Apple enjoys margins more than market share. It’s a simple truth that impacts the amount of videogames available for the Macintosh platform. It also keeps our optimism in check. Most big ports — the few there are — ship hobbled. This isn’t the case for Mythic Entertainment’s Warhammer Online. The MMO runs like a dream.
WAR for the Mac launched at the end of the July. Still in beta, the client isn’t without its faults. Patching takes hours and a nasty bug causes the installer to freeze during the download process. But these are the only two issues I’ve noticed. The game is a smooth joint. The character animations are clean, the controls are responsive, the textures are impressive and the frame rate is steady.
I’ve played this port for a little over eight or so hours scattered over the course of several days. Because it’s an older MMO, you’ll have to take into account that my experience with the game has been in an area that is largely under populated by both characters and vicious villains. I have spent time in a few RvR conflicts and haven’t noticed any lack of responsiveness or stutter.
You’ll need a new machine to run this game. When I first tried it out, I was using a GMA 950-equipped Macbook. It didn’t work for obvious reasons. Now, I’m using a 15”-inch Macbook Pro with a NVIDIA card and four gigs of RAM. The actual requirements for the title are available below the fold.
I’ll keep playing WAR and definitely update if I notice anything bonkers, but its looking like this is a clean-running emulation. If you’re a Mac owner with a hankering for an MMO, you should definitely give it a spin. WAR is a good title on its own, but its even better now because its available on a superior* platform.
Minimum System Requirements
Mac OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher
Intel Core Duo Processor
2 Gigabyte RAM
ATI X1600 or NVidia 7300 GT with 128 MB of Video RAM
At least 15 GB of hard drive space for installation.
This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems (PowerMac).
Supported Video Cards
ATI Radeon(TM) series: X1600, X1900, HD 2400, HD 2600, 3870, HD 4850, HD 4870
NVIDIA GeForce series: 7300, 7600, 8600, 8800, 9400, 9600, GT120, GT130
This game will not run on the Intel GMA 950 or X3100 class of integrated video cards.
* Settle down. JOKE.
