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Purchasing a iMac
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Cpt Dom
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#1 - 2016-03-10 23:20:12 UTC
Good day,
I am considering purchasing a new iMac. Now the question I have is will the Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 run Eve As a mac client, not boot camped or anything as I have no Interest in switching back and forth to windows. I won't be running multiple clients either. Or will I be forced into running up to the 27inch model with AMD Radeon R9 M380 with 2GB ? We don't have a apple store near us and the stores that do sell the macs won't install eve to let me test.

Thanks in advance.
Invisusira
Escalated.
OnlyFleets.
#2 - 2016-03-11 18:44:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Invisusira
Either should be just fine. My iMac (AMD Radeon HD 6770M) is pushing 5 years old now, and I get 30+ FPS at max resolution/almost max settings (AA/HRD/Post turned off, everything else on high), and 20-30 FPS when running two clients on separate monitors.

Oh PS that's on Cider, too. Just got Wine working this morning, so will play around with it tonight. Most people are reporting noticeably higher performance with Wine.

EVE Music
Amarisen Gream
The.Kin.of.Jupiter
#3 - 2016-03-14 07:23:39 UTC
I hear the Intel Iris are very good at what they do.

I run two clients, dual screen on my low end 2012 iMac, and get 45 FPS+ with the built in 512, low settings. I have watched my FPS via iStat Menu, and it doesn't show much video ram usage, but the two clients do eat up 2.5 GB of system ram.

If you are in the US, call the NYC Apple Store and ask one of their geeks, or ask on the Apple Support Twitter.

"The Lord loosed upon them his fierce anger All of his fury and rage. He dispatched against them a band of Avenging Angels" - The Scriptures, Book II, Apocalypse 10:1

#NPCLivesMatter #Freetheboobs
RockJock
Brave Empire Inc.
Brave United
#4 - 2016-04-05 13:47:37 UTC  |  Edited by: RockJock
I am looking at purchasing a new iMac 27" with i5 and amd 395 2 gb video processor 32gb ram. Will the mac client run ok and full screen?
ashahara
State War Academy
Caldari State
#5 - 2016-04-05 15:32:50 UTC
RockJock wrote:
I am looking at purchasing a new iMac 27" with i5 and amd 395 2 gb video processor 32gb ram. Will the mac client run ok and full screen?


Im using a 27" retina 5K Imac with the following specs

32GB of ram (user installed)
Radeon R9 M290x
I7 quad core turbo boosted to 4.4 Ghz


if i'm being honest, I only installed EvE on it last night as I re subbed to the game yesterday as well. so far its running really well. all running at max settings and full screen. no issues so far.

i'm running it at circa 3k resolution as 5k is too small for me to read.

can post back here after a week or so after some more extensive testing but so far so good.
Xerxes Fehrnah
The Fallout Shelter
#6 - 2016-04-05 19:41:25 UTC
Be careful, iMac owners, before you report FPS back to people and recommend these machines for Eve.

Some important facts up front:

1. Ram is irrelevant. The game runs on the GPU. GPU ram is all that counts. I have 16GB of ram, and even with two clients going and a host of other stuff open and running, I rarely use 6 GB of ram. Really you will never use more than 8 GB of ram on an iMac unless you are editing video or doing professional level photo editing or 3D animation
2. Processer speed is important, but generally even on my older iMac eve cannot challenge the processor beyond 10%. It's the GPU that is the problem
3. iMacs use laptop GPUs, not full size GPU's you see in desktops with dedicated fans, for example. That is what is wrong with an iMac as a gaming machine.

If you are going to buy an iMac but love Eve, you've screwed up already. You need a Mac Pro. Spend the $500 and get a real GPU. Or, get the fastest CPU and GPU you can, and don't worry about getting more than 8 GB of ram to play even and read reddit.

Performance wise, I get 60 FPS while at warp, sitting in station, or mining.

15 FPS stutters when undocking, approaching gates, leaving gates

30 FPS during a crowded level 4 mission with 50+ rats on grid with clouds and a model of a destroyed station or rocks around.

That is with all settings to High, AA disabled, HDR disabled.

When I have tried to do fleet battles with more than 50 players on grid, it stops working entirely and locks up. I have to set all settings to low to get it to run a fleet battle of any size. Of course, if you are doing nothing but PVE, mining, and 1v1, you'll be fine.

If you are thinking of fighting in the big war up north, you iMac will serve up manure in a bowl and shove your face in it. I despise Windows, but for that kind of thing, I switch over to a desktop PC.

Last thing: the game runs about twice as fast on boot camp as it does using the Mac OS, because under bootcamp, D3D11 works and you are not limited to D3D9.
ashahara
State War Academy
Caldari State
#7 - 2016-04-05 22:42:41 UTC  |  Edited by: ashahara
well, as i said in my earlier post, i only installed it yesterday and did not really have much of a chance to play properly, just getting my head around stuff and setting up my overview & windows etc.

had a chance to play properly this evening an my experience has been a bit iffy to say the least.

using the IGB will crash the game more often than not requiring a force quit to stop. I keep getting frequent socket closed messages and the game stops. and i sometimes get random freezes which also require a force quit to get out of.

the main purpose of my imac is for music production, running Cubase & VST instruments ect. RAM is important in that scenario, GPU ram not so important. I only gave Eve another go after a few years away because i was being offered 10 days play for 69p.

apart from the crashes etc, it looks gorgeous on the retina display but unfortunately unplayable :(
Invisusira
Escalated.
OnlyFleets.
#8 - 2016-04-05 23:35:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Invisusira
Xerxes Fehrnah wrote:
Ram is irrelevant.


RAM would be irrelevant.... iiiiif the Mac EVE client didn't have a half-decade+ history of memory leak bugs. I'm running 12 gigs, and have to clear out inactive memory with MemoryFree 2 when running EVE and Chrome simultaneously more often than I'd like.

I've never had the client lock up on 200-1k person grids before (although performance obviously takes a drastic hit). I HAVE had it lock up MANY times when it runs out of RAM.

That being said, you're absolutely right about buying a higher performance machine if your main aim is to run EVE/games in general.

EVE Music
Xerxes Fehrnah
The Fallout Shelter
#9 - 2016-04-06 14:29:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Xerxes Fehrnah
ashahara wrote:

the main purpose of my imac is for music production, running Cubase & VST instruments ect. RAM is important in that scenario, GPU ram not so important. I only gave Eve another go after a few years away because i was being offered 10 days play for 69p.

apart from the crashes etc, it looks gorgeous on the retina display but unfortunately unplayable :(


If you are doing professional music production, you should get a Mac Pro, not an iMac. Professionals use the Mac Pro for music and video editing, since the CPU in an iMac is also way underpowered for that sort of work.

If you are having the troubles you describe with the mac client, then you need to change the wrapper you are using. Eve's launcher allows you to select either Cider (terrible with problems you describe) or Wine. You should go into your settings and select the Wine wrapper. The graphics will be faster and more beautiful, and the IGB works.

Open eve launcher, go the apple menu bar, click the apple, and go into preferences and change your wrapper and try it again.

Turn off any anti-aliasing.
ashahara
State War Academy
Caldari State
#10 - 2016-04-06 14:53:54 UTC  |  Edited by: ashahara
Xerxes Fehrnah wrote:
ashahara wrote:

the main purpose of my imac is for music production, running Cubase & VST instruments ect. RAM is important in that scenario, GPU ram not so important. I only gave Eve another go after a few years away because i was being offered 10 days play for 69p.

apart from the crashes etc, it looks gorgeous on the retina display but unfortunately unplayable :(


If you are doing professional music production, you should get a Mac Pro, not an iMac. Professionals use the Mac Pro for music and video editing, since the CPU in an iMac is also way underpowered for that sort of work.

If you are having the troubles you describe with the mac client, then you need to change the wrapper you are using. Eve's launcher allows you to select either Cider (terrible with problems you describe) or Wine. You should go into your settings and select the Wine wrapper. The graphics will be faster and more beautiful, and the IGB works.

Open eve launcher, go the apple menu bar, click the apple, and go into preferences and change your wrapper and try it again.

Turn off any anti-aliasing.



I only do music as a hobby so a Mac Pro is a little bit out of my price range at £2500 for the most basic model. no monitors or accessories. trust me when I say the imac runs my music software without a problem.

have been reading the wine thread atop this forum and will be trying all the steps you suggest. fingers crossed it works .