Guild Wars 2

So I want to get a new computer. I was thinking of buying an alienware or possibly building my own, but I really love OS X. The only games I play are GW2, CSGO, and HOTS. Does anyone have the Retina Macbook Pro with the R9 m370x? How well can it run GW2? I know it will CSGO and HOTS no problem but GW2 is the more graphically intense game.

Guild Wars 2 can run on a potato and that’s intentional. I get 30-60 fps at 4k with a relatively old card.

Agemnon.4608:

Guild Wars 2 can run on a potato and that’s intentional. I get 30-60 fps at 4k with a relatively old card.

At what settings though, and what kind of card do you have?

Game run like garbage on Mac beta client. Beta client for over 3 year with no real improve. It get much worse over last year. Use to run decent on Mac. If you want Mac buy it for other reason than game. If you buy Mac you will be very sad way GW2 run on it. It is just poor done cider port form Transgaming that is now own by NVIDIA and no news what they do with it. I gave up and run GW2 windows bootcamp on my Mac and it is much better.

Here is big thread about problem with Mac beta client (beta for over 3 year).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Can-we-please-get-a-working-Mac-Client-Merged

Also Mac beta client (for over 3 year) is limit to 32 bit because run in cider. So will not get advantage of 64 bit client.

Qugi.2653:

Game run like garbage on Mac beta client. Beta client for over 3 year with no real improve. It get much worse over last year. Use to run decent on Mac. If you want Mac buy it for other reason than game. If you buy Mac you will be very sad way GW2 run on it. It is just poor done cider port form Transgame than is now own by NVIDIA. I gave up and run GW2 windows bootcamp on my Mac and it is much better.

Here is big thread about problem with Mac beta client (beta for over 3 year).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Can-we-please-get-a-working-Mac-Client-Merged

Also Mac beta client (for over 3 year) is limit to 32 bit because run in cider. So will not get advantage of 64 bit client.

Well I currently have an old 2012 MBP with an Intel HD 4000 on it. That’s what I’ve been playing GW2 on, and in my experience GW2 runs better on the Mac client, although it still didn’t run great but it was playable at the lowest settings. I had this very terrible stutter when I ran GW2 in bootcamp.

Was going to pipe in saying that last I knew, the game was very unstable and performed poorly for Mac users.

Alienware machines are overpriced for what they offer; ASUS’ ROG line is usually more competitively priced and offers superior or the same specs and better hardware quality and cooling. If you’re insistent on low-profile, the Razer Blade is the best in-between, but be careful with buggy synapse software and a very frustrating RMA process if something goes wrong.

Building is your best bet if you don’t need a laptop at all. Cheapest and best performance.

DeceiverX.8361:

Was going to pipe in saying that last I knew, the game was very unstable and performed poorly for Mac users.

Alienware machines are overpriced for what they offer; ASUS’ ROG line is usually more competitively priced and offers superior or the same specs and better hardware quality and cooling. If you’re insistent on low-profile, the Razer Blade is the best in-between, but be careful with buggy synapse software and a very frustrating RMA process if something goes wrong.

Building is your best bet if you don’t need a laptop at all. Cheapest and best performance.

I saw the Razer Blade and that honestly would be my next choice because I absolutely love the form and build quality of the MBP. But the thing is I haven’t tried Windows 10 yet, how is it?

LegionLord.5392:

Well I currently have an old 2012 MBP with an Intel HD 4000 on it. That’s what I’ve been playing GW2 on, and in my experience GW2 runs better on the Mac client, although it still didn’t run great but it was playable at the lowest settings. I had this very terrible stutter when I ran GW2 in bootcamp.

I have 2009 iMac I first play GW2 on it run okay medium setting for some time, also have 2012 Macbook Pro run okay medium setting for some time, and 2013 iMac run decent for some time medium setting. Over last year all almost can not play unless setting turn to low as possible setting. I bootcamp window in my 2013 iMac and can now medium and some high setting with good 30-40 FPS average. Yes, if you want to play lowest setting possible then stay with Mac beta client for over 3 years. Fact is client get much worse over last year. Expect more worse later.

Fact is GW2 Mac beta client (for over 3 year) is junk and Anet do very little to fix that. I do not think they even can. They should stop advertise the Mac beta client (for over 3 years).

Read thread I link before about problem with Mac client.

Pascal and Polaris cards are releasing this year and the Polaris equivalent of the GTX 950 Ti is releasing earlier than other cards if you do decide to go the build a PC route. Careful though since it gets quite expensive but worth it in the end. You want an SSD for a boot drive and if you have a recent motherboard go with an NVMe SSD as your boot drive but a SATA III SSD should be a fine cheaper option too. Skylake is the current Intel generation with Kabylake and Zen (AMD) slated to release at the end of this year.

If you get a graphics card then go with an aftermarket solution like Gigabyte or Asus. For speakers the JBL LSR 305’s are good but be sure to buy them in a pair instead of a single monitor. A USB digital to analog converter is also a great to have to complete the audio experience.

I have a Macbook Pro Retina 2015. Though the load times are acceptable, the FPS (20-30 on low settings) is not.

My $300 Windows 10 laptop with almost no battery life runs it better.

EDIT: Can confirm now… used high shaders to take some screenshots, and 20fps in non-populated areas. This is on the Windows laptop.

Problem with MAC is, that Cider is a 32-bit windows emulation and so GW2
crashes as soon as it wants more than maybe 1.6 – 1.7 GB ram. And if you
don’t play on minimum settings this happens really fast.