[Mac] Full Screen Mode and Screen Edge Scrolling

[Anarath]

Hi there,

 

this is about a VERY annoying behavior that involves the Full Screen Mode (of macOS) and the option to use Screen Edge Scrolling.

 

 

Description:

 

When you start the game it will obviously start in Full Screen Mode. Which is to be expected and wished. Sadly macOS handles full screen apps differently for quiet some years now. This involves the fact that moving your mouse to the bottom or top of the screen will trigger the dock or menu bar of macOS.

 

This is absolutely annoying, breaks immersion and not only screws up scrolling but also creates lags/stutters when the systems UI elements appear.

 

 

Steps to reproduce the issue:

 

1. Have a Mac

2. Start up PoE2

3. Make sure you are in full screen (and have Screen Edge Scrolling activated in the game options (though you can see the issue even without that being active))

4. Move your mouse to the top and bottom corners of the screen while being in the main menu of the game

5. Load a game and use the mouse for scrolling around the world at top and bottom corners of the screen

 

 

Possible workarounds:

 

In my search for a solution I came across quiet a lot of complaints about multiple applications using the Full Screen Mode of macOS.

But only two 'workarounds' could've been found.

 

1. Some people might say the problem can be solved by adding the LSUIPresentationMode key with a value of '3' or '4' to the games .plist file.

This does actually work for the dock but NOT for the menu bar.

 

2. For the menu bar I found this: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/70985/make-the-menu-bar-never-show-while-in-full-screen

The last entry on the bottom describes a way to get rid of the said behavior by an executable script.

I did that and it works just fine - except for the mentioned problem of the application not being shown in the Command+Tab menu.

 

System specs:

macOS Sierra (10.12.6)
Mac Pro (mid 2010)
2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
8 GB 1066 MHz DDR3

Radeon RX 560 4GB GDDR5 (Ya, that works. Like a charm.)

 

 

 

I do really hope you will integrate a solution to this since I can't imagine being the only person thats annoyed by having the menu bar or dock hoping up whenever the mouse cursor hits the top or bottom corner of the screen.

 

[robone]

I have the same issue. I upgraded to macOS High Sierra from Yosemite just for the purpose of being able to play Deadfire. This issue did not occur when I played PoE under Yosemite.

 

Thanks for the pointers towards a solution!

 

Edit:

 

I now have added

<key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
<integer>3</integer>

to the Info.plist of the application bundle. So far, it successfully hides both the top menu bar and the dock when using edge scrolling or otherwise hitting the screen edges while the game is in fullscreen mode.

 

Seems to be working for me.

Edited May 14, 2018 by robone

[gr8fuldave]

This issue is very annoying.  I am also experiencing it on my iMac (10.11) 3.2 Ghz 8MB RAM Radeon R9 M380 2048 MB. I wonder if this is part of the reason the game is so sluggish 

[Anarath]

I have the same issue. I upgraded to macOS High Sierra from Yosemite just for the purpose of being able to play Deadfire. This issue did not occur when I played PoE under Yosemite.

 

Thanks for the pointers towards a solution!

 

Edit:

 

I now have added

<key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
<integer>3</integer>

to the Info.plist of the application bundle. So far, it successfully hides both the top menu bar and the dock when using edge scrolling or otherwise hitting the screen edges while the game is in fullscreen mode.

 

Seems to be working for me.

 

Great the tips were helpful to you

 

This issue is very annoying.  I am also experiencing it on my iMac (10.11) 3.2 Ghz 8MB RAM Radeon R9 M380 2048 MB. I wonder if this is part of the reason the game is so sluggish 

 

 

You might be right about that. Even with my implementation of the second workaround (since the first isn't doing the job for me) the game still lags when the mouse cursor hits the top corner of the screen. As if its trying to pop up the menu bar. Actually when I let the cursor stay for a few second on the top corner and then go to the bottom corner, the dock appears for some reason. So the workarounds are no real solutions to the problem at all.

 

From my point of view we need a real fullscreen integration to get rid of these sluggish behaviors. Apples fullscreen option is just awful for games and shouldn't be used.

[bsolar]

There was a lenghty discussion in World of Warcraft when they attempted some changes and I think some points might be interesting in the discussion for Deadfire too: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20758896817

 

Fundamentally from what I understand from the whole issue:

 

- Most players want Windowed Fullscreen: namely the ability to still use Mission Control to quickly switch back and forth from game. PoE1 lacks this capability and players have to resort to switching back and forth from fullscreen to windowed. I find it not good enough compared to Mission Control.

- Windowed Fullscreen means the game window resolution must be exactly the same as the native resolution. If the screen is 2880x1800, the game window must have a 2880x1800 resolution.

- For performance reasons this is not always ideal, so the game should be able to render internally at a lower resolution even if the game resolution is higher. WoW provides a “Render Scale” option to configure this.

- If the render scale is too low, the game appears blurry/jagged even if the game window is at full resolution. A good compromise allows the best of both worlds, with sharp game graphics and text and reasonable performance.

 

As example my WoW configuration is Windowed Fullscreen on a MacBook Pro 15” with Render Scale 0.7: the game window is managed by Mission Control and is a fullscreen window running at native resolution 2880x1800, but the game internally renders at 0.7 of that, 2016x1260, making performance good enough but still providing sharp graphics and text. The game has no menu, dock nor window decoration but I can still 4-finger gesture mission control or swap away from it.

 

TL;DR: If any change has to be made I’d like Deadfire to take inspiration from WoW’s Windowed Fullscreen implementation.

Edited May 15, 2018 by bsolar

[robone]

I said it seems to be working for me. That's true... until I command-tab out of PoE2. After coming back into the fullscreen game, the dock and top menu will appear when I hit the screen edges.

 

So, the workaround is okay for me for now, but I'd also still be interested in a longer term solution ;-)

[thefailureartist]

I'm having the same problem and it's kinda inhibiting the gameplay.

[jesterxl]

Thanks Anarath, putting those options in the plist worked.

 

Just note, they need to go into the game's plist, not the shortcut (whoops, heh). Find this via your game in Steam via Right clicking > Properties, Local Files Tab, then Browse Local Files, then right click > Show Package Contents, then Contents > Info.plist

[Cdiaz]

Hi All,

 

Thanks for the information! Ill get this info added so we know to try these steps for mac users

 

Best,

 

-Caleb