I want to ask what is the experience like on MacBook for playing train sim and if you were to download a add on from let’s say Train sim community would it be relativity easy still?
I was never able to play tsc on my MacBook. It was such a problem to get it to work that l finally gave up.
The only relatively easy way is if you have an intel mac. Then you can setup a bootcamp partition. I did that on my 2011 mac mini. But performance was pretty awful though. I bought a pc just to be able to run TSC properly.
As above, in bootcamp it was easy and this is how I used to play TSC back in tbe day that it was still Railworks. Even though I only had a Core 2 duo, it ran ok. If you have a newer Mac with apple silicon then I have no idea. Much as I love my macbook for day to day tasks and software development, the move to their own chips has stopped me gaming on it at all. I will follow this thread though in case somebody finds a way!
This has me wondering…. What will the owners of TSC do when the pc market move towards ARM chip architecture?
You need to buy Crossover, I play both TSC and TSW through it fine. My settings on a M1 based Mac Studio with 32GB RAM for TSC are:- CrossOver Graphics = D3DMetal Sync = Default High Res Mode = Off (The game will not load if using High Res Mode) Steam Options = -SetRes=1280x800 -SkipLauncher -NoIntroVideos In-Game Res = You'll need to set this based on the system / monitor you have Anti-Aliasing = FXAA + 8xMSAA (or +2x1 SSAA) Scenery Quality = 1 from right (Very High) Scenery Density = 1 from right (Very High) View Distance = 1 from right (Very High) Shadow Quality = 1 from right (Very High) Water Quality = Middle (High) I've only just started TSC a few weeks ago though, I've also managed to install the AP Enhancement pack as well for Track and will buy some more when they next have a sale. On the settings above I'm getting around 30fps on WCML:S route in TSC and 50fps on North Wales.
Just a little advice for the game play. Scenery density should always be set to max. That parameter thins out assets, and this can lead to signals not being loaded, stations/platforms missing etc….
I’ve seen people using a software called whiskey, which is completely free and will download the windows version on steam for mac, has anyone tried this?
If you use Crossover, which is a fantastic bit of kit to play games on Mac, be aware that ATS and JT add ons are unlikely to install. I had issues with their installer on Mac when I used to use Crossover to play TSC. AP and anything drag and drop such as scenarios are fine.
Nothing. Windows on ARM is terrible, but it does have an emulation layer for running x86 apps (which is most of them). SteamOS can emulate x86 very well and I wouldn't be surprised if someone got TS working on it within the next few years. The trouble with the Apple M chips is that they have no dedicated GPU, and even the Mac Pro doesn't support GPUs at all. The CPUs in the M chips are very strong, but with no dedicated GPU gaming can't take off on modern Macs. It's a pity, because if Apple released Macs with a 'G' chip as well, that would likely spur Microsoft to improve Windows ARM. And, of course, it would make games much more playable on Mac.
