Total War games on MBA 13 (2011)

rayjay86 said:

Hey guys,

Wasn't sure where to post this but here it goes.

I love the total war games. My old PC had a 1gb ATI graphics card and ran RTW like a dream on full settings.

I have since sold that for a Macbook Air (i5) because of work, portability etc. but have been missing my RTW. I also just saw that Shogun 2 is out.

My question is: if I run windows through Bootcamp/Parallels or use Crossover,
WHICH Total War games can I actually run on my MBA with reasonable settings. I'm not expecting highest settings but something that'll be smooth without taking away too much from the visuals of the game.

Thanks

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Couldn't tell you how or which ones will run, but please for the sake of humanity don't try and run it through Parallels/VMWare/Virtualbox lol. Just bootcamp for sure.

rayjay86 said:

Oh ok I didn't realize there was that big of a difference. I'll give bootcamp a look. I haven't gotten either yet so it's still up in the air which I choose.

Any particular reason why bootcamp over the others?

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Bootcamp is just an application that allows you to install Windows natively, so you can boot directly into it like a normal PC. Parallels/VMWare/Virtualbox are virtual machine applications that run Windows on top of OSX, where both operating systems are sharing resources (e.i. RAM, CPU, GPU) and is much worse at handling intense applications then running them on a natively running operating system.

Bootcamp = free, Parallels = $$$

If you don't mind rebooting to switch OSes, free > $$$.

I don't see these games running well on a MBA. Heck, they are poorly optimized for windows in general.

Mpalmieri1203 said:

I don't see these games running well on a MBA. Heck, they are poorly optimized for windows in general.

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The MacBook Air may be small but due to its screen resolution it can run even FPS shooters like Call of Duty Black Ops on Low - Medium Settings. Total War games should run fine, its only really when you start getting into big FPS shooters that you have problems. Unless there is some really really really poor coding in this game it will run fine on your MacBook Air.

I've got it installed on my MBA I think it works pretty well and I am using the Mac App Store Version.
I would just recommend you getting it from there as if it doesn't work as you expect you can get a refund from their support.

In my opinion, I think the visuals are smooth and better than I expected on the MBA

Presume your using the Mac version then and not the Windows one.

Yeah, I do have the same problem as you but it doesn't worry me as it does it with all my games, whether I play them on Mac or through Windows (via bootcamp).
I find it also did this with another Sandy Bridge Windows PC I own. Think its normal with the latest and more powerful processors as they produce more heat than the older generation processors.

Remember you have a Apple warranty so if it screws the MBA up, just get it repaired

Here is a video of Napoleon Total War on MBA 2011. Medieval II TW and Empire TW might run with low settings too. I think Rome TW will run much better then, it's older than the others and Feral Interactive ported it to Mac OS X.

Northwestern said:

Here is a video of Napoleon Total War on MBA 2011. Medieval II TW and Empire TW might run with low settings too. I think Rome TW will run much better then, it's older than the others and Feral Interactive ported it to Mac OS X.

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Good video! An who says the MBA is not a gaming machine?

I would try the demo, if I were you. I am getting my MBA this week. So I can't test it, but I think i5 or i7 is not a big difference.

I have a 13" MBP 2011, stock $1200 model.

I pretty much only play TW games anymore. But I bootcamp to do it. Windows 7 32-bit.

Currently I'm involved in a hotseat game with a few friends running RTW with the RTR mod. I can run everything at high and it's smooth. Temp gets up around 90c, per HWMonitor. I also play M2TW on the side, but currently only for single player mode. I have a mix of medium and high settings. Temp gets around 90-95c.

I bought S2TW this past Friday to give it a go on the Intel GPU. Surprisingly it runs decent enough on mostly low settings. But playing a historical battle the temp climbed up around 100-101c. Even just toying with the SP campaign got the temps up that high. I don't know, I'm thinking that might be just a little high...

I'll probably wait until Ivy Bridge to play Shogun. That's okay, I have years worth of content with Rome and Medieval II anyway. RTR VII just came out. Europa Barbarorum II will be out soon enough for M2. I was just hoping to get my ninja fix too.