Play Rift on your Mac
K, just a headsup for all you Mac users out there asking about possibly playing Rift. Yes there does seem to be a fair amount of interest at least from what I see on the gaming forums about this. Trion makers of the MMO Rift currently do not have a Mac OS version planned but I remember reading somewhere they will reconsider sometime in the future maybe.
So what’s the best way to enjoy Rift on your Mac. Very simple, install Boot Camp which comes with every Intel/Leopard Mac system. Here are my quick steps to get Rift playing within an hour or two on yer Mac. You’ll also need a install disk of Windows, Windows 7 should offer you the best compatible experience.
Step 1. Go into your utilities folder and fire up Boot Camp Assistant.
Step 2. Go through the steps to partition your drive, I would recommend maybe a couple of hundred gigs, come’on everyone has terabyte drives now and you know yer gonna install tons more games anyway 😉
Step 3. Boot Camp will partition your disk and ask for a Windows install disk, I used Win. 7 Ultimate.
Step 4. You’ll go through the whole Win. 7 system install process, installing drivers etc. and probably will need to do a few restarts too. If you accidentally boot into Mac OS just do a shutdown and boot up with your option key which lets you select which OS you want to use.
Step 5. If all goes well you should be running Windows flavored OS on your Mac now. If you have any problems this page will probably help you: http://klauskjeldsen.dk/boot-camp-imac-error-fix-black-screen/
Step 6. Now that you’re all good, go to Trion’s site to grab a copy of Rift, riftgame.com, set up an account, install Rift and splatter dah cybermatter 🙂
My overall experience playing Rift on my iMac via Boot Camp and Win. 7 is pretty damn sweet. I’m running Rift on an iMac 27″, i5, 4GB RAM, 4850/512MB ATi, via Boot Camp and Win. 7 Ultimate. I grinded through beta 7 with no problems to speak of. I have built my share of “Gaming PCs” too boot and this is pretty much the same. On the plus side I don’t have to have two puter rigs hogging up my desk now. I was getting around 40fps with various medium video settings and around 100ms latency coming from the So. Cal. area.
If your looking for a more in-depth Boot Camp install guide take a gander at: http://gizmodo.com/#!5387353/how-to-survive-boot-camp-and-run-win-7-on-a-mac
So there you go, hope to see all you MacHeads turning into RiftHeads 🙂
farnham 
Instead of going to trions website to order, why not go to direct2drive or steam? I think direct2drive still offers discounts for rift orders
Well I am thinking I am gonna partition off part of my hard drive on my macbook pro. has anyone done so already and if so how well did it all work out. like gameplay. and so on.
Don’t you have to have the Mac install cd also? To do the drives for bootcamp? If not, then why is my computer telling me I do?
I did not use/need my Mac OS install disk. Depending on your specific configuration and windows OS you are installing you might need your Mac OS install disk for the necessary drivers. Good luck!
I got my imac early 2011, do you think I would need my Mac OS install disk? If so, does the software come with the mac?
I am NOT spending hundreds of dollars so I can spend even more on a game. That’s a really sh*tty way to have to do it.
Well you might be missing the bigger picture Russ. Yes I did this primarily to play Rift on my Mac, but now I can play ANY PC only compatible game, say Duke Nukem Forever when it comes out in a few months 🙂 also I can now run cross-compatibility web testing on the fly pretty much for web-design etc. If you are an avid gamer this is a no brainer. I could go on and on but hopefully you get the point now, Good Luck! infoad.
duke nukem is on mac on steam
Wow, this is probably one of the least helpful articles ever! Surprise, you can run a windows program in boot camp! Welcome to 2007!
By the way: anyone looking for a REAL solution: Try CodeWeaver’s Crossover Games. It supports Rift and won’t force you to reboot or buy Windows to play a game by a lazy developer.
Thanks for the troll comment Bob. There was no workable Crossover solution for Rift beta. Since there was a lot of of Mac users on the rift forums and fansites asking for help I posted this solution at that time.
I have used the Crossover solution to play Windows only games and have found more often than not they do not work smoothly out of the gate, so your statement of a “REAL” solution is incorrect. I do however like what Codeweavers is doing and support them. Early adopters of Crossover games experience enjoyment flaws with many games, just read their support pages. Crossover has given Rift a Silver Medal (Officially Supported) which means Rift will install and run well enough to be usable but will have bugs that prevent them from running flawlessly. So your “mileage may vary.”
Thanks again for the troll comment, now go back under yer bridge. -infoad
Thanks for this guide, it’s exactly what I was looking for and the included links are very helpful. Would you mind telling me how it went with your iMac’s bluetooth keyboard? Did you have to plug in a USB keyboard or mouse during installation in order to then install the bluetooth keyboard/mouse drivers, etc? Or is all I really need a Windows 7 disc and my Snow Leopard disc?
Hiya Torv, The bluetooth Apple iMac keyboard was hit and miss with Windows 7 installation. In the end I used a wired Apple keyboard and Logitech mouse with no issues. All I had was Windows 7 Ultimate ver. disk besides the Boot Camp initializer, did not have to use my iMacs Snow Leopard disk.
Thanks and Good luck Torv.
I’ve been playing RIft using Crossover Games so far but have been experiencing poor performance and some crashes. Some of the crashes are apparently related to the ATI card, although this may only be while playing with Crossover. Did you experience regular crashes while running under Bootcamp? For example, Rift crashes whenever the character equipment panel is opened for ATI users playing with Crossover.
Hi again Torv, Not one crash using Boot Camp, this is from playing beta six to two level 40s characters now.
I have used Crossover with a few games in the past and always have experienced buggy game play/performance unfortunately. If you just want to dable with a Windows only game Crossover is fine, HOWEVER, If you are serious about playing Rift I would drop the hammer and play via Boot Camp, nice and smooth, 30-50fps game play.
Good luck!
Thanks very much for your time and replies! I’ll poke you again when I come up with more questions related to this. By the way, do you know of a good forum dedicated to getting Windows running on iMacs, getting peripherals working, and then optimizing things for gaming?
No problem Torv, all my pleasure. I normally just google for specific issues regarding iMac/Windows items/issue. However, prob the best site I have found for for optimizing Windows for game play is BlackViper, http://www.blackviper.com. He has some guides on his site for various flavors of Windows for tweaking Windows: Turing off unnecessary Windows services to optimize game play/performance. I have used his guides for the past decade without a hitch 😉
For MAC users planning to use Boot Camp to partition Windows to play RIFT: Caution! A lot of the iMacs run into issues when installing Win7. After the final reboot one would expect the installation to be complete, instead you will be greeted with a black screen – unable to complete the install. Surprise! Win7 has installed its own set of video drivers which happen to not be compatible with the Mac. You’ll need to reboot into the Mac partition and download software that allows you to browse/edit/delete files on the Windows partition. Delete the ATI.SYS file under Windows>Drivers. You should now be able to boot into the Win partition and complete the install. Don’t forget to download any Windows updates.
Thanks for the extra info Armothe!
I have a mac but i lost the windows cd installation to install bootcamp is there a way i can install bootcamp without that cd ? Isnt there a way to copy windows 7 on a cd then isntall it on my mac idk any has a solution please! ?
I think the bigger question is have you also lost your Product Key. If the answer is yes, then baring illegal downloads, you will have to purchase a new copy of Windows 7. If you have your Product Key you ‘could’ download an iso and mount it for installation. However, even with Product Key, such practices violat your terms of use from Microsoft. Contact MS direct if you have legitimately lost your CD, for a nominal fee they should send you a recovery disk.
As another point of interest Boot Camp Assistant will/ should already be install on your Mac OS X v10.5 or laster unser /Applications/Utilities/
Once again, be wary of your local piracy laws.
As fun as the game looks, I’m not going out and buying/installing Windows, opening up my computer to all of the problems associated with Microsoft just to play a computer game.
Besides Windows 7 is a crappy OS.
Hey, I have a windows 7 also but i dont have enough space on there… so the disc that came with my windows will work?
If you are referring to the Boot Camp partition not having enough space, sounds like you will need to remove the partition and redo Boot Camp with a larger partition for Windows, if you have the space you can use 30 to 40 GB which will allow for a Windows install plus a few of the larger games to be installed too. I use 100GB Windows partition since I have a 1TB drive so I can test many games without worrying about drive space. Hope this helps, -Kent.
Or you can jsut go to http://www.codeweavers.com and use crossover games.
Thanks for the info, I completely support the good folks over at codeweavers but it should be noted they only give rift a silver rating:
Silver Medal (Officially Supported)
The Silver is awarded to applications that install and run well enough to be usable. However, in our testing, we find that these applications have bugs that prevent them from running flawlessly.
“we find that these applications have bugs that prevent them from running flawlessly”
Well, so does Windows, but you’re advocating that in this post. LOL!
Seriously, I have gotten to where if a company doesn’t want to produce a game for OS X, I don’t want to play it. I’m not jumping through hoops to give money to lazy developers.
I wholeheartedly agree with you there!
But I must confess, sometimes my will power is not as strong as yours
I just don’t think “reboot to Windows” is an appropriate response from game devs any longer with the huge market share gains that Mac has made, especially when you realize the demographic pushing Mac sales growth is the very demographic game devs want. It just doesn’t make sense to ignore Macs any longer.
Thanks for the article im in the process of doing this on my 6,2 mbp can’t wait. Ive been an avid wow player since mid bc and kinda got tired of being pigeon holed to talents and playing certain roles. Plus its nice to see a refresh to the mmo genre that can, imo, give wow a run for its money.
I am running Rift as well as a lot of other things on a bootcamped 27″ iMac and within the past month or so have had the windows side of the computer crash at least once a day when doing anything intensive Rift, Photoshop, 3DS Max, UDK editor. At first I was thinking that perhaps the computer was overheating and I’ve installed SMC fan control on the Mac side to bump up RPMs of my fans. It seemed to work for awhile but now I’m having the issue again. Has anyone experienced this issue. I’m a total Mac head and don’t know a thing about Windows and how it works.
No way am I going to put windows on my mac. If a game company can’t figure out how to wrap their game up for the mac (like WoW or EvE) then they lose me as a customer. Simple as that.
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I am having problems..once I installed windows on my Mac , I found I was unable to connect to the Internet or even to the Mac partition..
Well after putting the Mac cd into my Mac I got the windows showing up as bootcamp and Mac drives show on computer tab..but still cannot get Internet explorer to go online even though the computer states I am online…help anyone?
Awesome!