Age of Empires on VMware?

[Wicker]

Hey everybody,

I want to install Age of Empires 2 on Windows on my Mac. I was wondering if anybody has tried playing it on VMware? What's the performance like? I know it would be better to just play it on Boot Camp, but I would rather not reboot into Windows if possible.

Macbook Black 2.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM

Thanks in advance!

 

[TheReef]

My guess is that it will be ok as it is an older game…why not download the demo and see for yourself?

 

[wyatt23]

let us know how it turns out.

 

[Wicker]

let us know how it turns out.

Will do!

I don't have my Macbook yet, hoping to get it by Friday I'll try this out over the weekend and post the results.

 

[IscariotJ]

Games List

While this list doesn't mention AoEII, it will give you an idea of what will/wont run on Fusion.

I can't see there being a problem with it, unless it uses some bizarre codec ( TA: Kingdoms, for example, won't play properly due to the movie player on the title screen ).

Performance wise, I think it will run OK. I've run NWN on my CoreDuo MacBook, and found it fairly playable ( once the graphics have been tuned ).

 

[galstaph]

There was (is) a release of age of empires 2 gold edition for mac... no need to use vmware macsoft ported it a while back, works fine on my mbp and ibook

 

[Wicker]

While this list doesn't mention AoEII, it will give you an idea of what will/wont run on Fusion.

I can't see there being a problem with it, unless it uses some bizarre codec ( TA: Kingdoms, for example, won't play properly due to the movie player on the title screen ).

Performance wise, I think it will run OK. I've run NWN on my CoreDuo MacBook, and found it fairly playable ( once the graphics have been tuned ).

Thanks for the link, it's good to see the possibilities I guess I'll have to try it out next week and let you all know how it goes.

There was (is) a release of age of empires 2 gold edition for mac... no need to use vmware macsoft ported it a while back, works fine on my mbp and ibook

I am aware of this, thank you. From what I've read it does not allow you to play with PC users so it is not very useful to me (I only play two games: AoE with friends and Football Manager by myself).

 

[Wicker]

So I tried it and it didn't work as desired... I enabled 3D graphics, gave it up to 1400 MB of memory and two virtual processors but it still lagged :-(

I've now installed Boot Camp and played it there. If I were to install more memory (say 4GB) would that help me run AoE smoothly on VMware or is the problem something else?

 

[redsteven]

So I tried it and it didn't work as desired... I enabled 3D graphics, gave it up to 1400 MB of memory and two virtual processors but it still lagged :-(

I've now installed Boot Camp and played it there. If I were to install more memory (say 4GB) would that help me run AoE smoothly on VMware or is the problem something else?

I'm not a VMware expert or anything, but.... did you try BEFORE enabling 3D graphics and everything? It's possible that the 2 virtual processors and 3d graphics settings and everything are too much for your macbook to handle, despite the fact that AoE is an old game and might not even NEED any of those settings.

 

[Wicker]

I'm not a VMware expert or anything, but.... did you try BEFORE enabling 3D graphics and everything? It's possible that the 2 virtual processors and 3d graphics settings and everything are too much for your macbook to handle, despite the fact that AoE is an old game and might not even NEED any of those settings.

Thanks for your input.

Yes, I did try it first with the default settings (1 processor, 512 memory, no 3D graphics, etc) and then worked my way up until my computer could not handle it anymore...

 

[IscariotJ]

So I tried it and it didn't work as desired... I enabled 3D graphics, gave it up to 1400 MB of memory and two virtual processors but it still lagged :-(

I've now installed Boot Camp and played it there. If I were to install more memory (say 4GB) would that help me run AoE smoothly on VMware or is the problem something else?

Two virtual processors is not a good idea, tbh. It does cause a performance drop ( oddly ).

I've 2GB in my CD MacBook, and have 768MB allocated to the BootCamp VM, and it runs NWN at a point where it's playable. Have you tried running it under a BootCamp VM? They are quicker than a normal VM. Also, have you configured VMware for VM disk performance, or OSX performance?

 

[Wicker]

Two virtual processors is not a good idea, tbh. It does cause a performance drop ( oddly ).

I've 2GB in my CD MacBook, and have 768MB allocated to the BootCamp VM, and it runs NWN at a point where it's playable. Have you tried running it under a BootCamp VM? They are quicker than a normal VM. Also, have you configured VMware for VM disk performance, or OSX performance?

I did try the Boot Camp VM but it was about the same... not very playable (definitely not for online gaming). I've configured it so that the performance boost is for the VM rather than OSX applications. I've also set the graphic detail on the game to its minimum...

I think I'll try VMware Fusion 2 beta and see how that goes, hopefully there'll be an improvement?

 

[IscariotJ]

I did try the Boot Camp VM but it was about the same... not very playable (definitely not for online gaming). I've configured it so that the performance boost is for the VM rather than OSX applications. I've also set the graphic detail on the game to its minimum...

I think I'll try VMware Fusion 2 beta and see how that goes, hopefully there'll be an improvement?

The beta is currently a tad slower, due to the debugging being turned out. It will be worth trying when it's GA, though ( it will be a free upgrade ).

I'll have to dig my AoE2 disk out, and give it a go.

 

[judenihal]

Wicker,

In VMware, do this:

Try setting 1 system processor, 256 MB and NO 3D acceleration. Then, install Windows 98 or Windows 2000 and Install Age of Empires and Age of Empires 2. It should work as well.

Oh, by the way, for testing, try doing this. Before installing Age of Empires and Age of Empires 2, create a snapshot after installing Windows, then install just the VMware Video Driver. Age of Empires will not have any mouse problem even though you might have a heck of a time trying to press ctrl+alt to uncapture the mouse out of the VM. Next, instead of installing just the VMware Video Drivers, try installing VMware Tools to see if that works. If it works, then use the VMware tools. Otherwise, just install the VMware Drivers. Use the snapshot feature to revert if you have a mistake, but you can delete when you are happy with everything.

Oh also another thing. It is NOT necessary to create such a BIG vmware, with a lot of ram and 2 processors to make Age of Empires run smooth. Age of Empires runs on Pentium 1 computers smoothly. You could just probably run it okay in DOSBOX if you just get Windows 95 on it by booting it off an Hard Drive Image LOL!

I hope I helped

Nihal