Guild Wars 2

If you already have the game installed on Windows, you can just copy the game data over to your Mac installation in order to avoid the huge download. Just install the Mac package from the website, then right-click on the app icon, select show package contents, then go Resources -> Transgaming -> c_drive -> GW2. Copy your GW2.DAT there. Launch the app – it will quickly patch and voila!

For those of your with real Internet connections (no offense intended), it takes 10 minutes to patch up and go about your way.

Confirming that this works. Also, I have a real internet connection but see no reason to use 15 GB off of my data cap when I can just transfer the file from machine to machine using a big thumb drive.

green plum.7514:

If you already have the game installed on Windows, you can just copy the game data over to your Mac installation in order to avoid the huge download. Just install the Mac package from the website, then right-click on the app icon, select show package contents, then go Resources -> Transgaming -> c_drive -> GW2. Copy your GW2.DAT there. Launch the app – it will quickly patch and voila!

Once I go into resources, I don’t see transgaming…I see some .tif files, tginstall.icns and tginstall.plist. I see some other things that seem irrelevant too like language packages it looks like…am I missing something here?

Jpac, try starting the game, wait for the download to begin and then quit it. I guess that should create the folder structure if it wasn’t already there.

Thank you very much for the tip. I just copied from my bootcamp partition, and voila, it was working. I have a tight bandwidth cap these days, so this is great.

P.S.
For being non-native and the first beta, it’s working really well… getting about the same FPS, no bugs so far.

Ok! I can confirm this works too! Did this @ my schools Library too! So I saved a huge amount of time.

P.S.
Hmm, I know its a Beta, but to anyone who has a 13" mbp 2011, I find GW2 runs slightly better on Bootcamp Windows 7.

Good to know that I wasn’t the only one who did this. The game is running as good as it does on my Bootcamp.

I can confirm this. It’d help if this message was somehow stickied. Here’s step-by-step instructions on how to do this. Credit goes to Lumaelie from the Reddit thread

For those who are confused, here’s a step-by-step tutorial for bootcamp users on how to copy your client from your windows partition to your Mac partition. I am using Mac OSX Mountain Lion and Windows XP on a late 2010 MacBook Pro, but it should be similar for other Mac systems.
Step 1: Download the official Mac client from your account page on Guildwars2.com.
Install the client and let the downloader patch itself to the point that you can see the login button and a download bar that is at 0% with about 218,000 files remaining. Then close the launcher.
Step 2: Locate the Gw2.dat file on your bootcamp drive.
To do this, open finder and then navigate to: Bootcamp>Program Files>Guild Wars 2
Note that this may not be correct if you chose to install GW2 to a different file location in Windows. If you are not sure where it is, boot up windows, right click your GW2 shortcut, and click properties. This should tell you the location of Gw2.exe. The Gw2.dat file that you want is in the same folder.
Step 3: Copy the file called Gw2.dat
Just right click the file and click “Copy ‘Gw2.dat’”. You will know you have the right file if it is approximately 15-17 GB in size (a HUGE file). This is the only file you need to copy; you do not need any other file from the folder.
Step 4: Locate the Gw2.dat file on your Mac partition
To do this, open finder and then navigate to: Macintosh HD>Applications
Find a file called “Guild Wars 2.app” and right click it. Click “Show Package Contents.”
Then navigate to: Contents>Resources>transgaming>c_drive>GW2
In this folder you should see another file called Gw2.dat, but it should be small. You can delete it if you want.
Step 5: Paste the Gw2.dat file into this folder. When it asks you if you want to replace the old file, hit “Replace.”
Note: you will not be asked to replace if you deleted the small Gw2.dat file before clicking paste.
And that should be it. Give it a few minutes to transfer over (about 10), and you’re done. Tell me if you need clarification on anything and I’ll try to help.

Made a youtube video to explain hope it helps!!!

How do I install from a purchased disc? In disc 1 there are two files Gw2.js1 and Gw2.js0 I have added these to the Mac beta GW2 file but am still getting black screen. Mac book OSX 10.7.4 2,4Ghz and 4GB Ram. Thanks for any suggestions.

That’s what I did, Show Content, and drop the gw2.dat file.

The game is basically wrapped by the Transgaming software. Like Wine.

I still prefer BootCamp to play GW2. Performance is twice faster.

DJRiful: seeing as Transgaming is just a heavily modified wone, it works very much the same in the way it wraps.

This worked for me.

This is nice. It would be good if ANET confirm that this is correct – that those two .dat files are same on both platforms.

Or maybe someone who have BootCamp installation, but also he/she fully downloaded MacOS version – to check are those two .dat files same. MD5 or some other checksum will work I think. Only that we can be sure that those two files are same on both platforms.

mtdor, the Mac version is just the windows version running under a customised version of the Wine wrapper called Cider which is produced and developed by Transgaming, the files are identical. It’s the same solution used by Eve if you ever play that on a Mac.

any one can advice if game performs better on mac os or under bootcamp ?
shouldn’t be the same since bother are emulators ?

Exotrax, it seems to vary from model to model. Some people report better performance with the OS X version, in my case (retina MBP) the Bootcamp is over 70% faster.

Thanks guys.

This advice really needs to be on the mac beta install page. Even if it is labelled as “Advanced Users” with a proviso that it may not work and requires a previous Bootcamp install.

I followed it on a hunch figuring they probably wrapped it and am very pleased not to waste 15GB of my remaining 25GB allowance on downloading a file already present on my computer.