Filed under: Gaming, Macbook Pro
Half Life 2 on a Mac
So we
all know that last week, the solution was released to allow Intel Macs to dual-boot between Mac OS X and Windows XP.
And a lot of people (even a few of our readers...gasp!) have been rending their clothes, twisting their undergarments,
and gnashing their teeth at the thought of a Mac running WinXP. Oh, why oh why must people besmirch the glorious Mac
and sully its gleaming perfection with an OS as vulgar and nefarious as Windows XP? Oh, the travesty, the
inhumanity!Yeah, blah, blah blah...whatever. It's about games, plain and simple. And I knew that the first thing people would do once they got their Intel Macs to boot Windows would be to install games. Witness this video of Half Life 2 running in Windows on a MacBook Pro.
Not all is perfect, however. There is no fan control on the MacBook Pro running Windows XP and so you risk cooking your MacBook Pro if you run WinXP for too long.
Update: [Okay, so the jury's still out on this one; some people are reporting significant fan and heat problems, and others are not. As always, know that installing WinXP on your Intel Mac may violate your warranty, and that if you fry your Mac because there isn't actually any fan control, it's not Apple's fault, or even Microsoft's fault. It should go without saying of course: be careful. Know what you're doing.]
In my own WinXP on Mac experiments, I've as yet been unable to get WinXP Pro to install on my 20" Intel iMac. Even with the newest xom.efi file, the WinXP install hangs at 0% and won't continue. So I'm playing the waiting game until the people writing the xom.efi boot loader(s) figure out the problem and release a new one.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nuno Sousa said 5:18PM on 3-20-2006
Hah. I love my powerbook but I have to say that is SOOOOOO slow. From that video it would be unbearable to play HL2 on the macbook.
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mxz said 5:30PM on 3-20-2006
Ouch. Nevermind HL2, I think somebody may have found out about the "fan issue" the hard way. Poor someone.
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heat said 5:45PM on 3-20-2006
looks a little laggy - but the hl2 engine is really versatile... im sure under the right settings it would run fine.
i just cant wait to play css on my mbp in an emulator!
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hazkid said 6:07PM on 3-20-2006
there are some new intructions on how to install on a 20 incher at the wiki. it involves some easy F4's and some F7's, so check it out.
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Justin said 6:10PM on 3-20-2006
Stop spreading the no fan myth! Fans work in XP
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scienceguy_ae said 6:11PM on 3-20-2006
The posts about Macs running hotter under Windows are incorrect.
Notice this comment on the official Wiki:
"Fans have been verified to be working, but are generally only audible under heavy CPU load or when the CPU temperature gets very high. There have been some perceptions that XP is running hotter than Mac OS X, but measurements indicate that maximum case temperatures under XP are no greater than under Mac OS X. CPU frequency throttling is confirmed working on a MBP under XP...."
http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Compatibility/Drivers
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Justin said 6:14PM on 3-20-2006
I hit submit before I was finished..here check this link out...http://www.bluesparc.com/2006/03/20/xp-melting-your-mac-is-a-load-of-bull/
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Ryan Green said 6:18PM on 3-20-2006
This is what happens when you run under software rendering.
Remember that there arent video drivers that work yet for the MBP. If you look at that video with the mac mini which does have drivers, you'll see how awesome it is.
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roobois said 6:54PM on 3-20-2006
@ Ryan Green:
I works so well on the intel Mac Mini because it doesn't have dedicated graphics hardware; it uses Intel integrated graphics, which is really pretty generic and doesn't require the specialized drivers that an ATI of Nvidia graphics system would need.
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James said 6:55PM on 3-20-2006
I wonder what the specs on his MacBook Pro were; the game runs like crap.
However, this is probably attributed to the lack of working video drivers for the MacBook's internal X1600 under Windows XP. Nevertheless, the fast load times this gamer experienced suggests lots of RAM, and a game running that crappy even with alot of RAM is a bad sign.
#8: Is there a video of a Mac mini running XP games?
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jimintel said 6:59PM on 3-20-2006
fix that hanging problem: http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/FAQ#Will_this_work_on_a_20-inch_iMac.3F
do the F4 F7 thing and you're away laughing. do this every time until you've installed windows - never just press enter on the windows logo boot screen.
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Blake said 7:00PM on 3-20-2006
Is it possible that the framerate of the Youtube video is exaggerating the slow FPS? That was my first guess while watching.
Although the lack of video drivers would be a problem. I'd love to see the mac mini version. Link?
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Zombie Flanders said 7:07PM on 3-20-2006
Just wait until the driver support is there. I bet the game runs 30-40 fps then. It's a 128 mb card, right? My theory is 30-40 fps for 128 mb, and I'd guess 50+ if it was a 256 mb card...
It's a tough call because laptops aren't usually gaming machines, yet the Mac Book's specs are none too shabby.
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James MacAulay said 7:47PM on 3-20-2006
There are a few mirrors up for the Mac Mini videos. Here's the one that I used, which gave me pretty good speeds, but which may not last forever:
http://www.bandwidthorbust.com/files/hl2mm2.mov
Here is the original source:
http://www.crackin.com/hl2mm/hl2mm2.mov
And here's the link to the digg post:
http://www.digg.com/apple/Half_Life_2_on_Mac_Mini_
The quicktime links can be changed to ..."/hl2mm.mov" for another version of the video (which I never watched).
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Jeffrey said 8:52PM on 3-20-2006
Yes, this all seems good, and yes it is possible that for some people the possibility of double booting will have them go out and buy themselves a Mac, but have u guys considered what apple has always been saying, "we are a hardware company". Maybe with people interested in garbage microsoft products, they will only be a hardware company. Hopefully this doesn't come true, but I would prepare for the worst.
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Reg said 9:26PM on 3-20-2006
I'm surprised Half-Life 2 runs at all. I didn't know it supported software rendering.
Will be very nice to see X1600 drivers.
There's a poll over at http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=300 to determine whether a cash incentive should be offered.
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Appleologist said 9:55PM on 3-20-2006
Mac fans do work under XP.
From the Wiki:
Update: On a MacBook Pro (1.83 GHz), testing with an infrared thermometer has verified that case temperatures running Windows XP under moderate use (browsing, general application use) do not exceed (and are generally lower than) the upper ranges of what the same system runnig Mac OS X already hits under heavy load (playing 1080HD Quicktime video trailers). For heavy load testing on XP, running two Prime 95 instances with CPU affinity set to fully load both cores (torture test, max heat generation), fans come on and increase speed, resulting in upper temperatures that still do not exceed Mac OS X highs. Will be retesting OSX with CPU-only loading for more even comparison, but the take-home so far is that XP is not causing problematic overheating on a 1.83 MacBook Pro.
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mike said 12:09AM on 3-21-2006
#8: Is there a video of a Mac mini running XP games?
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yup.. HL2 actually.. on Youtube..
you know.. Mac mini is not for gaming.. just get an iMac and put Win XP on it dual boot....
obviously.. the reason you would get a Mac at all is for all the other stuff besides gaming that you want.. iLife, virus-free, crash-free, an OS light years ahead of windows..
if you don't care about that stuff.. you wouldn't have read this story
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Levi said 1:06AM on 3-21-2006
better video quality would be nice...
but yeah dual booting does look good, and it clearly demonstrates how the whole boot up process works clearly- I was unsure of how it would look/work...
Are there any drivers that you can get to make sure the fans work in XP?
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Velvet Nightmare said 10:19AM on 3-21-2006
Remember guys, for now, you CANNOT play HL2 or any high power game on a MBP. The video driver support just isn't there yet.
However, if you do find yourself bored, you may find it a good idea to load your games now, s that when the drivers are out, you can just boot up and play.
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