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kMaN175

ARMA II & Mac

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Has anyone tried to run ARMA II on a macbook or macbookpro using bootcamp, etc?

If so, was it playable?

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I dont think there's any reason to assume that a Macbook would run any better or worse than an equivalent PC. What spec is the laptop?

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I played Arma 1 with my macbook pro (intel core 2 duo @ 2.33, 3 g ram) using bootcamp and windows xp

It was playable with low graphic settings.

After that i build my new pc, just because i wanted to play Arma 1 and Arma 2 with good graphics etc.

Arma 2 is probably more demanding so i wouldnt suggest it to play with mac laptops, of course u can try. With new Mac Pro's(desktop) it shouldnt be a problem co's u can get EVGA GPU's for them so they should run it pretty good, i think.

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There was another guy in the STEAM forums that tried it and was having horrible performance. but he got upset when I tried to help him and /ragequit because he didn't know what his processor was.

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It'll run SLIGHTLY better than the equivilent spec PC laptop, as Apple produce their own drivers specifically for the hardware in their machines, hence Windows running better on a Mac than a PC. It also depends which version of Windows you're running. XP will likely give the best performance.

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Has anyone tried to run ARMA II on a macbook or macbookpro using bootcamp, etc?

If so, was it playable?

Its very playable but the machine gets very hot and the battery only lasts about 45 min at most. Also the maping of the ArmA 2 Keyboard is almost impossible... the lack of a real mouse is a killer.

MBP 15" 2.53 Ghz,9600 Graphics.

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It'll run SLIGHTLY better than the equivilent spec PC laptop, as Apple produce their own drivers specifically for the hardware in their machines, hence Windows running better on a Mac than a PC. It also depends which version of Windows you're running. XP will likely give the best performance.

Then your are ignoring the fact that a mac has to run windows using their own specific drivers that were not built for windows. Let's not forget that it is ghosting another OS over it's OS as well. Mac will generally run slower to significantly slower than a PC using bootcamp. The days of macs drivers being better is over, hardware specific drivers plus windows flexibility has left windows just as fast for equal hardware.

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Then your are ignoring the fact that a mac has to run windows using their own specific drivers that were not built for windows. Let's not forget that it is ghosting another OS over it's OS as well. Mac will generally run slower to significantly slower than a PC using bootcamp. The days of macs drivers being better is over, hardware specific drivers plus windows flexibility has left windows just as fast for equal hardware.

No. It doesn't, No. it isn't.

Boot Camp is a partition utility that sets up a Windows installation. Windows is installed on the Mac natively, it runs natively on top of the hardware directly as it does on any other PC. At this point it's a PC with an Apple logo on it. There's no ghosting involved. Apple writes drivers for Windows that are optimised for the hardware inside that Mac, hence it runs faster because they're not generic like regular PC drivers are, even if they're for a specific model of hardware.

Also the OS's run differently and use drivers differently. The drivers have some say in performance, but the underlying OS has a bigger say in performance. OS X is just more efficient than Windows and thinking otherwise shows you don't know much about the subject or you choose to ignore it.

EIDT: Sorry for sounding hostile, that wasn't the intention. I just come accross a lot of people who don't know all that much about Macs but love to bash or put them down all the same.

Edited by Madus_Maximus

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Hi guys from this thread its seems as if running on a MBP is kinda sketchy...

I just bought a new one with the i7 processor, 4GB Ram, 7200rpm HD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 512 MB.

Sound alright?

its only the video card I am worried about really.

Also..... Does bootcamp come with windows xp preinstalled or would I have to find an install disk etc?

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bootcamp doesn't come with anything. It just allows you to make a WIN type partition (NTSF).

You will need to buy your win OS. I managed to get every single OS on a 17' MBP 2007 from win XP(64b as well) to WIN7(64b).

It looks ok, i am not sure about the video card. I have a toshiba quosmio with same specs, never tried A2 on it though :(

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Hi guys from this thread its seems as if running on a MBP is kinda sketchy...

I just bought a new one with the i7 processor, 4GB Ram, 7200rpm HD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 512 MB.

Sound alright?

its only the video card I am worried about really.

Also..... Does bootcamp come with windows xp preinstalled or would I have to find an install disk etc?

Do they even make a decent vid card for Macs these days? They are always so many generations behind, and you pay twice us much for only half of what you could get in a PC.

I guess they do:

http://www.apple.com/macpro/features/graphics.html

Scared to ask the price though!

-X

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Do they even make a decent vid card for Macs these days? They are always so many generations behind, and you pay twice us much for only half of what you could get in a PC.

I've got an EVGA GTX 285 in my Mac. Yes, options are limited, but they're getting better :)

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Do they even make a decent vid card for Macs these days? They are always so many generations behind, and you pay twice us much for only half of what you could get in a PC.

I guess they do:

http://www.apple.com/macpro/features/graphics.html

Scared to ask the price though!

-X

That is not really true, is it? I had the chance to get my hands on a the latest 12 core Mac Pro for a quick test drive

Obviously that isn't a gaming rig, but some of us use their computers for a lot more than surfing the net, checking the mail and our facebook accounts.

I got to say i was impressed.

I do agree you can custom build your own 12 core for the same money or max 500$ less. It's still not a MAC though. If you haven't used one yourself, you won't understand why ppl are actually buying those computers.

and BTW, I am for OpenGL/CL instead of M$ directX. And it just might be that BIS will aim for that as well for their Game3

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...and BTW, I am for OpenGL/CL instead of M$ directX. And it just might be that BIS will aim for that as well for their Game3

OpenGL is quite far behind DX11. It used to be cool back in the quake days. This is partly because its focus is not on games. Games on OpenGL these days is an afterthought.

Don't get me wrong though, I'd like to see OpenGL catch up the DX. The reason? I am a Linux fan. I prefer Gentoo if you care to ask.

Basically in my opinion, you can run Linux, get all the Mac features, for 20% of the price. I personally think KDE 4 (Yes, I like KDE over the 1980's looking Gnome) is one of the best desktops out there. It still needs some tweaking by the user however. I am not sure why people don't do this, but it probably has to do with wanting a turn key system. You can even run Linux for considerably less than a Windows box.

To Bohemia, what are the chances of getting a Native Linux ARMA 2 binary? :D This is not going to happen though because OpenGL is not up to the task.

In the end though, Mac feels so limited, and everything you do on a Mac is made to make you feel that this is good enough for you and you shouldn't look at alternatives. It is like Jobs is trying to control you life. Yes, this is good for the user that doesn't want to think, but most users on PC's in general want to think if they use them. Mac I think is good for the stupid masses I guess. Not to bash Mac because it is cool that it has a Unix base, but it is too limited and controlling to be attractive. And.... It needs more software support. You practically have to load Windows up on it to make it useful. I'll run Linux if I want limited software support, and besides, the software is all free on Linux! :)

Just my two cents.

-X

Edited by xman1

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Thanks a lot guys. I know what you mean for the shit pricing of macs. I would rather have got a good PC laptop for Uni for half the price, however im doing music technology so Logic is a must...

I was massively into OFP and got a bit into arma1 until shit computers brought me down again lol

I'm gonna give it a try, when arma 2 was released i almost peed myself

---------- Post added at 10:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 PM ----------

p.s. it should definately work on medium to low right?

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Thanks a lot guys. I know what you mean for the shit pricing of macs. I would rather have got a good PC laptop for Uni for half the price, however im doing music technology so Logic is a must...

I was massively into OFP and got a bit into arma1 until shit computers brought me down again lol

I'm gonna give it a try, when arma 2 was released i almost peed myself

---------- Post added at 10:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 PM ----------

p.s. it should definately work on medium to low right?

It should - http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-330M.22437.0.html

-X

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Thanks a lot guys. I know what you mean for the shit pricing of macs. I would rather have got a good PC laptop for Uni for half the price, however im doing music technology so Logic is a must...

I was massively into OFP and got a bit into arma1 until shit computers brought me down again lol

I'm gonna give it a try, when arma 2 was released i almost peed myself

---------- Post added at 10:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:17 PM ----------

p.s. it should definately work on medium to low right?

Ditto. I have a mac pro for logic (which im happy with) the only game i play on it is OA through bootcamp with a turd ati 2600HD 256 card! Getting an upgrade soon just for this sodding game.......:yay:

oh btw for my best fps in the OA benchmark, a shocking 20fps, most of the settings are at normal, AA is off as is AF view distance has little impact, some stuttering and the like if it goes higher than 6000-7000.

my mac stats

2 x quad core intel zeon 2.80 GHz E5462

4gb ddr2 ram 800MHz

ati card

Hitachi HDS721010KLA330 ATA @250GB

WDC WD3200AAJS-41VWA1 ATA @1TB

vista x64 (soon to be 7)

Edited by Ten Bensons

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You've got the 2008 Mac Pro? Yeah definitely get a better GPU, it will make things a lot smoother :)

(depending on what res you run at ofc)

Also have you tried using cpucount=8 as a startup param? Seeing as you have dual-quads, I've wondered how much of a difference that makes.

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Yeah its a 2008 pro, and i have played with startup params, gpu options ect so soooo much. I personally have not noticed a major difference between 4 6 or 8 cpu count, however i will say that a lot of my problems are to do with that damn card i wasnt even sure if it would be much good considering minimum recommended is 512....lol, AND i have only just got OA and im still in the process of finding my ideal settings.

I used to get similar performance fps in arma (20-24fps) but OA just feels/looks smoother with similar settings its not as fluid as i would like but it does the job atm.

Going to upgrade to ATI Radeon HD 5870 as its compatible with 2006/07/08/09 & 2010 'Pros im hoping this will solve all the graphics issue and leave me with a reasonable performing, gorgeous looking hardcore milisim. :D

Edited by Ten Bensons

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No way that would work.

NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory

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