A optimal way to use hammer on mac?

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Kraken

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Dec 21, 2014
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I've been using parallel desktop and it's not that efficient.
I'm choosing to make the change early so I don't get any problem.
 

worMatty

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Jul 22, 2014
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I've tried using Hammer under Parallels but it sucked. The camera was wonky, and its rendering performance was slow and frustrating. There's also the fact that TF2 runs jerkily under Parallels. I do all my dev and game stuff in a Bootcamp install of Windows 8.1. It's great, though I miss Mac OS.

I briefly looked at using WINE but decided it was too much hassle. I read that Hammer uses some things that are built in to Windows, so I'm not sure a wrapper like WINE would work. For sheer speed and convenience, Windows is your best choice. Your workflow will be slowed down so much by all the crap you have to put up with trying to get things to work under OS X.
 

Vel0city

func_fish
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Dec 6, 2014
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Just Bootcamp Windows. Parallels uses quite a lot of RAM and CPU and running TF2 besides that is a nightmare.
 

Kraken

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Dec 21, 2014
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How would I save or run the map with bootcamp?
 

Vel0city

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Dec 6, 2014
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Under Bootcamp your keyboard becomes like any other keyboard for Windows. Your command key becomes the Windows key, that's all.
 

worMatty

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Jul 22, 2014
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Bootcamp is the Apple-provided set of tools and drivers that allow you to install the full version of Windows on a portion of your hard drive, and run it natively as if you were using any ordinary IBM x86 PC. It's not an operating system on its own, just something to help you have Windows on dual-boot on your Mac. You need a copy of Windows with a license key. Run the Bootcamp Installer from the Launchpad and it'll take you through the process. Or check Apple's support pages for more information.

After it's done, you load up Windows by opening the Startup Disk app in Mac OS, or holding down the Alt (Option) key after you turn your Mac on, and it'll give you a choice between the two operating systems. Then you'd need to install Steam and Team Fortress 2.

If you're clever, you should be able to copy your TF2 installation off Mac OS and use it as a foundation for your Windows install so you don't have to download TF2 completely. You'd need an external hard drive or something since Windows can't access the Mac partition.
 

wareya

L420: High Member
Jun 17, 2012
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Afaik, you have two good options.

1) Install Linux on a second partition on your Mac. Install Wine on Linux. Install Windows Steam through Wine. Install TF2 through Windows Steam through Wine. Run Hammer through Wine.

2) Install Wine for OSX. Install Windows Steam through Wine. Etc.

Wine for OSX is universally worse than Wine for Linux, BUT, it managed to play Cry of Fear on my sister's laptop, so it should work for hammer of all things.

Don't compromised with half-baked compatibility tools.
 

Vel0city

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Dec 6, 2014
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If you're clever, you should be able to copy your TF2 installation off Mac OS and use it as a foundation for your Windows install so you don't have to download TF2 completely. You'd need an external hard drive or something since Windows can't access the Mac partition.

Windows CAN read the Mac partition and even copy from it. I've done it countless times. You can't write to it though. But that's why Dropbox and external HDDs exist as you said.

Seriously though. Bootcamp is easy as pie compared to virtual machines and there's no performance issues whatsoever, granted you've installed everything properly.

Oh and don't forget to install the driver package. Because if you don't you won't run anything. TF2 just opens and closes directly. Good news is that Bootcamp downloads the drivers for you before it even takes you into the Windows setup process, so you'll only have to run one .exe in Windows to get everything installed.

Also, don't pre-partition a drive. Bootcamp does it for you when you set it up, and then when you're in Windows select the partition to write Windows to. It may ask you to reformat the partition because Windows, so BE SURE NOT TO FORMAT YOUR OS X PARTITION. Format the partition Bootcamp made for you just for Windows and you're golden.
 

Vel0city

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Dec 6, 2014
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I've tried this before, running bootcamp and then installing source sdk is a nightmare, and once you launch hammer, it's as laggy and glitchy as shit.

Then you weren't doing it correctly. Bootcamp is just there to make the Windows install easy as pie. Once Windows is installed there should be no performance loss since Apple hardware is (qua CPUs and GPUs and RAM and storage devices) exactly the same as every other computer in the world. Drivers can be a bit tricky though.
 

worMatty

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Jul 22, 2014
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I thought Windows couldn't read the HFS+ file system, soupcan. I presumed so because I can't see the partition in My Computer. How are you able to access it? Did you need to do anything? Maybe I had the option to but disabled it long ago and have since forgotten :)

Source SDK needn't be downloaded for TF2 mapping. Hammer is included with TF2 in the Team Fortress 2/bin directory.
 

henke37

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Sep 23, 2011
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Windows can use any filesystem format, it just needs appropriate drivers.

As for the formating issue, why doesn't bootcamp just use the unattended install mode that Windows has? I think it even supports only giving some of the data, letting the user provide the rest.
 

worMatty

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Jul 22, 2014
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Maybe they want to give you the possibility to fuck up your Mac and blame it on Microsoft.