SH4 on Mac via Windows 8 Bootcamp?

Hello, I'm a Mac user and very much want to get into Silent Hunter IV and want to evaluate my options for making it work. I'm not a gamer or a person who is particularly interested in computers, but grew up playing Silent Service II and really want a good, more up to date WWII sub game. My thoughts are installing Windows 8 on my Mac via Apple bootcamp, or buying a really small, cheap PC and plugging it in to my TV. I'd prefer to go the software route if it would work, as I would rather not have one more piece of electronic clutter to break or need replacing in two years. Does SH4 work well on Windows 8? Do you think running Windows 8 on my Mac would introduce more problems? Or am I better off buying a little PC for cheap? Any suggestions/experience would be appreciated.

Thank you very much

[Aktungbby]

profjiang8!

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by profjiang8

Hello, I'm a Mac user and very much want to get into Silent Hunter IV and want to evaluate my options for making it work. I'm not a gamer or a person who is particularly interested in computers, but grew up playing Silent Service II and really want a good, more up to date WWII sub game. My thoughts are installing Windows 8 on my Mac via Apple bootcamp, or buying a really small, cheap PC and plugging it in to my TV. I'd prefer to go the software route if it would work, as I would rather not have one more piece of electronic clutter to break or need replacing in two years. Does SH4 work well on Windows 8? Do you think running Windows 8 on my Mac would introduce more problems? Or am I better off buying a little PC for cheap? Any suggestions/experience would be appreciated.

Thank you very much

Myself, I would skip worrying about trying to install SH4 on your Mac and get the PC. That way you might be able to get the right mix of hardware to get SH4 to run. A good graphics card is a must. It doesn't have to the most expensive, but don't get the cheapest either. The reason being that SH4 can be very addicting when it runs correctly and the game play is fantastic with the right mods installed.

If you have any questions about anything, feel free to ask. We have a great bunch of guys more than willing to lend a helping hand, myself included.

Thank you,

I have been looking at a small HP box that seems geared for living room streaming. It's called the HP Stream 200-010.

I know it's not the most powerful of devices, but if I must buy hardware, ideally I'm looking for something small that could hide behind the tv and not have see a big PC box. Plus, I'm trying to avoid spending very much, as I only intend to use it for SH4. If this isn't adequate, do you have some suggestions that might work better for this, with these parameters in mind?

Also, does SH4 run better on Windows 7? I could always try that on my Mac.

Thanks!

[cdrsubron7]

Originally Posted by profjiang8

Thank you,

I have been looking at a small HP box that seems geared for living room streaming. It's called the HP Stream 200-010.

I know it's not the most powerful of devices, but if I must buy hardware, ideally I'm looking for something small that could hide behind the tv and not have see a big PC box. Plus, I'm trying to avoid spending very much, as I only intend to use it for SH4. If this isn't adequate, do you have some suggestions that might work better for this, with these parameters in mind?

Also, does SH4 run better on Windows 7? I could always try that on my Mac.

Thanks!

Sh4 should work equally well under 7 or 8, guess it mainly would be your choice. If you want to experiment with trying to get SH4 to work on your Mac, that is up to you. I think I've heard of a few people who have succeeded in getting SH4 to play on a Mac system, but don't know of anyone off hand.

Hopefully someone will come along and be able to advise you on how to proceed.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by profjiang8

Thank you,

I have been looking at a small HP box that seems geared for living room streaming. It's called the HP Stream 200-010.

I know it's not the most powerful of devices, but if I must buy hardware, ideally I'm looking for something small that could hide behind the tv and not have see a big PC box. Plus, I'm trying to avoid spending very much, as I only intend to use it for SH4. If this isn't adequate, do you have some suggestions that might work better for this, with these parameters in mind?

Also, does SH4 run better on Windows 7? I could always try that on my Mac.

Thanks!

Hardware requirements for Silent Hunter 4

-Minimum Configuration:
WinXP/VISTA W7/W8
DirectX 9.0c
2 GHz Pentium 4, AMD Athlon, or equivalent
1024 MB RAM
128MB DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card with Pixel Shader 2.0 capability
DirectX 9.0C compatible sound device
DVD-ROM 4x or faster
6.0 GB hard drive space
Windows-compatible mouse required
Internet connection for play on Ubi.com (minimum 56k modem or broadband).

Welcome to SubSim

Thanks all,

Things to think about.

[pdiddy]

profjiang8,

I have a MacBook Air that is running Win 8.1 via Boot Camp. If your Mac has comparable specs to the PC specs Jimbuna posted, you shouldn't have any problems.

I went for 50 GB for the Boot Camp partition, but after installing the OS, various Windows updates, SH4 and mods, wish I had a bit more.

Also take a look at this thread for general installation tips.

Good luck!

[d@rk51d3]

Depends how old your Mac is. New Macs won't run anything under 8.

Thank you for the info/advice everyone, much appreciated.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by d@rk51d3

Depends how old your Mac is. New Macs won't run anything under 8.

Wow! Why not? I can run any operating system at all on my PC! Guess Apple doesn't want anyone running any Windows that won't embarrass the guy who owns the computer.

I opt for freedom. That's why I run PCs. Macs are just crippled PCs anyway. Same hardware. Restricted and hobbled then price doubled. Someday I might build a Hackintosh just for curiosity though! That might be fun.

[d@rk51d3]

Probably more to do with active support, or lack thereof, of older Windows versions.

Try running IOS on your PC. Unless all your components are spot on, you're gonna end up with a pile of fail.
I was looking at hackintosh myself, but I dont have the time or inclination anymore to do all the screwing around.

Dollar for dollar, they're about the same.

[Bugsi]

I can confirm that SH4 totally works on a current MacBook Pro Retina 15" running Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit on an external SSD USB3 drive. After I installed it, it didn't appear to run. I set SH4.exe to compatibility mode for Vista SP2, and that didn't seem to help. I tried setting video mode to 16-bit and no display scaling, and that didn't help, until after a reboot. It ran fine then. It actually ran great. The hardware of the current MacBook Pro Retina 15" with quad-core i7 is better than almost any PC laptop and the speed of running Windows 8.1 64 bit off an external SSD via USB3 was great. Once again, getting Windows set up as an external Boot Camp drive is tricky (see my earlier post with link to how to do that), but it works perfectly. I presume if you partitioned your Mac's drive and installed Windows with Boot Camp the traditional way, it would work just as well.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by d@rk51d3

Probably more to do with active support, or lack thereof, of older Windows versions.

Try running IOS on your PC. Unless all your components are spot on, you're gonna end up with a pile of fail.
I was looking at hackintosh myself, but I dont have the time or inclination anymore to do all the screwing around.

Dollar for dollar, they're about the same.

Yeah, definitely would want to copy a successful configuration first time out. I wonder if Steam will pressure Ubi to make SH4 (and the entire Silent Hunter series) work on Linux? My guess is that won't happen until Steam develops the market more, aided by Microsoft's really terrible moves lately with Win 8 and 8.1 trying to turn your computer into a cell phone, trying to take control of updates away from the user and general delusions of grandeur. Already Linux is more popular than all versions of OSX except for OSX 10.10.

These are interesting times. Competition breeds quality and we need more of both.

[merc4ulfate]

Again ... you do not need windows to run SH on a mac