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I want to play "Star Wars: The Old Republic" on my Mac?

R

RedHotChiliDog

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 1, 2011
5
0
Chicago
I got my Macbook pro last spring (13 inch 2.3) and I love it! Problem at the time is I didn't think I would be gaming on my laptop till I found out The Old Republic is PC only. What can I do to run it on my mac without totally ****ing up my mac's speed or performance? I've heard of bootcamp and other parrallels but don't know much about any and if its possible to put the OS on an external harddrive so my mac isn't affected I'll gladly do that. I'm not much of a computer guy by any means as I'm sure you can tell :D . So please explain to me my options/the best option.
 
I'm on the beta , on a 2011 iMac and a mid 2008 MBP , I can say, if you want performance, install windows 7 64bit, under bootcamp, on at least a 150GB partition on your main drive, it's the only way to play and get the best performance out of the system, sure you could go the parallels route, I tried it and it does work, but you'll take a performance hit.
 
I have played it both through Bootcamp and with Parallels. Parallels with SWTOR suffers the same problem it suffers in other game, namely screwing mouse behavior. As in click a mouse button and sometimes the screen twirls. Otherwise its 'playable' but I figure it this way, since you need windows for Parallels to work just bootcamp
 
With your specs... go with bootcamp.

Parallels actually runs this game fantastic for being in a virtual machine, and is the way I play, but my specs are MUCH higher than yours, so I don't notice much of a slow down like you would.

To the Parallels mouse comment, the mouse can work fine. Run Parallels in fullscreen, and turn off SmartMouse in Parallels options and the mouse works perfectly in the game.
 
doh123 said:
With your specs... go with bootcamp.

Parallels actually runs this game fantastic for being in a virtual machine, and is the way I play, but my specs are MUCH higher than yours, so I don't notice much of a slow down like you would.

To the Parallels mouse comment, the mouse can work fine. Run Parallels in fullscreen, and turn off SmartMouse in Parallels options and the mouse works perfectly in the game.
Click to expand...

Thank you doh123, I will try disabling smart mouse.
 
RedHotChiliDog said:
I got my Macbook pro last spring (13 inch 2.3) and I love it! Problem at the time is I didn't think I would be gaming on my laptop till I found out The Old Republic is PC only. What can I do to run it on my mac without totally ****ing up my mac's speed or performance? I've heard of bootcamp and other parrallels but don't know much about any and if its possible to put the OS on an external harddrive so my mac isn't affected I'll gladly do that. I'm not much of a computer guy by any means as I'm sure you can tell :D . So please explain to me my options/the best option.
Click to expand...


Bootcamp creates a separate hard drive partition for Windows. As a rule, what happens in Windows, stays in Windows. I know of no threat to your MacOS and it's ability to function. This includes getting a Windows Virus on your Windows partition. If you are only playing SWTOR in Windows, not emailing, and not surfing all over, the threat even in Windows is slight.
 
KevinRightWing said:
How well will the game game rub on a 17in 2011 MacBook pro?
Click to expand...

Amazingly fast...

the game is very low end for graphics and is supposed to look cartoony. You do not need a powerhouse to run the game. I have a early 2011 17" MBP and used it during beta and it runs fantastic even in Parallels.
 
@doh123

Are you gonna work on a wine port of the game?
Maby not before its out of beta?
My macbook pro is old and I dont think it would run swtor in parallels well :)
Thanks anyway, I really love your software :3

Of course as of now I'm playing in bootcamp which is tottaly satisfactory but a bit cumbersome.
 
Last edited:
Siggen said:
@doh123

Are you gonna work on a wine port of the game?
Maby not before its out of beta?
My macbook pro is old and I dont think it would run swtor in parallels well :)
Thanks anyway, I really love your software :3

Of course as of now I'm playing in bootcamp which is tottaly satisfactory but a bit cumbersome.
Click to expand...

I am... yes. I did during beta and had a mostly working Wineskin port already done, but they kept changing things and breaking things... and currently they made some changes that has totally broken usage with Wine for everyone... so I stopped even looking at trying until the game is out with more stable code. Its too hard chasing a quickly changing/moving target.
 
doh123 said:
I am... yes. I did during beta and had a mostly working Wineskin port already done, but they kept changing things and breaking things... and currently they made some changes that has totally broken usage with Wine for everyone... so I stopped even looking at trying until the game is out with more stable code. Its too hard chasing a quickly changing/moving target.
Click to expand...

If you play this game under a wineskin port, how reliant are you on the port's author for when updates to the game are released? Once the game is running by means of wineskin will it handle all updates on it's own or will it require continuous wineskin patches?
 
Huntn said:
If you play this game under a wineskin port, how reliant are you on the port's author for when updates to the game are released? Once the game is running by means of wineskin will it handle all updates on it's own or will it require continuous wineskin patches?
Click to expand...

only requires updates to the actual wrapper if some update the game maker puts out breaks it... most game patches do not cause any issues like that. It uses the normal game's log in and patching... I've played and made an unofficial Mac version of STO since it came out... their patches have only caused issues twice, and they were pretty easy to fix.
 
doh123 said:
only requires updates to the actual wrapper if some update the game maker puts out breaks it... most game patches do not cause any issues like that. It uses the normal game's log in and patching... I've played and made an unofficial Mac version of STO since it came out... their patches have only caused issues twice, and they were pretty easy to fix.
Click to expand...

How would you compare performance between wineskin and native Windows?
Thanks for the info! :)
 
Huntn said:
How would you compare performance between wineskin and native Windows?
Thanks for the info! :)
Click to expand...

running something natively in Windows (directly installed, not a VM) will usually always a lot better. Its about being able to run it in OSX without needing Windows, which is much preferable. Its a game by game basis though, some run very well, and some will run horrible... Its usually always much better in performance than Windows in a virtual machine though.
 
Thanks for the responses! Bootcamp looks like the way to go. And just to be sure, this game will play okay on my specs right? (I figure if not you guys would've said something by now)
 
RedHotChiliDog said:
Thanks for the responses! Bootcamp looks like the way to go. And just to be sure, this game will play okay on my specs right? (I figure if not you guys would've said something by now)
Click to expand...

if you don't mind using a PC instead of a Mac (virtually what you are doing when using Bootcamp to dual boot), then Bootcamp is the way to go...

It should run ok on your machine at lower settings, but it depends on your exact specs which you didn't provide.
 
My MacBook pro has: 2.3ghz dual core intel core i5 processor 3 mb shared level 3 cache, 4gb of 1333mhg ddr3 sdram, a intel hd graphics 3000 processor, and a 320 gb 5400 rpm harddrive
 
It'll be fine in bootcamp (I ran the beta on my core 2 duo/320m MBP).
Previous (limited) experience makes me think it'll be playable through wineskin, but it might be pushing a bit.
I kinda like the distinction of having to boot into windows, for what that's worth. It's a bit more like "ok, I've stopped being productive, let's reboot and geek out a bit." Clean lines
 
I ran The Old Republic on my old Toshiba Satellite L745-S4210 with a Core i3-2310M, 4GB DDR3, Intel HD 3000, and Windows 7 Home Premium x64. It ran, but not as well as one would like. Keep in mind that the 13" MacBook Pro comes with a Core i5, so it may run better, but it is doubtful. If you do decide to run it on that, you'll need to do so with all settings set to low.
 
My parents are giving me their iMac from 2010....will the game run on that? I believe the specs will be one of these two:

Low-End 21.5 Inch Model - MC508LL/A
1) Processor changes from Intel Core 2 Duo to an Intel Core i3 and supports Hyper-Threading
2) L2 Cache changes to L3 and increases 1MB to 4MBs
3) Graphics Card goes from NVIDIA GeForce 9400M to ATI Radeon HD 4670

High-End 21.5 Inch Model - MC509LL/A
1) Processor changes from Intel Core 2 Duo to an Intel Core i3 and supports Hyper-Threading
2) Processor speed increases from 3.06GHz to 3.2GHz (Optional 3.60GHz Intel Core i5)
3) L2 Cache changes to L3 and increases 1MB to 4MBs
4) Graphics Card goes from ATI Radeon HD 4670 to ATI Radeon HD 5670
5) Graphics memory increases from 256MB to 512MB
 
datamonger128 said:
I ran The Old Republic on my old Toshiba Satellite L745-S4210 with a Core i3-2310M, 4GB DDR3, Intel HD 3000, and Windows 7 Home Premium x64. It ran, but not as well as one would like. Keep in mind that the 13" MacBook Pro comes with a Core i5, so it may run better, but it is doubtful. If you do decide to run it on that, you'll need to do so with all settings set to low.
Click to expand...

If I were to keep things on normal or high it wouldn't work well then? It looks like the only problem I really have is my video card is it possible to get a better video card put in so I can leave the settings on high?
 
Probably depends a little on the resolution, I was running the beta at 720 with a pretty solid 20-40 fps on medium, with bloom on, messed with a few sliders. Your CPU beats mine by a decent amount, but the GPU's are about equal I think. I'd imagine the actual shipping client will run a little faster.
 
RedHotChiliDog said:
If I were to keep things on normal or high it wouldn't work well then? It looks like the only problem I really have is my video card is it possible to get a better video card put in so I can leave the settings on high?
Click to expand...

Unfortunatey it's not possible to upgrade the GPU in the MacBook Pros and only the 15" and 17" models come with dedicated GPU's. The 13" models are not really designed for heavy gaming especially AAA games.
 
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