Lost controls on Mac

[jakeyboy999 8]

Hi all.

Thanks to this excellent Forum, I've taken the plunge and got myself bac into SC4, with a copy from Steam (plus NAM44). I'm loving it (well, I was...)

I'm on am M1 MBP and the install was pretty easy with no issues.

I've been playing around and getting back into the swing of things, but yesterday I ran into an issue.

I have totally lost the ability to click on options, play/pause, zooms, rotates etc - the controls in the bottom left. When I click on them, I just get the speech balloons. None of them click, so I can't save or get to settings. I've checked the manual and can't see any button I might have toggled by mistake? All other buttons work OK; just these bottom left.

I tried uninstalling/reinstalling through Steam but no joy (I have a feeling it's not a full un-install though).  I'm hoping it's just some newbie error on my behalf. So I was wondering if anyone had come across this before?

Thanks in advance and apologies if it's a silly question.

[CorinaMarie 29,568]

2 hours ago, jakeyboy999 said:

All other buttons work OK; just these bottom left.

That's indeed bizarre and I don't recall ever reading about similar trouble. It's not a silly question since something is going on which needs resolved.

While I'm not a Mac user, I do have an idea for a first step to troubleshoot the issue. Install the Raise the UI Mod and see if moving all the buttons up allows you to click on them.

[rsc204 21,805]

Does your MBP have a screen which includes a 'notch' for the camera?, if so I did hear of this problem a few times on Steam. Switching the game to run in Windowed mode seems to fix it. From what I can deduce, unable to replicate it myself, it seems like there is some special requirement for these screens that the game has not been made to work with. If that is the case, baring an update from Aspyr there may not be a lot you can do. But I'd be interested if Cori's suggestion works, because at the core of the issue it doesn't seem to be accepting the input at the bottom of the screen, so that sounds promising.

[jakeyboy999 8]

6 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

That's indeed bizarre and I don't recall ever reading about similar trouble. It's not a silly question since something is going on which needs resolved.

While I'm not a Mac user, I do have an idea for a first step to troubleshoot the issue. Install the Raise the UI Mod and see if moving all the buttons up allows you to click on them.

Thanks so much for the response. I have just installed that, although not sure how you enter the text on the MAc, (presumably in Terminal, but I'm not sure if the  wording is the same). What's interesting is that the + zoom now works (I don't think it did before), but none of the others do yet. It does make me think it could just be something to do with resolution of the screen.

[jakeyboy999 8]

10 minutes ago, rsc204 said:

Does your MBP have a screen which includes a 'notch' for the camera?, if so I did hear of this problem a few times on Steam. Switching the game to run in Windowed mode seems to fix it. From what I can deduce, unable to replicate it myself, it seems like there is some special requirement for these screens that the game has not been made to work with. If that is the case, baring an update from Aspyr there may not be a lot you can do. But I'd be interested if Cori's suggestion works, because at the core of the issue it doesn't seem to be accepting the input at the bottom of the screen, so that sounds promising.

Yes, it does have the notch, so that is interesting to hear. I have moved it up with the install of the file that Cori recommended and the +zoom now seems to work, so I think we must be getting close and that it is something to do with display. I will do some testing with resolutions - somehow. I did run it on a 4k monitor yesterday and I seem to think it was after this that the issue started, so maybe something changed over there.

 

Thanks for the response. Much appreciated.

[rsc204 21,805]

5 minutes ago, jakeyboy999 said:

I will do some testing with resolutions - somehow. I did run it on a 4k monitor yesterday and I seem to think it was after this that the issue started, so maybe something changed over there.

There really aren't a whole load of options to alter, the Launcher (not Steam), has an options menu where you can pick from Windowed or Full Screen mode. After that in the Graphics Options menu, you will have up to 4 selectable resolutions based on your display, I'd try them all starting at the highest to see if that makes any difference, ideally each with both Windowed/Full Screen mode to be sure. After that you could try the same with your desktop resolution (i.e. changing it), but as I alluded too here, if you think back to the iPhones and iOS, when the notch was introduced apps needed to be updated to work with it properly. I get the feeling that's what's going on here, the change in the pixels at the top may change the 'grid position' of UI elements by way of compensation in a way the current app may simply not have been designed to work with. Since the notch is relatively new in the Mac range, it is unlikely to have been considered with the last update to support Catalina and 64-bit only systems.

Ether way it would help to get feedback as to what works for you, since this clearly does seem linked to the screen. But since messing with the resolution is the extent of troubleshooting that can be done for the Mac version, that's the best place to start looking.

[jakeyboy999 8]

16 hours ago, rsc204 said:

There really aren't a whole load of options to alter, the Launcher (not Steam), has an options menu where you can pick from Windowed or Full Screen mode. After that in the Graphics Options menu, you will have up to 4 selectable resolutions based on your display, I'd try them all starting at the highest to see if that makes any difference, ideally each with both Windowed/Full Screen mode to be sure. After that you could try the same with your desktop resolution (i.e. changing it), but as I alluded too here, if you think back to the iPhones and iOS, when the notch was introduced apps needed to be updated to work with it properly. I get the feeling that's what's going on here, the change in the pixels at the top may change the 'grid position' of UI elements by way of compensation in a way the current app may simply not have been designed to work with. Since the notch is relatively new in the Mac range, it is unlikely to have been considered with the last update to support Catalina and 64-bit only systems.

Ether way it would help to get feedback as to what works for you, since this clearly does seem linked to the screen. But since messing with the resolution is the extent of troubleshooting that can be done for the Mac version, that's the best place to start looking.

Right. I've done some testing and Windowed works fine, (although I can't seem to resize the window) as did going to full res (2056) on my mac settings in full screen, although this wouldn't be my preference. I would rather go down one setting ideally, which I am pretty sure was what I was at before i plugged into my monitor.

But the most important thing is that I am back in the game. I can continue to try different things. I will report back on my findings (by the way, I have removed the Raise the UI Mod, but I may test this again).

Thanks all for your help. It's very much appreciated.

[rsc204 21,805]

It's good to know that using the native resolution works in addition to Windowed mode, I'm not surprised it won't resize since the size is dictated by the resolution chosen. But yeah the more information we know here, the more people it'll be able to help if they run into the same problem, which seems to be tied to the notch in the display.