[2.0.60] Black screen on old mac using metal
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2025 11:23 am
What did you do?
I switched to the Metal backend and restarted the game.
What happens?
The screen goes completely black on startup except for the system cursor. Steam FPS counter also doesn't show. The startup jingle plays, and after nominal loading time (or possibly a bit quicker than usual?) the menu music starts playing and I can hear the sounds from the background simulations. I can click menu buttons and see the cursor occasionally change into a hand as I move it around the screen. My fans also don't ramp up nearly as much.
From this and looking at the log it seems the game loads successfully and is unaware that anything is amiss. It technically works it just doesn't render/display anything.
What did you expect to happen instead?
Be able to see the lovely Factorio textures on my screen.
Does it happen always, once, or sometimes?
Always when Metal backend is enabled, never when OpenGL backend is enabled. I fiddled around with some other settings which seemed to have no effect.
The main suspect
The way I see it there are two possible reasons why this happens:
1. There is a bug
2. Factorio may require Metal 3 support, but my older computer only supports Metal 2
If it's the second case, again there are two solutions:
1. Make Factorio Metal 2 compatible
2. Disable the option to select Metal backend on Macs that don't support Metal 3
I switched to the Metal backend and restarted the game.
What happens?
The screen goes completely black on startup except for the system cursor. Steam FPS counter also doesn't show. The startup jingle plays, and after nominal loading time (or possibly a bit quicker than usual?) the menu music starts playing and I can hear the sounds from the background simulations. I can click menu buttons and see the cursor occasionally change into a hand as I move it around the screen. My fans also don't ramp up nearly as much.
From this and looking at the log it seems the game loads successfully and is unaware that anything is amiss. It technically works it just doesn't render/display anything.
What did you expect to happen instead?
Be able to see the lovely Factorio textures on my screen.
Does it happen always, once, or sometimes?
Always when Metal backend is enabled, never when OpenGL backend is enabled. I fiddled around with some other settings which seemed to have no effect.
The main suspect
The way I see it there are two possible reasons why this happens:
1. There is a bug
2. Factorio may require Metal 3 support, but my older computer only supports Metal 2
If it's the second case, again there are two solutions:
1. Make Factorio Metal 2 compatible
2. Disable the option to select Metal backend on Macs that don't support Metal 3