PC games: they can be the bane of a Mac gamer's existence. Is Windows-only for now, and it is listed in the Platinum compatibility list on the Wine HQ site. Feb 1, 2018 - List Of Wineskin Compatible Games For Macbook. Roadbloc has answered your question, but here goes anyway. If a game is not Mac native.
I’m in love with Good Old Games. They distribute classic PC titles, getting them running on modern operating systems, bundled with extras, and all without DRM.
What I like most about it, though, is that GOG is up there with Valve in its efforts to make Mac gaming less of a wasteland. When it comes to retro computer games, DOS isn’t too much of a hurdle because the hardware requirements are trivial and apps like Boxer make emulation simple, but the Windows ultra-dominance of the late 90s through late 2000s are a dark spot. If you have fond memories of a PC game of that era and it’s not from Blizzard or id, odds are it didn’t get a Mac release.
I recently noticed that GOG was offering Mac versions of PC-only Black Isle RPGs like Planescape: Torment. My curiosity over what witchcraft was enabling this led me to Wineskin, which now has me running stuff like RollerCoaster Tycoon natively in OS X. And it works with basically anything short of the latest and greatest. Here’s how it’s done.
You will need…
- Your PC game
- Wineskin Winery (download)
- Enough hard drive space for the install plus about 150MB
A little background
I’m going to be doing this with the GOG version of RollerCoaster Tycoon. GOG makes it easier because the games are mostly a single installer and have no DRM to worry about, but disc-based games can be done too by copying the contents of the disc to a folder on your computer, so do that first. As long as the game doesn’t require anything newer than DirectX 9.0 or host particularly invasive DRM (e.g. StarForce), chances are it’ll work.
This all works using Wine, with Wineskin bundling the installed game and a Wine compatibility layer in one Mac app. It’s not emulation, strictly speaking, so what you’re getting is a Windows game running at native speed on OS X.
Getting started
Fire up Wineskin Winery. You’ll first need to download an appropriate engine for the game you’re running, but thankfully people will have done the legwork for you. The Wine Application Database is where users document their experiences of running software with different Wine engines, and its entry on Rollercoaster Tycoon notes that the GOG version runs with platinum compatibility (“flawlessly”) on 1.6.2. Therefore that’s the version I’m going to download.
With that downloaded and the latest wrapper downloaded, hit the ‘Create New Blank Wrapper’ button and give your new app a name. In this case, I creatively opt for ‘Rollercoaster Tycoon’.
Let the process run. It may ask you to download a version of Mono and/or the Gecko engine. Old games will almost certainly not need Mono but may use Gecko; use your own judgement, or just go ahead and install them since it’ll ensure a trouble-free conversion.
When it’s finished, click ‘Show Wrapper in Finder’ and you’ll be presented with a generic Wineskin app, ready to be turned into your chosen game.
Installation
Run this new app to be presented with the following window.
Click ‘Install Software’, then ‘Choose Setup Executable’, and point it at the installer from GOG. This is where things start to look interesting.
That looks suspiciously like a Windows installer on a Mac, doesn’t it?
Once the installation process is complete, resist the temptation to play the game for now and click ‘Exit’. You’ll see the following window, which lets you tell your Wineskin which executable it should run on launch. In this case it’s correct and I’ve never seen it need changing, so go ahead and click OK.
The Advanced menu that you can see mentioned can be accessed by right-clicking the newly created app in the Finder, clicking ‘Show Package Contents’, and then double-clicking the Wineskin icon in the resulting folder. Among other things, this allows you to change the app icon; find an appropriate ICNS file from a site like VeryIcon and select it in there to get things looking more official (see right).
Isn’t that a beautiful sight? You end up with a self-contained OS X app (by default located at ~/Applications/Wineskin), created through a process that works on basically any game. No fiddling with Boot Camp or Parallels to run an old favourite that hasn’t been ported, and none of the performance penalty that comes from emulation. Lovely.
UPDATE: it has been revised to work between macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) and macOS 10.14 (Mojave). If you are also have the gog.com version read this other tutorial instead GOG Deus Ex Wineskin Tutorial
SAD NOTE: Due to apple dropping support for 32 Bit with the release of macOS 10.15 (Catalina) onwards it will no longer work!
Okay first things first - the actual reason for me writing this 'How to' was to find a native way of playing Deus Ex 1 (2000 version) on Mac OS X rather than via something like bootcamp and a windows installation. The only version ever released for the Apple Mac was natively Mac OS 9 which as we all know is now long gone. Plus this is the important bit it's still the number one game for me of all time!
So for this tutorial I am going to show the basic steps of installing Deus Ex and an example of a module called 'New Vision' which adds higher detailed textures, but I suppose any other modules would work the same way with the same procedure.
So here is what I used for this...
- For this 'How to' I am using Deus Ex (Game of the Year / GOTY) - Sold Out Software CD, which should cost only a few quid.
- Wineskin 2.6.2 which can be downloaded for free here.
- For this example 'New Vision 1.5' used to add better enhanced textures here.
- The Kenzie Deus Exe Launcher from here. Make sure to download the older version DeusExe-v5.3.zip.
Step 1:
Install Deus Ex with Wineskin
So lets get started by launching 'Wineskin Winery' and make sure to choose 'WS9WineCX15.3.1' engine (This is also VERY important if you want it to work) then press 'Create New Blank Wrapper'.
If 'WS9WineCX15.3.1' doesn't appear on your list press the '+' and 'Download and Install'.
After pressing 'Create New Blank Wrapper,' name the file 'Deus Ex'.
Then just leave it to install the relevant files until the window appears telling you 'View wrapper in Finder'.
This will take you to the newly created file. Press on the icon + ctrl key to show the dropdown and then select 'Show Package Contents'. At the same time you can quit the 'Wineskin Winery' app since you won't need this anymore.
In the new window launch 'Wineskin'. NOTE: The alias for drive_c is in the same folder as the Wineskin app which is the easier way of doing some of the amends during this 'How to'.
Select the 'Advanced' option.
Now select 'Options' next to 'Tools' on the right. This will take you to another window and choose 'Modify Mappings'.
This again will take you to another window simply delete any text in the My Documents field and then press 'Save'.
Now back on the previous window select the 'Set Screen Options'.
By default the 'Automatic' should be checked but if not select it. Then move the 'Extra Gamma Correction' bar to the 'Very Bright' - your screen will go lighter for a few seconds but then go back to normal. Now make sure to uncheck the 'Auto Detect GPU Info for Direct3D' because it stopped it working in MAC OS 10.13. Once finished press the 'Done' button.
This is another part of the fix to make it work in MAC OS 10.13. Choose the 'Tools' tab then the 'Wineskin' button.
Then on the screen search for 'vid' and from the results expand 'settings' and checkbox 'videomemorysize=2048' and press run. This will run the winertrick - once done just press 'close'.
Now press the 'Install Software' button.
On the next screen press 'Choose Setup Executable'.
Insert the 'Deus Ex GOTY' CD and choose the 'Setup.exe' file.
All the next few windows should be straight forward so choose your language which for me is 'English International' - Also make sure that is says Version 1112F. Then press the 'Next' button.
Choose the 'I Agree'.
Then 'Next' - for this Deus Ex Sold Out software CD version it puts the files in 'C:DeusEx' directory but for other versions it may use a different directory but that's not important it will still work.
Make sure all the checkboxes are selected then again choose 'Next' and...
... then 'Install' and now just sitback and wait for the files to be installed.
Once installed you will see this screen just click 'Finish'.
A new Wineskin window should appear showing the DeusEx.exe file which needs to boot up automatically just select 'OK'.
!!! IF USING THE CD INSTALLER: Don't try to start it yet or you will get either an error screen or the game just won't boot. !!!
Now unzip the downloaded DeusExe-v5.3.zip file and drag the 4 files below into the folder 'drive_c/DeusEx/System/' - NOTE: the 'deusex.exe' file will replace the older version but that's fine. You should also be able to eject the 'Deus Ex GOTY' installer CD with no issues when running the game.
Now before you install the 'New Vision' module you will need to run the Deus Ex game first so press 'Test Run' in 'Wineskin'.
Your screen will go brighter and the 'kentie.net Deus Exe Launcher' should appear. It may take a while when first launching so be patient. Select the 'Configure' button.
On the new window select the following options which may differ mainly on your monitor size but for this example I am using the following:
- Renderer: OpenGL Support (without this set the New Vision textures won't work/appear).
- Resolution - Common: Choose your screen resolution, so for my example it's 1440x900.
- Resolution – Fullscreen: Checked.
- Quality: 32 bit color.
- Field of view: 16:10 - this should have automatically changed so no need to select anything.
Now press 'OK' which takes you to the previous window and choose 'Play'. This will take you to Deus Ex game menu and so to be safe start a game and load the first level. Once done exit the game via the games built in menu. A popup will appear in 'Wineskin' - again ignore it and just press 'Cancel'.
Step 2:
Install the 'New Vision' Module
Back in the Wineskin app choose 'Install Software'.
Then 'Choose Setup Executable' again.
Now select the 'New_Vision_v1-5.exe' which you downloaded - Before installing I should warn you it will add another 3GB of harddrive space but these days is that such a big deal! Now press 'Next'.
The screen which will give you a rundown of what you are installing so just press 'Next'.
Now by default the first 2 checkboxes should be selected, both 'New Vision Files' and 'OpenGL Renderer (The OpenGL Renderer is an update to work on more modern graphics cards)'. This is fine and you don't need to select any others so just press the 'Next' button.
NOTE: If you are wondering why we installed Kentie's launcher earlier rather than here, it's because this version won't run on Mac OS X.
The new window will show the directory as 'c:DeusEx' - again just press the 'Next' button.
It will install all the files which will take some time but once done you will see the finished screen. Just press 'Finish'.
Now in order for the 'New Vision' to work we need to edit a file. Open the following 'drive_c/users/Wineskin/My Documents/Deus Ex/System/DeusEx.ini' file. Search for and change the following.
Insert and extra line of code so it looks like this...
Step 3:
To change the Games Icon (Optional)
Lets make it look better and give it an icon. So again in 'Wineskin' select 'Configuration' and choose the icon browse button and load up a file which can be as big as 512px x 512px and in icns file format. There are plenty on the web.
So it now should appear like this...
Step 4:
Start the game with high-res textures
Now quit 'Wineskin' and run the Deus Ex game with the new icon. When the 'kentie.net Deus Exe Launcher' appears press 'Data Directories'.
NOTE: This only needs to be done once NOT everytime it starts.
On the next screen checkbox both 'New Vision Maps' and 'New Vision Textures'. Now press the 'OK' button. NOTE: If the game plays slow on your machine try unchecking these and then maybe try changing your screen size, plus if you install any other modules they will probably have to be activated here in order to work.
And finally you can press the 'Play' button and start a new game. You should now be able to see the high-res textures working. The levels will take longer to load due to the new high-res textures.
Here are a few game screenshots.
To conclude - I know this has been an epic of 'How to's' and someone else may know an easier/shorter way but I hope it helps someone! Maybe the actual company who made the game in the first place would give us a native version of 'Deus Ex 1' with new graphics and render engine (Yes I have played Deus Ex 3!)... it's good to dream!
I have also tested it with the following mods and it works fine, but they are NOT used in this tutorial.
- Zodiac MOD - Single player missions. Read how to install it hereNOTE: You will need to follow the instructions on this post first.
- Redsun 2020 MOD - Single player missions. NOTE: Doesn't work with New Vision MOD.here
- The Nameless MOD - Single player missions. here
- Project HDTP MOD - High-res Characters (Slow moving MOD on the development front) plus not all the characters are included. here