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After the Mac discontinuation - Mac (that uses Intel) on Windows Dual Boot


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After the discontinued Mac support on Feb 18:Would it still be possible for old Macs (with Intel hardware) to use Boot Camp (to dual boot) Windows and run GW2?

I understand Boot Camp is a bit patch work and sub optimal. It’s just that we’re given a month’s notice and it’s challenging to suddenly buy a new laptop/desktop.

If we can still play GW2 on a Boot Camp Windows on our current Mac devices, it would be a big help as the Mac player-base transitions to Intel/AMD PCS.

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(I heard at the end of last year that the next gen of Intel processors is coming out later this year. Given the rise in performance at similar price points, it makes sense to wait those few months.

At the same time, Mac players need an alternative to log-in so they don’t get kicked out of guilds that require recent log-in activity to retain membership.)

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You can absolutely use Bootcamp Windows to play. It's not really that much patch work, it runs like a normal Windows install. The only difference is you get your drivers from the Boot Camp tool, and you have the option of using 3rd party video drivers to squeeze some more performance (bootcampdrivers.com, but that is indeed some patchwork at that point.)

I definitely recommend trying it, anyone who has an Intel Mac. The Bootcamp tool is pretty self explanatory if you want to do a default install (has to be on your main/internal hard drive) but if you want to put it on an external, completely separate drive, that's also possible and there are some very thorough guides on how to do it step by step like this one.

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@"nykur.2154" said:You can absolutely use Bootcamp Windows to play. It's not really that much patch work, it runs like a normal Windows install. The only difference is you get your drivers from the Boot Camp tool, and you have the option of using 3rd party video drivers to squeeze some more performance (bootcampdrivers.com, but that is indeed some patchwork at that point.)

I definitely recommend trying it, anyone who has an Intel Mac. The Bootcamp tool is pretty self explanatory if you want to do a default install (has to be on your main/internal hard drive) but if you want to put it on an external, completely separate drive, that's also possible and there are some very thorough guides on how to do it step by step like this one.

How much does it cost to run bootcamp? I presume you have to buy a copy of WIndows, right?

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@"nykur.2154" said:You can absolutely use Bootcamp Windows to play. It's not really that much patch work, it runs like a normal Windows install. The only difference is you get your drivers from the Boot Camp tool, and you have the option of using 3rd party video drivers to squeeze some more performance (bootcampdrivers.com, but that is indeed some patchwork at that point.)

I definitely recommend trying it, anyone who has an Intel Mac. The Bootcamp tool is pretty self explanatory if you want to do a default install (has to be on your main/internal hard drive) but if you want to put it on an external, completely separate drive, that's also possible and there are some very thorough guides on how to do it step by step like this one.

Thank you so much! Especially for your tips on drivers. I used Bootcamp to play Skyrim almost 10 years ago and really struggled with the drivers. This is a big help, thank you. :)

It’s a relief to be reassured we can still play GW2 while we decide on a PC option.

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@tetmikem.5608 said:

@"nykur.2154" said:You can absolutely use Bootcamp Windows to play. It's not really that much patch work, it runs like a normal Windows install. The only difference is you get your drivers from the Boot Camp tool, and you have the option of using 3rd party video drivers to squeeze some more performance (bootcampdrivers.com, but that is indeed some patchwork at that point.)

I definitely recommend trying it, anyone who has an Intel Mac. The Bootcamp tool is pretty self explanatory if you want to do a default install (has to be on your main/internal hard drive) but if you want to put it on an external, completely separate drive, that's also possible and there are some very thorough guides on how to do it step by step like
.

How much does it cost to run bootcamp? I presume you have to buy a copy of WIndows, right?

As far as I know, yes. Here’s an article on how to get Windows for cheaper (or possibly free): https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/need-legal-cheap-windows-8-license-options/(If you know a friend with a spare volume license key from their business, that works too.)

As for the cost of Bootcamp, here’s Apple’s article on it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201468The tl;dr version for the cost is:

1) Getting Windows like you mentioned

2) A lot of free hard drive space: 64GB-128GB of free hard drive space for Windows + ~50GB for GW2(That might be a struggle on 256GB internal hard drives, but I think it’s worth it to go internal. Depending on an external hard drive to run Windows means making sure that wire doesn’t disconnect/dislodge.)

3) Technical know-how and patience. a) Macs weren’t designed to run on Windows. b) Drivers allow software to communicate with hardware.Since the Windows Bootcamp layer is different software from the Mac OS, Bootcamp Windows needs to install drivers to talk to all that hardware. (When I was a teenager in the 2000s, Windows software often broke too. :lol: I learned to troubleshoot PCs because of gaming and Windows’ issues.)If you don’t want to pay someone to Bootcamp your Mac for GW2, then the cost will be in a willingness to learn, time, and patience.

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@"Eirian Direstorm.9748" said:Thanks for this info! Has there been any word on why this is such short notice?

I've been a mac user for many years, but on top of the climbing prices, this might be the final straw...

I love my Macs too, but now that I’m back to gaming, I might get a gaming laptop now. GW2 without ArcDPS and TacO is a struggle. :lol:


I don’t know about the devs but here are my guesses based on factors beyond ANet employees’ control:1) Apple stopped supporting OpenGL that GW2 uses to support Mac. (https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/06/28/why-macos-mojave-requires-metal----and-deprecates-opengl). Apple is also leaving Intel processors and making their own M1 chips. This is in line with Apple’s design philosophy to perfect the design of their hardware and software from front to back. Making their own hardware gives them more control over their design process.

2) Developing for Mac’s replacement for OpenGL (Metal-capable GPUs) and M1 CPUs is a huge cost for ANet. Given less gamers are on Mac, this might not be worth it for them. From the little I know of software dev from my college courses: in terms of effort/cost, that kind of overhaul is as good as making a new game. (Unfortunately for gamers, Mac’s target market isn’t the gaming community so Apple can’t make resolving this their priority.)

3) With the recent ANet layoffs and most businesses/individuals struggling with the effects of the pandemic, they need to prioritize their efforts. Given less available employees and the long list of things they need to work on (Champions, End of Dragons, keeping ANet alive, et cetera)... If it means giving up on the Mac while the rest of GW2 can continue, I can see where they’re coming from.

(I’m with you there, I wish we had a few more months of notice. It’s hard on us Mac users and this is life. Circumstances don’t define us, our response to them does.)

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@tetmikem.5608 said:

@"nykur.2154" said:You can absolutely use Bootcamp Windows to play. It's not really that much patch work, it runs like a normal Windows install. The only difference is you get your drivers from the Boot Camp tool, and you have the option of using 3rd party video drivers to squeeze some more performance (bootcampdrivers.com, but that is indeed some patchwork at that point.)

I definitely recommend trying it, anyone who has an Intel Mac. The Bootcamp tool is pretty self explanatory if you want to do a default install (has to be on your main/internal hard drive) but if you want to put it on an external, completely separate drive, that's also possible and there are some very thorough guides on how to do it step by step like
.

How much does it cost to run bootcamp? I presume you have to buy a copy of WIndows, right?

You can actually use Windows 10 for free nowadays. It just limits your ability to customize the OS and do a few other minor things, but it's completely fine for bootcamp and playing games.

You can download it from Microsoft for free here and here is Apple's support page about installing Windows with some useful info.

(Oops, just noticed Chrysline linked this stuff already up above!)

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@nykur.2154 said:

@nykur.2154 said:You can absolutely use Bootcamp Windows to play. It's not really that much patch work, it runs like a normal Windows install. The only difference is you get your drivers from the Boot Camp tool, and you have the option of using 3rd party video drivers to squeeze some more performance (bootcampdrivers.com, but that is indeed some patchwork at that point.)

I definitely recommend trying it, anyone who has an Intel Mac. The Bootcamp tool is pretty self explanatory if you want to do a default install (has to be on your main/internal hard drive) but if you want to put it on an external, completely separate drive, that's also possible and there are some very thorough guides on how to do it step by step like
.

How much does it cost to run bootcamp? I presume you have to buy a copy of WIndows, right?

You can actually use Windows 10 for free nowadays. It just limits your ability to customize the OS and do a few other minor things, but it's completely fine for bootcamp and playing games.

You can download it from Microsoft for free
and
with some useful info.

(Oops, just noticed Chrysline linked this stuff already up above!)

It’s all good! Your explanation is clear and simple. I only linked to the info while you explained it directly. And others can benefit from hearing things phrased differently. :heart: Thank you too for clarifying that an Intel Mac is enough. :anguished: :heart:

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I am hugely disappointed by ANet‘s decision (and its intentional disabling of comments on the original thread). Long-time Mac gamer, invested much time, love and quite a bit of money in the game.Yes, I understand that shifting the game to a sensible base (Metal instead of the extremely outdated OpenGL) would cost time and money they don‘t want to invest, or cannot. I also understand that their situation and the assumed number of Mac users might make this a „sensible“ decision.What I do not understand at all is why existing Mac users have to be forcibly locked out of the whole game in mid-February. They might continue allowing us to play it, even if no further extensions would be provided or glitches would be fixed. Instead - they announce to completely lock us out.Unless this changes, I will turn my back on the game and company before they force me to do it.

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@Gyro.9182 said:I am hugely disappointed by ANet‘s decision (and its intentional disabling of comments on the original thread). Long-time Mac gamer, invested much time, love and quite a bit of money in the game.Yes, I understand that shifting the game to a sensible base (Metal instead of the extremely outdated OpenGL) would cost time and money they don‘t want to invest, or cannot. I also understand that their situation and the assumed number of Mac users might make this a „sensible“ decision.What I do not understand at all is why existing Mac users have to be forcibly locked out of the whole game in mid-February. They might continue allowing us to play it, even if no further extensions would be provided or glitches would be fixed. Instead - they announce to completely lock us out.Unless this changes, I will turn my back on the game and company before they force me to do it.

There's never open discussion in 'News and Announcements' threads. Nothing unusual there.

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Well, I think the best summary of current situation is "reality check of people who use system tied to some company". If Microsoft someday decides to lockdown people and force to use their store for applications... that will be very funny reality check for many people.

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The Only thing you will have to remember if you're on a mac laptop while using boot camp is you may need to use a fan pad under the laptop macOS does some things in the kernel to change the thresholds that thermal throttling happens at and windows does not have this so in order to retain good performance a third party cooling solution is necessary. Here is a link to a video of a e-celeb tech channel explaining it

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@Gyro.9182 said:I am hugely disappointed by ANet‘s decision (and its intentional disabling of comments on the original thread). Long-time Mac gamer, invested much time, love and quite a bit of money in the game.Yes, I understand that shifting the game to a sensible base (Metal instead of the extremely outdated OpenGL) would cost time and money they don‘t want to invest, or cannot. I also understand that their situation and the assumed number of Mac users might make this a „sensible“ decision.What I do not understand at all is why existing Mac users have to be forcibly locked out of the whole game in mid-February. They might continue allowing us to play it, even if no further extensions would be provided or glitches would be fixed. Instead - they announce to completely lock us out.Unless this changes, I will turn my back on the game and company before they force me to do it.

Indeed, it is worst than expected. We could chose to deal with emulating x86 on newer Macs if there was no support, but they decided to lock out paying customers instead.

I don't think Anet can even change their outdated engine and may be looking towards Guild Wars 3, which may support Macs.

OpenGL was a great cross-platform API, but it was last updated on July 2017. It is time to move on, probably to Vulkan. Apple may even adopt Vulkan eventually, they do support Open Source ...some users don't know, but MacOS is partially Open Source and certified Unix.

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@Chrysline.2317 said:After the discontinued Mac support on Feb 18:Would it still be possible for old Macs (with Intel hardware) to use Boot Camp (to dual boot) Windows and run GW2?

I understand Boot Camp is a bit patch work and sub optimal. It’s just that we’re given a month’s notice and it’s challenging to suddenly buy a new laptop/desktop.

If we can still play GW2 on a Boot Camp Windows on our current Mac devices, it would be a big help as the Mac player-base transitions to Intel/AMD PCS.

I can confirm you can use Bootcamp to make a partition on your hard drive where you can install Windows 10 for free and play GW2 with a 64 bit Windows client. The process is pretty much automatic but you have to download Windows 10 first. The newest iMac computers don't even need a flash drive to do the partition, which is good. The Windows client is more optimised than the Mac one from what I witnessed

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@Gyro.9182 said:I am hugely disappointed by ANet‘s decision (and its intentional disabling of comments on the original thread). Long-time Mac gamer, invested much time, love and quite a bit of money in the game.Yes, I understand that shifting the game to a sensible base (Metal instead of the extremely outdated OpenGL) would cost time and money they don‘t want to invest, or cannot. I also understand that their situation and the assumed number of Mac users might make this a „sensible“ decision.What I do not understand at all is why existing Mac users have to be forcibly locked out of the whole game in mid-February. They might continue allowing us to play it, even if no further extensions would be provided or glitches would be fixed. Instead - they announce to completely lock us out.Unless this changes, I will turn my back on the game and company before they force me to do it.

If you're really into gaming (as the term Mac gamer implies), I would stronly recommend just getting a Windows (or linux perhaps) gaming desktop/laptop, the performance difference and overall game experience is pretty big :)! I might've misinterpreted your wording though.

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@Touchme.1097 said:

@Chrysline.2317 said:After the
discontinued Mac support on Feb 18:
Would it still be possible for old Macs (with Intel hardware) to use Boot Camp (to dual boot) Windows and run GW2?

I understand Boot Camp is a bit patch work and sub optimal. It’s just that we’re given a month’s notice and it’s challenging to suddenly buy a new laptop/desktop.

If we can still play GW2 on a Boot Camp Windows on our current Mac devices, it would be a big help as the Mac player-base transitions to Intel/AMD PCS.

I can confirm you can use Bootcamp to make a partition on your hard drive where you can install Windows 10 for free and play GW2 with a 64 bit Windows client. The process is pretty much automatic but you have to download Windows 10 first. The newest iMac computers don't even need a flash drive to do the partition, which is good. The Windows client is more optimised than the Mac one from what I witnessed

Thank you for this, it’s reassuring!

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@"dusanyu.4057" said:The Only thing you will have to remember if you're on a mac laptop while using boot camp is you may need to use a fan pad under the laptop macOS does some things in the kernel to change the thresholds that thermal throttling happens at and windows does not have this so in order to retain good performance a third party cooling solution is necessary. Here is a link to a video of a e-celeb tech channel explaining it

Thank you for the heads up! I’ve been playing on a 5 year old Macbook 12 inch and the heat during GW2 has been serious enough that I’ve already got a cooling fan. :lol:

(Why I hadn’t upgraded my laptop recently: I’ve been away from the hardcore gaming scene for almost 10 years and didn’t need to upgrade it. I only started GW2, and started playing MMOs again, around 50 days ago.)

The last time I tried Bootcamp was almost 10 years ago on an old Macbook Pro (to play Skyrim). The installed Windows couldn’t find several drivers for the Mac hardware and it led to a lot of error messages. :lol: Though it was solid enough to play Skyrim for 2 months with mods on.

I’ll need to get through some impending deadlines and meetings before chopping up my laptop so it can do Bootcamp. Let’s see how it goes. XD

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@"Speedylord.2798" said:If you're really into gaming (as the term Mac gamer implies), I would stronly recommend just getting a Windows (or linux perhaps) gaming desktop/laptop, the performance difference and overall game experience is pretty big :)! I might've misinterpreted your wording though.My wording might have been a bit unclear. I am a Mac user (for a variety of reasons that do not belong here) who also likes to play games, and has played computer games for far more years than I would be willing to admit here. However, while I have a good amount of gold in my GW2 account, I do not have enough surplus, not-needed-for-anything-else-but-fun real-world gold to buy yet another computer "just for gaming" (and keeping it updated regularly, etc.).I am aware that some games run only on Windows, and some run "better" on Windows, but at the end of the day, it's question of what you can afford, or want to invest in, only for fun. (I don't have a PlayStation, Xbox, ... either).

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