Guild Wars 2

So I am a Mac person through and through. I can clearly see that gamer devs are paying more and more attention to us Mac Folks…. I am currently playing the game on a 13-in MBP which is obviously on the lowest specs that you can run this game on. I get okay performance but have major lag problems in WvW (I heard this could be due to Anets culling issues). Owning a mac is more important than playing any game to me and this would be a machine that I would use for hopefully 4-5 years. Here are the specs on what I am looking at and I was wondering if any other people are gaming on a 27 in iMac These are the specs that I would be running which are much better than my current MBP

Processor-3.4Ghz Quad core Intel i7 Turbo Boost
RAM-16GB 1600MHz SDRAM
Hard Drive-1TB HDD
Graphics-NVIDIA GeForce FTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5
This is clearly higher than ANETS min system requirements but I am wondering if anyone is gaming on this system with these specs and what their performance is. If its perfect tell me if you have certain problems tell me. I am really not having the same problems that I am seeing posted in these forums though aside from the Low FPS.

My iMac 27 inch is in for repair at the moment (grrrrrr) but it is a lower spec than the one you listed above. Only slightly lower, I have 8 GB RAM for instance, and I can say that it plays absolutely fine. Playing GW2 on a PC while the Mac is being fixed, and to be honest, it does play a little better / faster on the PC but it is only a small difference. You will have no problem with the spec you have listed

Thank you so much that is really helpful I was considering buying windows only for gaming but hearing this is a big help annnddd I just saw some posts that the devs have responded to. So I think Anet is getting in gear with their Mac version

Do not buy the 16GB RAM upgrade though. For the time being, 8GB is still more than you actually need, unless you’re heavily into video or photo editing.
If you really need more RAM, the 27inch iMac allows for user upgrades, you can buy your own RAM for half the Apple price.
I’d rather put that money into a Fusion Drive upgrade, since that one is NOT user upgradeable.

You still have to change the config file since it defaults to 256 mbs of video ram see attachment.

I’ve been running it with settings turned pretty low on a 2009 iMac 27 (core 2 duo, ati 4650) and getting 30-42 FPS. The game is CPU crazy, so a faster box should do fine.

I think the video card is probably the most limiting thing when it comes to MBP and iMacs, I suggest getting the best one of those possible, especially as they can’t really be upgraded later.
I can also tell you that I play on a late 2010 Mac Pro with upgraded graphics card (ATI Radeon HD 5870) and GW2 looks marvelous My PC friends that play are even impressed. On high settings, I usually get ~40 fps except in zerg battles in WvW

I changed the VRAM setting on Config for my MBP 13" and the notice was almost negligible but we all know the graphics card in the MBP. And the graphics card I would be getting would be the highest available GPU for the iMac. Glad to know the extra ram isn’t really necessary though. And as far as people that are talking about all the bugs they have with mac other than the low FPS on my MBP I really have no lag unless I get zerged in WvW which everyone deals with. But I really do think that the Devs are paying more attention to the Mac version than we think and the biggest issue they have to address if they want to release a full version is how they use the TG warper. Hopefully they system they have on the final release will be flawless… But if a dev reads this WE APPRECIATE the work you do on the game when you can do it. Still an amazing game.

I’m just happy they bothered at all. Mac users are an epic minority. But we have DEEP pockets and I think that’s what they’re after.

Well the quality of system that mac offers with the customer service and vertically linear servicing really help people buy macs to begin with and other games aside fromWoW such as Half Life 2 and several others have ensured they offer a Mac version… I doubt alot of people share this sentiment but if they were to charge a subscription that would help move the mac version forward I would GLADLY pay it. Like i said I doubt others share that sentiment.

Processor-3.4Ghz Quad core Intel i7 Turbo Boost
RAM-16GB 1600MHz SDRAM
Hard Drive-1TB HDD
Graphics-NVIDIA GeForce FTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5

I’ve got one of the new iMacs (i5, 8GB RAM and a fusion drive) and everything runs beautifully. I’ve bumped a few of the graphics settings about default (the memory of which escapes me) and everything runs at acceptable frame rates. I’ve had a bit of stutter now and again (always after loading into a big city; not combat so far) but I’d definitely say the system is powerful enough to play the game more than competantly.

Skippygoober.3051:

You still have to change the config file since it defaults to 256 mbs of video ram see attachment.

Can you elaborate on how to do this? I’m new to the Apple world.

Many thanks!

Caseman.5267:

Skippygoober.3051:

You still have to change the config file since it defaults to 256 mbs of video ram see attachment.

Can you elaborate on how to do this? I’m new to the Apple world.

Many thanks!

There shouldn’t be any need to change anything in a config file. The change that Skippygoober described above was in the X11 driver section but Cider does not use the X11 driver. Instead Cider comes with a Quartz graphics driver (called “macdrv”). So if there is something you want to configure about it then you need to look into the [macdrv] section.

I’ve been running GW2 now for a couple days on a late 2012 27in iMac (3.4GHz Core i7 / 16GB / Fusion Drive / GTX 680MX with 2GB VRAM) and I get around 50 to 70 FPS depending on the area in full screen mode with high settings.

I also play Lord of the Rings Online on the same machine for which Turbine has released a native client 2 months ago and I get around 70 to 90 FPS on the open landscape and 60 to 70 FPS in larger towns in full screen mode with high settings and high texture resolution.

While I’m quite happy with the FPS that the GW2 client achieves on that machine, I’m irritated by two mis-festures compared to Lotro:

1) the fans come on easily and often when I play GW2 while they never come on in Lotro even when i play for 2 hours or more in a row.

2) if I turn the camera after I’ve entered an area or waypointed to somewhere, then the first 360 degree turn is jerky. It is as if the game would load art assets on the main thread or as if it would build some expensive data structures. This doesn’t happen in Lotro.

Here’s another first hand experience with the new 27inch iMac. Slightly different setup than Korval (i5 and 8GB RAM), but largely the same result.
Excluding Lions Arch and crowded WvW battles, the client reaches 60 FPS when standing still, at native resolution with most settings maxed or close to maxed. Just like on my older machine, perfomance drops significantly whenever there’s lots of camera movement. This also leads to a lot of screen tearing, and using Vsync to counter it unfortunately guts FPS even more.
That seems to be the fundamental weakness of the OSX client, as playing on Windows on the same machine those FPS drops are much less severe, and thats with even higher settings.

AABell, you’re experience should be comparable to, maybe even better than mine, since you’ll play at lower resolution, which should compensate for the slower graphics card in the 21inch.