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[100% Unofficial] How to play GW2 on Mac OS after the Mac client is gone - [Merged]


ASP.8093

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For all you who don't want bootcamp, i found this link: https://asmaloney.com/2021/04/howto/running-guild-wars-2-on-macos-using-wine/ It works for me. The fps is total crap and you have to set your graphics settings to very low, but it *does* run on intel mac with Big Sur.

You can even run arcdps with it. Install the dll in your bin64 folder and open the Config  Utility, libraries, and add d3d9

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On 8/4/2021 at 7:57 AM, yakobu.4183 said:

Using CrossOver 21, the only thing I can get working is the 32-bit Windows client. I would really like to try 64-bit but that always crashes in the launcher already. Any advice?

If you're running newer macOS versions, the 32 bit client is a no go. 

With that said, the issue you're describing here is something to do with the launcher crossover creates. Just click, "Run Command..", provide it the Gw2-64 executable, and the launcher will open just fine.

Edited by Aerithor.3710
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Yeah, considering the new tools, it’d be great to see the game on the modern MacOS. Standard GPTK has a performance limiter, so for now Crossover is a more optimal option, especially with dxvk-async. 
But Crossover’s performance is far from ideal, and it uses a very old version of Wine as a base. If someone at Anet could dedicate some time to convert the game to MacOS, it’d be a blast. A native version should be much smoother and more comfortable than the multiple third party translation layers. 
A port is really needed if you also consider that Macs take more than a third of the total market share of all personal computers. Macs exploded in popularity with the introduction of the ARM transition, so they’re much more common than they’re used to in 2019-2020. 

Edited by TentacleInvoker.2860
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I have an update. I tried to play the game under GPTK on a fresh base M2 machine, and it seems to run slightly better than under Crossover. It works alright as long as you install the necessary dependencies correctly.

Vanilla maps, as well as HoT and PoF maps seem to run quite nice, but in EoD, there’s a lot of slowdowns when moving around the map due to asset density. Plus, Tequatl is pretty laggy. 

We’ll see how GPTK works in the future, but I’ll stay with my point that we need a native port. The game is pretty old, so it can potentially run much, much better with an official solution. Additionally, GPTK sometimes gives shader errors, like for example in Mistlock, or refuses to load the cash shop. Plus it’s pretty tricky to set up, so more casual Mac users can struggle trying to achieve better performance on their machines. 

I would kill for silky smooth experience in Guild Wars 2. This is why I was spending hours hacking Crossover with custom DXVK, environment variables and whatever else. I ask Anet to provide the best experience for everyone. 

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I was wondering what kind of frame rates people are getting with current options. I'm running latest wineskin for MacOS 13 (WS11WineCX64bit22.1.1-7 with winetricks dxvk1103 + win10) which is fine for solo small group, but WvW and large meta events see frame rates drop to like 8fps on M1 Max. I was looking at End of Dragons and Obscurity, but I'm a bit hesitant from what I'm seeing in terms of performance :/ 

What's GPTK?

I'd like to see them do a proper Mac client. What they had was working really well just before they axed it over Apple's transition announcement and it was basically a fancy custom wine wrapper I think. With what appears to be more gaming focus from Apple's WWDC maybe they'll come around?

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Chaps, i just want to give a quick update. MBP 14 M2 Max 32 GB, the game runs amazingly good under Crossover Version 23.5 (23.5.0.36528) using GPTK integrated in crossover. 

I wonder if Anet team could use GPTK to produce the near to native client - it would be awesome!

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On 6/6/2023 at 9:51 AM, fosfor.9076 said:

Now, the new MacOS 14 Sanoma has Game Mode and Game Porting Toolkit. I just hope that GW2 devs will look at it 😎

 

Hi everyone,
I'm joining the call for a new Mac Client: PLEASE ArenaNet bring GuildWars2 back to the Mac!

And I want to add: Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread, it really helped me a lot! 🙂

My experiences so far with Guild Wars 2 on my MacBook Pro M2:
- I tried the most recent CrossOver Trial, that worked very well, BUT compared to my old windows Computer 6 years ago (Intel i5, 8GB RAM, 1 GB VRAM, SSD Drive) , I expected GW2 to run with way higher graphic settings on my Mac, which wasn't the case. So I feel the performance really suffers through the compatibility layer. For those with a similar Mac: I had constant 60 FPS with what I would call (due to lack of better words) "lower end of middle graphic settings".
- Currently I am downloading the Porting Kit, because I am not ready to pay for CrossOver. I hope the performance is comparable to it though.  🙂
- I tried to install GW2 with just wine-stable and Homebrew, but that was to complicated for me so far, but I learned a lot about the Wine Project, the Terminal/ commands and Mac in general so it was definitely worth the time. My tip: I highly recommend ChatGPT for "debugging"!

Best regards & good luck especially to the other Mac users 😉
Freddy

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On 1/10/2021 at 10:38 PM, ASP.8093 said:

 

2.c. Porting Kit

(last updated: Jan 10, 2021)"Out-of-the-box" support: No/Not yet"Do-it-yourself" support: YES ❤️

"Do-it-yourself" Instructions:(Tested on Intel hardware / Mac OS 10.15.7 "Catalina" / Porting Kit 4.1.0)

TODO: Verify ARM/Rosetta support with latest Porting Kit.

 

Hi everyone, on my MacBook Pro (2022) M2 Chip, macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 the Porting Kit worked immediately thanks to ASP.8093's Guide, but on my girlfriends MacBook Pro (2018), Intel i7 Chip, macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 the installation always fails when GuildWars 2 starts the Download (immediately when the GW2 Window says "Initializing").

Update:
The mistake was using a wineskin engine with D3DMetal (PortingKit).

The download works now with both Porting Kit and PlayOnMac, but with both tools I get the following error:

*--> Crash <--*
Assertion: Tried to destroy ImGui viewport 286331153's window renderer without a handle!
File: D:\Perforce\Live\NAEU\v2\Code\Arena\Engine\Gr\Ui\GrUi.cpp(1391)
App: Gw2-64.exe
...

Does anyone have an idea how to fix this/ where to look for solutions?

I greatly appreciate any input! 

Best regards
Freddy

Edited by Lord Ortolan.6249
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Seems to be working with Wineskin on Macbook Pro Apple M2 Pro 32 GB RAM. Can run with highest graphic settings. 😄

UPDATE: does seem to crash every now and then, but kitten this game is beautiful on highest graphic settings.

UPDATE2: the crashes are certainly annoying but it doesn't happen enough to NOT play GW2, in other words it's worth it..

Edited by lextoc.2856
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