How to Play Warhammer Online On Your Mac (Page 1)
Wondering how to get WAR to run on your Macintosh? Well wonder no more!
In my last column, I talked about how lame it was that Mythic didn’t have a Mac version of their fantastic new game, Warhammer Online. Well even if you can’t buy an official Mac version you can still play Warhammer Online on your Mac and I’ll show you how in this column.
There are three primary possibilities for running Warhammer Online on your Mac:
1. Parallels
2. VMWare
3. Boot Camp
I’ll cover the good and bad of each of them in this column.
Please note that I did not try Crossover and can’t comment on it too much but I suspect that it will exact the same kind of performance penalties (if it works at all) as VMWare.
The Specs of My Main iMac
Just so you know the kind of machine I’m running Warhammer Online on, here are the specs of my main iMac (I also have an older 20 inch but I’m not using it to run Warhammer Online):
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac8,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 3.06 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: IM81.00C1.B00
SMC Version: 1.30f1
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS:
Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
While it’s not the most powerful gaming machine out there these days, it’s not all that bad either. And it has enough horse power to run Warhammer and to run it well…depending on the means that I use to run the game.
Not all methods are equal and some require more horse power than others as you’ll see in the rest of this article.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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I’ve got an iMac 20″ 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB ram and ATI RadeonHD 2600 with 256VRAM.
Do you reckon Warhammer Online via Windows Vista Home Boot Camp with run with great performances like yours?
Please advise as I’m deciding whether or not to buy windows and install it into boot camp.
Much appreciated!
Hi Garry,
You’re smart to go the Boot Camp route though as I think that will give you the maximum level of performance.
The minimum requirement for a video card for WAR is 128MB and you’ve got double that so my guess is that it would probably run just fine for you. Maybe not as fast as mine but that’s okay.
Post back and let me know how well it’s running for you if you go through with it.
Hi Jim,
thanks for the PROMPT reply! I’m currently backing up all my data on the iMac before I embark on a clean install (as advised in your review). Fingers crossed and hope that all goes well.
I must say if it weren’t for this review I would have most probably gone out to buy a PC just to accommodate Warhammer Online which is too extreme to a certain degree. The other comments I found on google were basically suggesting VMware and Corssover Games. I’ve had many trouble with Crossover Games installing DirectX. Finally gave up and figured that unless I’m running it natively, it will never yield optimum results.
Thanks a mil, will try it out for meself and let you know how well it runs on mine
Cheers
Just a couple of things:
1) Crossover does not run this game at all. You can install it but then does not load.
2) VMWare as you mentioned runs terribly slow.
3) Bootcamp is the way to go!
I run it on a Mac Pro (8 2.4Ghz core, 16GB RAM, 8800GT 512MB) and it is blazing fast in bootcamp!
Thanks for the feedback, Jannis. Good to hear it’s working well for you. Boot Camp definitely makes a HUGE difference in performance.
I also found Boot Camp is by far the best solution to play WAR on my MP 3.0ghz x8 core, 4gb ram, 8800gt, and 30″ display. I also wish there was a native Mac version. With Linch King coming out as a native Mac app I may find my self more inclined to go back to wow…
Do you know what year they started using the leopard operating system, that has boot camp in it. I have a 2006 iMac 17″ 2GHz intel core 2 duo processor with 1GB capable of holding 3 if i would like to upgrade the memory. I would like to know if i have to buy leopard as well as the vista or if i can just run it with XP.
Would love to run Boot Camp, but get error after error after error - I bought a PC laptop just to play Warhammer and THAT was the way to go.
Jim, what’s your FPS and resoltuion/settings for WAR?
Hi Ken,
I’m not sure what the FPS is as there doesn’t seem to be a command in WAR the way there is in WOW. But it looks great, very smooth and no significant slowdowns or other problems.
[...] know first hand as I tried running Warhammer Online via VMWare on my Mac and it just didn’t work well at all. I ultimately abandoned VMWare and went to Boot [...]
I am currently playing War on a macBook Pro using bootcamp running XP the machine has 4 gig ram,2 core, an ati 1600 w256. The game runs great only problem I seem to encounter is overheating. I’m using a external cooling fan and have installed a utility to moniter on the PC side and a utility on the Mac side to manually set the internal fan to 6000 when playing WAR. The cores heat which at time tops out at 175 degrees seems to be causeing shut downs on the PC side only. Anyone else having heat issues??
[...] get me to buy it. Both VMWare and Parallels stink for 3D gaming. They just do. Trust me, I tried it with a certain popular MMO game and they didn’t come close to performing well enough to enjoy the game. I had to run it via [...]