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Macintosh

 
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Looking at purchasing a Mac, curious about the game play
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Cire Isu
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#1 - 2012-12-15 14:29:29 UTC
Good day,

I'm thinking of purchasing a Mac here in the next month or so and I am looking at the base model.
3.2GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX 1GB GDDR5

Possibly upgrading to 16gb of ram.

Now I have been a diehard PC gamer for years but I am looking at picking this up for graphics and webdesign, and of course my one Game I play religiously, EVE...how is the game play? I'm drooling at the thought of the cinema display and EVE, thoughts suggestions?

I appreciate any feedback
Rafael Argus
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2012-12-16 22:58:09 UTC
I've been using a Mac to play EVE ever since the EVE client for Mac was released, and I've never had major problems with the client. The FPS isn't as good as I'm led to believe is the case on the Windows client, and some things, like interacting with EveMon/EFT/EveHQ reasonably well are probably really really hard to do.

But, I'm able to play the game nicely, operate in fleets okay, and generally have an enjoyable game experience. I currently use a mid 2011 i7 based iMac, and an early 2009 Core 2 Duo based MacBook Pro. I've not yet tried running two clients on the iMac, but will be shortly.

So, I'm happy with it. (Others have admittedly had several problems with the Mac client. That hasn't been my experience, but I also don't want to sugar-coat it, or make light of other people's difficulties.)
Cire Isu
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#3 - 2012-12-17 00:20:50 UTC
No I totally understand, I appreciate your insight as it's not an inexpensive purchase :) Plus being a Mac "virgin" I haven't the foggiest as to how the units handle game play.
Easthir Ravin
Easy Co.
#4 - 2012-12-17 03:00:51 UTC
Greetings

I have been playing EVE since Jan 2009, I have had no issues with MAC. I have been in 1000 man fleets and have only had the same issues that most others have with Tidi and large fleets. I recommend the 16gig of RAM as you tend to have more than just the eve client running.

Started on a first Gen intel iMac and have upgraded to a late 2011 iMac. No issues there. I have not upgraded to Mountain Lion yet so I can not speak to the stability.

IN THE IMORTAL WORDS OF SOCRATES:  " I drank WHAT?!"
You Mad Braw
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#5 - 2013-01-09 11:32:50 UTC
Me too, mid 2011 i5 iMac ... works great no big problems, just few small ones occasionally ... what you love is ultra quick cmd+tabbing between clients as i mentioned in some thread.

+other perks you get with osx
Washbucket
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#6 - 2013-01-10 11:42:56 UTC
I run 3 clients on my 2011 MBP without any problems. The only time I've really run into troubles are in huge fleet battles. Then my FPS drops and it become supper laggy.

Also on a side note you can install Windows on your Mac with bootcamp. I use that for games that do not support OSX.
Niclaus Alabi
Osmo Corp
#7 - 2013-01-15 22:20:20 UTC
Hi, i recently moved to mac from windows 7 just before the latest patch. İ had constant dc problms the game either froze on me or disconncted. But with the latest patch all seems to be ok.
İ have a mid 2012 retina mbp. İ optimised the graphics on high performance. But i enabled turrets and explosions.
İt helped a lot with the heatimg problems.
İt still gets a bit laggy when u undock in jita but i've been on 40/50 ppl fleets with no problem.
Raketefrau
ConHugeCo
#8 - 2013-01-29 01:32:09 UTC
I've been playing Eve on an MBP since the client was released.

I was even in that 2700-man fleet battle the other night, and other than regular tidi crap I was rock stable.
Raketefrau
ConHugeCo
#9 - 2013-01-29 01:32:35 UTC
meh, accidental doublepost.
Morgan Torry
Arma Purgatorium
#10 - 2013-01-29 09:26:43 UTC
Posting in late to say I've never known EVE outside of a Mac. I play it on my 2008 white MacBook that has the optimal nVidia card, dual core Intel, and 4 GB RAM. I usually sit around 30 FPS whenever I am zoomed in on my ship fairly close. I can get up to 70 FPS or so when zooming the way out....this is from experience in both small gangs and in large fights (I was scouting about at that big 2000+ man cap fight a couple nights ago with no issue sans TiDi).

I run both the Mac client and a Bootcamp Windows 7 client...the Mac client has better visuals and seem much more clear and crisp but the multitasking seems low compared to Windows (as in, using Window Mode in the two provides a clear advantage to the Windows OS when using other things such as browsers next to the window). I typically use the Mac partition when I want to play just EVE due to how I can set higher graphic settings on the OS X side (running the latest Mountain Lion btw....started playing with Snow Leopard though) and the Windows partition when I plan to multitask outside of the game with other things.

Arma Purgatorium - What is Podded May Never Die
Draek Andorii
Spiffo in Space
#11 - 2013-02-19 18:38:24 UTC
Never had any problems, runs incredibly well even on high graphics. Overall, very nicely done.
Mr NoMercy
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#12 - 2013-02-19 21:27:07 UTC
Also a long term Mac based EVE player..

Overall i'm happy with the experience.

I had an opportunity to switch to windows about 8 months ago (my old machine was becoming a pain in terms of max memory and processing ability) and decided against it at the time. I don't regret it.

Right now I can run 4 sessions with ease, albeit screen real-estate is a premium. As a result I have a couple of small windows and a couple which between them occupy the whole width of the display.

I've had to employ a couple if workarounds to run multiple clients. Typically with the Mac you clone the eve client and point the second+ to separate config locations which has been a pain at times because patches tend to reset them back. However with a quick tweak that's avoidable.

FPS? yes less than the native windows app but even with 4 sessions I don't drop below 35fps. Memory is cheap (and I have plenty of it). so I don't see that as a mac problem.

From time to time there are a few bugs introduced, typically during major updates (such as the one yesterday). They are eventually ironed out, examples have been crashing when going through gates, slow fps, memory leaks. I dont think they test the eve client as thoroughly as the windows equiv. Again I've managed to live through them without too much hassle.

Pro tip: Make sure you have plenty of memory and have a machine capable of supporting 16Gb+ if you want to go multi client. You don't need it now but over time the client has become more resource hungry. Example would be my old 24" imac. It started with 2GB of memory and I could run 2 clients with ease, i then upgraded to 4Gb when I added a 3rd client. Approx 3 years later with the machine maxed at 6Gb it was painful to run 2 clients... eventually i moved onto another machine, principally driven by memory constraints.
Grash Depran
Binary Capital Group
#13 - 2013-02-22 05:21:18 UTC
Wow, good feedback everyone.. I'm considering picking up a refurb 15" MBPr (June 2012), and was worried like crazy after reading all of them posts from the 1.1 patch. :( Sounds like overall most people have a good experience though.

Just out of curiosity, for those of you who run multiple clients.. a few questions.

Right now I run 3 clients in Windows 7 (I just start them all full screen, and tab between them).. No special anything required..

1) Can you run multiple clients full screen in OS X?

2) My multiple clients really consist of two toons in station doing market orders / contracts, and one flying around visiting various customs offices. Sound like a MBPr could handle that (8GB ram, 650M video card, 2.3Ghz Quad Core i7)?

3) Does that OS X Eve cloning tool still work OK?


4) For those of you who use windows / mac.. can you copy your overview settings between the OS's? If I export my overview setup from Windows, can I just copy it over to the right place on the mac and have it work?

Thanks.. :)
Raiz Nhell
State War Academy
Caldari State
#14 - 2013-02-22 06:08:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Raiz Nhell
I have never actually seen the Windows client, I've always used a Mac....

And I have run it quite happily on everything from a 2006 top of the line Mac Pro (30 inch cinema display is the only way to play), to a MBP and my 11inch Macbook Air...
The only issues I've encountered is that everything runs very hot...

And I wouldn't try and PVP on the Macbook Air... its a bit low on the frame rate, but the MacBook Pro runs it wonderfully...

Edit: I've never used multiple clients on the on machine

:)

There is no such thing as a fair fight...

If your fighting fair you have automatically put yourself at a disadvantage.
Grash Depran
Binary Capital Group
#15 - 2013-02-22 13:49:02 UTC
Thanks for the info..

What's the deal with 'running hot'? Are there particular GFX options to turn off to prevent this? I'm not really concerned about my dudes in station getting super-high textures.. :) I can even settle for medium graphics for the space-flying toon, too..
Miandris Malkier
Ethalian Native Preservation League
#16 - 2013-02-22 19:37:12 UTC
Major patches can be a real fun. I am under the impression that they don't test the new updates before they get released for mac clients. Currently, when I try and launch my client, it crashes my computer...
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#17 - 2013-02-22 21:26:40 UTC
OTOH, I've only had a patch go funny once, and I've only ever run EVE on a Mac. The last three updates, 1.1., 1.1.1 and 1.1.2, were flawless.

Optimized for memory, I can run two clients on my aging 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM. Optimized for quality I can run one sort of well, although I wouldn't want to land on grid with more than a dozen people or so. That has more to do with the age of my machine (2008) then the quality of the client.

The biggest issue I have is that it has a slow memory leak, and after a few hours of running I risk a silent disconnect. So every few hours or so I dock or safe up, log off, quit and relaunch. That could be because I have 4GB of RAM and a tendency to run iTunes, Safari, Pixelmator, iPhoto, BBEdit and 2-4 other applications as well. YMMV.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!
Grash Depran
Binary Capital Group
#18 - 2013-02-22 21:43:04 UTC
Miandris Malkier wrote:
Major patches can be a real fun. I am under the impression that they don't test the new updates before they get released for mac clients. Currently, when I try and launch my client, it crashes my computer...


Yeah, I see from the feedback thread you're not alone in that.. Very surprising (and worrying).. I think CCP needs to buy a couple Macs to test on.. ;)
Rafael Argus
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#19 - 2013-02-24 03:58:15 UTC
Grash Depran wrote:
Miandris Malkier wrote:
Major patches can be a real fun. I am under the impression that they don't test the new updates before they get released for mac clients. Currently, when I try and launch my client, it crashes my computer...


Yeah, I see from the feedback thread you're not alone in that.. Very surprising (and worrying).. I think CCP needs to buy a couple Macs to test on.. ;)


On the other hand, I have been playing since day almost one of the Mac client availability, and have had perhaps one update problem doing updates to 3 to 4 Macs of various vintages since.

The forums get the complaints, but very rarely garner good comments.
Invisusira
Escalated.
OnlyFleets.
#20 - 2013-02-24 05:00:38 UTC
As long as you have fucktons of ram (and you do), you'll be fine. Dunno if they've fixed the memory leak they introduced a while back, but since upgrading to 12gb I haven't had any problems.

The game runs much better in Windows, but you shouldn't have a problem with 8 gigs of ram on your computer.

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