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Running this game on a Mac
dishonestbro
Member Posts: 9
It has always been possible to some how find a way to either install or play some Windows based software or game. Does anyone know what would be the easiest way and the probably best performancing way to run SW:TOR on a Mac?
Comments
I think I saw some thread referencing MAC. I think they said something about runnin MAC in some sort of 'windows' compatibility mode. I don't really remember, but I know that it was mentioned before.
I self identify as a monkey.
some people reported success with bootcamp, but its not supported any way at all and there were some reports of lag.
I think theres some kind of mac app called 'crossover' or something, if not you could try wine. I can't really think of what else. Im debating buying an imac or making a 'hackintosh', its quite a shame there aren't more games that are native to mac.
i think what i saw was it will run on bootcamp on mac computers. But there is no mac client. .
Word. I have a iMac myself and a PC, however I am so dissapointed that games like this do not get supported by Mac. I love my iMac and want Star Wars on that instead of the PC, as my Mac probably would be better at running it, lol.
That way is usually referred to as "using a Windows PC"
Installing Windows via Bootcamp will honestly be your best option, but I can understand not wanting to shell out for an additional OS.
Crossover Games is another option, I'm not sure how they fare when it comes to TOR though. http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxgames/
Edit: Here are the TOR-related forums for crossover games: http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=7626;forum=1
Unofficial Oceanic PvP server: The Swiftsure
Unofficial Oceanic PvE server: The Harbinger
Both the wife and I will be playing on Macs.
I will be running the game through Parallels in a Windows 7 Virtual Machine.
My wife will be running the game through Bootcamp with Windows 7.
Macs are plenty capable of playing the game, just depends on your system and how 'integrated' you want the experience to be. Doing things in a VM (Virtual Machine) requires a beast of a computer, but will give the greatest 'Like Native App' feeling to the game.
Where as BootCamp is basically partitioning your hard drive (or using a 2nd one) as a Windows Partition, allowing you to boot your computer directly into Windows to play the game. Acts just like a Windows PC, but on Apple Hardware.
Hey TSW Players http://www.unfair.co/ for Mission guides, Lore Locations and stuff....
the game wont work under crossover games as of the last beta weekend.
I just patched the wifes client using crossover games and the launcher has a couple bugs fixed with it so hopefully this build it will run
so far i could only get it to its launch splash screen where it haults. well see this week if it runs or not. theres a trial for crossover games, i suggest trying it ou
You dont need bootcamp any more to install Windows, you had to use it to run XP and VISTA that did not had UEFI support...
Just install it in a dual boot option, next time dont waste money on overpriced hardware in a pretty shell, you can buy a high-end gaming laptop for the price of an average MBP with much better hardware and software support...
You can also use wine(atleast the payed MacOS ripoff of it) to run it under MacOS.
Cheers for the answers mates. Going to try it on my PC first and see how it will handle the game compared to how it went when playing beta. Wasn't satisfied about its performance at all. Then I'll try install W7 I guess. Although my Mac doesn't have that big of a HDD I suppose just installing Windows 7 and SW:TOR wouldn't slow down the whole computer too much.
Was running the beta beautifully on my IMAC in windows 7 using bootcamp. Had everything maxed except shadows and ground clutter and was still pulling in around 40-50 fps. Not bad for a computer from 09.
Sounds pretty sweet. Any chance you can post your iMac's specs?
And price! Post the price of the hardware.
I played the beta on my macbook pro through bootcamp (I have windows xp 32bit) and it worked fine. Barely any lag and I ran it well on a mixture of medium and high settings. It's really easy to install windows through bootcamp and there are instructions you can follow and print out once you start it up. Just gotta make sure you make the partition big enough so there is sufficient disk space for the games you want to run.
Sounds pretty sweet. Any chance you can post your iMac's specs?
And price! Post the price of the hardware.
Not relevant.Its a Quad core 860 2.8GHz i7 CPU with 16gigs of ram running on a ATI 4850 graphics card...thats the only bad thing lol....I know the ram is overkill but hell its the only thing you can upgrade on an imac haha. Not sure how much I payed for it back in 08 or 09.
I'd be very surprised to see better performance running it with || than bootcamp. Not because of your machine but becuase of || performance. Swtor isn't all that demanding either but It's worth a shot I guess.
If it works well enough that would be a great option for those who can shell of for || and understand how to use it.
Note: For anyone wanting to use the iMac however, I would suggest trying bootcamp first.
##Best SWTOR of 2011
Posted by I_Return - SWTOR - "Forget the UI the characters and all ofhe nitpicking bullshit" "Greatest MMO Ever Created"
##Fail Thread Title of 2011
Originally posted by daveospice
"this game looks like crap?"
I thought Alienware Laptops were expensive. Was just customizing an M18x on their site. Came out to around 3000 dollars.
Then I went and customized a MacBook Pro on Apple's site. It was easy to get the price up to there, but the customizing options were severely limited by comparison, and the options that were present were inferior hardware by far compared to the same priced Alienware. There was no 1600mhz or 1866mhz RAM that I could find, nor even an option to change graphics chip. The Alienware I had previously thought to be overpriced.
Pretty shocking to me what Apple can get people to buy!
If you want a laptop for gaming then you don't want a MacBoook Pro. You would be better of with any number of 1k laptops for gaming from Dell and some others. If you pay 3K for an Alienware laptop you have it to waste and woulde be wasteing money.
##Best SWTOR of 2011
Posted by I_Return - SWTOR - "Forget the UI the characters and all ofhe nitpicking bullshit" "Greatest MMO Ever Created"
##Fail Thread Title of 2011
Originally posted by daveospice
"this game looks like crap?"
Oh, I agree with you. The point I was trying to make though, is that if two things are the same price, why not get the one that performs better and is more customizable?
If you use Boot Camp to install Windows 7 on a Mac, then it can run Windows games natively because it is a PC. That would leave insufficiently powerful hardware as the only concern, and unless the Mac is either very old, a Mac Mini, or a MacBook Air, it should be able to run the game at modest settings.
Apple's business model is to sell mid-range hardware in a slick form factor with a high end price tag. That's not a good value for the money proposition, but mid-range hardware means that games should run.
Understood. I will say this. Are you paying more than you should? You bet, are you paying for the Apple logo, you bet. Are you paying extra because the price point is what Apple lovers will stand, you betcha.
It's a a crazy world for sure.
##Best SWTOR of 2011
Posted by I_Return - SWTOR - "Forget the UI the characters and all ofhe nitpicking bullshit" "Greatest MMO Ever Created"
##Fail Thread Title of 2011
Originally posted by daveospice
"this game looks like crap?"
This link may help. There is also a thread on the official Syar wars forums on running SWTOR on a Mac, but the forums are down as of this writing but should be up on Tuesday 12/13/11 at some point. Sorry I can't give a link there.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4568121#4568121
I will repeat my answer on that thread:
I can't vouch for SWTOR per se, but I ran Windows XP on my 2008 Mac Pro and am now running Windows 7 on my 2010 Mac Pro and I never had a problem playing any PC game on either rig. Basically, the Mac is capable of running Windows natively. Boot camp is not emulation mode as some might suspect. You can even run Windows on a Mac without Boot Camp. For all intents and purposes when you put Windows on a Mac you have a machine that is the equivalent of any PC with comparble hardware. Boot Camp is really nothing more than a set of drivers that among other things lets you use a Mac Keyboard with Windows, access Mac volumes and a few other things. It is not some emulation software like Parallels which lets you run Windows simultaneously with OSX on your mac.
So long as your Mac meets the minimum specs published by Bioware for this game (and assuming those specs are accurate) you should have no problem running this game on Mac. If you do have a Mac Pro, I would suggest just buying another hard drive and installing Windows 7 on that rather than partitioning your existing drive to creat a Windows volume. SATA drives were as cheap as dirt but the prices might be higher now due to the Thailand flooding.
EDIT:
THAT BEING SAID, NOW COMES THE TRICKY PART:
In order to maximize your system's RAM, you need to be running Windows 7 64 bit. If you use the 32-bit version you will not be able to use more than 3gb RAM on your Mac, possibly less. In order to install Windows 7 64-bit on your system, you will either need Snow Leopard or Boot Camp 3.x which comes with it. If you have Leopard, the old Boot Camp 2.x might be able to install 64-bit systems, but it won't run with them. You can obtain Boot camp 3.x from "alternate sources" if you search around, but you can't download it from Apple. Just install Windows 7 on a partition or extra drive using leopard's Boot Camp, copy the 3.x drivers on to your Windows 7 partition and update the Boot Camp 2.x drivers from there. Remember you can run Windows 7 without Boot Camp but the keyboard and other Mac-specific items and software may not work properly. You should be able to install Boot Camp using your existing Mac keyboard and mouse, though.
If you already have Snow leopard or Lion you are good to go as far as Boot Camp is concerned. Just make sure you get a 64-bit version of Windows 7. This is absolutely critical.