Can you install FFXI on Mac

[Isiolia]

Do you have 3D acceleration enabled for the virtual machine?

[chullo]

probably not if it is not a default setting.

not super computer savvy. know enough to get by, I have built my own PC before... will try this and let you know...

[chullo]

directdraw acceleration is enabled. tested and passed.
direct3D acceleration is enabled. tested and passed.
all DirectX files are present and accounted for, no problems found

any other suggestions?

[Isiolia]

Which GPU do you have enabled? In Energy Saver, is it set to "Better Battery Life" or "High Performance"? Unlike the newer hybrid graphics systems, the older MBPs require you to pick the 9400M or 9600M (albeit indirectly) and restart (or try using http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus/ to switch it without rebooting). If it's trying to use the 9400M, that may be why it's not doing so well, despite that the card "should" be able to run the game AFAIK.

[chullo]

could it be that I have a MBP with only the 9400M?

i have the intel aluminum unibody. its not the latest core i5 version, its the last model with the core2duo.

the specs on apples website and in my system profiler only show a 9400M in it...

i don't have those prefs in my macs energy saver, only the choice when you put to sleep. in my WinXP I have it set to better performance...

am I running out of options? i got so excited to run around FFXI again i've been looking into PC laptops now LOL!!

EDIT: well, that link to that program you sent me says i am running the 9600M GT right now even tho that card is not on my machines specs... now i really am confused!

[Isiolia]

could it be that I have a MBP with only the 9400M?

i have the intel aluminum unibody. its not the latest core i5 version, its the last model with the core2duo.

the specs on apples website and in my system profiler only show a 9400M in it...

i don't have those prefs in my macs energy saver, only the choice when you put to sleep. in my WinXP I have it set to better performance...

am I running out of options? i got so excited to run around FFXI again i've been looking into PC laptops now LOL!!

EDIT: well, that link to that program you sent me says i am running the 9600M GT right now even tho that card is not on my machines specs... now i really am confused!

Unibody MBPs of 15" or larger have dual GPUs as a standard thing.

You shouldn't need a second machine - just set up dual booting if the VM won't work for you. Boot Camp makes it pretty simple.

[chullo]

sounds like thats my next step.

i just downloaded parallels but i have to wait until i get home to try as my WinXP product code is at home... if that doesn't work then on to bootcamp lol

i'll post the results!

[chullo]

sooooo

parallels works. installed POL and FFXI. POL opens and I can see it but...

when i try to start the updates it says i have no internet connection. i know parallels can see my internet because i downloaded firefox and did some surfing in it.

i have no idea how to proceed at this point. i tried looking around in XP to see if there was a setting i could change... unsuccessful

any more suggestions? thanks for all the help btw...

EDIT: FIGURED IT OUT had to configure the VM

[chullo]

for some reason i am having connection problems at every step of the way...

i got POL updated now i cannot get to the FFXI launch screen. says "make sure ethernet is connected blah blah..."

i just remembered i still have my old PS2 LMAO!!! i'm updating as we speak...

i still would like to figure out my windows issue... any ideas? in order to fix the initial connection issue i think i went into the parallels/windows config and made my internet connection "ethernet card" instead of "auto"....

[chullo]

woooo! I got it to work on my mac... the PS2 is horrid!!! i can't believe I played on that thing.

the mac runs freakin sweet. i've only been running around the cities but theres barely any lag.

only problem is that it looks like my macbook pro has no number lock and the emulator for the keyboard is a little off. my "/" button produces a dash "-" instead. makes it hard issuing commands or chatting...

i'm going to work on sorting it out tonight.

[Spira]

my FFXI running on parallels 6 gets unstable after like 2hrs of play (graphical artifacts start appearing) so I'm thinking of reinstalling the Windows OS by Boot Camp.. does it make a difference?

edit: can't even get boot camp to work tho..
like it doesn't recognize my Windows disc. does it have to be a physical disc? cos the one im using is a mounted iso.

[Rementoire]

Parallels might be acceptable for solo play, but it really isn't suited for anything beyond general, low body count fuckery—Don't bring your parallels to Einherjar.

However, my tests were with version 5, last Fall, so I can't comment on the potential improvements made. And, it was on top of iPC OSX86, but that should've been transparent.

Specs:
Q6600 @ 3.6GHz
8800GTS 512MB

I've read that XI will actually run well on Bootcamp, so give that a go. Though, it simply wasn't an option for me as I was trying to run a Mac-specific DAW and didn't want to be bothered with switching between OS's.

[Solarus]

Not entirely related, but I just got FFXI working on VMWare in Linux. I know that the Mac version (VMWare fusion) is a bit different, but it's basically working flawlessly in VMWare for me. A couple of random crashes when I started out, but since then it's been running perfectly, on high settings, in busy areas, and in alliance fights. Dual boxing seemed to crash it but this doesn't surprise me too much - I need to look into if it's possible to get that to work.

The main thing to get it working, was to install it on a Windows 7 virtual machine. Originally I had tried to use XP, thinking it would be slightly better performance, but it seems like VMWare's drivers are different for the different versions of Windows.

Previously people had reported getting it working, but that DirectX reported AGP Texture Acceleration as disabled (shown in dxdiag). This meant a lot of things were very laggy, even getting through POL was difficult.

On XP in VMWare I couldn't get POL to open at all, it was just a black screen. It also reported that my colors were set too low, or something similar. Apparently it used to work in VMWare in the past, but some sort of change to their graphics driver broke it. Virtualbox had a similar issue, it wouldn't even start POL, reporting that I needed to have 32-bit color set, even though I did.

For whatever reason, VMWare gives you more video memory in Windows 7 too - on XP, it only gave 128MB. There isn't any option in VMWare to alter this either (though it may be possible through some sort of file editing, I didn't look into it).

Obviously, your mileage may vary depending on your hardware, virtualization is pretty hardware intensive, and you basically have to give half your computer's resources over to the VM. I'm running a pretty high end machine, and it causes my computer to lag.

I know the newer macbooks are pretty good hardware, but in the end a laptop is a laptop, they are not great for gaming, and running it through a VM makes it even worse.

So yeah, I don't know if the Mac version will work as well, or if Macbook hardware will handle it as well, but I would recommend giving VMWare-Fusion a try, just make sure you use Windows 7 and not XP, I hear Vista would work as well, but I don't know why anyone would want to use that unless they only have a Vista disk around - but ISOs of Windows 7 are pretty easy to find).

Wine is also an option, though again I don't know what that's like in Mac, and it's generally more complicated to set up. The main issue though, is Windower does not work in Wine. Once you're used to extended macros and plugins, it's hard to go back.

[Rementoire]

Not entirely related, but I just got FFXI working on VMWare in Linux. I know that the Mac version (VMWare fusion) is a bit different, but it's basically working flawlessly in VMWare for me. A couple of random crashes when I started out, but since then it's been running perfectly, on high settings, in busy areas, and in alliance fights. Dual boxing seemed to crash it but this doesn't surprise me too much - I need to look into if it's possible to get that to work.

No shit? That's great news. I could never get it to work with either Wine or Cedega.

You said "alliance fights"—could you list which events specifically? I want to get an idea of just how capable VMWare is at this point in time. Workstation 7.1.3?