been monitoring this thread & just wanted to share my experience in case it helps others. i'm on a mid 2012 MacBook pro and have been using the mac client on pretty low settings (autodetected) so that it runs smoothly in wvw & large events like teq (intel core i5, 16 gig ram, integrated graphics, ssd). parallels First I tried Parallels. it's very simple and has a guided walkthrough. easy install, got windows10 up and ran the game. I had to set graphics even lower (subsampled textures) to get a stable 10ish fps and even then there was some jerkiness/delays when in cities. large events like teq dropped me into the 1's-3's unless i was on a turret. tp was super super slow so i had to install a program called 'process tamer' so windows would prioritize processing power for the tp over the game client exe (coherenthost.exe i think it is), otherwise it was 9-13 seconds per action/click to complete. parallels works, and really is a cool piece of software, but for older machines the performance will probably be worse than the mac client. and the fans start running even with just win10 up without gw2 running. i don't think it's worth the monthly cost (~80$ annually). geforcenow I wanted to try geforce now after seeing the 'endorsement' by arena.net and youtube videos of the graphics. looked like a totally different game. BUT, i didn't attempt it because technically this MacBook doesn't meet geforce now's minimum system requirements, and, most importantly, I've read comments about players getting temporarily banned. From what i gathered, the thought was that accounts were getting automated bans cause of suspicious ip/location changes, which makes sense since it's a remote streaming service. I emailed support to ask them to clarify if this service was ok to use (and to also clarify that such a ban would not lead to account termination). simple, possibly paranoid, questions. first response i received was a vague reply about 3rd party mods with links to their top about those mods, nothing about streaming services. so i replied again, with links to the 'endorsements' (can be found in forums & in gw2 help), simply asking if it was safe to use. The reply i received basically said they appreciate my interest, they take these issues very seriously, they can't release any information, and if i have more questions to reach out. Support has helped me in the past and I've gotten these vague non-answer answers before so I understand it's how they operate. Because I could not get a clear 'yes it's a safe service to use' I decided to hold off on this service. But from what i saw it was ~24$ for a 6month membership so ~4$/month sounds like a good deal to me, assuming input lag isn't bad, especially for older computers & since you can play other games you might own through it as well, from 'anywhere', with graphics settings your machine couldn't ever attain. bootcamp I wanted to try bootcamp first, but couldn't figure out how to partition my drive (kept getting 'not enough space' errors running bootcamp assistant but i had over 200gigs free) and didn't want to turn time machine off or risk losing any data. I also read somewhere else that this error can occur if you have an internal ssd so I reluctantly accepted that i'd have to emulate with a virtual machine. then i found
and realized i had a spare ssd laying around. followed instructions and ran into a couple of snags that were resolved by restarting and trying again...well, now i run gw2 via win10 on an external ssd. graphics are set to medium-medium/high (i think shadows & reflections are lowered, textures are native), and i've got a consistent 20-50 fps. large events like teq are consistently above 14 and there is no frame delay or artifacting. there may be an extremely slight delay sometimes with initiating rotating the camera (holding r-click and moving mouse) or pressing spacebar whilst mounted but that could just be me being hypercritical & looking for flaws. no more being stuck underground for 5 seconds upon mounting, no more subsamples, no more complete blur of colors, tp is super fast...it's really an incredible difference, all from an external ssd on a machine without a dedicated graphics card.since this mac is older, there are 2 issues I do have. 1 is the fans run a LOT more than they did with the mac client. 2 is specific to pre-2012 MacBooks, there are no audio drivers. I think i've found a permanent solution to this (haven't followed the steps yet), but plugging in a headset through usb does work so I think in theory a usb splitter/hub should resolve that issue. other than that, restarting so much is kinda annoying but not terrible since macs reopen all your programs/tabs & the booting process itself is pretty quick. So at around 45$, 256gig ssd (30$) + usb3-to-sata cable (14$), i'd say it's well worth it. conclusion i'll stick with bootcamp for now since it's the most economical & the performance/graphics are leagues better than even the native mac clienti wish someone at arena.net would give a definitive yes or no on if streaming services like geforcenow are 'safe'. i'd be fine with an automated ban if i was given assurances that if that was truly the only reason for the infraction i would be unblocked in a relatively short manner & the strike wouldn't count against me (or if i had a way to register my account as using a remote streaming service to avoid such an automated catch), but thats a topic for another thread.i will probably keep keep a copy of gw2 on my iOS drive just to log in for quick tp sniping sessions. not going to pay for parallels so either vmware fusion or i'll see if i can get wine/playonmac to work.if you have an old mac or can't get bootcamp to work/dont have the space, get you an external ssd & follow the video above.PS - where can i get a copy of the 32-bit mac client?
been monitoring this thread & just wanted to share my experience in case it helps others. i'm on a mid 2012 MacBook pro and have been using the mac client on pretty low settings (autodetected) so that it runs smoothly in wvw & large events like teq (intel core i5, 16 gig ram, integrated graphics, ssd). parallels First I tried Parallels. it's very simple and has a guided walkthrough. easy install, got windows10 up and ran the game. I had to set graphics even lower (subsampled textures) to get a stable 10ish fps and even then there was some jerkiness/delays when in cities. large events like teq dropped me into the 1's-3's unless i was on a turret. tp was super super slow so i had to install a program called 'process tamer' so windows would prioritize processing power for the tp over the game client exe (coherenthost.exe i think it is), otherwise it was 9-13 seconds per action/click to complete. parallels works, and really is a cool piece of software, but for older machines the performance will probably be worse than the mac client. and the fans start running even with just win10 up without gw2 running. i don't think it's worth the monthly cost (~80$ annually). geforcenow I wanted to try geforce now after seeing the 'endorsement' by arena.net and youtube videos of the graphics. looked like a totally different game. BUT, i didn't attempt it because technically this MacBook doesn't meet geforce now's minimum system requirements, and, most importantly, I've read comments about players getting temporarily banned. From what i gathered, the thought was that accounts were getting automated bans cause of suspicious ip/location changes, which makes sense since it's a remote streaming service. I emailed support to ask them to clarify if this service was ok to use (and to also clarify that such a ban would not lead to account termination). simple, possibly paranoid, questions. first response i received was a vague reply about 3rd party mods with links to their top about those mods, nothing about streaming services. so i replied again, with links to the 'endorsements' (can be found in forums & in gw2 help), simply asking if it was safe to use. The reply i received basically said they appreciate my interest, they take these issues very seriously, they can't release any information, and if i have more questions to reach out. Support has helped me in the past and I've gotten these vague non-answer answers before so I understand it's how they operate. Because I could not get a clear 'yes it's a safe service to use' I decided to hold off on this service. But from what i saw it was ~24$ for a 6month membership so ~4$/month sounds like a good deal to me, assuming input lag isn't bad, especially for older computers & since you can play other games you might own through it as well, from 'anywhere', with graphics settings your machine couldn't ever attain. bootcamp I wanted to try bootcamp first, but couldn't figure out how to partition my drive (kept getting 'not enough space' errors running bootcamp assistant but i had over 200gigs free) and didn't want to turn time machine off or risk losing any data. I also read somewhere else that this error can occur if you have an internal ssd so I reluctantly accepted that i'd have to emulate with a virtual machine. then i found and realized i had a spare ssd laying around. followed instructions and ran into a couple of snags that were resolved by restarting and trying again...well, now i run gw2 via win10 on an external ssd. graphics are set to medium-medium/high (i think shadows & reflections are lowered, textures are native), and i've got a consistent 20-50 fps. large events like teq are consistently above 14 and there is no frame delay or artifacting. there may be an extremely slight delay sometimes with initiating rotating the camera (holding r-click and moving mouse) or pressing spacebar whilst mounted but that could just be me being hypercritical & looking for flaws. no more being stuck underground for 5 seconds upon mounting, no more subsamples, no more complete blur of colors, tp is super fast...it's really an incredible difference, all from an external ssd on a machine without a dedicated graphics card.since this mac is older, there are 2 issues I do have. 1 is the fans run a LOT more than they did with the mac client. 2 is specific to pre-2012 MacBooks, there are no audio drivers. I think i've found a permanent solution to this (haven't followed the steps yet), but plugging in a headset through usb does work so I think in theory a usb splitter/hub should resolve that issue. other than that, restarting so much is kinda annoying but not terrible since macs reopen all your programs/tabs & the booting process itself is pretty quick. So at around 45$, 256gig ssd (30$) + usb3-to-sata cable (14$), i'd say it's well worth it. conclusion i'll stick with bootcamp for now since it's the most economical & the performance/graphics are leagues better than even the native mac clienti wish someone at arena.net would give a definitive yes or no on if streaming services like geforcenow are 'safe'. i'd be fine with an automated ban if i was given assurances that if that was truly the only reason for the infraction i would be unblocked in a relatively short manner & the strike wouldn't count against me (or if i had a way to register my account as using a remote streaming service to avoid such an automated catch), but thats a topic for another thread.i will probably keep keep a copy of gw2 on my iOS drive just to log in for quick tp sniping sessions. not going to pay for parallels so either vmware fusion or i'll see if i can get wine/playonmac to work.if you have an old mac or can't get bootcamp to work/dont have the space, get you an external ssd & follow the video above.PS - where can i get a copy of the 32-bit mac client?