My advice would be to avoid WINE entirely, don't be foolish enough to give Codeweavers any of your money and stick with Boot Camp. It's the closest you're likely to get to native performance. The latest version will create a bootable USB from a Windows installation DVD or iso image. It goes without saying that you will need a Windows licence.
Hold down either alt/option or c to boot from USB.
Oh, and I forgot about WineBottler. Yes, it works better than WINE. No, it won't be as fast as Boot Camp even assuming you can get it to work.
Yeah, the 800-pound gorilla of MMOs (World of Warcraft) has been on Mac forever. So, all of the Apple Haters that say it can't be done are wrong. (And that's only one example.)
Then again, Apple has been behind in the (PC) gaming world for years. It has far less to do with Steve Jobs (whatever your opinion of the late CEO may be), and more to do with simple market share. Macs were great gaming machines for a while, but Apple as a whole fell behind in the mid 90s. Microsoft took over the market, the rest is history.
IMO, this all goes back to the choice of using the Cider wrapper in the first place. When I read that EA considered using Cider for SWTOR, but opted not to because it was deemed unreliable... yeah, I'm not shocked this is happening. Very disappointed, and maybe a little pissed, but not surprised. I'd love it if Cryptic would embrace a true multi-OS approach... but, that ship has long since sailed. I would assume they would have to completely change their infrastructure, potentially both hardware and human talent. The PC market is in decline, and has been for years... and, I just don't think Cryptic will ever get the money to truly explore these possibilities.
Yeah, the 800-pound gorilla of MMOs (World of Warcraft) has been on Mac forever. So, all of the Apple Haters that say it can't be done are wrong. (And that's only one example.)
Is anyone actually saying that it can't be done? The question is can it be done with just the money that OS X client users are paying Cryptic. If not (which seems to be the case) it's foolish for Cryptic to subsidize the OS X client using the profits from Windows client users. They are a business, not an OS X advocacy charity.
Yeah, the 800-pound gorilla of MMOs (World of Warcraft) has been on Mac forever. So, all of the Apple Haters that say it can't be done are wrong. (And that's only one example.)
Is anyone actually saying that it can't be done? The question is can it be done with just the money that OS X client users are paying Cryptic. If not (which seems to be the case) it's foolish for Cryptic to subsidize the OS X client using the profits from Windows client users. They are a business, not an OS X advocacy charity.
Well, if you didn't cut the rest of my comment, you'd see we're largely in agreement. I never said that Cryptic should become an "OS X Advocacy Group," whatever that means. They made a choice, and it didn't work out... and, judging by my research, I'd question the decision to do this via Cider in the first place.
And, yes, the people who claim that Apple computers are overpriced and underpowered are, essentially, saying that true gaming can't be done on the Mac.
Yeah, the 800-pound gorilla of MMOs (World of Warcraft) has been on Mac forever. So, all of the Apple Haters that say it can't be done are wrong. (And that's only one example.)
Is anyone actually saying that it can't be done? The question is can it be done with just the money that OS X client users are paying Cryptic. If not (which seems to be the case) it's foolish for Cryptic to subsidize the OS X client using the profits from Windows client users. They are a business, not an OS X advocacy charity.
It can't feasibly be done. It's easy/easier to support multiple platforms if you start development with that in mind. Earlier I cited an example: Riot needed two years to re-tool their merely-4-year-old game to be able to build Windows and Mac clients for League of Legends. That was by a young game developer focused on a single game that probably has a good chunk of staff that has been working on the game from the beginning. STO is built on Cryptic's proprietary MMO engine which has been in development in some form or another - exclusively for Windows - for well over a decade. The only Mac ports of games using Cryptic's engine have been Cider wrappers. It would take a dedicated team years to make a native Mac port of their code. While it is "possible", it's unlikely, mostly due to the risk vs. reward involved in such an undertaking.
Yeah, the 800-pound gorilla of MMOs (World of Warcraft) has been on Mac forever. So, all of the Apple Haters that say it can't be done are wrong. (And that's only one example.)
Is anyone actually saying that it can't be done? The question is can it be done with just the money that OS X client users are paying Cryptic. If not (which seems to be the case) it's foolish for Cryptic to subsidize the OS X client using the profits from Windows client users. They are a business, not an OS X advocacy charity.
It can't feasibly be done. It's easy/easier to support multiple platforms if you start development with that in mind. Earlier I cited an example: Riot needed two years to re-tool their merely-4-year-old game to be able to build Windows and Mac clients for League of Legends. That was by a young game developer focused on a single game that probably has a good chunk of staff that has been working on the game from the beginning. STO is built on Cryptic's proprietary MMO engine which has been in development in some form or another - exclusively for Windows - for well over a decade. The only Mac ports of games using Cryptic's engine have been Cider wrappers. It would take a dedicated team years to make a native Mac port of their code. While it is "possible", it's unlikely, mostly due to the risk vs. reward involved in such an undertaking.
Right. Given the rushed development of STO in its infancy, added to the note about building on the Cryptic proprietary game engine... Mac development was a long shot, at best.
Yeah, the 800-pound gorilla of MMOs (World of Warcraft) has been on Mac forever. So, all of the Apple Haters that say it can't be done are wrong. (And that's only one example.)
Is anyone actually saying that it can't be done? The question is can it be done with just the money that OS X client users are paying Cryptic.
Well, the advantage of the Cider approach is that the client should take very few resources to build and maintain. It's not terribly different from the build-it-yourself wineskin application we can put together ourselves. There's no extra development for the client itself -- just the need to repackage it in an updated wineskin once in a while, which is the work of perhaps an hour or two.
The problems, I think (and these are only guesses), are that (a) Transgaming isn't supporting Cider anymore, so Cryptic may not be getting wrapper updates, and may be (reasonably) unwilling to use an open source alternative that they can't call for support on, and (b) the resulting experience truly is subpar, and they may just not want it out there representing the game.
As I said upthread, six years ago it looked like the Mac was on the verge of a gaming renaissance. Steam was jumping in, more companies were putting out simultaneous releases, Macs were getting more powerful and more popular (only platform with an increasing market share for a few years running, though driven mostly by laptops). But now, six years later, things look bleaker than ever on the game front. The Mac Pro is the only machine they sell that doesn't use integrated graphics, which allows them to make very slender, beautiful machines with small footprints and elegant designs and lower power usage, but comes at a cost.
As I said upthread, six years ago it looked like the Mac was on the verge of a gaming renaissance. Steam was jumping in, more companies were putting out simultaneous releases, Macs were getting more powerful and more popular (only platform with an increasing market share for a few years running, though driven mostly by laptops). But now, six years later, things look bleaker than ever on the game front. The Mac Pro is the only machine they sell that doesn't use integrated graphics, which allows them to make very slender, beautiful machines with small footprints and elegant designs and lower power usage, but comes at a cost.
I agree they are on a downhill slope compared to what they was. My IMac has it own graphics card (Nivida). Now I look at them, they don't even offer a separate graphics card. To me this is a downgrade, as you need a separate graphics. As this lets off stress of your main computer and let the graphics do its thing. And now they don't even offer Nivida instead its some other brand. I always used Nivida, so this is something to consider on my new computer. Even though a rather have new IMac.
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Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I agree they are on a downhill slope compared to what they was.
Well, just to be clear -- that's only really true specifically in the realm of gaming. By most other measures, they're building better machines year after year. It all depends on what your priorities are.
I agree they are on a downhill slope compared to what they was.
Well, just to be clear -- that's only really true specifically in the realm of gaming. By most other measures, they're building better machines year after year. It all depends on what your priorities are.
Macs are mostly used for office work, and specially in the doing CGI and in the filming industry. As this is where Mac really shines. Still with Bootcamp you can still play windows based games. This is how I play other games, like STO or Command and Conquer back in the day. So more likely my new IMac will have it too. Plus its good to have another OS platform to work off as well. That part is really good about Mac.
To me I make my IMac into what I need. I just have to deal with Bootcamp to get my gaming computer up. Which isn't bad just a few minutes needed for it to load.
For the downhill, I was looking at what I got now, compared to the options they offer now. Lots of difference compared to when my IMac was new.
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I was digging around on Apples site. This is a good deal, and a better form of Bootcamp. Not bad of a price either. Hope this helps some than using Wine. I know I will have this on my IMac. And not having to reboot will be nice too.
I was digging around on Apples site. This is a good deal, and a better form of Bootcamp. Not bad of a price either. Hope this helps some than using Wine. I know I will have this on my IMac. And not having to reboot will be nice too.
It creates a Virtual Machine / VM that runs a copy of Windows that you buy. It's similar to Bootcamp, but Bootcamp will be faster since it is running Windows on your real hardware not inside a Virtual Machine.
I was digging around on Apples site. This is a good deal, and a better form of Bootcamp. Not bad of a price either. Hope this helps some than using Wine. I know I will have this on my IMac. And not having to reboot will be nice too.
It creates a Virtual Machine / VM that runs a copy of Windows that you buy. It's similar to Bootcamp, but Bootcamp will be faster since it is running Windows on your real hardware not inside a Virtual Machine.
I'm just offering another way for the Mac users to get access to STO. Other than not playing at all. Only part I thought it was better than Bootcamp, you didn't have to restart your computer.
Yes I know using Bootcamp is better than the other Apps type. As it helps the performance and is better suited for that work. I stated that earlier in one of my posts on trying Bootcamp. Since some was rejecting that idea, I was helping find another way other than Wine. As parallels and wine don't offer graphic acceleration for gaming. Which could cause issues. This is why I recommend Bootcamp, and been saying that from the start.
Another note, new Macs do come with Bootcamp already installed, so all you need to do is buy the latest Windows OS and install it. The Bootcamp is in the Utilities Folder.
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I heard with Parallels you don't get free updates when a new version is released to work with the latest version of the Mac OS. Is this true ?.
Although i cannot afford Parallels at present it may be a solution to the Keyboard and Mouse driver issue i have when trying to install Windows 7 via bootcamp on this late 2013 21in. I still can't get the right drivers installed and updated to USB3.0 to allow me to get past the welcome to windows start up screen. Windows is installed but due to this iMac using usb 3.0 i can't get into windows to update the drivers USB 2.0 that win 7 uses as default.
Has anyone had success with this and can you assist please, as the Wine Wrapper gives me problems. Such as the camera drag with the left mouse button stops working. Using left click to switch weapons or holster a weapon stops working. Also clicking on or off a target with the mouse stops working which is a pain.
I have a late 2013 21in iMac
2.9GHz Intel Quad core i5
8gb Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 1024 MB
I have a ISO version of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.
I heard with Parallels you don't get free updates when a new version is released to work with the latest version of the Mac OS. Is this true ?.
Although i cannot afford Parallels at present it may be a solution to the Keyboard and Mouse driver issue i have when trying to install Windows 7 via bootcamp on this late 2013 21in. I still can't get the right drivers installed and updated to USB3.0 to allow me to get past the welcome to windows start up screen. Windows is installed but due to this iMac using usb 3.0 i can't get into windows to update the drivers USB 2.0 that win 7 uses as default.
Has anyone had success with this and can you assist please, as the Wine Wrapper gives me problems. Such as the camera drag with the left mouse button stops working. Using left click to switch weapons or holster a weapon stops working. Also clicking on or off a target with the mouse stops working which is a pain.
I have a late 2013 21in iMac
2.9GHz Intel Quad core i5
8gb Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 1024 MB
I have a ISO version of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.
Thanks.
I don't know about Parallels. I just found it on their site as a possible alternative. I know the new Macs has the Bootcamp already on the computer. I don't know when they first started this. When I got my IMac, I had to buy it separate.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I heard with Parallels you don't get free updates when a new version is released to work with the latest version of the Mac OS. Is this true ?.
Although i cannot afford Parallels at present it may be a solution to the Keyboard and Mouse driver issue i have when trying to install Windows 7 via bootcamp on this late 2013 21in. I still can't get the right drivers installed and updated to USB3.0 to allow me to get past the welcome to windows start up screen. Windows is installed but due to this iMac using usb 3.0 i can't get into windows to update the drivers USB 2.0 that win 7 uses as default.
Has anyone had success with this and can you assist please, as the Wine Wrapper gives me problems. Such as the camera drag with the left mouse button stops working. Using left click to switch weapons or holster a weapon stops working. Also clicking on or off a target with the mouse stops working which is a pain.
I have a late 2013 21in iMac
2.9GHz Intel Quad core i5
8gb Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 1024 MB
I have a ISO version of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.
Thanks.
I don't know about Parallels. I just found it on their site as a possible alternative. I know the new Macs has the Bootcamp already on the computer. I don't know when they first started this. When I got my IMac, I had to buy it separate.
My 1st iMac was a late 2009 27in and i used the same version of windows 7 and installed via bootcamp and it was as smooth as an androids bottom. But that iMac had usb2.0 ports so the mouse and keyboard worked off the bat. This is simply where i am stumped as the install goes smooth its just at the start up/welcome part where i'm stuck with my bluetooth mouse, Wifi mouse and plug in mouse and keyboards won't work as wrong drivers. I asked Apple in store when the mac client went down at season 11 launch and all they said was bring it in and we'll install for you. Thats hassle i don't want
Edit
Just found something called Virtualbox for free. Its created a virtual driver and currently installing win 7 on it. Lets see what happens !!
User of Parallels since v7 here. Older versions will continue to work, but performance tweaks to take advantage of things in the latest version of OS X will require buying an upgrade. Sometimes there's not a lot that changes; sometimes there is. I think I've upgraded every other version (skipped 8, bought 9, waited on 10 until there was a sale/bundle with another of their products; and then 11 came out like 2 months later and they offered a reduced-price upgrade). They've been on-point with being ready for new versions and should have feature lists available as soon as Apple starts their developer previews for new versions of OS X.
A major advantage of Parallels compared to other virtual machines is better drivers for DirectX 9 and 10 support. (For Windows 7 or newer you can even choose which version your virtual GPU has "hardware" support for.) On my 5K iMac I have my virtual machine running in a window at 4K resolution, and STO runs better in a virtual machine than the Cider-based client ever did. Disclaimer: I have a 4GHz i7 and 28GB of RAM (my VM is configured to use 4 of the 8 threads from the CPU, 16GB of RAM, and all 4GB of VRAM from my Radeon R9 M295X).
Another heads up for those trying to run STO in a virtual machine: depending on your GPU, the first time you launch the game following a patch it might take a while. (Rebuilding the shader cache.) If you try to click the splash screen too much Windows will think STO is not responding. Just let it do its thing. Since you're in a VM, go ahead and use your Mac while it loads!
My 1st iMac was a late 2009 27in and i used the same version of windows 7 and installed via bootcamp and it was as smooth as an androids bottom. But that iMac had usb2.0 ports so the mouse and keyboard worked off the bat. This is simply where i am stumped as the install goes smooth its just at the start up/welcome part where i'm stuck with my bluetooth mouse, Wifi mouse and plug in mouse and keyboards won't work as wrong drivers. I asked Apple in store when the mac client went down at season 11 launch and all they said was bring it in and we'll install for you. Thats hassle i don't want
Edit
Just found something called Virtualbox for free. Its created a virtual driver and currently installing win 7 on it. Lets see what happens !!
Cool hope it works out. Your IMac is lot newer than mine. Mine is the old IMac G5 from 2004. So I still use keypad, and mouse with a USB ports. I did have a wireless mouse, but you have to keep batteries in it. So I'm like nah, my old mouse don't need them. lol
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Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Ok appears to have worked and mouse and keyboard work fine have both Win 7 and Mac OS on the same screen and easy to install. Very similar to bootcamp. Just install Virtualbox, Select how much ram and disc space to allocate, select where the windows install disc or iso is and let it do its job.
Just need to install STO on it now to see how it performs.
User of Parallels since v7 here. Older versions will continue to work, but performance tweaks to take advantage of things in the latest version of OS X will require buying an upgrade. Sometimes there's not a lot that changes; sometimes there is. I think I've upgraded every other version (skipped 8, bought 9, waited on 10 until there was a sale/bundle with another of their products; and then 11 came out like 2 months later and they offered a reduced-price upgrade). They've been on-point with being ready for new versions and should have feature lists available as soon as Apple starts their developer previews for new versions of OS X.
A major advantage of Parallels compared to other virtual machines is better drivers for DirectX 9 and 10 support. (For Windows 7 or newer you can even choose which version your virtual GPU has "hardware" support for.) On my 5K iMac I have my virtual machine running in a window at 4K resolution, and STO runs better in a virtual machine than the Cider-based client ever did. Disclaimer: I have a 4GHz i7 and 28GB of RAM (my VM is configured to use 4 of the 8 threads from the CPU, 16GB of RAM, and all 4GB of VRAM from my Radeon R9 M295X).
Another heads up for those trying to run STO in a virtual machine: depending on your GPU, the first time you launch the game following a patch it might take a while. (Rebuilding the shader cache.) If you try to click the splash screen too much Windows will think STO is not responding. Just let it do its thing. Since you're in a VM, go ahead and use your Mac while it loads!
Thanks for this info. I'm still learning this as well. Since all I used was Bootcamp. You been very helpful.
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Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Another suggestion for Mac or even linux users. There is another way to do this. Download virtualbox. The program is free and it works. However what is not free is you do need a VALID AND LEGAL windows product key for it to fully work. It functions as if you have another computer even though its installed on one machine. That way if you find a program/game that is windows only (in this case Star Trek Online is going to be 100 percent) it will/should work.
If you have to invest in some money in order to have a fully functional virtual machine, trust me it is worth it.
Also PC prices have gone down considerably. You don't need a gaming laptop or PC to run STO. I'm not trying to make this a sales pitch, just providing a solution. That way you can still use your MAC, just have your pc seperately for STO or whatever you feel necessary.
And yes I have used Wine, Playonlinux as to test out linux and does work. Just remember, they are still unsupported and can be buggy. Take note that as popular as linux is, some software/hardware are not guaranteed to work.
The best advice I can provide to play the game is to run it on a computer designed to run windows whether you like it or not.
2nd would be to use a virtual machine such as VMware or Virtual Box
3rd (but personally not recommended) is 3rd party software on Mac or Linux OS.
Well since I can't get that wine wrapper thing linked on the 2nd page to work, or that codeweavers thing and bootcamp has never worked when I tried using it either I guess that's it for me.
Also PC prices have gone down considerably. You don't need a gaming laptop or PC to run STO.
What do you need? I mean, I know the minimum requirements, but never having bought a PC in my 35 years of owning computers*, I have very little familiarity with the hardware. When I look at the specs for a PC, I have no idea if its GPU is better or worse than what's listed in the requirements. I know conventional wisdom in gaming is that you want discrete graphics, not integrated, but I've been playing in emulation on a 2011 Mac Mini with integrated graphics, so maybe they're perfectly adequate when playing natively? I have no idea.
It might actually be really helpful (and I promise not to take it as a sales pitch) if you (or someone) were to link the cheapest prebuilt system at newegg or best buy on which one could reasonably expect to play the game at, say, medium settings and at full settings. Would give me, and maybe some other folks, an idea of the investment required to continue playing.
* Come to think of it, not entirely true. I built a PC about 15 years ago. But it was running FreeBSD as a headless server, so that's not particularly useful experience here.
Ok, I get that the C-Store is now disabled so that mac users can't spend anymore money.... but it also stops me from using any zen I might also have or want to convert from dilithium, but more importantly, it stops me from being able to reclaim things I've already bought!
Seriously??? Yes, please, give me my money back, if you can't come up with better solution than to say f*** off to your costumers. If you can't figure out how to lunch SAME BORING EVENT as you did EVERY YEAR without bugs, well, it should tell us something...
And by the way, I would like to be reimbursed for my time I spend developing my characters, or I have to sue you for that?
PWE / Cryptic is a business, not a charity. They are not obligated to throw away money literally for your amusement.
Actually, if they want to keep my business, they are obligated to entertain/amuse me. That is how a 'business' works: not by fleecing people, but by providing a service that they can use and wish to use. Derp derp.
Comments
Hold down either alt/option or c to boot from USB.
Oh, and I forgot about WineBottler. Yes, it works better than WINE. No, it won't be as fast as Boot Camp even assuming you can get it to work.
Incorrect, I been playing games on a Mac for over a decade. Its all about how they want to make the game available to the customers.
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Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Then again, Apple has been behind in the (PC) gaming world for years. It has far less to do with Steve Jobs (whatever your opinion of the late CEO may be), and more to do with simple market share. Macs were great gaming machines for a while, but Apple as a whole fell behind in the mid 90s. Microsoft took over the market, the rest is history.
IMO, this all goes back to the choice of using the Cider wrapper in the first place. When I read that EA considered using Cider for SWTOR, but opted not to because it was deemed unreliable... yeah, I'm not shocked this is happening. Very disappointed, and maybe a little pissed, but not surprised. I'd love it if Cryptic would embrace a true multi-OS approach... but, that ship has long since sailed. I would assume they would have to completely change their infrastructure, potentially both hardware and human talent. The PC market is in decline, and has been for years... and, I just don't think Cryptic will ever get the money to truly explore these possibilities.
Is anyone actually saying that it can't be done? The question is can it be done with just the money that OS X client users are paying Cryptic. If not (which seems to be the case) it's foolish for Cryptic to subsidize the OS X client using the profits from Windows client users. They are a business, not an OS X advocacy charity.
Well, if you didn't cut the rest of my comment, you'd see we're largely in agreement. I never said that Cryptic should become an "OS X Advocacy Group," whatever that means. They made a choice, and it didn't work out... and, judging by my research, I'd question the decision to do this via Cider in the first place.
And, yes, the people who claim that Apple computers are overpriced and underpowered are, essentially, saying that true gaming can't be done on the Mac.
Right. Given the rushed development of STO in its infancy, added to the note about building on the Cryptic proprietary game engine... Mac development was a long shot, at best.
Well, the advantage of the Cider approach is that the client should take very few resources to build and maintain. It's not terribly different from the build-it-yourself wineskin application we can put together ourselves. There's no extra development for the client itself -- just the need to repackage it in an updated wineskin once in a while, which is the work of perhaps an hour or two.
The problems, I think (and these are only guesses), are that (a) Transgaming isn't supporting Cider anymore, so Cryptic may not be getting wrapper updates, and may be (reasonably) unwilling to use an open source alternative that they can't call for support on, and (b) the resulting experience truly is subpar, and they may just not want it out there representing the game.
As I said upthread, six years ago it looked like the Mac was on the verge of a gaming renaissance. Steam was jumping in, more companies were putting out simultaneous releases, Macs were getting more powerful and more popular (only platform with an increasing market share for a few years running, though driven mostly by laptops). But now, six years later, things look bleaker than ever on the game front. The Mac Pro is the only machine they sell that doesn't use integrated graphics, which allows them to make very slender, beautiful machines with small footprints and elegant designs and lower power usage, but comes at a cost.
I agree they are on a downhill slope compared to what they was. My IMac has it own graphics card (Nivida). Now I look at them, they don't even offer a separate graphics card. To me this is a downgrade, as you need a separate graphics. As this lets off stress of your main computer and let the graphics do its thing. And now they don't even offer Nivida instead its some other brand. I always used Nivida, so this is something to consider on my new computer. Even though a rather have new IMac.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Well, just to be clear -- that's only really true specifically in the realm of gaming. By most other measures, they're building better machines year after year. It all depends on what your priorities are.
Macs are mostly used for office work, and specially in the doing CGI and in the filming industry. As this is where Mac really shines. Still with Bootcamp you can still play windows based games. This is how I play other games, like STO or Command and Conquer back in the day. So more likely my new IMac will have it too. Plus its good to have another OS platform to work off as well. That part is really good about Mac.
To me I make my IMac into what I need. I just have to deal with Bootcamp to get my gaming computer up. Which isn't bad just a few minutes needed for it to load.
For the downhill, I was looking at what I got now, compared to the options they offer now. Lots of difference compared to when my IMac was new.
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Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
http://www.apple.com/shop/product/HJ332LL/A/parallels-desktop-11-for-mac?fnode=9c
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
It creates a Virtual Machine / VM that runs a copy of Windows that you buy. It's similar to Bootcamp, but Bootcamp will be faster since it is running Windows on your real hardware not inside a Virtual Machine.
I'm just offering another way for the Mac users to get access to STO. Other than not playing at all. Only part I thought it was better than Bootcamp, you didn't have to restart your computer.
Yes I know using Bootcamp is better than the other Apps type. As it helps the performance and is better suited for that work. I stated that earlier in one of my posts on trying Bootcamp. Since some was rejecting that idea, I was helping find another way other than Wine. As parallels and wine don't offer graphic acceleration for gaming. Which could cause issues. This is why I recommend Bootcamp, and been saying that from the start.
Another note, new Macs do come with Bootcamp already installed, so all you need to do is buy the latest Windows OS and install it. The Bootcamp is in the Utilities Folder.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Although i cannot afford Parallels at present it may be a solution to the Keyboard and Mouse driver issue i have when trying to install Windows 7 via bootcamp on this late 2013 21in. I still can't get the right drivers installed and updated to USB3.0 to allow me to get past the welcome to windows start up screen. Windows is installed but due to this iMac using usb 3.0 i can't get into windows to update the drivers USB 2.0 that win 7 uses as default.
Has anyone had success with this and can you assist please, as the Wine Wrapper gives me problems. Such as the camera drag with the left mouse button stops working. Using left click to switch weapons or holster a weapon stops working. Also clicking on or off a target with the mouse stops working which is a pain.
I have a late 2013 21in iMac
2.9GHz Intel Quad core i5
8gb Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 1024 MB
I have a ISO version of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.
Thanks.
I don't know about Parallels. I just found it on their site as a possible alternative. I know the new Macs has the Bootcamp already on the computer. I don't know when they first started this. When I got my IMac, I had to buy it separate.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
My 1st iMac was a late 2009 27in and i used the same version of windows 7 and installed via bootcamp and it was as smooth as an androids bottom. But that iMac had usb2.0 ports so the mouse and keyboard worked off the bat. This is simply where i am stumped as the install goes smooth its just at the start up/welcome part where i'm stuck with my bluetooth mouse, Wifi mouse and plug in mouse and keyboards won't work as wrong drivers. I asked Apple in store when the mac client went down at season 11 launch and all they said was bring it in and we'll install for you. Thats hassle i don't want
Edit
Just found something called Virtualbox for free. Its created a virtual driver and currently installing win 7 on it. Lets see what happens !!
A major advantage of Parallels compared to other virtual machines is better drivers for DirectX 9 and 10 support. (For Windows 7 or newer you can even choose which version your virtual GPU has "hardware" support for.) On my 5K iMac I have my virtual machine running in a window at 4K resolution, and STO runs better in a virtual machine than the Cider-based client ever did. Disclaimer: I have a 4GHz i7 and 28GB of RAM (my VM is configured to use 4 of the 8 threads from the CPU, 16GB of RAM, and all 4GB of VRAM from my Radeon R9 M295X).
Another heads up for those trying to run STO in a virtual machine: depending on your GPU, the first time you launch the game following a patch it might take a while. (Rebuilding the shader cache.) If you try to click the splash screen too much Windows will think STO is not responding. Just let it do its thing. Since you're in a VM, go ahead and use your Mac while it loads!
Cool hope it works out. Your IMac is lot newer than mine. Mine is the old IMac G5 from 2004. So I still use keypad, and mouse with a USB ports. I did have a wireless mouse, but you have to keep batteries in it. So I'm like nah, my old mouse don't need them. lol
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Just need to install STO on it now to see how it performs.
Thanks for this info. I'm still learning this as well. Since all I used was Bootcamp. You been very helpful.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Did anyone else get a really long and hard laugh about this one?
If you have to invest in some money in order to have a fully functional virtual machine, trust me it is worth it.
Also PC prices have gone down considerably. You don't need a gaming laptop or PC to run STO. I'm not trying to make this a sales pitch, just providing a solution. That way you can still use your MAC, just have your pc seperately for STO or whatever you feel necessary.
The best advice I can provide to play the game is to run it on a computer designed to run windows whether you like it or not.
2nd would be to use a virtual machine such as VMware or Virtual Box
3rd (but personally not recommended) is 3rd party software on Mac or Linux OS.
What do you need? I mean, I know the minimum requirements, but never having bought a PC in my 35 years of owning computers*, I have very little familiarity with the hardware. When I look at the specs for a PC, I have no idea if its GPU is better or worse than what's listed in the requirements. I know conventional wisdom in gaming is that you want discrete graphics, not integrated, but I've been playing in emulation on a 2011 Mac Mini with integrated graphics, so maybe they're perfectly adequate when playing natively? I have no idea.
It might actually be really helpful (and I promise not to take it as a sales pitch) if you (or someone) were to link the cheapest prebuilt system at newegg or best buy on which one could reasonably expect to play the game at, say, medium settings and at full settings. Would give me, and maybe some other folks, an idea of the investment required to continue playing.
* Come to think of it, not entirely true. I built a PC about 15 years ago. But it was running FreeBSD as a headless server, so that's not particularly useful experience here.
Anyone else think that's a little wrong?
And by the way, I would like to be reimbursed for my time I spend developing my characters, or I have to sue you for that?
Actually, if they want to keep my business, they are obligated to entertain/amuse me. That is how a 'business' works: not by fleecing people, but by providing a service that they can use and wish to use. Derp derp.