Running AHII on a Macintosh

[JeepinAZ]

So, I ran a search & came up with little info. Is it possible to run AHII on a Mac? I know the game isn't supported for Mac, but I've heard rumors of guys running it using a Windows simulator or something? I checked into Microsoft Virtual PC for MAC but it requires 512mgs of RAM, which I don't have.

The reason I ask is because I'm losing the computer I use to play on in the next month (roomate is moving out) & I only have a Macintosh. Its an older G4 w/ 256MB of RAM & a 1GHz processor. The vid card is an Nvidia GeForce 4MX. I know I'm going to have to bump up the RAM I've needed to do so for about a year now, but would using this machine be a viable option? I'm planning on building an AHII only budget PC once funds allow, but in the mean time I was curious if I can just use what I've got.

Your thoughts & suggestions are much appreciated.

JeepinAZ

[Spatula]

I know there are guys running AH2 on intel-based macs, with a dual boot to Mac OS/WinXP.
I know there are other guys who run AH2 with Linux. Is there a linux distro for a G4?? Those who run on linux i think they run it under Cedega. Search for Linux in the hardware and software sections. I have no idea if there's a solution in there for you tho...

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I'm afraid that the older macs which are based on PPC will be hard to get to work. Newer Intel based macs are easyer.

Parallels desktop might be able to run games in a virtual XP - but it's commercial.

[llama]

Won't work on a G4 mac anything. Sorry.

If I were you, I'd sell the G4, take the money and buy a Mac Mini. It's powerful enough to run AH at 1024x768, even with the built-in video. It will come with 10.5, which has Boot Camp, which will let you run Windows.

-Llama

[JeepinAZ]

Yeah, was looking into the MAC mini today actually. Is about 4 gazillion times faster than this old rig & is quite reasonable. Plus, it's a MAC (yay!) and now that you mention it, I can run AHII on it. Consider this pig sold.

Thanks for the advice.

[zanshin]

Originally posted by JeepinAZ
Yeah, was looking into the MAC mini today actually. Is about 4 gazillion times faster than this old rig & is quite reasonable. Plus, it's a MAC (yay!) and now that you mention it, I can run AHII on it. Consider this pig sold.

Thanks for the advice.

I run AH2 using boot camp on 24in MAC no problems and fast.  You will have to buy a new Windows program.  The OEM version is cheapest option.

I have just tried VMware fusion which allows you to run the bootcamp partition as a virtual machine, ie you can switch between windows and mac OS instantly.  With bootcamp you need to reboot to switch OSs BUT I simply cannot get AH2 to work with it.  

Leopard OS has boot camp built in so I would recommend upgrading to that OS first

Zan

[Caz1]

Zanshin:

If you're saying that you can't get AH2 to work with VMware, I'm not surprised.  In my experience - any time you try to run a 3D app via emulation of its native OS from within another OS....'bad things' happen.  While I'm not intimately familiar with boot camp, my guess from what you've described is that Leopard is just setting up its boot loader to allow you to boot into Windows as a secondary option - which gets around the whole emulation issue.  That's likely the reason that AH2 works.  Yeah, it's a bummer to have to reboot to get back into Leopard, but NOT emulating Windows really is worth the reboot (the less you ask of Windows, the better off your life tends to be).

Btw, personal beef time:  If Leopard *is* just installing Windows onto a second partition and updating its boot loader accordingly, using this feature as 'proof' that Leopard is "the world's most advanced operating system" isn't all that honest.  A wizard that allows you to install a second OS as a dual-boot setup is hardly 'cutting edge technology'.  Yeah Windows doesn't offer it, but that's because Windows is probably the world's "least advanced operating system", so that's not saying much (can you tell I'm more of a Linux guy here?  ).

Anyhoo, before all you Mac guys go all Jet Lee on me, I've got a question for you:  I've been scoping out the Mac Mini on Apple's website, and I see that it has a DVI port.  However, I can't see what's 'inside the box' as it were.  Anyone here ever had a look under the hood of one of these little rascals?  Is that DVI port built into the mainboard within?  Or is there a possibility that the video subsystem can be upgraded to something beefier than the standard onboard video option?  Perhaps something that can be ordered directly from Apple or something? *crosses fingers*

Judging from the size of the mini, I'm fairly certain that there's no way it's hiding any PCI-E slots within, but if anyone knows the answer to that question, too, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for the input Mac gurus and sorry I was hard on the kitty;

-Caz1

[Caz1]

<<<bump>>>  C'mon you Mac pros - help me out here.