I have never considered myself a Mac guy. In my opinion, most of the people touting to live the “Apple Experience” have always been nothing more than talentless posers. Want a real phone? Get an android. Want a real computer? Build your own. In fact, back my college days, I prided myself on building and running Hackintosh boxes, back when the JaS builds first came out – much to the chagrin of fellow designers who spent three or four times the amount I had invested and still fell short in the performance department.
Today, times have changed and is it reasonable to own an iMac given the balance between quality (the large IPS screen being one major deciding factor) and performance or a Macbook simply because of the fact that there are no better alternatives around. With this mindset, I made the switch. Before you berate at me as a hipster-barista, I can assure you I am not as I happen to be a production company’s Art Director and I tax these fuckers up to the last penny. I will grant that I cave mostly because of the 27″ IPS screen. Anywho, the “switch” was great. The computer looked slick, it ran Adobe CS6 and Final Cut Pro effortlessly and I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. Yet this brought me one huge lifestyle issue; namely it bogged down my EVE Online experience.
It just (doesn’t) work.
Don’t ask me for what reason but EVE Online simply doesn’t “work” in an OS X environment. Yes you can download the 4.5 GB “native” client and you can even run dual clients if you need to (Hello! We are playing EVE Online here!). There is also compatible versions of the most popular communication tools around (namely Ventrilo and TeamSpeak). But somehow, even at 59FPS, you get the feel that the client just don’t cut it. There is an indescribable feeling of not having enough “horsepower” to back up your internet spaceships when it will be needed the most. Not just that, there is a plethora of bugs and issues which CCP Games need to resolve before a serious player could safely undock an expensive fit. The most common bug I found was the client freezes should I leave the client open in the background for too long. No socket closed issues. No messages. Just a nasty freeze. The existence of an entire Windows file system in ~/Library/Application Support/Eve Online/p_drive/ doesn’t help to shake the feeling of this being a ported version of the client running on top of an environment (ala Wine).
One quick look at the official EVE Online Macintosh forums will give you an idea of the living hell which some players have to endure to “enjoy” EVE Online on their Macs.
The ultimate all-in-one. Turbocharged EVE Online (thanks to Windows).
So after some heavy procrastination, I decided to install a copy of Windows 8 natively using the Boot Camp software strictly for EVE Online use. The process is fairly straightforward, although I won’t be describing it here. Ars Technica has an excellent guide.
I happen to have a copy of the EVE Online offline installer so, after downloading a small update, the process went smoothly.
So I ended up like this:
Now it’s even faster than it looks.
My first impression was to feel a bit of pity for the Mac client team. Either the tools and environment which they use have been expanded to the max or they are simply undermanned and overmatched.
While my OS of choice was Windows 8 (I had just downloaded a release candidate a few months ago), I believe most people would be better off using Windows 7. Still, the performance was quite solid albeit a few tweaks were needed to keep both clients running at 60FPS (bear in mind the IPS panel for the iMac runs at 2560 x 1440). The secondary 32″ monitor ran out of a Thunderbolt to a HDMI port (another big concern I had regarding performance) without problems. And, despite all the Windows 8 glossiness, I now feel confident enough to actually undock and take my pwnmobiles for a ride.
In Summary
Almost everybody has an old copy of Windows laying around and if you happen to lack one (or cannot borrow one), you can buy one from Amazon or, in the most extreme of cases, simply ignore the high road.
I applaud CCP Games efforts in bringing the EVE Online experience to the Mac platform but in my view these efforts are counterproductive and could result in even seasoned players like me losing interest in playing the core aspect of EVE Online (flying internet spaceships) due to poor Mac client performance. In my opinion, they could be better off posting a note on their page saying “Don’t even bother with the Mac client. Just install the Windows version and run BootCamp.” and focusing that team on more productive endeavors.
- R
What are you talking about!? I dual-box on my MacBook Pro laptop in heavy pvp. What a ridiculous article. Perhaps you should report on something you understand, like baiting Goons.
He doesn't even do that very well.
ATI or Nvidia card?
How about no, i like the fact i can play eve with out having to buy windows and run boot camp.
Why not report something that is actually a real issue , i think most of us mac users understand the limitations of what we can and cant do , we live with it fine .
Basically go away please signed all mac users
FYI you can also run EVE in a VMWare virtual windows client with better performance than the mac client.
Yeah, been there done that, and yes you are right, there is better performance using those than installing the Mac client (I used Parallels), but I went all the way
.
How could you Riverini!?
Even on my 08 unibody, EVE runs very well. You are free to run EVE on your windows PC if you feel you cannot configure your Mac to do it for you, but that is hardly a reason to argue for the removal of the client. Rubbish.
Mac tears are the best of the computer world
Just wait for the PC tears when video games become console-only.
You know, like DUST?
As a Mac user, I have to say that I agree with Riv. I use the Mac client to update sell orders in jita and autopilot around empire. I'd never feel safe using it for PvP. It's basically the windows client running on top of WINE, but worse. I think that CCP uses the old Transgaming/winex fork with a few modifications.
The major problem with Bootcamping EVE Online is that you can't use your Mac for other stuff like Aperture at the same time, and you have to partition the disk, and you can't use a Fusion drive.
"Doesn’t help to shake the feeling of this being a ported version of the client running on top of an environment (a la Wine)."
That's exactly what the client is. It's the Windows client (identical down to the last bit) running on top of Transgaming Cider technology. Cider being the latest evolution of Transgaming's WINE fork.
CCP is a MS house and EVE was coded virtually exclusively in MS technologies where Python wasn't used. They're not going to rewrite any part of the client for a minority OS.
I run 12 clients ALL the time on my Mac, which was made in 2008. I have 3 video cards and just bought my 6th monitor. It runs just fine. 32mb ram helps quite a bit as well.
If you run a glorified laptop with a big screen it will perform like one.
If you want a real mac , get a Mac Pro.
Yeh and you could have bought 3 comprable pc's for that price, Dont try and lord how good your mac is as everyone knows you paid twice if not three times as much for a pc of the same power.
He was trolling, if you were too dense to notice
2002 called: 32MB should be enough for anybody.
Actually 1997, but that goes without saying
boot detected =P
like this?
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Good article.
I'm in the throes of considering my upgrade path from my current ageing PC with Windows 8. I really like the look of the iMac Pro, so am interested in hearing from real user's as to how Eve performs. I need a minimum of 3 clients over three screens.
" PC with Windows 8"
For the love of god don't
MSCE as part of my job and its the biggest steaming pile of &^%#
While there is no real incentive to upgrade a PC running windows 7 to w8, there is similarly no reason for PC's still running XP (or Vista) or new builds not to use windows 8, after of course installing Start8.
So now you are playing EVE with overpriced PC. Congrats Riverini!
Actually take the price for the components + the price for a 27" inch IPS monitor (am not talking that 1080p shit) and you will see why it wasn't such bad deal.
27" WQHD monitor – $300.
Look it up.
The high quality Korean monitors, eh? Those that are sold in eBay? Think again, son.
High-quality IPS 27" monitors (Dell, LG, etc) hover around $700-800.
27-inch imacs start at $1800 with a video card out of a laptop and 1TB of HDD space. Granted, they do throw in the highly innovative "magic mouse" and keyboard for that price.
I'm 100% sure you can build a $1000 PC that absolutely destroys that iMac, even with a pretty case. Moving to a HTPC-sized package the performance difference is somewhat less, but still nowhere near the point where I would even consider buying a iMac to dualboot windows with.
Yep, I don't dispute that.
I, however, have read a lot about the $350 Korean 2560×1440 IPS screens and not all that I read is good. (Some have been lucky, others haven't).
Mac users have always demanded more than just hardware from their machines.
Look online and find me a 4 year old PC someone's willing to pay $500 for. Not hard with a Mac. Like it or not, they have their fans.
That said, my experience with the client wasn't great, either….
Riv, I have to agree with you about Mac's making their way in the development environment. As an SE I have been noticing a trend that a lot of the developers are starting to utilize Mac computers, beit they do not play games much, but from a production standpoint it makes sense.
Ubuntu is usually another alternative, but people get irritated with it fast. Some of the elitists have gone with a minimal Linux flavor (no UI or very bare). With mac, you can get the production quality for graphics, the nice look and feel (coding for hours definitely warrants a good display) and the functionality of a console. Though I still prefer the Ubuntu/Windows 7 dual OS alternative, I would seriously consider wandering to a mac just for the display alone.
You mean cheap MOBILE gfx and 5400 rpm drive ?
iMacs are horrible spec wise, don`t except miracles from immobile laptop with huge screen.
And not like that IPS panel in iMacs comes close to even low models from EIZO…
I use a MacBook Pro, live in null sec, engage in fleet ops and pvp every day, and have never had a performance issue, or a random client crash. My experience simply doesn't support your conclusions. Best wishes in your Windows experience!
I've had the experiences Riv is referring to. I've been in fights and had the random screen lock out of nowhere and got lucky most of the time. Does your MBP have an ATI or Nvidia card? I'm starting to wonder if this is an ATI issue as my Mac Pro has the HD 5870.
What percentage of EVE accounts are running on Macs? If it's say 10% or more, it sorta explains why there is a Mac client; if it's not much more than that, it also explains the limited developer resources. Anything less than that, maybe they should take a 2nd look and decide whether it's worth continuing or not. Tbh, I'm surprised there wasn't a mention of this when CCP went through its "downsizing" phase awhile back (unless there was).
Mac vs pc debate, what's next? Pirates vs ninjas?
Ninjas, definitely
Pirates, you fool.
srsly fuck windows, ppl still use that shit? go ccp, macs all day long
Riverini you're a fucking idiot.
I've been using the mac client for the last two years, with retribution it finally doesn't suck, as in, the random freezes no longer happen. And the only time it did happen was when flash was running in firefox causing some weird graphics conflict. I can run 3 clients on my mid 2011 27" iMac on OSX with full graphics settings on on all clients and I get 60fps on all of them. When I try and run 3 clients on bootcamp, it just stutters and fps drops to like 15 on each – even with the latest AMD drivers.
Do us all a favour mate and stop shitposting on this issue. The type of attitude you're projecting here isn't exactly helping people who want the Mac client to get some more QA attention.
haven't seen the Mac retribution client, but I know of at least one couple who wanted to get into Eve but couldn't because the Mac client kept crashing on them. I was with them for one evening and it was unplayable, simple as that. This was some time early 2012.
I purchased a macbook pro for work. Lots of o/s travel. Eve hasn't missed a beat. Expensive yes, but people shouldn't hate simply because they can't afford it.
With the same money how many PC or laptops with the same power ( performance) could you get?
Its not only about its performance its also about the price.
If for the same amount you cant get something better then why spend it for the name tag?
Thing is, Apple just works and its products _should_ have a very long lifecycle.
Despite the fact that they crap out ipods, pads and phones faster than you can buy them, their performance and quality always satisfied me for a longer time than equal non-Apple products.
I actually mostly hear Riv's criticism – that the oldschool nerds don't like the whole Apple-lifestyle-crap, that they have completely neglected professional users and the fact that their marketing kinda tricks people to constantly buy only slightly better products for high prices.
Pretty good reasons to dislike Apple but their products are popular and CCP just can't afford to piss off the hipster crowd.
Only a couple of hours prior, I was thinking how I haven't read any utter tripe from riverini on EN24 in a while.
Here I am now, thinking how I wish I hadn't read any utter tripe from riverini on EN24 in a while.
Dipshit!
Macs are good for downloading porn.
But for serious internet space ships, get a pc you fucks.
The problem is that the Mac client is just the windows client wrapped up in a commercial version of Wine (Cedega). There is next to no effort spent on getting it to perform.
There are plenty of top notch native games for OS X that run like cut cats, so it's nothing to do with the OS or hardware.
Macs are for girls n goons.
Posting in an obvious "Nerf highsec" thread…
Hey how about you write something worth reading?
Macs are overpriced POS hipster bait that use the same components as PCs, but with triple the price tag. Macs – not even once!
p.s. I don't mean Player Owned Station
I warned my kid not to buy a Mac, did it anyway because if was soo hip and after as many issues as solar systems in Eve that Mac is in the garbage can. Bought him a normal laptop as a reward and Apple hasn't entered the house since.
Apple = Cr apple.
Windows7 = Windows Heaven.
Windows 8 = Windows H8.
I dunno, I'd like to see EvE on Linux again… but I guess the user base was too small.
The user base isn't that small, but no one used the native Linux client because Eve always ran better in Wine. An Eve user in Wine appears to be a Windows user, and skews the stats.
I still play Eve in Wine, triple boxing with no issues.
Nice.
Ahh the "Mac sucks Windowz rulez" debate using Eve software. wtf. Windows brain dead drones go spend your hard earned dollars on yet another droll useless and broken O/S to make Microsoft richer for underachieving mediocrity. They depend on morons like you. MAC users are in primarily 3 camps. 1) Professionals who work in video/audio 2) Hipsters who have too much money 3) Windowz haters (though the smartest of these go to Linux). I ran Eve my first year on a Macbook Pro – worked great, solid performance, decent graphics at the highest settings. There is no problem with it, the Mac client isn't hurting anyone and riverini, next time you're bored and have nothing to say – do us all a favor and shut the pie hole. Cheap Windowz vs. Mac pablum is about as low as you can go – though I'm sure you'll push that moronic extreme.
Windows brain dead drones go spend your hard earned dollars on yet another droll useless and broken O/S to make Microsoft richer for underachieving mediocrity
Mac brain dead drones go spend your hard earned dollars on yet another overhyped locked-down and expensive O/S to make Apple richer for underachieving mediocrity
Hmmmmmm…..
You're an idiot.
Interesting article. Few things:
1. Generally people buy a Mac for reasons other than pure gaming and the Mac EVE client allows them to at least play the game without the need to buy Windows or run the gauntlet of Wine etc. If gaming is the focus then the choice is simple because a PC provides a lot more configurability and most games are designed to run on a PC (though that is changing)
However, as Macs have become more popular a lot of MMO's now provide Mac clients which are at least 'playable' for general gaming purpose (and makes up the actual bulk of those who play games) In the same way that game designers continue to support XP etc. It may not be the optimal experience but it is sufficient for their needs.
2. "Don’t ask me for what reason but EVE Online simply doesn’t “work” in an OS X environment." With a single client on a newer 27 inch iMac it just 'works' with all settings to max at the native resolution of 2560 x 1440 which kicks the ass of what most players use to game on. With a single client there is very little difference between playing in OS X or via Windows 7/8 via Bootcamp in terms of FPS, just with some graphics effects not supported it looks pretty much the same.
3. "But somehow, even at 59FPS, you get the feel that the client just don’t cut it."
The client will be capped at 59/60 FPS because most players will run with vsync on and the fps is capped to the native refresh rate of the monitor. That's a good thing, especially for multiple clients as it helps avoid unnecessary heat generation from higher FPS. It also avoids tearing etc.
5. "The existence of an entire Windows file system in ~/Library/Application Support/Eve Online/p_drive/ doesn’t help to shake the feeling of this being a ported version of the client running on top of an environment (ala Wine)."
As other have pointed out the client is a Wine port of the game which is not developed in house but by Transgaming who are responsible for the actual Mac client development, with CCP. There are inherent limitations within this method of porting and increasingly developers are moving to native Mac clients which offer better performance.
In this, I agree very much with the sentiment that the current EVE Mac client is suboptimal and can not compete with the game run in Bootcamp which allows fuller use of the computers potential (after all it is pretty much the same as any modern PC inside)
There will always be a balance between cost to implement a native client and the increase in revenue it would generate and the Mac is still a smaller market. However, with the dominance of iOS platforms in portable devices more and more people also opt to buy a portable Macbook or for the desktop use which is opening up a viable market and why many MMO's now offer a Mac client; either via a Transgaming/Wine client which at least gets your casual gamer playing (i.e EVE Online, GW2) or native Mac clients (i.e. WoW, LOTRO) Looking forward, Elder Scrolls Online which is one of the biggest MMO's in development, will have a native Mac client (already in closed testing and apparently working well)
You are right that our nice shiny Macs can also run EVE really well via Bootcamp if players want the full feature set of graphic effects and more solid performance especially with multiple clients.
However, a good chunk of blame must lie with Apple itself with their tardy support for OpenGL (still stuck at OpenGL 3.2 partial support) and delivery of optimised graphics drivers (as users are unable to update them directly) Until Apple really ramps this up then it will always be an Achilles Heal for Mac gaming.
I don't see much benefit from dropping the existing Transgaming Mac port support as it does at least offer a way to play the game on a Mac and the sums must add up for them to continue updating it over the years.
The ideal scenario is CCP developing a native Mac client. Until then, the existing client allows a lot of Mac gamers to enjoy EVE which they would not otherwise do.
Regarding number 2 and 3… The mac client crashes fairly regularly, and has horrible latency issues. It's fine if your flying a hulk, not so fine if you're flying an interceptor. I'm sure it's fin for anyone that still plays one-handed.
Regarding number fine, I would argue that the Windows client under wine runs infinitely better than the transgaming "native' mac client released by CCP.
Re: Blame Apple. Blame Microsoft. Blame Intel. Blame Nvidia. I blame CCP. None of my other "native" mac games perform so poorly.
Been playing in Mac now for some 5 years. Yes it's probably less reliable and uses more memory than a native app but to define it as counter productive is simply wrong.
As for comments on Forums… how often do people post when things go well? as a result you're looking at the disgruntled.
At present I'm using one of those 27" IPS machines, quad core (i7 not the i5 and have a decent graphics card version – not the 1/2 Gb base one… and happily run 3-4 clients without breaking a sweat. Same machine also runs a Tekkit server 24*7 and a bunch of Webapps.
lol my Mac is 6 years old and still runs EvE without a hitch, even dule boxing. I also seam to not have near as many bugs as windows clients, im amazed at the number of times my corp have complained about a bug and it never apeard for me.
My 6 years old Core2Duo PC runs 4 Clients smoothly..
A Home without Windows is a Prison!
I run eve on my macbook pro when I am traveling, it really isn't too bad. 3 clients running including a jf in jita, a super dropping on some dreads and a triage carrier in a bs fleet fight all seem to run smoothly on my macbook pro, granted I do use my windows desktop at home, but I'm glad I can use it on my mac when I'm out on business.
OP is stupid; I've been using a macbook pro for years with no problems multi boxing.
why such shitpoasting?
Well i also do have a iMac 27' and have been using mac for about 10 years now, and i must agree with the OP eve online runs WAAAY better in my w7 bootcamp than in my OSX…hardware is the same…BUT from this to discontinue the mac client??! why do you care ?? i know a lot of eve players that have aversion to windows and to think of bootcamp as a blasphemy…so why take eve online away from this people.
The all idea of the thread should be: Make eve online better for mac…not discontinued
what a fucking self entitled shitbird article
Problem #1, Trying to run a game on a computer that fits in a screen. I have a Mac Pro (yeah.. the tower one) and run eve in OSX… works great (granted I acquired the ATI 5870).
Playing EVE on my MBP i got from my company. Dualboxing. it's doing fine so far, can't remember any crashes.
Maybe it's is not as shiny as it would be on a high end windows 8 pc, but it's all i need to shoot and kill other players. What i actually don't need, is a windows pc. And yes, i almost always had a high-end windows pc during the last 16 years.
Proof that Riverini has no brain atall.
1. He bought a mac.
2. He bought windows 8
A bit over a year ago Transgaming and CCP really had the Mac client in a good position after all the issues with the mail system. That lasted for a few months and then the freezes start. The posts about the random game freezes with no apparent reason go back over the past year and there's been zero response from CCP and zero luck in tracking it down. It seems pretty clear they just want us to run Boot Camp.
The suck part of that is then we have to run Windows, and then can't get to anything from the Mac side. That leaves us hoping Fusion is up to the task. I'm going to give it a try because the current Mac client is damn near unusuable with the random regular freezes.
Why Transgaming client if Wine exists?
You're all fucking n3rds – N3RD AL3RT!!
Now slap yourselves for wearing glasses with lenses that thick and wipe that drool off your lip…
I've owned multiple Macbook Pros and iMacs, all intel-powered, and I've tested EVE on both OSX and Windows 7 (installing natively on a separate partition) on every machine. Windows gets MUCH much higher FPS. Can't say too much about stability.
Don't use an emulator like VMWare. Just use bootcamp to partition your drive and install it natively.
I vastly prefer OSX for literally any other use of my computer – but for EVE (and most gaming purposes) Windows seems to win hands down.
If you own a Mac – install Windows. The difference is huge.