Jump to content

Running on Intel Mac?


Recommended Posts

The Macbook Pro (The Powerbook name has been dropped, along with the iBook name) has a good graphics chip for a notebook, ATI x1600 with 256MB VARM, should be more than enough when running in XP SP2 (you need XP with SP2 for bootcamp which is just a boot loader, after that Windows runs natively) on the machine.

You may be thinking of the Macbook which has integrated Intel graphics 950 with 64MB VRAM, IMO I don't think CM would work very well with that chip set, but until someone tests CM on one of those setups its almost impossible to say.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Mike,

I'm using a macbook pro and both CMBB and CMAK run quite well. Smoke effects are well supported on the radeon card and the games run faster than ever before.

I'm pretty sure a macbook will run it provided you supply 1 gig of ram instead of the provided 512.

Albert

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by labrador:

Hi Mike,

I'm using a macbook pro and both CMBB and CMAK run quite well. Smoke effects are well supported on the radeon card and the games run faster than ever before.

I'm pretty sure a macbook will run it provided you supply 1 gig of ram instead of the provided 512.

Albert

Albert

Are you running the PC versions under Windose XP and Bootcamp or the Mac versions in classic ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what I've seen in the support forum over the years CM doesn't work that well on intigrated garphics, period, and the GMA950 on the Macbook and Mac Mini is hindered by having shared memory too boot. If you want to play any games on those machines make sure you have at least 1GB of physical RAM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A mac version makes sense for BFC in that they have been highly critical of the current games industry that increasing mirrors Hollywood block busters.

It's all about effects rather than depth, and all the money is made on the first weekend. BFC is more " art house' which seeks to create a fan base by word of mouth and experience, and see CM more like " The Shawshank Redemption" than "X Men, last stand".

Thus direct sale (and now digital download), creating a community which is fairly open and depth of play have been placed above flashing graphics and huge marketing.

Given that there is a strong "Mac Community" which in some ways exhibits the same characteristics, emphasising Quality and Design, over Price or Quantity, the two should fit quite well.

I've often said that BFC should try to Bundle CM:SF with new intel Macs, as this would create a fan base among Mac users that would create an on going demand for future modules.

Obviously Apple drive notoriously hard bargins, but if the key to the CM future strategy is a platfrom for a wide range of future periods and updates, then a loss leader on the platform might be worth the risk.

Peter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd say that, if one were to become available, bundling a playable demo would be a huge coup for BFC. That said, simply having a well featured link to a demo on the apple webpage could do a lot to bolster support for this game in the mac community. While overall macs are of course not a very significant percentage of the home computer market, mac users tend to spend a lot of money, so hopefully some of it would go BFCs way. That said I no longer run any PCs at home so my reasons for pushing CM:SF on the mac are totally selfish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by Pzman:

From what I've seen in the support forum over the years CM doesn't work that well on intigrated garphics, period, and the GMA950 on the Macbook and Mac Mini is hindered by having shared memory too boot. If you want to play any games on those machines make sure you have at least 1GB of physical RAM.

Even integrated graphics evolve. Sure, the GMA950 isn't impressive compared to the current mobile GPU's, but the benchmarks I've seen indicate that it would be able to run the CM games decently.

The shared memory thing is becoming less of an issue too as long as you use paired RAM-sticks (2x512 Mb or 2x1 Gb).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not in the case of the Macbook, or any other Core Duo powered machine since news came out about a week ago that it doesn't even take advantage of paired RAM sticks.

Considering that the GMA950 doesn't even match the Radeon 8500 (from 2001) in terms of preformance, yes it wil run CM, but how well only time will tell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not in the case of the Macbook, or any other Core Duo powered machine since news came out about a week ago that it doesn't even take advantage of paired RAM sticks.
Really? Apple's website claims that the MacBook and MacBook Pro will take advantage of paired memory configurations (same size in both slots).

The iMac and Mac mini don't have any such claims, however.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All current Intel Macs have dual-channel memory. You get some performance improvement (a few percent according to a test I read I while ago) if you have matched memory sticks.

Nice feature, but more memory is better than matched memory (if you can't afford to max both ram slots).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dual channel performance is hit and miss, seems to be different for many apps, ie Q3 apparently benefits a lot (20fps+) but Doom 3 shows little difference (2-3 fps). I think barefeats.com has the benches.

And yes, more memory is still better then matched memory in these machines.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, I have CMBO up and running under BootCamp but cannot get a right button effect with the trackpad. I have installed the Apple Mouse Utility (which should provide a workaround, but seems to do nothing.)

Obviously someone has the answer: I would love to hear from them

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shift + F10 will get you there...

and here's a link to a cool input mapper..

http://www.olofsson.info/

it will give you fn + left click for a right click.

or this site gives you ctrl + click for a right click...

http://www.geocities.com/pronto4u/applemouse.html

I have an intel mini I use a lot and love it along with boot camp. I'm hoping for a MacBook or Pro in the near future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

This is a very interesting development:

CodeWeavers has announced plans to release CrossOver Mac this summer. The $60 software will allow Intel Mac users to run Windows applications — including some games — without having to buy or install Windows itself.

Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop both provide this capability for Intel Mac owners already — Boot Camp, software from Apple currently available in beta form, makes users reboot their Macs and run Windows. Parallels Desktop is a “virtualization” utility that enables the Windows operating system and Windows applications to run in Mac OS X, within another window (or, alternately, in full screen mode).

CrossOver Mac will take this one step further — it eschews what CodeWeavers Chief Operating Officer Jon Parshall calls the “box within a box approach.”

“What you see running is an application sitting in your Dock or your Applications folder,” Parshall told Macworld.

Both Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop work because the new Macs utilize the same microprocessor that’s found in Windows-compatible computer, and CrossOver Mac employs the same basic principle. This wasn’t possible before January, when Macs depended solely on PowerPC-based microprocessors made by IBM and Freescale. The presence of an Intel processor inside the Mac forges a close enough resemblance to get Windows and Windows applications to work.

Although Boot Camp is free and Parallels Desktop is reasonably priced, both software applications require an expensive copy of Windows in order to work — and that’s the biggest benefit for CrossOver Mac. It works without having Windows installed all together, thanks to the underlying code that powers the software.

WINE-powered

CrossOver Mac is based on the same core technology that powers CodeWeavers’ Linux-based offering — an open-source project called WINE. WINE — a self-referencing acronym that stands for “WINE Is Not An Emulator” — is a compatibility layer that provides alternate implementations of the code referenced by Windows applications in order to work. CodeWeavers uses publicly available versions of WINE in order to develop the CrossOver product, and contributes its code changes back to the WINE project, according to Parshall.

Applications running on CrossOver Mac will offer performance comparable to apps running natively on Windows, according to Parshall, with all the same capabilities and functionality as they would if you were running Windows.

CodeWeavers’ specific focus is getting CrossOver to run commonly used business applications, he said. Right now the company’s Linux product runs Microsoft Office applications, Access, Project, Vision, Lotus Notes, Quicken, FrameMaker and other products.

Gaming possibilities

Gamers have a strong interest in Boot Camp, as it allows them to play games that won’t run natively on Mac OS X — Parallels Desktop has disappointed gamers because it doesn’t include native graphics driver support so it isn’t suitable for running 3D games. CrossOver Mac won’t suffer that problem, though Parshall cautions that CodeWeavers’ specific area of focus isn’t on games.

The company said it hopes “to offer support for a limited number of games,” but hasn’t yet determined the final mix of supported applications. Parshall told Macworld that the popular shooter Half-Life 2 is on the list, and while he said that it isn’t technically on the supported list of application, the new 2K Games-published FPS Prey also works well.

Viruses, malware not as much of an issue

Another benefit of CrossOver Mac’s approach to running Windows software is that it’s much less susceptible to infection by Windows-based viruses or malware than a true Windows-based solution, according to Parshall.

“A virus needs to affect the guts of Windows,” he explained. “Theoretically, if you were really, really good you might be able to get your virus to run under WINE, but we’ve yet to hear about anyone who has, even in the laboratory.”

Parshall said he expects that this protection will extend to CrossOver Mac as well.

CodeWeavers plans to release CrossOver Mac in July or August, 2006. It will cost $59.95 for a single-user license. The company said it has a backlog of beta testers, but advisers users who are interested to e-mail them anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Ran across this today.

Cider

Cider is a sophisticated portability engine that allows Windows games to be run on Intel Macs without any modifications to the original game source code. Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs. Games are simply wrapped up in the Cider engine and they work on the Mac. This means developers only have one code base to maintain while keeping the ability to target multiple platforms. Cider powered games use the same copy protection, lobbies, game matching and connectivity as the original. All this means less work and lower costs. Cider is targeted at game developers and publishers and, unlike Cedega, is not an end user product.
Dunno if it's of a any use...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...