best external hard drives for 2011 image
S3nkaku
I have a macbook pro 13 inch that I'm running a minecraft server on for my friend, brothers, and I, how can I speed up the server ans play the game on my laptop? I have a 1TB external hard drive that I was wondering if I could put my server files on and run as a live disc that would give me more computing power. I also was wondering how to fix my server so the I stop getting the [WARNING] Can't keep up! Did the system time change, or is the system overloaded? Any and all help here would be great, however while I pride my self on being rather tech savi and being able to fix almost any computer problem it would be most helpful if you could explain it in a s much detail and as specifically as possible since I'm new to the whole computer programming side of computers. Thanks.
My mac is running a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, has 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3 of Memory, and is running Mac OS X 10.6.8.
Answer
You're overloading your system. Your system is trying to handle the server computations, your own game and the server-client interactions of four or more people. Offloading your server files to an external disk will probably only hurt your system because you aren't taking the files off your system. Your computer still has to run them, but instead of being on the 5400 RPM hard drive (unless you swapped it or upgraded it) running on your SATA II (or SATA III, doesn't matter, your hard drive is maxing out around 80MB/s regardless) you put it on USB 2.0 (Unless you JUST bought this MacBook Pro, you only have USB 2.0. Even if you have USB 3, remember the bottleneck still isn't your cable, it's your drive. Spinning media is slower than flash media every time.) and you cap your hard drive around 45MB/s. Plus, your computer still has to run those files, but now it can't access them nearly as fast. You don't fix your issue, you just exacerbate it. There's nothing you can do, code-wise, to make your computer faster. Your options are as follows, you can buy a new computer (because with a laptop you can't make many changes) or you can upgrade what two parts Apple will let you touch to make a few marginal speed improvements. Buying a new computer is clearly off the table since the laptop you just bought set you back right around a grand (fair enough, I have a 15" MacBook Pro and it's a great piece, just not as gaming oriented as my desktop).
First things first, you want to upgrade your RAM. You probably have 4GB tops, so we'll max it out. 16GB is the magic number across two sticks for 8GB a piece. Now, because I don't know exactly what model 13" MacBook you have, I'm going to go based on my own which is a late-2011 model. So 16GB is what you are looking for.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220659
That's memory I bought for my own computer. It works great and it does as advertised. Now, let me make something VERY clear. Increasing your RAM DOES NOT increase your computer's speed. It increases your computer's ability to multi-task meaning you can run more programs before you max out your computers physical memory and start to see a slow-down in overall performance. Your computer can spread CPU power a little thinner because programs can store more in the physical memory. Clearly, for the amount of multi-tasking you are doing, this is a good thing. Your only other real viable option for improvement is to upgrade your hard drive to a solid-state drive. Even then, an SSD only increases performance marginally. Access to programs is faster, rendering video would be faster and it will make your computer just run, overall, a touch faster because you are doubling or tripling access times to your drive. Let me put it this way. The Seagate drive in your computer right now will average around 80MB/s Read and about 50MB/s write. It's just slow because most people don't need wicked fast drives in order to surf the web, type essays or run Photoshop. I need a lightning quick drive because I'm rendering full HD video in real time and I need to be able to write as quick as I can read. The solid-state drive I purchased increased my read times to around 200MB/s and my write times to around 150MB/s. Double my read, triple my write. I can load Premiere Pro in half the time on my laptop because it's just quicker on the draw. The program runs worse because the CPU/GPU combo isn't as strong, but that's how it works.
Those are your only two real options for making a difference on your laptop. I'm not going to link you to the drive I bought because it cut my hard drive in half and I bought one for performance. SSD's aren't cheap. A 256GB SSD can run you anywhere from $150 to $300. Unfortunately, this is the only real route you can take. Aside from spending close a grand on some Thunderbolt external drives, you can't really do a whole lot because you don't have much space inside the computer. At the end of the day you are dealing with a laptop, and not just any laptop, but an Apple laptop. Those are the only two parts you can touch without voiding your warranty (technically, but let's see some techs argue that the upgrades I've done weren't for the good of the machine) and it's the only real way to make a performance difference. I wish you luck, but unless you offload either the server or the game onto another dedicated machine, you are pretty much SOL.
How to improve my graphics for Guild Wars 2 on a Mac?
Chris Gree
Hello, I'm using a 15-inch late 2011 Macbook Pro, and I want to play Guild Wars 2 on it. However, I'm having a really difficult time here. I am one who wants my games to look pretty, and unfortunately, GW2 is an extremely demanding game. Does anyone know what I could do that might help me run it on the higher, or possibly even the highest graphics settings?
Please note that I know next to nothing about computers. But I have heard that an external hard drive or an external graphics card may help. I've also tried cleaning out my computer. The only thing installed on it now is Word and Powerpoint, iTunes, and Guild Wars 2. But, still, I have a tremendously difficult time with the game. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Yes, I'm running the Mac beta, that's all that they have available for download as far as I know. I just did a big cleanup though and got rid of GarageBand and all the stuff from my iTunes that I never listen to, so that should help some, especially since GarageBand took up a TON of space. Hopefully this'll go well!
When I played WoW I was able to play it to almost completely maxed out settings- everything on high with the view distance, environment detail, and liquid detail on ultra, and it ran perfectly. Hopefully I'll get good results with GW2 now.
Answer
Are you running the Mac beta version? According to their system requirements it should run well on your MacBook but as it is a beta version you should raise any problems you find directly with the producers of the game.
https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1119
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