Steam - Portal's portals

LogicBox · May 13, 2010

So I was playing portal on my mac book, and was wondering normally you should see what the other portal is looking at, at least thats the way it was on pc. You could see through to the other portal see whats on the other side I mean. But I can for some reason, not sure if maybe its my MB graphics or not. I figured my mb should be good enough to play these games. It is a early June 09 model. And is it possible to upgrade my graphics card on my mb or no?
THanks
Here are my specs

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCI
VRAM (Total): 256 MB

Aptmunich · May 14, 2010

LogicBox said:
So I was playing portal on my mac book, and was wondering normally you should see what the other portal is looking at, at least thats the way it was on pc. You could see through to the other portal see whats on the other side I mean. But I can for some reason, not sure if maybe its my MB graphics or not. I figured my mb should be good enough to play these games. It is a early June 09 model. And is it possible to upgrade my graphics card on my mb or no?
THanks
Here are my specs

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCI
VRAM (Total): 256 MB

That's an option that can be changed via the graphic preferences ("portal depth"). I have a similar macbook and it works fine.

You need to have fired both portals obviously though...

LogicBox · May 14, 2010

What is yoru portal Depth set to? I think mine was 2
Thanks

southpawz505 · May 14, 2010

Go here. I just downloaded it yesterday and was having the same exact issue you are. This fixed it for me.

Portals do not show what is behind them, (Mac issue?) - Steam Users' Forums

LogicBox · May 14, 2010

Ok so after digging throught he 3 differnt links from that link, it told me to add -windowed to the start up. Did that and now its works even when i go back to full screen. Right now I am taking that off to see if it will let me go straight in the game and still work now. Also anyone got any idea about why Steam crashes when you get out of a game and it looks like its trying to sync least that is what the library window has shown me and steam just dissapears.

Edit: Ok took-windowed off, and the portals went black again, guess I will just have to start out in window'ed mode anyways.

southpawz505 · May 14, 2010

LogicBox said:
Ok so after digging throught he 3 differnt links from that link, it told me to add -windowed to the start up. Did that and now its works even when i go back to full screen. Right now I am taking that off to see if it will let me go straight in the game and still work now. Also anyone got any idea about why Steam crashes when you get out of a game and it looks like its trying to sync least that is what the library window has shown me and steam just dissapears.

Edit: Ok took-windowed off, and the portals went black again, guess I will just have to start out in window'ed mode anyways.

Apologies, I should have just given you the link directly to the fix, but I wanted you to see the exact thread I found on the Steam forums. I found that I have to do the same exact thing. It goes right back to the black portals when you start it in fullscreen, so it looks like for now you have to start it in windowed if you want to see through them.

Anyway, I wouldn't be too concerned about the buggy things going on. They don't really seem like anything major. Steam/Portal for Mac were just released 2 days ago, so there are going to be some little quirks with it. I've experienced the same crashing of Steam you have. Not really much we can do other than wait for updates that fix the bugs.

Yffum · May 15, 2010

Good news, Steam just made a Portal update fixing the problem, no need to open in windowed mode anymore!