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Red Alert 3 PC Key and Mac Editions

Spanky Deluxe

Spanky Deluxe

macrumors 603
Original poster
Mar 17, 2005
5,292
1,834
London, UK
I bought RA3 for PC a few weeks ago for play in Boot Camp. I didn't even realise they were planning on releasing a Mac version until last week. Anyway, I just bought a copy of RA3 for Mac for my laptop since I don't have Boot Camp on there and I thought I'd try my PC version key in it on my Mac Pro. Lo and behold, it works!

I just thought I'd share my knowledge with others. If you're planning on buying it and so are a few of your friends then you could always just get one mac copy and the rest pc due to the big price difference.
 
Wow thats a good bit of information to know, Thank you for that wonder if that will work with other games as well..
 
jakeguy99 said:
Wow thats a good bit of information to know, Thank you for that wonder if that will work with other games as well..
Click to expand...

It might very well do actually since the Cider wrapper uses appears to just simulate a Windows environment. If there was a demo out for RA3 then people could use that but alas I don't think there is.
 
On my computer (below) it runs very smooth, game speed needs an increase, but with settings medium and 1920x1080 it is smooth and little to no lag
 
SebZen said:
Can you comment on the performance you got in Windows vs in OS X?
Click to expand...

Not really I'm afraid. My Windows install uses both of my 3870s in Crossfire mode whereas OS X only uses one of them. I'm a little disappointed with the performance in OS X to be honest because I couldn't run it with all the settings maxxed out on my MBP 15" with 9600 GT 512MB at native. I had to put it down to medium for it to be as smooth as 2560x1600 is in Windows on my Mac Pro with Crossfire.

I've just purchased the expansion pack, Red Alert 3: Uprising. I'm guessing EA won't ever release this for Mac since they never bothered with the C&C3 expansion pack. I'll have a look sometime soon at getting the expansion working in OS X. To be honest, I don't think it'll be much of a problem since its basically exactly the same internals as RA3. I'll report back my findings when I try it out of course. :)

Edit: Been trying for a while now to get the expansion working in OS X to no avail. Shame. :( Hopefully someone else will have some more luck. The closest I can get to run is to end up with the "Launch error" "Launch failed" error. :(
 
Spanky Deluxe said:
Not really I'm afraid. My Windows install uses both of my 3870s in Crossfire mode whereas OS X only uses one of them. I'm a little disappointed with the performance in OS X to be honest because I couldn't run it with all the settings maxxed out on my MBP 15" with 9600 GT 512MB at native. I had to put it down to medium for it to be as smooth as 2560x1600 is in Windows on my Mac Pro with Crossfire.

I've just purchased the expansion pack, Red Alert 3: Uprising. I'm guessing EA won't ever release this for Mac since they never bothered with the C&C3 expansion pack. I'll have a look sometime soon at getting the expansion working in OS X. To be honest, I don't think it'll be much of a problem since its basically exactly the same internals as RA3. I'll report back my findings when I try it out of course. :)

Edit: Been trying for a while now to get the expansion working in OS X to no avail. Shame. :( Hopefully someone else will have some more luck. The closest I can get to run is to end up with the "Launch error" "Launch failed" error. :(
Click to expand...

I had performance issues as well but putting shader detail to Medium, I got a really good performance boost on the 8800GS...still not as fast windows but smooth enough to enjoy it.
 
but don't you need a mac cd in the mac machine in order to play the game? how will my friends play if they only have the pc cd?
 
stark4 said:
but don't you need a mac cd in the mac machine in order to play the game? how will my friends play if they only have the pc cd?
Click to expand...

I don't need to have any disks in when I play RA3, I didn't think anyone did. Do you? As far as I know, it uses DRM instead.
 
hmm how do u get the installation for ra3 as i have the pc version...? and would like to use my key to play it on the mac? As far as i know the only way to get the mac installation is by buying it? And wats uprising like? Is it the proper add on?
 
Scotty89Uk said:
hmm how do u get the installation for ra3 as i have the pc version...? and would like to use my key to play it on the mac? As far as i know the only way to get the mac installation is by buying it?
Click to expand...

You can either look for guides to getting it to work in Cider/Wine and make a wrapper for it, try Fusion or Parallels, or Crossover games. Other than that, you'd have to purchase the mac version.

I actually found it for $16 at Microcenter near my house...
 
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