Hey!

So, I got no response and was so eager to play the game that I tried to find the solution myself. Thank god Apple implemented a great search functionality and after little research, I found a nasty little file called "specifications.xml"

In order to find it, navigate to the XCOM Folder in steamapps/common/XCOM 2 or wherever you put it, and open the XCOM 2 Launcher Package by right-clicking on the XCOM2-Icon (not opening the XCOM2DATA-Folder, we don't care about that one).

Now, navigate to -> contents -> resources -> "specifications.xml" and open the .xml-file with notepad. In this file, quite far up top, you will find a passage that looks as follows:

<!-- Auto-generated: Block any hardware below min playable --> <spec> <conditions> <or> <VRAM><less>512M</less></VRAM> <stock id="ATI_X1xxx_series" /> <stock id="ATI_HD2xxx_series" /> <stock id="Intel_GMA_series" /> <stock id="Intel_HD4000" /> <stock id="Intel_HD3000" /> <stock id="NVIDIA_7xxx_series" /> <stock id="NVIDIA_8xxx_series" /> <stock id="NVIDIA_9xxx_series" /> <stock id="NVIDIA_3xx_series" /> </or> </conditions> <alert stock_id="BlockedHardware" /> <ignore_if_set>SkipUnsupportedHardwareCheck</ignore_if_set> </spec>

This makes the launcher check your hardware specification and block any hardware listed above from even trying to run the game.

So, for any system, the instruction is quite simple: find your graphics chip in the list above and delete the line. If your system boasts an Intel HD 3000, you would find yourself with something like this:

<!-- Auto-generated: Block any hardware below min playable --> <spec> <conditions> <or> <VRAM><less>512M</less></VRAM> <stock id="ATI_X1xxx_series" /> <stock id="ATI_HD2xxx_series" /> <stock id="Intel_GMA_series" /> <stock id="Intel_HD4000" /> <stock id="NVIDIA_7xxx_series" /> <stock id="NVIDIA_8xxx_series" /> <stock id="NVIDIA_9xxx_series" /> <stock id="NVIDIA_3xx_series" /> </or> </conditions> <alert stock_id="BlockedHardware" /> <ignore_if_set>SkipUnsupportedHardwareCheck</ignore_if_set> </spec>

Save the file, close the folder, fire up steam and boom, it runs. You will still get a warning from the launcher stating that you are using poor hardware, but the option to run anyway persists.

Now to the core question: should you try and play XCOM 2 with something like an Intel HD 4000 chip, such as the one in my late '12 MBP Retina 13"?

Yes, you can. It's not brilliant, of course, nor is it very fluid. And you will encounter rather long load times (inexplicably, since this should be based on storage speed). However, I get 14-20 FPS on my system in most missions, worst so far was 8 in a retaliation mission with heavy ambient occlusion. I am still trying to see, whether some more performance can be squeezed from game settings (suggestions?).

I find this performance tolerable for a turn based game, given the absence of a more powerful machine.

Kind regards!