As an outsider looking in, personally, I wouldn't depend on a Mac to play CoH. I've seen so many threads popping up lately with folks who have issues running the game on them. Granted that Macs may be good for various tasks, running CoH seems to be hit or miss depending on what version of MacOS you're running.
I'd recommend reading through the Mac forums here and see what folks have been saying lately.
If playing CoH reliably is a big part of your computer purchasing decision, you may wish to consider other options.
Just my 2 cents 
Good luck!
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| Home Server: Virtue |
Twitter: @ZFLikesNachos Save City of Heroes (Titan Network) [Successful "The Really Hard Way" runs: 4] [Click ^]
Ah sensible words, thank you =) Yea I want to build a computer but then its effort and I wouldnt even know where to begin! =/
As an insider looking out...or around...or maybe up, it's not that bad. We have some vicious hiccups now and then. There are some longstanding issues, often with workarounds. And the underlying tech is creaky. On the other hand, although the organizational support sometimes seems non-existant, they have so far always come through to maintain the current (flawed) state of affairs.
Overall, if you just want to play the game and don't require 60fps at max settings, my experience is that it works fine in general.
As a side note, my old laptop (which is now my parents' new laptop) still runs CoH fine on low-to-middling settings. And it's a 5+ years old Macbook Pro.
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Works just fine on mac no issues except for that market thing. Currently running Lion on mine. Just keep in mind if your buying a mac book pro you might want to wait a few weeks they are doing a refresh on the hardware soon so to ensure you get the latest and greatest I would wait. I sadly bought mine recently so I am going to miss out on the upgrade. If your going with a mac mini then that works just fine since they just did the refresh back in July. And if worst comes to worst and you still have problems you can always install windows on mac hardware. Its easy to get windows 7 for $30 these days.
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I would keep your old windows license and boot camp your mac to run CoX. Personally I just refuse to do it, for my own reasons. But CoX on Mac crashes a lot and the CoX game is not a true mac client. They uses a piece of software as a wrapper to emulate windows for it to work on a MAC. Its called wine. Personally if I would have known it was a wine wrapper I would have thought twice before purchasing it or would have thought long and hard if this game was worth boot camping my Mac for.
Expect to be down for days when major updates come out. When i20 hit many were down for 10 days with no credit.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
Macs. Half the power at twice the price! You're doing it for hipster points. Don't do it.
Ignore the trolls. I've had a Macbook Pro of some sort even since before CoH for Mac - I was using Boot Camp to run CoH on Windows on my laptop!
It's over-engineered for the job. At a lightweight 1" thick (I don't remember the weight) I've never had any of those overheats or shutdowns, reported with some other laptops, happen to me. I won't speak for everyone because I don't survey people for a living, but that's my own experience.
Also ignore those who tell you that you can get a laptop real cheap. With laptops, you really *do* get what you pay for, either in materials, functionality, or reliability. I work with a lot of $600 laptops - even heavily loaded, you do *not* want to be using those to play a high-end game. Some of them will overheat and shut down running a screen saver.
As for building a PC or laptop, yes, you can do that pretty cheaply and fairly reliably if you really know your hardware. But be prepared for a LOT of trial and error, and lots of headaches with drivers and software. I'm pretty well practiced at it, and I still go through several rounds of exchange and replacement with various components until I get it working just right.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
I have had NO headaches with drivers, no shutdowns and no overheating with my brand new $650 Windows 7 laptop, which runs the game on ultra mode. Anyone claiming those problems must have last owned a PC in the 1990's, or bought an Acer.
I did look at Apple laptops when I was shopping around, but they offered half the computing power for double the price. Add to that the hassle of getting PC games to run on a Mac: Why bother?
If your goal is to play PC games, get a PC.
If you are looking for a computer that you are going to be using for multiple things, CoH only being one of them, then a MacBook Pro will do just fine. I've been playing on mine for over a year, and have had very few issues with it. Granted, I am still on Leopard, which tends to be less buggy than Lion or Snow Leopard, but from what others have said, it is totally manageable. And here's the other thing: CoH will probably be the glitchiest thing on your computer. Meaning the machines run fantastically because the hardware and the software were, litereally, made for each other. When the only thing you have to worry about on your machine is a video game (no worrying about virus software/updates, FAR fewer glitches, etc.), your life gets a whole lot easier.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
How predictable that the naysers in such threads always lack in-depth experience with Macs, though there are those who switch back to Windows after some time with OS X. (Also, the biggest bargain-braggers among the Windows partisans never seem to mention the manufacturer when boasting of how little they paid.)
But to seconding what CuppaManga say, the MacBook is overqualified for just gaming, but if you want to do more computing, it's great. Some people play CoH successfully on the MacBook Air, which is a nice little machine but not suited for intensive general use (e.g. simultaneously running a suite of business and specialty software - it's not a substitute for a desktop machine).
And bear in mind, Apple's educational discounts for students are very nice.
I would definitely say buy the Mac, my Macbook runs CoH many times better than what I could manage with my old HP which began to develop problems a month after its purchase. I've had my Macbook for 1.5 years now and I've had no problems. I use my computer A LOT and sometimes I still get to say "Wow! Macs can do that?"
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Quoting myself, bit weird. |
Originally Posted by plainguy
I would keep your old windows license and boot camp your mac to run CoX. Personally I just refuse to do it, for my own reasons. But CoX on Mac crashes a lot and the CoX game is not a true mac client. They uses a piece of software as a wrapper to emulate windows for it to work on a MAC. Its called wine. Personally if I would have known it was a wine wrapper I would have thought twice before purchasing it or would have thought long and hard if this game was worth boot camping my Mac for.
Expect to be down for days when major updates come out. When i20 hit many were down for 10 days with no credit. |
Just to make it clear part of my work is doing computer forensics. Pretty much all our machines are Macs, my home machine is a 27" all in one Mac. At work we do bootcamp because some of the tools we use just do not work in a VM environment. But when we can, we try to run our forensic tools in a windows VM machine. It just makes working on cases much easier. But when possible I export items to the Mac machine just to preview and printing out emails and such to PDF which the Mac does natively.
So I am a big Mac fan, but I understand windows is needed and just about 92 to 95 % of the community is running a windows box as well in corporate as well.
My gripe is not with Mac but with city of heroes client and how the developed this piece of software for the Mac. I clearly understand that many would not have had even a clue if they explained the whole thing anyways as it was probably a bit technical to explain for many. But at a minimum they should have at least mentioned or posted it up in a clear place for those interested.
And then I would imagine someone would have posted it up here so when someone like you comes along they clearly know what they are getting into. Basically give you all the facts and let you decide.
But beyond this game Macs run very well. They do not have the issues of the windows registry and all the hooks that some software require to work sometimes. With a Mac for the most part, again for the most part.. You want to uninstall something you drag the folder into the trash and its uninstalled. Backing up a Mac with Time machine alone is amazing. Straight simple, if you never did it before and just started looking at a time machine backup you would understand it. The only learning curve with a Mac is getting rid of window habits. But once you get the concept of the Mac its the same across the board.
So for frustration sake with THIS GAME. I would boot camp your drive and have your laptop running windows and Mac. But beyond that you can stick to the Mac side for everything else. Another issue will be mids. You need windows for mids. Though I read they are going to HTML5 eventually for Mids which means it will work on windows and Mac but I think that is some time away from now. I use a windows virtual machine to run mids on the mac side.
Again Boot Camping is not a bad thing. For me I just decided I would find a Mac way to do things. I know windows for the most part and I wanted to get accustomed to working with Macs for work reasons. I also want my kids to know both windows and mac. Many parents decide to buy their kids a mac laptop for college after they dealt with windows for the last 18 years of their lives and then the child has 2 issues, getting accustomed to college environment and the Mac environment.
Things just run much smoother on Mac, when they are build for the Mac. Cox client was not. That is NCsoft fault and not Mac. I have played MoM ( turn your head upside down for that one ) on the Mac and had zero issues and it ran like a charm and on top the image was even crisper then on my windows machine with a high end video card.
Some are saying double price for half the performance. I'm not trying to be a wise guy here, but there are many things that come into play here. Cuppa clearly mentioned some of it. But when people are biased for the reason of just being biased its because they lack some technical knowledge.
But hey look at it this way then, 600 dollars gets you a nice windows laptop. 800 dollars gets you a mac laptop that can boot camp windows. So for 200 dollars you get both. I think its worth the investment.
So I hope I cleared up anything that might have been misinterpreted by some.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
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Baseless speculation. I'm curious: How did you deduce I lacked in-depth experience with Macs? I mentioned NONE of my history with them. There seems to be this misguided misconception that... if the stubborn PC users would only listen, would only give Apple a chance and try a Mac, they'd see the error of their ways.|
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
How predictable that the naysers in such threads always lack in-depth experience with Macs, though there are those who switch back to Windows after some time with OS X. (Also, the biggest bargain-braggers among the Windows partisans never seem to mention the manufacturer when boasting of how little they paid.)
But to seconding what CuppaManga say, the MacBook is overqualified for just gaming, but if you want to do more computing, it's great. Some people play CoH successfully on the MacBook Air, which is a nice little machine but not suited for intensive general use (e.g. simultaneously running a suite of business and specialty software - it's not a substitute for a desktop machine). And bear in mind, Apple's educational discounts for students are very nice. |
Okay, I have a dose of reality for you. The reality is, I owned Macs for a decade before switching to a PC. The reality is that most game developers don't bother with a Mac version. I wonder why that is? Here's a hint: It's not some arbitrary coincidence and it isn't due to hardware.
You stick your head in the sand by labeling and categorizing anyone who doesn't like Macs as trolls, as naysayers, as inexperienced, and as unenlightened, all to keep your delusion of Apple as infallible intact. "Oh, they aren't real people. There must be something wrong with them. Nobody could dislike OS X!"
Yes, people can and do. I stopped using Macs because they caused problems for me. I stopped using them because they were inferior for my needs.
As far as which manufacturer I went with, I grew out of the need to define my personal worth based on which brand of computer I surround myself with.
All you need to know is that my current Windows laptop works fantastic, cost half as much, has twice the power and does EVERYTHING I need. If there's another brand next time I buy a computer that does the same, I'll go with that brand instead, as long as it isn't a Mac; their accessibility (or lack thereof) for the visually impaired is the worst I've ever had to use.
No, inverting the entire screen doesn't equal high-contrast; it equals watching movies and flash videos in negative. I think the worst part of this is that they lie about how their accessibility is the best in the business. Merely boasting about it on their website doesn't make it true for the people who need it.
Edit: To the Mac zealots claiming I lack technical knowledge: Your assignment is to take $650 and try to find a Mac that has a second generation Core i5 processor, 6 gigs of ram, 750 gig hard drive and a Geforce 525M graphics processor with 1 gig of dedicated video memory. When you find a Mac with that much power, post the price for everyone to see.
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Then by all means, ante up and start providing the details so we can actually have an informed discussion. Otherwise, your argument sounds exactly like those from the OS holy wars.|
Originally Posted by Ruff_Tuff_n_Buff
Okay, I have a dose of reality for you. The reality is, I owned Macs for a decade before switching to a PC.
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| All you need to know is that my current Windows laptop works fantastic, cost half as much, has twice the power and does EVERYTHING I need. |
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Originally Posted by plainguy
But hey look at it this way then, 600 dollars gets you a nice windows laptop. 800 dollars gets you a mac laptop that can boot camp windows. So for 200 dollars you get both. I think its worth the investment.
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I am not super happy with Apple's current hardware from a gaming standpoint. I still use Macs for basically everything BUT gaming, though, and if you can't justify the cost of a separate gaming machine, dual-booting or using Crossover Games or whatever can be a reasonable choice.
Yeah, it's not the best price/performance for video games, but not everyone's computer life revolves entirely around video games and GPU speed. For actually getting stuff done, I like having a system with a decent command line and programming tools native to it.
Saying you hate Macs and everyone else should too, and implying that everyone else should too because your logic is faultless and therefore anyone who likes them is faulty somehow, that's what we call a *subjective opinion*. That's fine on its own, until you try to force it on other people.
Now here's my own experience. I'll do my best to keep it balanced.
I have a Windows 7 PC I built myself. It was built cost effectively, but reliably, by imitating the use of hardware and assembly methods that some of the higher-end PC's use, but at a fraction of the cost. It's not the most powerful gaming PC ever made, but it's way beyond what City of Heroes can throw at it at the highest settings. I'm kind of proud of it, actually, because it's quiet, cool (temperature wise), and powerful. It is also capable of running Linux or hacked MacOS, but I don't run those on it (it's good to be able to though).
Also I have a Macbook Pro. I use it for everything but gaming (even work), and sometimes for games. Usually when I use it for CoH, I'm either dual-boxing, far from my gaming PC, or when the PC decides to fail me. When I do use it for CoH, it gets a little warm, but it does not get hot. I find that to be remarkable, that a light and thin laptop can run a game at high settings without much fan noise or overheating.
And fail me the PC does. Even though I did not cut corners with the hardware, it's extremely difficult to get reliable hardware even when it's brand name. I've been through several video cards, power supplies, even the motherboard went out once. This is considered normal for a self-built PC. This is why I tell people not to build a PC themselves unless they're ready for a lot of stress.
The Macbook Pro has been serviced once, when it was brand-new, for a very minor issue. It was fixed in about 24 hours, and I still had the old Macbook Pro because I hadn't sold it yet. Since then, I've had no trouble.
I do wish the Mac version of CoH would be better. That I can't change. I wouldn't switch to all PC's because of that, though, because I'm used to the Mac.
P.S. Companies don't make Mac versions of games available for financial reasons. They have very little resources, and they want to sell it to the largest platform first. They also shun the PS3, XBox, and Linux platforms when they do that, and those are designed for gaming. It's not platform preference, it's money.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
I have both a home-built 6core amd running windows 7 64bit, and a '09 macbook pro 15" unibody running Snow Leopard. I much prefer the gaming experience on my 23" monitor, and the fact that there are fewer graphical glitches on the client. On my mac, I can't get the little blue hand cursor for instance. I just don't use the mac for gaming.
I do however adore it completely and take it almost everywhere I go. $1800 is a terrifically steep price for a laptop these days, but you get that high-end luxury experience with it that no windows machine I've handled can approach. It doesn't creak or groan when you pick it up because the cheap plastic parts of the housing are rubbing together.
Buy a mac if you can afford it, but not for CoH. If you are gonna buy a Windows laptop for gaming, get as much screen acreage as you can afford, or stand to carry. Tiny screens suck.
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They run it better when I DO break loose.
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Originally Posted by SuperJubb
Hey gang, I was thinking of buying a mac laptop, can they run coh well without all hell breaking loose?
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Don't see why you can't do both PC and Mac. Like others, I recommend a macbook and a PC desktop. Although I did all my class work on macs in the labs, I kept the PC for games and home stuff. But when the sh*t hits the fan, having that portable mac is a godsend.
I can't tell you how much I wept when I got flung off my bike with my macbook in my laptop backpack (long story short: test your new bike breaks *before* flying out into real traffic so you know how little pressure you need) and LANDED ON IT. Dislocated shoulder? sprained elbow/wrist? Pfft! My macbook screen's cracked down the middle!!
Lol but despite that setback, I was able to replace the screen myself ($60) and the thing still works perfectly and plays CoH on a medium setting. My PC and Mac are a team, the desktop being finnicky but versatile and powerful while the laptop is sturdy, reliable but not very suitable for games.
So my vote: yeah, get a mac. Besides the whole market crash thing, CoH has never crashed on me while on my macbook pro. Granted, I don't play CoH that much on my mac (probably about 35-40% of the time) but those times when your PC is being a *****, the mac usually won't (I can't say it ever has for me, but then I don't want to jynx myself).
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Get out.|
Originally Posted by Ruff_Tuff_n_Buff
Okay, I have a dose of reality for you. The reality is, I owned Macs for a decade before switching to a PC. The reality is that most game developers don't bother with a Mac version. I wonder why that is? Here's a hint: It's not some arbitrary coincidence and it isn't due to hardware.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Ruff_Tuff_n_Buff
Edit: To the Mac zealots claiming I lack technical knowledge: Your assignment is to take $650 and try to find a Mac that has a second generation Core i5 processor, 6 gigs of ram, 750 gig hard drive and a Geforce 525M graphics processor with 1 gig of dedicated video memory. When you find a Mac with that much power, post the price for everyone to see.
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Jubb, do yourself a favor and ignore the trolls, as hearing "macs suck, stupid Jobs fanbois" is doing absolutely nothing for you other than showing the one downside to owning a mac on these forums: getting the brunt end of every jerk on this forum just for using a mac.
Plus, there is always Bootcamp as others have said (and let's face it, it's not hard to get Windows if you know where to look), and my Core i7 Macbook Pro runs games amazingly well when booted into Windows (Crysis anyone?).
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
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Just have to look into your context is all. Macbooks stopped supported 64-bit WEP when the majority of universities in the USA still used it as the standard. Then in the ultimate switcharoo, they have been about 3 years behind on most instances of WPA2-Enterprise, the current standard in private schools.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Don't see why you can't do both PC and Mac. Like others, I recommend a macbook and a PC desktop. Although I did all my class work on macs in the labs, I kept the PC for games and home stuff. But when the sh*t hits the fan, having that portable mac is a godsend.
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I've worked with and owned macs. I'd never even consider getting one for gaming.
@Gilia1
I play heroes on Champion.
I play villains on Virtue.
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That's about what my custom-built PC cost, except I was a bit more efficient with finding parts - I have much higher-end video. If I pretended I was selling them, I'd have to add probably another $100 in labor, plus a Windows 7 license ($100) and some room for profit ($200). That would mean the PC I built would probably retail pre-built and pre-installed for just over $1200. But I didn't built it to be competitive, I did it for the sake of tinkering. :P
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
For the record, I can't even do that with a PC. Just ran that gauntlet with my future brother in-law last month. His machine, which is just slightly below those specs (Geforce 330M card, 512 dedicated video, 4GB RAM) clocked in at $850.
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Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Quote:
You know, now that I think about it, it amazes me you even posted in this thread.|
Originally Posted by Ruff_Tuff_n_Buff
Macs. Half the power at twice the price! You're doing it for hipster points. Don't do it.
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Did you happen to notice the thread title from the English forum overview and just had to say something?
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
I'm not buying a computer because I want a CPU and some memory, I'm buying a computer because I want to run software, and usually because I want a sort of general UI environment, filesystem, and so on around that software.
So when I want to actually use a computer to get stuff done, I do it on a Mac or Unix machine. When I want to run video games, I run them on Windows, full screen, to minimize the number of ways in which the OS screws me over.
Windows makes a wonderful gaming console, if you accept up front that you are buying a disposible gaming console. Just treat it the way you would a very high-end xbox or psx. If you can afford that kind of money for a hobby, great! Go ahead and get one. Cheaper than yachting.
Hey gang, I was thinking of buying a mac laptop, can they run coh well without all hell breaking loose? Because im not very tech savvy so I wouldnt be able to fix it very well if something crashes. CoH is the only game I really play. Also a laptop or a desktop? If the laptop can run the game as well as the desktop then Id grab that one since I travel alot =) all your advice would be mucho appreciato! thanks =D