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FFXI Mac Rumors?Follow

#27 Jul 12 2012 at 1:08 PM Rating: Decent
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62 posts
For anyone interested in Parallels 7, there's a seller on eBay selling "electronic download" version for $33. I can tell you first hand it works great. I was nearing the end of my Parallels trial, and I wasn't feeling spending more than $50, I didn't even want to spend the $40+ it usually sells for on eBay.

I also didn't want to wait for a box to ship to me (as that would have meant me being unable to log in FFXI for a few days. Oh the horror!). So I was glad to have found this.

Edited, Jul 12th 2012 3:09pm by ticojpunk
#28 Jul 12 2012 at 3:07 PM Rating: Good
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1,004 posts
I dabbled with some different wine distributions today to see how the OSX iterations have come along since I last used them. They are much faster than before, and in some aspects more stable and impressive graphics wise (as far as what an empty bottle provides vs what it used to provide), but most of the old problems still exist today once in game.

Primarily, windower doesn't work, which is more or less a deal-breaker for most FFXI users these days. I tried a few different versions of windower, installed all the appropriate winetricks (ole, all appropriate font files, html engines, xml parsers, and all the wine-trick dotnetFX releases in sequential order), but was unable to get windower to work properly.

I did manage to get the windower 4.0 alpha to hook into POL, but upon starting FFXI it would crash with a request to install directx 8.1 (which was not an error I was encountering without windower). Upon installing the directx winetricks as well as the dx8.1 install from the ffxi trial files, there was no change in the message.

Just for the hell of it I've decided to do the last method (from what I can remember of how I did it... this was a long time ago...) I used to get FFXI installed in a wine environment on OSX via Steam. I'll check back in when that is done, but my curiosity will have to end there, since I have neglected a good share of work I was supposed to be doing in favor of experimenting with this.
#29 Jul 13 2012 at 8:41 AM Rating: Decent
So I need help on this as well.

I have Bootcamp installed, my FFXI and everything. The only thing I need help and clarification on is my windows version.

I do not have an extra Windows version lying around. So it is either buying one or torrenting it. I have heard torrent versions are not that good but its an option.

Now what version should I be focusing on getting.

Windows 7 or try and get a Windows XP Professional....Bootcamp seems to want a Windows 7 version. Any help would be appriciated.
#30 Jul 13 2012 at 8:44 AM Rating: Excellent
I use Windows 7. Honestly it probably would be easier to use Windows 7 but I can't recommend torrenting it. Even if the version you get isn't virus laden, you will still need a key.
#31 Jul 13 2012 at 8:48 AM Rating: Good
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1,004 posts
Stovetop wrote:
So I need help on this as well.

I have Bootcamp installed, my FFXI and everything. The only thing I need help and clarification on is my windows version.

I do not have an extra Windows version lying around. So it is either buying one or torrenting it. I have heard torrent versions are not that good but its an option.

Now what version should I be focusing on getting.

Windows 7 or try and get a Windows XP Professional....Bootcamp seems to want a Windows 7 version. Any help would be appriciated.


Making an educated guess on how you present yourself, I'd recommend windows 7 just to make it easier.

Anything above windows XP will be fine. These days most people prefer windows 7, but a fully upgraded windows vista will perform similarly as well. If you have an older system windows XP will almost undoubtedly be capable of running faster on it, but if you have a newer system, Windows 7 will make the installation process less painful (built in support for the newer adapters that may otherwise stop windows XP from being able to install smoothly without doing a slipstream, which is something I wouldn't recommend to someone who doesn't have copies of windows lying around).

Legal copies of windows are always preferred, but .... you do what you gotta do ;)
#32 Jul 13 2012 at 8:56 AM Rating: Decent
Thank you, I appreciate the help.

And ya I am not the most computer savvy person. I get the gist of most of it but otherwise I need help. Going through wine seems to difficult for me so bootcamp was the next best choice.

Ok now the decision is to see if I want to drop 150 or so on Windows 7. I would prefer not to torrent but I am looking at all my options.

Again thanks for the help.
#33 Jul 13 2012 at 9:15 AM Rating: Excellent
Incidentally, there is a hack to allow you to do a full install of an upgrade version of windows 7. Not that I would condone this normally, but hey, at least you're willing to pay for software and you get a big Smiley: thumbsup from me for that.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/clean-install-windows-7-with-upgrade-media-and-product-key-on-formatted-or-empty-blank-hard-drive/

Also, you might be able to save some cash using an OEM version. I'm not sure bootcamp qualifies but then again, I don't know that anyone would actually check:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986
#34 Aug 07 2012 at 11:49 PM Rating: Good
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1,041 posts
Sorry, thought I'd dig this up again since I've had some breakthroughs on my MacBook Air. Created a new XP virtual machine and instead of putting FFXI on the virtual hard drive, stored the data on the Mac side and shared it using shared folders in Parallels. Originally did the same thing but using my Boot Camp partition instead.

Whilst performance is far from the best, it's still very playable (Gusgen Mines with a full alliance often drops to 5-10fps, but I'm sitting 15-20 most of the time at 800x600 background resolution and 1440x900 overlay), and it means I don't need to reboot from Mac to Windows to play FFXI anymore. At this point, the graphics trade off is worth the convenience for me.

Still can't get it to work with Windows 7 though, no matter what I do, it crashes at the character select screen. I've raised a ticket with Parallels - they've since closed the ticket but said they've passed it onto their next level support team to look at. At this point I'm not holding my breath though. So I'll stick with my XP virtual machine and my slightly sub-par performance FFXI.
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