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cavenman

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 25, 2008
5
0
So I'd love to buy a mac capable of playing spore. I am in a bit of a pickle though as I am in need of a new mac for school and either will get the white macbook with the GMA X3100 or a iMac with the HD 2600 PRO 256 MB RAM. The only thing that makes the iMac an option for me is that I am still living at home. I'll just buy a cheap notebook for school later on down the road. Still I am sacrificing my wallet and portability to get a better spore playing experience. I really don't have a good reason to bring my computer to school for a good 3 years the way I look at it though. So the point is: Has anyone played spore (not just creature creator) on the macbook with the GMA X1300. If so hows it running?
 

jeejeebu

macrumors regular
Jun 25, 2007
148
0
I've got a late 2006 (GMA 950) and everything runs fine except creature creator, so I would assume that if creature creator works on a GMA X1300, the whole game will be fine. But game play runs smoothly and looks great. Now if only I could actually see creature creator so I'm not just blindly editing creatures.
 

cavenman

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 25, 2008
5
0
Only other question is have you made it to the space stage yet? Does the game still perform well with the macbook?
 

muldul

macrumors 6502
Apr 21, 2008
439
0
West Sussex, England, UK
I have a late 2008 macbook (black) and spore runs great on it, settings on high, every stage plays great (space stage is amazing by the way). The creator was a bit laggy (trial), but it is great in the full game.
 

muldul

macrumors 6502
Apr 21, 2008
439
0
West Sussex, England, UK
I have four species going, one is on space, one on civilisation, one on tribal and one on creature. I have have played all of them all the way from cell up to their respective levels. I am a little addicted to the game.
 

Daveoc64

macrumors 601
Jan 16, 2008
4,074
92
Bristol, UK
I have a late 2008 macbook (black) and spore runs great on it, settings on high, every stage plays great (space stage is amazing by the way). The creator was a bit laggy (trial), but it is great in the full game.

Do you mean the Late 2007 model?

Otherwise you're in the space stage!
 

jeejeebu

macrumors regular
Jun 25, 2007
148
0
I have four species going, one is on space, one on civilisation, one on tribal and one on creature. I have have played all of them all the way from cell up to their receptive levels. I am a little addicted to the game.

Did you get the award for getting to space in one sitting? My brother did. For him it should really be called the "I'm staying with my mother who is taking care of my child and my wife is out of town" award.
 

cavenman

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 25, 2008
5
0
Great to know the game runs well on the macbooks. Out of curiosity what are your specific spettings like screen resolution and level of detail? I know muldul said the game could run on high settings. Just wondering what everything is set to.
 

snakedoctor

macrumors member
Feb 1, 2008
59
0
Do you mean the Late 2007 model?

Otherwise you're in the space stage!

In early 2008 the macbook was upgraded to the penrynn CPU, which is a .45nm CPU with 3megs of cache. The Black one, came with a 2.4ghz.

The late 2007 macbook was a .65nm CPU that topped at 2.2ghz and 4meg of cache. The CPU swap alone gives something like 20min of battery time since it runs cooler and requires less power so I have read.
 

tny

macrumors 6502
Jun 3, 2003
436
81
Washington, DC
I've got a late 2006 (GMA 950) and everything runs fine except creature creator, so I would assume that if creature creator works on a GMA X1300, the whole game will be fine. But game play runs smoothly and looks great. Now if only I could actually see creature creator so I'm not just blindly editing creatures.

Does anyone have it running on a MacBook Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo), mid-2006? Either OS X or Windows? The creature creator won't install on OS X, but does install in Vista.
 

hello.cello

macrumors newbie
Jan 1, 2011
1
0
A question for those of you who can play spore on your macbooks; is there a different version for the macbook or something that requires less memory? I have a 2010 macbook (with GmA X1300), but I don't know why spore won't open after I install it.
 
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Huntn

macrumors Core
May 5, 2008
23,484
26,601
The Misty Mountains
A question for those of you who can play spore on your macbooks; is there a different version for the macbook or something that requires less memory? I have a 2010 macbook (with GmA X1300), but I don't know why spore won't open after I install it.

I believe it is the same game no matter the hardware, although it may do a check and make some auto adjustments when you first start up to tweak the video. My wife has a 2 year old Macbook that runs this game just fine.
 

RedTomato

macrumors 601
Mar 4, 2005
4,155
442
.. London ..
Is this Spore via Steam?

Some Steam games (Especially Valve / Source ones) used to work on X3100 & GMA 950 Macbooks, but there were a lot of issues and support tickets for Steam, so Steam decided to hardware check for these graphics chips and stop some playing on them.

Steam claimed they never intended to support these chips and allowing some games to be played on them was a mistake / oversight.

No idea if Spore is one of these games. If it's any consolation, I fell into this trap too. If Spore is indeed blocked by OSX Steam on X3100, you can still run it via BootCamp or CrossOver.
 

savvos

macrumors regular
Sep 8, 2007
179
0
Not to hijack the thread, but does the Steam version of Spore run on Mac? It says Windows only on the site, although I know all the DVDs were hybrid.
 
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