Alice on MacOS

Not precisely a bug...

* Why does Alice start using 100% of one of my CPU cores, start running the cooling fan, etc. when it's doing absolutely nothing, not running anything?
* Why is Alice so slow on MacOSX? When I just have 2 objects doing something every 0.25 sec, already Alice grinds to a crawl and can't keep up.

I've got a recent Intel Mac, Alice 2.2, MacOSX10.6.7.
Perhaps Alice is really only designed for Windows? Or is there something I can do to make the Mac port work better?

Thanks Phil Nelson

[David B]

The problem sounds like it is with your computer, and not with Alice. I have no idea what a CPU core is, but if you tell me, perhaps, I'll be able to help.

[debussybunny563]

Originally Posted by pcn

Not precisely a bug...

* Why does Alice start using 100% of one of my CPU cores, start running the cooling fan, etc. when it's doing absolutely nothing, not running anything?
* Why is Alice so slow on MacOSX? When I just have 2 objects doing something every 0.25 sec, already Alice grinds to a crawl and can't keep up.

I've got a recent Intel Mac, Alice 2.2, MacOSX10.6.7.
Perhaps Alice is really only designed for Windows? Or is there something I can do to make the Mac port work better?

Thanks Phil Nelson

Not much you can do to make it better. Alice is very memory-intensive (even so on Windows) without doing much. I guess it's just the nature of the program.

Keep in mind it's not professional by any means, so it's not perfect. Perhaps Alice 3.0 will be less intensive.

And yes, it was originally designed just for Windows, so many features may be more buggy on a Mac.


Sorry, but there's not much you can do.

DavidB: The Intel Macs have multiple CPUs, called "cores." Mine displays 4 little bars when you run Activity Monitor.
Right after opening Alice, before doing anything at all, Activity Monitor reports that Alice is using "93% of CPU." Two of those four bars are about halfway up. The CPU gets hot; the cooling fan comes on. Alice is doing a whole lot of thinking about ... what?

Debussybunny: Actually Alice is not using all that much memory, 126MB out of 4GB. Alice is just... thinking about something.

DavidB: Not just my computer. I installed it on another Mac, same behavior.

[debussybunny563]

Originally Posted by pcn

Debussybunny: Actually Alice is not using all that much memory, 126MB out of 4GB. Alice is just... thinking about something.

My laptop heats up like crazy when I'm running my worlds lol

I can't check Task Manager because its blocked for me (I'm admin 0.o-dunno what's going on; regedit is blocked for me too), so I can't check how much it's using on my comp.

[David B]

Originally Posted by pcn

DavidB: The Intel Macs have multiple CPUs, called "cores." Mine displays 4 little bars when you run Activity Monitor.
Right after opening Alice, before doing anything at all, Activity Monitor reports that Alice is using "93% of CPU." Two of those four bars are about halfway up. The CPU gets hot; the cooling fan comes on. Alice is doing a whole lot of thinking about ... what?

Debussybunny: Actually Alice is not using all that much memory, 126MB out of 4GB. Alice is just... thinking about something.

DavidB: Not just my computer. I installed it on another Mac, same behavior.

Well, obviously Alice (or another application you may have open/running in the background) is doing something that you don't know about. I don't have a Mac, so unless it is also on PCs, I don't know what it is you are talking about.

[David B]

Originally Posted by debussybunny563

My laptop heats up like crazy when I'm running my worlds lol

I can't check Task Manager because its blocked for me (I'm admin 0.o-dunno what's going on; regedit is blocked for me too), so I can't check how much it's using on my comp.

This may seem like a dumb suggestion, but I believe that Ubuntu has something similar to task manager on it. Boot up your computer using a CD that has Ubuntu on it, and try running Alice using it instead. The only problem you may have doing this is a compatibility issue.

[debussybunny563]

Naw. Too much work just to check how much CPU Alice is using.

[David B]

Originally Posted by debussybunny563

Naw. Too much work just to check how much CPU Alice is using.

That was sort of the answer I was expecting, but I just wanted to see if you would be willing to try it.

[arty-fishL]

Originally Posted by debussybunny563

Regedit is blocked for me too

Do what is suggested on this website. Then you can modify the registry values. This happened to me, a stupid program disabled all sorts of stuff (like everything on CTRL-ALT-DELETE, task manager, regedit, shutdown buttons ...).