08-29-2009, 07:14 AM

Hi Folks,

In a nutshell my question is - can Empire Total War be played on a MacBook which has a Windows partition?

I'm been running Windows on my Macbook after partitioning the hard drive a few months back and my son and I have happily played Rome Total War with no problems.

Having heard about ETW I read up a bit on it and though the forums show lots of problems with bugs / patches plus frustration with having to operate the game through Steam we nevertheless decided to buy the game and give it a try.

I loaded it on to my Windows today and everything seems to go okay apart from having to change the filesystem from FAT32 to NTFS, which was easy enough to do thanks to the article I was directed to.

I haven't been able to launch the game but I think this may be down to the Steam client which you have to use.

However, I'm now also concerned my system may not be able to run the game if I were able to launch it. My Windows set up has 30gb of hard drive space with 2gb of RAM, which meets the specs, but I've been told my graphics card is 'integrated' which I'm led to believe is not up to requirement? Can anyone advise me if this is so? Is it possible to change or upgrade to another graphics card that will work?
Any help would be most gratefully received.

Thank you,
Michael.
PS - my specs:
Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB41.00C1.B00
SMC Version: 1.31f0
Serial Number: WQ808H7F0P1
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
Intel GMA X3100:

Chipset Model: GMA X3100
Type: Display
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 144 MB
Vendor: Intel (0x8086)
Device ID: 0x2a02
Revision ID: 0x0003
Displays:
Color LCD:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1280 x 800
Depth: 32-bit Color
Built-In: Yes
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected

08-31-2009, 08:49 AM

It seems like a simple enough question, but I can't seem to find a definite answer.

More experienced game sites say even the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT aren't going to deliver a 'satisfactory gaming experience".

Has anyone played ETW on any of the Macs, and if so what's the verdict?

09-05-2009, 10:18 AM

I guess it can't be THAT simple a question if 49 people have viewed this and nobody has any idea!!!

09-05-2009, 10:26 AM

Depends on which Mac you have - system requirements per Steam are:

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Supported OS: Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista™
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel® Pentium® or greater or AMD® Athlon® equivalent CPU
Memory: 1 GB RAM (XP,) 2 GB RAM (Vista™)
Graphics: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible hardware accelerated video card with shader version 2.0 support, 256 MB video memory
Display: Minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels
Sound: Directx9.0c compatible sound card
Hard Drive: 15 GB free hard disk space formatted as NTFS
Peripherals: Windows compatible mouse and keyboard

02-28-2010, 12:15 PM

Hello everyone I have played the game on my mac, the only problem I think is that I have my graphic card which is GMA 950, I can play it but slowly, and since I cannot ask a question there because it takes too much times, I am going to past it here:

Hello to all,
I have mac, and i have partitioned with windows xp.
I have bought the game Empire Total War. I have install without any problems steam and the game. But it play with low requirements. It loads but slowly but it plays. I need to play it with at least medium requirements or high. My CPU is 2.0 and it requires 2.4. Many people told me that the CPU does matter, but the graphic card and the SDRAM is more important, however I meet all the rest, except maybe the graphic card and the CPU. have macbook base white, 2003 - 2009, so I was wondering what good graphic card at a fair price would be good for the game and its possible to insert it in the mac.
Here are my mac spec:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook 2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Intel GMA 950:
Chipset Model: GMA 950
Type: GPU
Bus: Built-In
VRAM (Total): 64 MB of Shared System
Resolution: 1280 x 800
Online: Yes
Built-In: Yes

Size: 512 MB
Type: DDR2 SDRAM
Speed: 667 MHz

02-28-2010, 12:16 PM

Can mac graphic card be change?

02-28-2010, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by rtybgh

Can mac graphic card be change?

Depends on the Mac. Generally, no.