Hi, I'm new to the forums, I've been following this game for a while now and yesterday pre-ordered the Galactic Edition which includes the Alpha download. I have 2 questions if you guys could help me with. 1. I know the final release will be available for Mac but will the alpha be available for Mac? & 2. Would my 2012 MacBook Air be able to run this game ok? 2GHz Intel Core i7 8GB RAM 1600 MHz DDR3 Intel HD Graphics 4000 512Mb Thanks, this game looks ridiculously amazing.
Yes their steam page says so.http://store.steampowered.com/app/233250/?snr=1_7_15__13 Minimum: OS:OS/X 10.6 64-bit Processor:64-bit Dual Core better Memory:4 GB RAM Graphics:Shader 3.0 Hard Drive:2 GB HD space Additional:These specs are still being determined. Recommended: Processor:Quad Core Memory:8 GB RAM Hard Drive:2 GB HD space Additional:These specs are still being determined.
Tried it on my mid 2009 macbook pro 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 duo 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256MB OSX 10.8.4 Not a great experience, to say the least. Runs on minimum graphic settings but starts choking up after about 10 minutes of playing. Scrolling and zooming is rough and laggy. Not sure where mine is choking first... the CPU doesn't max out, the memory almost maxes out and there really is no chance of playing on anything but low settings with everything off, so my bet is the GPU followed by the RAM. It would be interesting to hear what minimum mac you can get this running on. From what I've gathered in different threads here on the forum, the intel HD 4000 chipset would be passable for the alpha with 4 GB memory. **Please note that I'm trying to gather some info useful from and for other mac users so that we can enjoy the game. If you want to troll or fanboy PCs, please take it elsewhere.**
If you want to play on Mac I'll recommend you stick to models with Nvidia GPU. AMD drivers isn't perfect on Mac and Intel drivers just total crap, they worse than Intel open source drivers on Linux and I doubt this situation might change.. There is completely no difference between Apple and other hardware since 2009 when they dropped PowerPC support.
I was way off on the CPU. Activity monitor has it at an average of 150 % load when the game is running. That's one of the choke points I guess. Been doing a few size 1 and 2 maps with up to 3 players and that works ok with everything on low and off. Also, the screen size matters. If you go fullscreen, you get more lag. Logical, I suppose.
So basically current range of Macbook Pro 15" or iMac then. They have the GeForce 650+M as standard these days. MacBook Pro 13" and Mac Mini has the Intel HD 4000 and Air has the Intel HD 5000. 13" should get a boost to 5000 after September 10 when the new line is launched. Shouldn't matter here, though, judging by SXX. Thanks for the input!
iGPU mode doesn't really mater because problem in drivers. I think with Nvidia 650M you will have 4-5 times better performance than with Intel HD. Just simple comparsions from youtube: Intel HD 4000 performance 2.5 times slower and this is on Windows with DirectX. Situation with OpenGL on Mac OS X will be far far worse. PS: With AMD card you will have really nice performance, but their drivers from Mac not such polished as Nvidia one. So you can go with AMD GPU, but probably you'll have more problems.
