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[2.0.73][mac] Sprite loading takes 450 sec on M2; 40 sec on M1

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[2.0.73][mac] Sprite loading takes 450 sec on M2; 40 sec on M1

Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2026 8:02 pm
by macfreek
Hi,

After about a year of hiatus, I decided to take another shot at Gleba and see if I can finish the game.
Unfortunately, on my desktop Mac, the loading time of the game is very long, something I don't recall from the past.

The "Loading sprites..." step on the load screen takes about 450 seconds on my desktop (Mac mini 2023, M2 Pro CPU, 32 GB memory, macOS 15.7.3).

Instead, my older laptop loads a lot faster (and are roughly the load times I remember from last year):
The "Loading sprites..." step on the load screen takes about 40 seconds on my laptop (MacBook Pro 2021, M1 Pro CPU, 16 GB memory, macOS 15.7.3).

I can't see why the desktop is so slow. I'm running Space Age with only the default mods (quality, elevated rails, space age), no other mods. My blueprint library is a bit large, but exactly the same on both machines (blue prints and save games are Steam synced).

I've attached 4 "factorio-current.log" boot log files: The graphic settings in the last boot log were:

Code: Select all

[graphics]
graphics-quality=normal
texture-compression-level=low-quality
video-memory-usage=all
max-texture-size=4096
gpu-accelerated-compression=false
gpu-accelerated-mipmap-compression=false
cache-sprite-atlas=false
lights-render-quality=0.25
For all other boot logs, the graphics section in config.ini only had default values; all config options were commented out.

In addition to the two settings above attempts to fix it, I also noticed some v1 mods in the mods folder in the same directory as the factorio-current.log. Even though all were disabled, I moved them to some other place to check if that did not cause the slow load times.

Unfortunately, neither attempt to resolve it had any effect. The boot time remains ±450 seconds on my desktop Mac.

Once the game is booted, it plays just fine.

Re: [2.0.73][mac] Sprite loading takes 450 sec on M2; 40 sec on M1

Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2026 9:11 pm
by Bilka
Not an expert at Mac/graphics at all, but "Initial atlas bitmap size is 4096" looks suspicious in the slow logs, try setting it (max-texture-size) higher, like 16384. It may be helpful to just load the game and press reset in the graphics options, normally the game should be clever enough to select the ideal options.

Re: [2.0.73][mac] Sprite loading takes 450 sec on M2; 40 sec on M1

Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2026 10:10 pm
by StrangePan
In addition to changing max-texture-size= 16384 (max for M2), please make sure to enable gpu-accelerated-compression=true and
gpu-accelerated-mipmap-compression=true. Otherwise, the CPU is performing all the sprite compression instead of the GPU, and that takes a very long time for Space Age!

Re: [2.0.73][mac] Sprite loading takes 450 sec on M2; 40 sec on M1

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2026 2:36 am
by macfreek
Hi Bilka and StrangePan,

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, they did not fix the issue.
Bilka wrote: Mon Feb 09, 2026 9:11 pm Not an expert at Mac/graphics at all, but "Initial atlas bitmap size is 4096" looks suspicious in the slow logs, try setting it (max-texture-size) higher, like 16384. It may be helpful to just load the game and press reset in the graphics options, normally the game should be clever enough to select the ideal options.
Where did you see the "Initial atlas bitmap size is 4096"? In both factorio-current-slow.log and factorio-current-fast.log it is reported as 16384. It was indeed set to 4096 in the two other attempts, because 4096 was explicitly suggested in the topic Solving common graphic issues. Unfortunately, it did not help. I should have been more explicitly that I already followed some early debug as suggested on this forum.

After the failed test, I've removed the custom config and reverted to defaults. As I expected the problem remains.
StrangePan wrote: Mon Feb 09, 2026 10:10 pm In addition to changing max-texture-size= 16384 (max for M2), please make sure to enable gpu-accelerated-compression=true and
gpu-accelerated-mipmap-compression=true. Otherwise, the CPU is performing all the sprite compression instead of the GPU, and that takes a very long time for Space Age!
As above, the only reason to turn GPU compression off, was because that was suggested in the topic Solving common graphic issues. Both on my desktop and laptop, they're normally on as reported in both factorio-current-slow.log and factorio-current-fast.log:

Code: Select all

  19.848 Texture processor created (4096). GPU accelerated compression Supported: yes, Enabled: yes/yes. Test passed. YCoCgDXT PSNR: 35.83, BC3 PSNR: 33.82
To be sure, I did add these three lines in the config.ini, but sadly, the result was still a slow load time (430 secs).

Re: [2.0.73][mac] Sprite loading takes 450 sec on M2; 40 sec on M1

Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2026 6:00 pm
by StrangePan
macfreek wrote: Tue Feb 10, 2026 2:36 am Where did you see the "Initial atlas bitmap size is 4096"? In both factorio-current-slow.log and factorio-current-fast.log it is reported as 16384. It was indeed set to 4096 in the two other attempts, because 4096 was explicitly suggested in the topic Solving common graphic issues. Unfortunately, it did not help. I should have been more explicitly that I already followed some early debug as suggested on this forum.

After the failed test, I've removed the custom config and reverted to defaults. As I expected the problem remains.
Ah, my bad, I should have checked your logs more closely. It seems the obvious options are configured correctly on the M2 machine. So let’s try to dive deeper. We only have M1 Macs here, so any additional information you can provide will be useful.
  • What’s the total memory usage on the desktop Mac while loading Factorio?
  • Are you running any other GPU-intensive jobs in the background, such as a crypto miner, a virtual machine, or rendering a video?
  • Are you running any special management software, such as software for managing windows or multiple displays?
  • How are your two displays connected to your Mac? (HDMI, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, something else, or some combination?)
  • Is Factorio installed on your internal SSD?
If you’re willing to try, there’s a couple things I’d be curious about:
  • What happens if only one of your displays is connected when you load the game?
Again, any additional info you can provide will be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Re: [2.0.73][mac] Sprite loading takes 450 sec on M2; 40 sec on M1

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2026 12:41 am
by macfreek
@StrangePan, I owe you one! You asked exactly the right questions.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the root cause does not seem to involve Factorio.

The bad news is that my external SSD might be dying.

I moved Factorio to my internal SSD, which took a very long time, which made me suspicious. For good measures I killed a back-up program that was (very slowly) running in the background, and rebooted my Mac with the external SSD disconnected. After that the sprites loaded in ±20 seconds.

Obviously great news for the boot time of Factorio, but I might be checking some backups coming days instead of playing Factorio.
Absolutely LOTS of kudos to you ❤️🙏🫡 for asking that last question (is it installed on an internal SSD?).

Re: [2.0.73][mac] Sprite loading takes 450 sec on M2; 40 sec on M1

Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2026 9:29 am
by StrangePan
macfreek wrote: Wed Feb 11, 2026 12:41 am I moved Factorio to my internal SSD, which took a very long time, which made me suspicious. For good measures I killed a back-up program that was (very slowly) running in the background, and rebooted my Mac with the external SSD disconnected. After that the sprites loaded in ±20 seconds.
Awesome, glad we found the cause! Good luck backing up your drive.
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