the file named "config"

Within the config file, change "flobackbuffer" = "0" to "flobackbuffer" = "1"

Close the file and restart the game.  It should work now.  Only took me six months to figure out how to find the config file...

 

Message 3 of 32 (15,274 Views)

Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

★★★ Newbie

Thank you for helping me fix this! I had the exact same problem when I downloaded OS X Mountain Lion. Now my game is (somewhat) back to normal. Thanks! 

Message 4 of 32 (15,262 Views)

Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

[ Edited ]
★★★ Newbie

UGH!!!!  My computer says it doesn't have that folder.  It's only "Library" Folder only has font collections in it! Confusedmileymad:  Please help, I jUST got this game yesterday and i have been wanting it for 3 years!  Help, please. 

 

Message 5 of 32 (15,224 Views)

Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

★★★ Newbie

Wait, I just found the other "Library" folder but once i go to preferences from that, Preferences doesn't have SPORE Preferences. PLEASE HELP!!!!!

Message 6 of 32 (15,222 Views)

Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

★★★ Newbie

Oh, wrong library folder, it turns out i have like 4 library folders.  Sorry.  I accidentally forgot the "~".

Message 7 of 32 (15,221 Views)

Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

[ Edited ]
★★★ Newbie

Thank you so much for this! I love this game, and my computer has been broken for several months so I haven't been able to play it. But now that we got the other computer in the house working, I decided to start playing again, but when it didn't work, I freaked out.

But, you're post saved Spore for me! Yay!


@seabug2000 wrote:

From Finder, click on the "Go" menu and select "Go to Folder..."

Type "~/Library/Preferences/SPORE Preferences/" without the quotes and hit enter

double click on the file named "config"

Within the config file, change "flobackbuffer" = "0" to "flobackbuffer" = "1"

Close the file and restart the game.  It should work now.  Only took me six months to figure out how to find the config file...

 




Message 8 of 32 (15,093 Views)

Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

★★★ Newbie

This doesn't work for me.  I am running an imac with operating system 10.8.5.  There does not seem to be a general library folder on this one as there is on earlier operating systems.

Message 9 of 32 (14,695 Views)

Re: Spore for Mac: BLack Screen on loading, can see mouse

★★★ Newbie

Please ignore what I wrote previously.  I was on the phone with an EA tech for at least 45 minutes (using their call back option) and he patiently helped me navigate my updated Mac operating system 10.8.5, which now hides the "library" file unless you press "option" and while useing the Finder's "go" drop down menu.  Thanks Apple!  There does not seem to be any obvious way to look through the components of the application file either to see if it alread has the patch #4.  Maybe if I clicked my heels together and I said "I wish I was in Windows Explorer" it would work like it should.

Changing the value in the spore config file from "0" to "1" worked.  Somewhere in this process I downloaded the 5.1 patch and opened it. Please note that the instructions above are very helpful but misspell the text that you want to find in the config file.  It is just one letter difference, an "L" for a "B" was the mistake, I think.  When you search the config file look for "=0" and you should be able to find that section of it quickly.

Message 10 of 32 (14,690 Views)