[2.0.60] Loading sprites takes very long on MacOS

[floxyz_2]

When trying to start Factorio Space Age, loading the sprites on my M1 Pro Mac takes a very long time, up to a few hours (I let it run once to see if it actually finishes. Afterwards I quit Factorio and started it again and the loading times did not improve).
The loading bar starts fast and comes to a crawl at around 55 %.

I did not start Factorio since earlier this year, but it never took this long before.

Things I tried and which made no difference:
- Reboot the system
- Reinstall Factorio
- Start Factorio with --cache-sprite-atlas to true and false.

Any ideas what I can try or any other log files I could provide?

[Loewchen]

Try switching the graphics backend from opengl to metal or vv. If you cannot launch the game you can edit the config file, make sure you read its header for instructions.

[floxyz_2]

Thank you very much.
While I did not find the appropriate switch in the config.ini, I was able to start Factorio with the --force-metal flag and it only took a few seconds to load the sprites. Then I was able to change the setting in-game and remove the flag again.

Strange that one of the versions had such a performance impace on the OpenGL graphic backend.

[Rseding91]

There were some changes to the “render in native resolution” default which for Mac’s can have a significant impact on performance.

[floxyz_2]

I see, thank you for the explanation.

[nonrectangular]

Not sure it's the same issue, but I've been seeing very long load times on macOS after updating mods, and then restarting Factorio by clicking Confirm from the mods page.

If I manually quit Factorio, and then restart (from Steam), it then loads quite fast.
It's hard to say for sure, but it seems like the Game Mode popup is not occurring on reload, whereas it does popup on manual start. Could be related.

After encountering this issue, I've tried switching to the Metal backend from OpenGL.
For now, it's loading fast for me. I'll post back here if I see long reload times again with the Metal backend, too.

Factorio [2.0.60]
macOS Sequoia 15.5 (24F74)
Apple M1 Pro 32 GB

[nonrectangular]

FWIW, after updating some mods, it seems to exhibit the same slow behavior even when using the Metal backend.