Thinking of switch to Mac, 1 Question though

Hey,
I am thinking of buying one of the new macbook pro's when they come out soon, hopefully. But, I have one questions. I play WoW and COD4 on my windows desktop. When I switch to mac, can I download the mac version of these games for free and play? Or do I have to buy the mac retail versions?

 

Not sure about Call of Duty, but WoW you can simply login on their website and download the entire client and all of the expansions for your MAC yes.

However, I hope you have a good couple days of something to do while you wait for it to download. Ever torrented a 20GB file before?.... yeah.... This is about half that speed.


***EDIT: This just in. Apparently both the Mac and PC Versions are installed on the install discs you bought, as there is no 'WoW for Mac' CD's you can buy.
Try just using your regular discs that you would have used for your PC.

 

I think that you will have to buy a new cod4 version for mac to be able to play it. Unless you run both windows and leopard on your mac, in which case you can keep playing all your windows games.

 

Run those windows only games in bootcamp or virtual desktop (parallel desktop 5) or something.

WoW support Mac and PC both. Coming up Steam games as well soon

 

Yeah If you can't run COD4 in OS X, it runs great on windows. Just run it through bootcamp, I don't think COD4 will work on a virtual machine.

 

Yeah, some of the games nowadays are actually both Windows and Mac on the same disc, take a look first. I'm not specifically sure about COD4 though but as the others have stated WoW is perfectly fine. Steam is coming as well!

Also, if I remember correctly, some major software vendors, such as Adobe, allow for the switching of Windows/Mac licenses to the other OS as well!

 

WoW has a native mac client.

There are several fan made wrappers for CoD4 to run the Windows version Macs... but each wrapper type has different issues with different Macs. Overall nvidia graphics cards Macs seem to run it best... but I've seen Wineskin wrappers, CXZ wrappers and Cider hacks floating around the web.... you just download the wrapper, and put your copy of the game inside of it, and it runs, no Windows needed.

If your serious about Mac gaming, I'd suggest becoming part of the Mac gaming community at The Porting Team http://portingteam.com

 

Call of Duty 4 is available in native form for Mac, so a windows wrapper running the windows version isn't necessary.

If you are serious about Mac gaming, my personal suggestion is to download steam for mac when it comes out to show your support of the platform. Developers will follow the users. Then we don't have to deal with windows wrappers.

 

The game version for MacOS-X will run better than on boot camp Windows version.

Look about the games that you whant to play to see if it exist for native MacOS - x.

Here I play C&C Tiberium war very well in midle setings, some options in high 1280x800 on macbook unibody.

Sorry for the terrible English,

BR

 

Lets stay on topic and avoid any comments that can cause bickering or a Flame war. Posts have been deleted.

-Kdawgca
NBR Mod

 

I don't know about CoD4 specifically, but I stay away from Aspyr ports these days.. they are usually done quickly as cheap as possible.

I've had several Aspyr games that were not only supported poorly, but I could get the Windows version running under Wine better and faster than the "native" Aspyr port.

 

I actually didn't buy the disks for COD4, I bought and downloaded off steam. Do you think that when steam comes available for Mac, that my account windows steam account will work on the mac and just let me download COD4 for free?

Thanks for all the quick reply's!

 

I'm pretty sure if not, they'll at least allow you to "disable" your Windows side and get the Mac side! They might not allow Windows + Mac at the same time, because then they'd think you're sharing your purchase with a Mac friend (or they might, if they're generous!), but I think a transfer will definitely be allowed.

 

Yes and no, but it won't make sense if Steam required you to purchase a different OS copy with the same game license you already purchased.

The point of Steam account is to limited to 1 person. If the person owned the game and playing it. The other person who shared the same account won't be able to get on. The Steam / Game ID login is enough for everything.

It's just like iTune which allow to authorize up to 5 computers while Steam only allow 1 computer at a time.

Also they have the ability to ban you because they can detect 2 different locations under 1 hour interval. Same like WoW which was used to ban gold farmer that share account over the world because it allows them to farm 24/7.

Why would you purchase another copy? It's their problem that they didn't support another OS not you. It's just now they are changing the games into OpenGL to support OSX.

 

I think our posts were misinterpreted, haha, I was actually saying the same thing, I am certainly sure you would not need to purchase it again!

 

Sorry, I somehow quoted yours. I was just saying to whatever that post was that they should allow both OS because we purchased the game (key) license not the OS license.

 

This is actually just not true, at least the first part. The bootcamp version of currently released games will always run better than the mac version, or the outsourced mac port, or the windows version running on the mac through a windows wrapper. It is possible that future games will be released on the mac and windows with equal performance.

 

If a game is being developed for both platforms inhouse (such as blizzard does) one key for both osx and mac makes sense.

For other games that were originally for windows, and ported to mac, usually like masterchef said, they are outsourced to another company which spends time and money porting it. Then sells it as a mac only version.

So, buying a game that was originally released on pc, and then ported via third party, would mean two different cdkeys. The other company did not work for free, so they want to get paid for their work.

That's how it works right now, who knows in the future they'll have some kind of other system where a third party gets paid from the original dev, so users can use one cdkey for both pc and osx.

Hopefully, now that steam will be on both platforms, devs will start making games that are compatible on both operating systems. This will probably be smaller games, from smaller devs, but it may change.

 

Well here how will the communities will goes. If they end up charging for a ported game. I'll just keep running in Bootcamp / Virtual desktop in any circumstances.

 

well actually neither answer is true or false.

saying the Mac version will run better... is purely subjective. What is "better" to one person, might not be "better" to another.

For myself, I'd consider it better, even if it ran a bit slower.... better because I don't have to run Windows or dual boot at all.

 

hi doh123, i've seen you are an active member on portingteam.com. could you send us some links where we can actually get games working on os x? i'm quite interested in running some windows games on os x. How does the wrapper work? Also, is it possible to play through LAN with a windows pc? can i join my friend's network on counter strike when he's running windows and i'm running os x?

 

sadly its not super easy, and it varies a lot game by game.

A wrapper is basically a Mac .app someone has set up that you put the Windows version inside of it, then run it...

Its basically the exact same method that Transgaming does to make official Cider ports... throw everything needed (usually Wine) all inside a tailored Mac .app so you can just double click it and play like a native app.

Sadly there are many ways to do this including hacks of Crossover and Cider, and how well things run, or how easy it is to get to run varies widely by who actually made the wrapper, and how easy they made it or if they made any directions for use.

This is one of my focuses with Wineskin (releasing 1.0 today sometime ) a tool to make Wine based (legal, non-hacks) wrappers, in a much more user friendly way.

People on the porting team forums are usually good about helping on specific issues if you ask in the "ask for help" forum.

Most games have no problems using a network or connecting to online things. I play Star Trek Online on my Mac all the time on a Wineskin wrapper I made, and so do tons of others, and it runs great.

Games that work ok with networks, since they are running the exact same Windows version, have no problems playing multiplayer with Windows machines, since they all think they are on Windows anyways...

 

i have read on a thread on portingteam.com that i need to install the game and run it on windows before having to copy the folder to os x. Does your wrapper also need the same thing or is it straight forward? Maybe you could point me to a guide on how to use wineskin. Firstly i believe i need to install wine.

 

look at the Wineskin website... I have a Manual and FAQ

I don't wanna hijack this thread to be all about Wineskin.

Some hacked wrappers do need to be copied from a Windows install, but thats rare for Wineskin, usually just use the Installer in Wineskin.