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Aion: Playing Aion on Your Mac
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com Aion Correspondent Josh Price looks at a couple of ways to ensure that if you're a Mac user, you aren't left out in the cold when it comes to playing Aion.
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To some Mac MMORPG players, Aion is like a distant fortress located on the other side of some impassable geography. They stare longingly at it, wishing they could make the journey there. But, alas, the barriers are too great and the trip would take a long time without guarantee for success. Aion will be just one of those games, like many others, that they'll just miss out on.
But really, why should we miss out?
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
That first image made me think of Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I'm sure the 6 people out there who use Mac's for gaming will be interested to read this
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"Macs: for when two mouse buttons is too complicated"
"Crash different"
Hehehe.....
Mac and gaming lol, just shows you how ncsoft is "out of the loop"
Trolls = Hardcore
Fanbois = Carebears
The only posts I read in threads are my own.
At home I have a gaming system but at work I use a Macbook Pro. I run boot camp with windows 7 and play aion no problem. I have a hard time taking lunches until now! Now I take a full hour ever day just to play Aion. What is even cooler is that it takes very little bandwidth.
I've actually been using a Macbook Pro for gaming purpose (with Windows on boot-camp) since late 2006 and it's going all well. Been playing all kind of games from shooters (CSS, TF2, L4D), to RTS (AoE III, Warcraft III) and to MMORPG (Eve, WoW, WAR and now... Aion !).
I never had a problem DIRECTLY related to the fact that i was running a game (on windows) on my macbook pro. The main difference is for the versatile version of PC which let you change your video card, sound card, etc.
As for Aion, i never experienced the cut-scene audio/video problem that the OP had, but hey MAC is far from perfect so i guess someone had to run into something someday. I just went today to an apple store to change my RAM of my old macbook since i can now only run aion at mid graphic quality...
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Playing : Nothing
Waiting for : Starwars old republic
Played : UO, WAR, Eve Online, SWG, GW, WoW, CoH/CoV, Rose Online, Lineage II, EQ II.
Thanks for this long and nice tutorial. I prefer Crossover if a game is supported. You don´t need a Windows copy and it works just in Mac OS. And it even is easier and faster to setup. But Boot Camp is more compatible and perhaps has better Performance.
But at the moment i have only native games on my Mac. And i tried Aion on PC and for me it´s not really good or funny. But Guild Wars for example runs great on Crossover Games.
And why should anyone not use his Mac to play? Everytime such stupid postings. Sad.
Playing: Guild Wars, Runes of Magic
Waiting: Guild Wars 2
I also use Macs for gaming. People don't seem to realize that they are actually PCs nowadays. Bootcamp isn't really a program - it's a boot manager to load Windows instead of OS X.
There's a lot of ignorance about Macs and I was one of the ignorant until last year when I finally bought one to see what all the fuss was about.
As for the mouse issue - Pick your own gaming mouse, as you would on your PC. You wouldn't use the mouse that came bundled free with your PC - you'd choose a nice Razor or something. That's what I did on my Mac.
The reason City of Heroes runs slow is because it uses Transgaming's Cider to make the game run which is just a Wine port like CrossOver. I'm not a fan. I think Wine is pretty damn slow compared to native ports like World of Warcraft and I wish game companies would stop using it. They should design their games with cross platform in mind - Not just for Macs but for Linux, XBox 360, PlayStation 3 or any other equipment that's up for the job.
Microsoft Vista was such a horrid thing to release on PC users that it drove many of us to other operating systems to preserve our sanity. Thankfully Windows 7 seems to be more on the money.
Blizzard have always supported Macs natively and WoW runs like a dream in OS X. Shame I don't like WoW any more lol.
I love that no matter what Mac guy sget laughed at by PC guys.
What's worse is the fact that I remember being one of the morons laughing.
Hate to break it to ya guys, but my Mac is just as good a general purpose gaming rig as the next guy, and better regular day to day computer to boot. But no one knows until they finally make the switch.
As for AION this whole article is basicaly a "use bootcamp" answer. Been there, done that. It runs fine on both my Wife's brand new Macbook Pro 17" (the new Unibody one) and my much older Macbook Pro 15". (The older pre-unibody one) The only warning I have for my fellow mac users is the same one repeated in all Mac gaming through boot camp threads: Watch out for heat.
For some reason Windows ALWAYS runs hotter than OS X does on the same equipment. I bet if I picked up some 3rd party Windows software it's an easy fix (and I know some windows guys who've pointed it out thanks) I just find it annoying that the basic OS won't properly manage the heat. *Shrugs*
Oh well. The things we do for gaming.
Current Game: Asssasins Creed 2(PS3, Gamer Tag: Happy_Hubby)
Current MMO: World of Warcraft and World of Tanks
Former Subscribed MMO: Star Trek Online, Aion, WoW, Guild Wars, Eve Online, DAoC, City of Heroes, Shattered Galaxy, 10six.
Tried: Too many to list
Hate to break it to ya guys, but my Mac is just as good a general purpose gaming rig as the next guy, and better regular day to day computer to boot. But no one knows until they finally make the switch.
Only difference ofc that you pay lot of overprice for PC that can run Mac OS legally, which ofc can't run most games so you end up bootcamping back to Windows all time you want to play more than those 10 games.
As for AION this whole article is basicaly a "use bootcamp" answer.
Which makes whole article totally pointless. Like I said Macs are PCs, been since they moved away from PPC (PowerPC). Whole article could been just simple "How to run Aion on Mac? Use Windows."
For some reason Windows ALWAYS runs hotter than OS X does on the same equipment.
Best thing is to upgrade drivers with non-Apple versions, they much more optimized.
People with Macs just crack me up. They go to all these contortions to run a game and then think wow I am as good or better than the PC.
Well earth to Mac owners, you paid two to three times as much for your computer. You could easily buy a gaming computer or have one built that would probably cost a third of what your mac costs. Why bother with the contortions?
Now I won't argue that the Mac OS is better than Windows, which it is, just that is that worth it if you play games too.
If you get a kick out of going through all these contortions, have it at, but don't come here bragging about it because all you will do is get laughed at.
Blue vs. Red... errr. something like that. I never understood the PC vs. Mac vs. Linux debates. Simply because I understand the pros and cons of each of the OSes.
Here is the thing. If you forget the fact that Apple allowed Power Computing to create Mac clones about 10-15 years ago, the reason why the Macintosh is considered higher quality is because all of the components are assembled inhouse by the same company who designed the operating system. This allows the software development department to know ahead of time what kind of interrupt and timing issues they are going to have with hardware and the hardware guys know what pitfalls exist with the software. Also, the support department can see exactly what you have installed in your mac as it left the factory and chances are it hasn't changed much. This allows support to be much more streamlined.
This is why people are paying more for the Macintosh. Everything is insourced and because of this tightly controlled.
That was until 3 years ago. Not because of the Intel switch. Personally, I was an Amiga user back in the heyday, so I know a lot about the motorolla family and the company was starting to fall behind in their consumer cpu lines. I'm referring to the fact that Apple is now outsourcing a lot of the components to other companies. Apple is also allowing for a much more open archetecture when expanding Macs.
This is good and bad news. The good news is that a lot of devices will work in the Mac even if they don't have official drivers for them. The bad news is that Macs now come with a slew of nVidia cards or ATI cards that you can choose from. The bad news is that the amount of testing is greatly reduced. For example, let's say that Apple may want to start including a new nVidia card in their Macs. Well, they test that card in a couple of their most popular setups and it does great stability wise. So, they offer it to the end user as a package. However, that same video card released by nVidia may go through 5 revisions over the course of the year. Any hardware manufacturer does this to streamline production costs and try to reduce failure rates to avoid RMAs.
Personally, if your at least somewhat tech savy, it doesn't matter. BUT, things to keep in mind before buying your next Mac.
As for the article, it's a moot point. Anyone who runs a Mac for gaming will simply pick up a copy of Win7 and use boot camp. At this point it -IS- a PC.
boot camping windows is viable, but it's not really "playing on your mac".
I haven't played Aion, but in general I don't think Bootcamp is a great solution for gaming, especially with the HD2600 ATI card. The drivers that come with bootcamp do not seem correct for this card. Even after a lot of tweaking, I never got respectable frame rates out of TF2 (which it should have handled with the same specs on a Windows box).
I also had an issue with Bootcamp messing up my system time, which I blame for some crashing issues I eventually had on my Mac. Everything went away after uninstalling.
Anyway, Mac != PC even with the same hardware. My Mac is a work-horse and probably the best machine I've ever owned, but I am saving to buy a mid-range $500 PC for gaming.
Screw OSX, run everything in Wine on Ubuntu. ><p
The only reason Mac desktops are more expensive than PCs is because when you buy a Mac desktop, you're buying the CPU, the monitor, the speakers, the built-in camera, the keyboard, and the mouse. When you buy a PC, you're getting the CPU. Maybe the keyboard and the mouse. I can't speak for laptops though, I don't use a Mac laptop.
I love my Mac, but I don't play Aion. Still, it's good to know there are ways of playing PC games on the Mac without buying Windows (which I wouldn't have a problem with except that Windows costs about as much as a new PC x.x). I did try Crossover though, while they were doing a one-week free promotion. It didn't have many MMO's it was compatible with
I might look at wine though. I'll also add that EVE runs about 10 times smoother on my iMac than on my Dell. The iMac is a 2008 machine, and the Dell is 2006. Whatever that means to you. I don't remember the type of Dell, but it's a decent machine for gaming. iMacs would be amazing for gaming if gaming companies would start making games for them. But, if you're into customizing / building your own computer by buying and installing your own parts post-factory, PC is the way to go, because you can't do that with Macs as far as I know.
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2]" (Wikipedia.org, 8-24-09)
The best way to deal with trolls:
http://www.angelfire.com/space/usenet/ [IGNORE THEM, THEY JUST WANT ATTENTION!]
You just really showed your ignorance, considering anyone who is a professional uses a Mac. A PC is a game machine still attached to 1985 x86 technology. If something is fail, it's your bowing down to Bill Gates as he rapes you with a new operating system every 2 years that is complete fail. People are still using XP FFS and it's still fail and completely compromised every time you turn around. I guess your definition of wonderful is a virus infested game machine? Then, yes, PCs pwn Mac.
Otherwise, why don't you take a look around and realize that the operating system is much more stable. If you are calling BSD and Unix less of an operating system than windows, do you realize how many tech professionals are now laughing their ass off at your incompetence. I mean, do you even know how many rings are in an intel chip architecture? Do you know how to streamline an entire company's VPN infrastructure? Probably not. Most likely, you are a 12 year old fan boi of PCs who can't even get out of the 8th grade.
Take a look at nearly ANY music studio, ANY graphics design house, ANY writer, ANY musician, ANY film editor, ANY screenwriter, ANY game designer, and tell me, what do you see? Macs. If they suck so bad, why do people 5,000,000 x more talented and intelligent than you use them.
Oh, that's right, you're going on demographics of people who were exposed to video games and a bandwagon that everyone jumped on.
Hey, PCs are great, too, for some things, I use both, however comparing a game machine to an operating system is hardly a comparison at all. Get a life and do some research before you troll.
(post removed)
Put bluntly; you're clueless, and I'm glad you're on a Mac. You're probably less of a danger to yourself that way.
Katsma is Lithuanian for 'he who drinks used douche fluid'.
That random blabbering of jibberish made my head hurt, but I can't say expected anything less from a Mac boy.
Anyways, I love how Apple markets Boot Camp as some awesome Mac feature that lets you use Windows on a Mac!!! When in reality it's just a partition editor and a boot manager, something you can get on any platform. If your Mac can run Windows, it should tell you that underneath that light up apple, it's really just a "PC" after all.
This article wasn't about playing games on a Mac, it was about playing games on Windows.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
Just to throw in my two cents worth since I love to do so.... I bought a Mac last year and was so disappointed by it that I shoved it right back at them for a full refund. I wanted to see what all the talk was about, and was really disappointed. I have to agree that people are being taken advantage of by Apple in the computer market because they do pay way more for their computers, and they are not as upgradable as one might lead you to believe. They make them this way so you have to eventually fork over for an entirely new computer every so often to keep up.
They had a good thing back in the day, but customizing a linux distro and marketing it as the ultimate OS is kinda fake. Also, locking fans into having to buy their computers in order to run their OS is kinda off the mark now that the are basically a "PC". They lost that arguement also.
Alot of people here tho have really done their homework. Yes, the hardware is now identical, but whoever stated that the reason Macs have less problems is because they only use certain periphs was right on the mark. High Five!
Also, many of you may not have read the news lately; but now that Macs have touted a larger market share, the hacking and viruses are on the way
Did y'all see the article about the hacker bounty for Macs this week? For each Mac someone can infect, they earn 43 cents.
In the end, just go with what you like, but I need more versitality and will stick with a PC. I don't have the money to fork over to be considered cool and end up with something that is limited. I do more than email and watch YouTube, and I like to keep up to speed with my hardware.
The rest of your post was spot on, but I just wanted to comment on this specifically. Mac vulnerabilities have been there, they just haven't been exploited due to the low population. Apple left a Java exploit that allowed drive by downloads and execution of arbitrary code out there for 8 months before they finally patched it.
Hackers are going to start targeting Macs because even though they are a small market share, that small market is almost completely unprotected because they believe they are immune to such attacks. The very thing Apple uses as a marketing tool to boost their products image will come back and bite them when their products are boosted into the population. A bit of irony.
I've tinkered with OS X on my netbook, but I found it to be nothing special, and I get everything I ever needed and more out of my computer by multi-booting Windows and Linux.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
You're quite mistaken about the origin of the OS it seems. They had their own code and then upgraded and based it off of Unix. Saying it was based off a Linux distro is lol, And drivers actually work with Mac OS. Linux is just a Unix-Like OS.
I still say that most of this is a moot point. Macintosh, FreeBSD and Linux are not supported by the vast majority of game developers for a reason. The market for games is spotty, wild west atmosphere with APIs that are simply not as robust as the DirectX model. I am not just referring to the the programming libraries. I am also referring to built in asset conversion with industry standard 3d modelers and level design applications. No company wants to start from scratch and build all their own tools, nor do they want to look for 40-50 seporate GNU programs that they need to make sure work well together.
That being said... it's still a moot point to bicker about the Mac vs. PC debate. Since games simply aren't published often on the Mac, most Mac users use boot camp. As it has been said in this thread before, at this point it is no longer a Mac. It is an Apple branded PC. Which is fine! There is nothing wrong with that. The whole point of a computer is to get the task you want done. Even if it is to play a game.
So much ignorance on both sides. If you go out and buy a PC today, and no I am not referring to going out and buying the parts, I am referring to a complete ready to use, turnkey system... It has the potential to be just as much as everything the Macintosh can be. All it really comes down to is the label and integrety of the company. Personally, I believe that Apple is probably one of the highest quality PCs you will find. However, it comes at a premium price. If anyone wants to argue that, well it is possible to install OS X (x86) version on any brand of PC as long as it has Apple compatible components.
So, if people really want to debate, compare apples to apples. It should be a Snow Leapord vs. Windows 7 debate.
Oh, quick question, has anyone tried VMware's Fusion on OS X here? It's a complete virtual machine so it doesn't need to dual boot like boot camp and it will run inside OS X. Still requires Windows since it's virtualization rather than emulation. I have used VMWare workstation and ESXi server for years. I just wondered if anyone has tried out for playing PC games on the Mac. The latest version supports Direct X 9.0c
If you don't feel like installing boot camp on your mac to play MMORPG's because you want to keep you mac safe and clean. There is still a bunch of games out their and it seems like the developer are starting to understand the importance of the mac side. I found a site that list all available MMORPG for mac, mmomac.com . I was surprised how many games are actually available now compared to this time last year
Do you want to play free MMORPG's for Mac?
Go Here: http://www.freemacgamer.com/category/mmorpg/
Well... me and a small group called DarkWind gaming are making a mmorpg called (project STRAYS) and i got a lot of comments about if a mac version was possible, ( the games is still in pre alpha development) but sadly apples own boast in quality has lead to its fall in gaming. most of us can only afford a 13"mbp and that has very little power for what we need. in order to make this work we would need 2 mac pros which 10 people which would have to fight with and also enough severs to house atleast 10,000 players with out breaking apple's eula and that means buying apple severs which are $3500 a blade. we would need a lot more then just 1 or 2 blades. Also how much of the apple community would we affect? being that most mac users own a 13" mbp, a low end imac, or a mac mini. That gives us extreamly low elbow room to which we can make. Even SC2 is having problems running on a 17" on high specs which is a $3000 computer. if only high end mac users can play our game we just spelled our own death mark by leading us into bankruptcy by all the loans we would need to fund this, which is the main reason that most companies don't make mac versions except companies that have money to burn like EA and BLIZZARD. So saying this that if you have a copy of windows and are rich enough to afford a powerful mac by all means play on your mac pc but don't really expect gaming to come to the mac unless apple decides to change their marketing strategy by lowering prices so people can afford macs that can play decent games, and how would i know this for people that won't accept this notion? Im sitting here with the game trying to run on a 13" and still can't get the game to run to atleast 30 fps and so far it is not working, blender is reading as 7fps and yet again i would have to lower the quality of the game inorder to get a decent frame rate. i am tired of trying to get this game to work in the middle of the night and having to degrade everything. so generally because of the deliema i am having that most game devs have this articall is telling you how to play Aion on Windows with a computer with a apple logo on it and nothing more.
Also to say to Abrahmm, that macs are widely used in the media market but not in game development. It makes no sence to make a game in Mac OS then later on port it for only windows. most game devs use Alienware or high end dells and hps. i have looked inside game dev labs and the only mac was the one in the corner used as a personal computer a 13" mbp (far from game dev material) but good show to bringing down that stupid idiot pc fan boy, showing that there is pc fan boys and not only mac.
also if people were wondering what (project STRAYS) is it is kinda like a mmo in modern warfare except with major tweaks to the control system that would make it work. most details can't be shown do to people trying to copy it. plus its still in pre alpha so its still unplayable outside of Blender.
Also to jump in this linux/ unix debate. Linux is unix. Unix was created by AT&T/ bell in 1969 in complete assembly language, then Mr. Ritchie came around and reprogramed it in C language. initially unix was reprogramed to be a completely open source through the Free software foundation in 1985. Then the kernal MINIX came around that was born from Unix but was restricted to only be free in college or educational use or it had to be licensed. So because of that restriction Linux was born from cloning Unix, so it was free and open source. Now everyone can use it besides big companies. So in generall terms Linux is Unix and nothing more, and mac OS uses that very same Unix kernal from back then with a few bug fix tweeks. Also they are both just kernals not operating systems so saying mac os is linux dosn't make sence, well rather that Mac Os is more of a shell then the inerworkings of the os. So this case, mac os is a linux distro if you want to call it that but with the original Unix kernal that is only for big companies, with no difference at all. I am not saying Linux or Unix is underdeveloped or is worse; i am accually using linux to make the game project and it runs fine under linux, im just pointing out that apple only works on its shell as windows developes its own kernal and a shell which takes work and could could cause bugs but they controll the inerworkings and the interface as Mac takes a pre made kernal and works around it which is fine.
Also with the vista delema, the only people i have met that hate vista are mac fans. so far i have asked everyone (in a servey) in my high school and the one the next town over and they said vista was fine which surprised me. they never had freezing problems or crashing, they just hated the over protected security features. there was one or two pc people that hated it but that was it, all the rest were mac fans which were few, but on the internet there were hate comments everywere which shows that just all the mac a windows haters concentrated together to make the feel that windows is worse then it seems as the rest of the computing world dosn't give a rat's ass to what they use so they don't even vote. Vista had some problems but not what it has been blown up to be. showing the ignorance of the people and how it can affect the whole computing world.
Concluding my very long response XD and very late.