City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

City of Heroes Mac Edition Guide (Version 1)

AnoucheSyn

By AnoucheSyn,
Posted on: 2009-01-07 19:25 in Mac Users

 

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City of Heroes Mac Edition Guide (Version 1)

There are separate guides dealing with installing the Windows version of City Of Heroes on a Mac via Boot Camp (Dual Boot), Emulation (Parallels, VMWare), or Crossover Games. This guide deals specifically with the Native Mac Client.

Before you begin, keep in mind that City of Heroes works best with Leopard (MacOS X 10.5.x) or Snow Leopard (MacOS X 10.6.x), and an Intel-based Mac with a discrete video processor by ATI or nVidia. It also works with Tiger (MacOS X 10.4.x) but may have future support issues. It also may work if you have an Intel GMA video processor, if you set it to Performance, but no promises.


The Native Mac Client

By far, the simplest way to install City of Heroes on a Mac is the native client distributed by NCSoft (available in the software downloads section of the cityofheroes.com web site). It's distributed in a Mac native DMG disk image. There are two separate clients: One for the regular City Of Heroes live servers, and one for the Training Room. To use either, follow these simple steps:

1. Once you've downloaded the DMG, double-click it to mount it to the desktop.

2. Drag the City Of Heroes application to your Applications folder, or wherever you want the game to reside.

3. Double-click the City of Heroes application and allow it to update itself with the latest game data. This could take a while.

4. You're ready to play.


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I upgraded my account, and have the link to the Open Beta from before. But how do I get to the DMG files?? I need help, it's getting frustrating!

 

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yes, that is great news, the problem I have just discovered now is that you must have an Intel Mac, which essentially means, quite ironically I believe, if you have this type of Mac, you could be running Boot Camp/Windows and playing on the PC side.....if you have an older version Mac - non-Intel chip, and can't run any version of the Mac OS above Tiger, like my friend...you are once again not allowed in the "members only club". What's the point for an existing Mac owner, and why wouldn't you just use Boot Camp with your Intel chip Mac and play back on the PC side, like I do? They should have been able to pull this off without Intel based Macs...I can sympathize with the idea of a digital download that doesn't discriminate between a mac or pc account, but Intel-based is really for NEW mac users. Unfortunate for my friend who can't afford the latest Mac and manages to run WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, on the same non-Intel mac laptop, even though Blizzard says its against the recommended requirements to play...he plays WoW, with all 3 expansions every night. Blizzard manages the cross-platform deal with their game without steep requirements....and you wonder why their user base world-wide is so enormous. This could be a reason why you will only get new affluent Mac purchasers as your new user cross-platform-base.

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The reason WoW can be played on the lower end platform your friend uses is because their graphics don't go for the "photo-realism" effect that CoX attempts. So naturally, CoX is going to need a bit steeper system requirements if you want to play to its full extent with no lagging.

With regards to the whole bootcamp/intel-based mac issue, Intel based macs certainly aren't new. I have an Intel based iMac thats nearly 2 years old, on which I've been playing CoH through bootcamp for almost as long. 2 years is hardly "new" in the computer world. And seeing most macs (if not all; I'm not up on all the different systems they offer yet) will always come stock with intel inside, I don't see the problem in limiting the Mac client to intel based macs. I don't know anybody else that plays CoH, but as a visual arts student, 99% of the people I know and work with all use mac, and EVERY one of them is intel-based.

And you ask, "why don't we just play the PC client through bootcamp?" 2 major reasons - First off, bootcamp doesn't give you a free version of Windows. I got stuck paying about $200 for that retarded OS just so I could run a handful of programs (because I didn't think at the time to get a pirated copy, and of course now EVERYTHING I use it for has Mac versions). Secondly, I don't know about you, but EVERYTHING runs slower and more laggy on Windows through bootcamp. And its not a bootcamp or mac issue; everything runs the same way it does on any other PC I've ever used. The fact is, every Mac OS I've ever had the pleasure of using runs smoother and faster than even the newest of Window's OS's.

 

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For play on a secondary External Monitor or Television:

1. Start the game and switch to Windowed Mode (Cmd-Enter)

2. Plug in the External Monitor

3. Open System Preferences, select Displays and then Arrangement. Check "Mirror Displays".

4. Switch the game back to Full-screen (Cmd-Enter)

After playing, switch back to Windowed Mode (Cmd-Enter) and then unplug the External Monitor. Then switch back to Full-Screen (Cmd-Enter) and quit.

Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination

 

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Just purchased the game after really enjoying the Mac Beta. Now, how do I transfer my characters that I used during the Mac Beta to the main servers?

 

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Just purchased the game after really enjoying the Mac Beta. Now, how do I transfer my characters that I used during the Mac Beta to the main servers?

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Characters on the Training Room cannot be transferred to the Live Servers because the economy on the Training Room is too easily tampered with. You'll have to re-create the characters on the Live servers.

Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination

 

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I NEED HELP!!!!!! I have no idea how to install COH on my mac! I bought the mac version online at PlayNC but can't seem to figure out how to get the game running. Can anyone please help me through this?

 

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If you have the box, just insert the DVD and drag the City of Heroes application to your Applications folder. Then double-click it to start CoH.

For an electronic download, start here:

ftp://client.coh.com/US/

Look for the Mac_CoH_installer_US.dmg.

Once you've downloaded that file, double-click it to mount the disk image, and then drag the City of Heroes application to your Applications folder. Double-click the application, and wait for it to download files.

After that you're ready to play!

Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination

 

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So I remember when I was running it on Boot Camp, and I had to go and download better video drivers for my GMA 950. How do I know if I have the best/correct video drivers on the Mac end, now that I'm running the Mac Edition?

I am obviously not very familiar with the inner workings of Mac OS, so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question. I looked on Intel's site and it said the driver check was only supported in Windows.

 

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So I remember when I was running it on Boot Camp, and I had to go and download better video drivers for my GMA 950. How do I know if I have the best/correct video drivers on the Mac end, now that I'm running the Mac Edition?

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Apple is responsible for keeping its video drivers up to date, and so far they've been pretty good about it. I don't anticipate missing out on future CoH game system upgrades because of outdated drivers.

Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination

 

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In other words, Software Update will pick up any video driver updates automatically? I'm more worried about graphics quality than the game not working with new updates.

 

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If you have the box, just insert the DVD and drag the City of Heroes application to your Applications folder. Then double-click it to start CoH.

For an electronic download, start here:

ftp://client.coh.com/US/

Look for the Mac_CoH_installer_US.dmg.

Once you've downloaded that file, double-click it to mount the disk image, and then drag the City of Heroes application to your Applications folder. Double-click the application, and wait for it to download files.

After that you're ready to play!

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My friend has a 17 inch powerbook G4, running Tiger 10.4.11, and has tried unsuccessfully to activate the application that will download the files. What he keeps getting back is this message:

"Your system does not meet the requirements and cannot open this application"

A previous question I had posted about this very same problem was answered back saying that CoH Mac is not supported in this way but runs in all different sorts of Mac environments. Why then, cannot my friend get past this message?

 

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It may run on Tiger or unsupported graphics cards...but it HAS to be on an Intel machine. G4 is a PPC processor, just won't work.

My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout

 

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ok not to beat a dead horse but....if you had an intel-based mac you could run parallels or boot camp, making the mac client redundant.

 

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same could be said about every game which is Intel-only (which is a lot of them).

Parallels is a lot slower, boot camp requires rebooting.

My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout

 

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Solution to Updater freezing before downloading files, credited to DreamMenagerie and NCSoft Support:

ATTENTION

Tech Support found the solution. It's the caches. I didn't read all of their previous response and only cleared Safari's cache, but after taking their suggestion of running the program below and clearing all the caches (System, User, Internet), the updater is now working and downloading the game's files. I will update as I see if I can actually play the game.

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/eng...x_leopard.html

Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination

 

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ok not to beat a dead horse but....if you had an intel-based mac you could run parallels or boot camp, making the mac client redundant.

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The game doesn't run as well in Parallels, and Boot Camp means a) having to boot into windows when you want to play and b) having to buy a copy of Windows on top of everything else.

B was my only option a year and a half ago, and I'm glad I did it and was able to play, but, man, is it *so* nice to not have to reboot anymore.

So, no, not really redundant.

 

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I just got the mac version and followed your simple steps, but after letting my mac run for several hours the updater constantly stops downloading at 5.1 megs when it is Fixing files:texEnemies4.pigg

 

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I just got the mac version and followed your simple steps, but after letting my mac run for several hours the updater constantly stops downloading at 5.1 megs when it is Fixing files:texEnemies4.pigg

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"Fixing Files" usually means a download is in progress. The file is around 9 megs so you're close. If it keeps getting stuck you have 3 choices:

1. Contact Support in case they have a shortcut.

2. Show Package Contents on the City of Heroes application. Then open Contents > Resources > transgaming > drive_c and then either coh or Program Files > City of Heroes depending on what you have. Click on the piggs folder, use Get Info command, click the lock (then authenticate) and make sure your account has Read & Write permission. Then use the button or gear icon to Apply to Enclosed Items.

3. Delete the piggs folder and make the Updater download them all again.

Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination

 

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I have an iMac with the mighty mouse - and I cannot use all the "right" click functionality of my pc mouse

 

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I am trying to install this on my iMac.

It has started updating and says it has to download 2.7G - at 8k per second!!!

It says this is going to take 98 hours!!!

Is there any way to buy a CD for the Mac, instead of waiting so long for it to download please? Is it always so desperately slow in updating?

 

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Supposedly there is a physical package somewhere with a DVD in it but I haven't seen it in local stores.

If the problem is you're on dialup, you might want to see if someone friendly at your local Apple store will download it for you if you bring your own copy of the Mac CoH client on a USB stick (at least 4 GB) and come back in a few hours to pick it up.

Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination

 

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I repaired the disk and then it downloaded - it took about 18 hours.

This is on Broadband, not Dialup.

Looks good so far, now I can play. Three characters already - 2 good, 1 bad.