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New Thread for simghettitacos - TS3 on a New iMac/Mac Pro
igazor
Posts: 19,330 Member
"Hi igazor! I hope I'm posting this in the proper place. (I'm extremely new to the forums). I was wondering about whether the newer iMacs, (with Retina 4k 3.0/3.4 GHz processors, Retina 5k 3.4/3.5/3.8 GHz processors, or the iMac Pro), are compatible with ts3? I really do apologize if you've received this question multiple times. I couldn't seem to find any information regarding these specific models. I was thinking about purchasing one of the three iMacs I mentioned, and noticed the graphics were a little different, (Radeon Pro 555/560/570/575/580). My current Mac has an incompatible graphics card with ts3, which is why I thought about potentially being able to play ts3 again. Thank you for taking the time to read this."
Hi there, I've started a new thread for you over here as you are not able to do so yet. Technically the newer AMD Radeon Pro graphics cards are not compatible with TS3, but many players have been able to get the game to work as well as it can on them. Installation must be done by way of Origin for Mac, not discs, and there are some extra steps to go through with a couple of the EPs that will otherwise refuse to install. I will let @BluebellFlora and the others here guide you further, if needed.
I will add though that no matter what kind of hardware runs it, TS3 for Mac is still a crippled version of its Windows counterpart. In particular, the game can only utilize 2 GB of RAM no matter how much the player has installed. That can be very limiting once we start talking about all EPs in medium or more sized worlds and more so as ongoing games progress. CAS and Edit Town become particularly tricky. If the game reaches for more RAM than that, it will crash or Error12 upon trying to save. If it can be arranged, I would suggest Bootcamping Windows onto these newer Macs and playing the Windows version of the game instead, then OS X for just about everything else. On the Windows side, the graphics card will require their frame rates limited (this is not difficult to arrange) and will need to be formally recognized (a little more difficult but we can help with that). Performance should be as fine as TS3 will ever get, and the RAM usage limit is upwards of 3.5 GB which is much more generous to be able to work with.
Hi there, I've started a new thread for you over here as you are not able to do so yet. Technically the newer AMD Radeon Pro graphics cards are not compatible with TS3, but many players have been able to get the game to work as well as it can on them. Installation must be done by way of Origin for Mac, not discs, and there are some extra steps to go through with a couple of the EPs that will otherwise refuse to install. I will let @BluebellFlora and the others here guide you further, if needed.
I will add though that no matter what kind of hardware runs it, TS3 for Mac is still a crippled version of its Windows counterpart. In particular, the game can only utilize 2 GB of RAM no matter how much the player has installed. That can be very limiting once we start talking about all EPs in medium or more sized worlds and more so as ongoing games progress. CAS and Edit Town become particularly tricky. If the game reaches for more RAM than that, it will crash or Error12 upon trying to save. If it can be arranged, I would suggest Bootcamping Windows onto these newer Macs and playing the Windows version of the game instead, then OS X for just about everything else. On the Windows side, the graphics card will require their frame rates limited (this is not difficult to arrange) and will need to be formally recognized (a little more difficult but we can help with that). Performance should be as fine as TS3 will ever get, and the RAM usage limit is upwards of 3.5 GB which is much more generous to be able to work with.
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You should be able to play with AMD GPUs (I do on a 2017 Touch Bar 15" with AMD Radeon Pro 560 4Gb) and with no need to edit the graphics files. You will, however, have to apply the Unknown Error fixes for either the base game on its own or with certain packs installed.
But if/when something new and unexpected comes along...well, old habits do tend to die hard.
NRaas has moved!
Our new site is at http://nraas.net
Regardless, as long as your website still hosts all the same information as before, I think we might be able to survive. Maybe. But if you ever stop hosting your guides, please do us a favor and give some warning so we can copy them all down for safekeeping. There's no way I would ever be able to recreate most of your advice from memory, and I really don't want to accidentally set my beautiful new computer on fire by trying to troubleshoot on my own.