Guild Wars 2

Performance on higher-end Macs is … good enough, I guess.
I plan to actually go to an Apple store once the new iMacs are here and test the game right there

Those previous betas were betas for the game as a whole, before the game was launched. The Mac beta is a beta only for the Mac client software, but it works with live game data.

No. All character data is bound to your account and saved on the server. It doesn’t matter which client you log in from.

Your characters, items, and pretty much anything connected to your account are stored on the server. You can use either client, switch back and forth between then, and even play from different computers (not simultaneously though), without losing anything.

The whole point of removing the roles was to also remove the players expectations of them. Creating labels like this means you reintroduce the mindset of self-limitation and discriminating group play.

You don’t create labels to accomodate people that are used to roles. You show them how it’s more fun to play the game without roles.

The WvW maps have POIs, Vistas and Skill challenges.

None of the transgaming solutions (Cider, WINE, Crossover) works as 64bit Windows, so there might be a technical limitation there. As long as Arenanet uses Cider for the Mac client, and the Windows client having those limitations on the 32bit version, we’re not going to see those high-res options on the Mac.

The thing is, if there’s a high adoption rate for the Cider version, I wonder if Arenanet interprets that as “good enough, let’s keep it that way” or rather “there’s enough of a demand for a real OSX version” …?

Haven’t tested it since the update, but that would explain the sudden drop in FPS several people are experiencing.

First issue: it doesn’t matter that Mountain Lion is a 64bit system, because the GW2 Mac client is not a real OSX application. It’s the Windows client running inside a translation layer, and that translation layer basically imitates a Windows 32bit system. That is why you have the same limitations concerning your graphics options like when running the game on 32bit Windows.
Second issue: if the rMBP had the same hardware specs (specifically, the same graphics card, the Nvidia 650M), it would also potentially have the same performance like a regular MBP. If you actually run it at full resolution of retina display, the performance would of course be significantly worse, since the CPU and graphics card would be taxed much harder.

The GeForce 9400 is below the minimum requirements for the Mac Client, which are higher then the Windows requirements (though technically, it’s below the Windows requirements too). Doesn’t mean it won’t work at all, but you’ll probably fare better with the Bootcamp solution.

It’s a bit more difficult to completely automate it, but a partial solution is to use an app like Function Flip, that allows to partially change the behaviour of the F-keys. For example, I set it to only flip F1 to F4, since I don’t need those functions anyway.

What is the native resolution? You’re not trying to run it at full res on a retina MBP, are you?

It runs on 10.6.8, but performance may be worse, and Arenanet doesn’t support that OS. You can play, but if you have trouble with it you’re on your own.

Because the game is not officially supported on 10.6.8
It may still work, but if you run into trouble you may have to find your own solution.

There are several threads on this board going into the technical details on this, so I’ll keep it short: if you see better performance on OSX than on Windows, that means your Windows performance is somehow crippled and not performing at 100%.
There is no native OSX client, what you’re playing is in fact the Windows client, with an additional translation layer wrapped around it to make it run in OSX. That translation layer costs extra performance, and especially on older systems, leads to significantly worse performance.
So if you’re seeing better performance on OSX right now, you could see even better performance on Windows if you remove the brakes. Not to mention that you can’t even access some high-end options unless you run on 64bit Windows.

The 15inch has enough power to run the game fairly well. You’ll find that you’ll get better performance if you run it on Windows via Bootcamp instead of OSX. If convenience is more important to you, the OSX client should still run well enough though.

Same problem with the german keyboard layout, weapon swap key is not recognized at all, hence can’t be bound.
@ is not a problem.

You can look at all the different language layouts on the apple online-store. They have high-res screenshots where all keys are visible.

Considering that the Mac client is just a commercial variant of a WINE port, there already is a comparable Linux client.

Click on ‘support’ at the top of this site, then chose ‘ask a question’. In the form, chose ‘report a bug’, and make a description of what happend. Maybe include a link to this thread as well.
Read this first: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/Submitting-a-Support-Ticket-for-the-Mac-Beta-Client

Ok, that’s bug-report worthy, it should NOT do that! Do check the link I posted, you actually don’t have to do the download if you have it installed on Windows already.

Close and restart the installer. You will not lose any downloaded data, it will start where it left off. Don’t be alarmed if the %-number jumps to zero, that’s because it shows the percentage of the remaining files.
Alternatively, you could copy the game files from your Windows installation. Instructions can be found in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/Hint-to-all-you-can-just-copy-your-Win-installation

General advice: when dealing with beta software, it’s always a good idea to first read the tech support forum

The OSX client currently doesn’t offer high-res texture options.
It has the same restrictions as running the Windows client on 32bit. The high-res texture options are only available if you run it on 64bit Windows.

No thanks. It’s so much better the way it is now.

you can change the behavior of th F-keys in your keyboard settings, but that is system wide, not just for GW2.
Another method is to use an app called FunctionFlip, which allows to change the behaviour of individual F-keys. So you could change f1-f4 to work in game, but keep the rest as media keys.

The Cider wrapper likely needs extra resources too. If I recall correctly it provides a few system librarys that are missing in OSX but are included in Windows.

Maybe deleted because there was already another one:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/Post-your-performance-here/page/2#post185841

Makes an SSD unneccessary i guess …

So i guess the “supports up to 64GB RAM” on Apples website is not exactly true?

You could install it on a Windows partition, a Virtual Machine or a different Windows PC, then copy the gw2.dat file over into your OSX app. There’s another thread in this forum with the details:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/Hint-to-all-you-can-just-copy-your-Win-installation/first#post171284

Chobiko.9182:

It doesn’t matter anyways. You can flag this game yourself as 64-bit using an exe editor. However as I said it doesn’t matter since GW2 doesn’t use more than ~2 GB of RAM.

It’s not about running the game as a 64bit process. It’s about getting different options for high graphic settings (mostly texture res) when running it on 64bit Windows.

The additional high-end graphics options that are available on 64-bit Windows are not available in the Cider port. This is similar to running the client in WINE or Crossover. It seems all the wrappers appear as 32-bit Windows to the client.

NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT 1GB
30FPS stable with mid/high settings in Windows (1680×1050)
20FPS with frequent drops below 10 with low settings in Cider (1680×1050)

Running pretty stable 30FPS with settings high/medium on Windows, between 10 and 19FPS with lower settings on Cider.

Correction to the profiler: the CPU is NOT a XEON, but a regular Core2Quad Q9400 with a mild overclock.

Surprise! Login to your gw2 account and check the downloads.

point 3 might be fixed with in-game camera speed option. worked for me, but I use a Razer mouse, not the trackpad.
For point 4 there is a workaround until the functionality can be built-in. There are 3rd-party apps to automatically switch f-key functionality, a google search for “disable mac function keys” should deliver.

KarlusDavius.1024:

Just wondered how long this was in the works? considering I’ve gone out and brought a PC when i am fully mac enabled.

Lack of comms on this is horrific considering you said you wouldn’t be supporting it.

Joke

They never said they wouldn’t support OSX, they only said there won’t be a OSX client at launch. And there wasn’t.

You might have to change your OSX keyboard settings if you plan on using the F-keys, and some keys don’t seem to be recognized properly on non-english keyboards.

There seem to be some problems with non-english keyboard layouts. @ wasn’t a problem for me, but I can’t use the default weapon swap key, since the game simply won’t recognize it.