Wing Commander on Mac

Bigt028

Bigt028

Rear Admiral
Hello, havent been online in a while, i hope all is well. I recently purchased a Mac..wanted to know if anyone has been able to play Wing Commander. The new Mac's do not have disk drives, so i bet my purchased versions of WC3, WC4 and Prophecy would not work because they are on cd's.
but is there a way to convert them or it really cant be done...i still have a Windows XP machine just to be able to play them..in dos box of course. Again, not sure if this has been discussed, thanks.
 
I'm not a Mac guy myself but the GOG releases are all digital and no disk drive necessary. That said, you can easily plug in an external drive for any physical copies you own.
 
You definitely can run the DOS versions of WC3 and WC4 on your Mac, via DOSBox. You just need to convert the CDs to disk image files, then mount those in DOSBox.

1. Convert CDs to disk images
For any other readers with an optical drive in their Mac, the built in application called "Disk Utility" can convert your CDs to images. Most guides assume that the images will have an ".iso" extension, while images created by Disk Utility have a ".cdr" extension, but they still work fine in DOSBox.

Tools definitely exist for creating disk images on your Windows XP machine, but I'm not familiar with them. This guide recommends a tool called ImgBurn, but I've never used it myself. If you install it and it turns out to be full of Greek warriors who sack your city, kill the populace and burn it to the ground, I'll disclaim all responsibility.

If anyone else comments from personal experience with disk imaging tools for Windows, use their method.

2. Mount disk images in DOSBox
You need the IMGMOUNT command, so here's the DOSBox Wiki on IMGMOUNT. Now, you could follow the standard route for lining up multiple images and swapping between them with CTRL-F4. I played right through Gabriel Knight 2 using it. However, WC3 and WC4 both work if you just copy the files from the other CDs to the correct locations, as described here. You still need to mount an appropriate disk image to get it to play.

You may need to adjust the DOSBox core, cycles or sound settings. Use the ones recommended on the Wing Commander Tech Support page.

Too fiddly?
Even though you own the games, it may be easier to just buy them from GOG. Those versions have already been put through the steps above to create a nice stand-alone launcher.
 
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As for Prophecy, some people have persuaded it to run in WINE. See Play Prophecy, Standoff on Mac or Linux. Once again, you'll probably need a disk image, which WINE can mount.

While I haven't tried Prophecy, in general I've found 3D games in WINE to be frustrating. They'll often work initially, and then some graphical effect will erroneously turn the screen white at a plot-critical moment. For the best Windows compatibility, you need a Boot Camp partition. This is expensive - you need a complete, standalone Windows installation. Certain games might still resist all attempts to run without an optical drive and the original CD or DVD. Think carefully about just how many Windows games you might ever want to run, and how bleeding-edge they are.
 
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Well as said, you can convert any cd img into an .iso /.bin + .cue and dosbox will use them. But if you have a mac I highly recommend http://www.boxerapp.com/ over vanilla dosbox. (Also the application of choice for GOG for that matter) It is just easier to use and takes out a lot of the minutia and dos knowhow needed to run things and gets you into the game faster. Not to mention you are left with nice convenient game boxes that run like normal OSX applications.
All you need to do is put the .iso img in the gamebox and it will find it right away.

As for Wine with Prophecy. Rather then installing Xcode, then in installing macports, and installing wine and dealing with all that terminal work, (lets face it, you will fail here unless you are very familiar with wine on linux) I highly recommend wineskin http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com, which also simplifies everything in a fairly easy to use GUI and leaves you also with an application that you can launch normally like a normal OSX application.

On my computer I copied all my cd's to .dmg's using disk utility which mounts properly in OSX and the game will treat it as a cd.

I think the normal D3d render does kinda work, but If you choose to run the game in any wine be sure to download the community OpenGL patch. It's faster and looks a heck of a lot better.
https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/OpenGL_Patch

I should note i haven't got the HD movie patch to work in wine. The patch.dll just crashes.

Standoff and SecretOps have already been converted into a wineskin app by yours truley. I havn't updated it in a bit so let me know if it still works on your system. (It should)

http://standoff.solsector.net/downloads.shtml
 
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WOW, this is great info, thanks for all the detail. I have not had a chance to work on this, but will definatley soon. Again thanks and i will keep you posted. I thought i had to rebuy my copies from gog, or ebay if they made Mac versions.
 
Mac versions is a bit of a misnomer as it's still the dos versions only packaged with extra software. :\

Just a warning - You may find Mac versions of WC3 and WC4 on ebay. They will not work on your modern mac. They were designed for old PowerPC (or possible support for an older 86k mac, I'm not sure) computers running later versions of OS7-OS9. I think they can run in sheepshaver (if 86k then basilisk II which is a bit more stable) but dosbox/boxer is much more reliable and less of a hassle, nor do you need a copy of Dos to run it. (where as those other emulators need a copy of the older OS and a rom file from an old Mac)
 
wow, this is really infromation i need...i was looking up the "mac" versions of both WCIII and WCIV on ebay!!...it would have been a very frustrating day after waiting to receive the games and not have them work on my current Mac. i think i will just stick with an XP PC for now. Or purchase a used 3DO console to play Super Wing Commander and WCIII, i bought both of those years ago without a 3do, price too good to pass up, but i look at the boxes every day thinking...one day i will get to play you both...Thanks again...
 
well I'm glad i saved you some money and trouble :) I think it's a real shame with apple's policy with backwards compatibility these days. I have a lot of old os9 software including a copy of wc3 lying around. So sheepshaver is a must for me. Back in the 90's, you use to be able to run ancient Macintosh software from the late 80's and the original OS on OS9 and much of it would work on the PowerPCs G3, G4 ect.. (only very fast) Now, developers cant even support their software for OSX 10.6 (two versions ago) because the tools have to update to support the latest stuff, and they keep removing critical features for supporting the older OSs (SDK's for example). Or outright block you, and it's all artificial limitations.

3do is probably the best way to play SWC, they did make a port for the old macs too, but like other 3d0 ports the graphics aren't quite the same, not to mention quicktime instruments included with the old os didn't have the same weight. Plus its port of WC3 is quite unique. The mac version was exactly the same as the dos version.

But getting a dos game to work in windows XP is just as hard as getting it to run on a mac as you would be using the same emulator (dosbox). Plus I really do like boxer's overall design (if you couldn't tell ;) ) which is mac only. Win XP's internal dos support is mostly gone. Even if you do get something launched, you have to throttle your CPU to make it playable, and I have no idea what you would have to do to get sound to work. Something to make it think you have a soundblaster card. (I know the old VM sound was geared for this) But really dosbox is much better, not to mention it offers a full array of various graphics and sound emulations from the early 80's to the mid 90's.

On your mac, again, give Standoff and Secret Ops a try. I'm always curious to see if it still works. You need do nothing but copy it off of the .dmg file.
http://standoff.solsector.net/downloads.shtml

I'm eager to update its wrapper to the latest wine that can use OSX's built in quartz interface directly (as oppose to going through the detour with apple x11 port called XQuartz). Only I haven't gotten it to work yet. As they further develop the new driver, I'll keep trying it. Maybe I'll get lucky.
 
Rosetta isn't like sheepshaver. It ran certain PowerPC applications compiled for OSX. It was used to ease the intel and PPC transition by maintaining backwards compatibility for software built for PPC computers like the G4 and G5 and have them run on your Intel mac. (you must remember that PPC macs existed long after the switch to OSX started and Intel macs are fairly recent.) It was not designed to run OS "Classic" applications like wc3 or Claris Works (if you remember that :)). My copy of Microsoft Office 2003 and older version of Logic are a different story. Yes, they nixed it when they nixed all PPC support with Lion. (which sucked btw)

Besides my poor computer is already triple booted, I don't think I can do anymore. :) (OSX Mountain Lion, Win Xp and Ubuntu)
 
OK good to know, I was using it to run FC pro on my intel since FCX is absolute garbage.
 
Backwards compatibility a difficult compromise. Windows maintained it for a long time, and appeared succeed until Windows XP. By then it had layer after layer of kludges, just so that older applications would go on functioning. Then we all got broadband Internet connections, and found that some of the kludges were security holes. So, Windows Vista removed a lot of compatibility, and we screamed blue murder.

Joel Spolsky's 2004 article How Microsoft Lost the API War accurately predicted the past decade of software development, and how efforts to keep or discard backwards compatiblity affected the major players.

If I'd been in charge of planning Mac OS development in that era, I'd have concluded that it's better to remove the scab all at once instead of letting it fester. If you find a flaw in the OS, fix it. If you think of something shiny to add, add it. If the OS change breaks any applications, tell the application programmers to fix it. This is no fun for the application programmers, and I've had to scramble to fix an iOS app after an iOS update broke it.

Only one thing can make the Windows and Mac OS compatiblity problem look good though, and that's the next console generation.

With all that said, here's some irony: the GoG release of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri runs on Mac OS. Is it the original Mac port? No, it's the Windows version, packaged with a specially configured version of WINE. Apparently it's easier to set up a Windows 98 game to run on Mac OS X than its corresponding Mac OS Classic release. I suspect it won't be long before games from the Windows XP era have to be similarly packaged, just to get them to run in Windows 9 or 10. It'll be a pain to set them up, but, like current classic games released with DOSBox, they should then remain stable as OS versions change around them... as long as WINE is kept up to date.
 
Well if it were all for peoples personal use, that's one thing. People can be fairly flexible, but windows has a long history with businesses, and in that world backwards compatibility is an absolute must. A lot of companies would still uses their apps in basic for dos if they could, rather then spend time, money, on developing new software when the old one still technically fits their needs.

Apple on the other hand never had that and can freely nix a full decade worth of software because their user base from that era was rather small. (still is, compared to windows)

Edit
That's a great article you posted btw. I had no idea how complicated backwards compatibility has been for windows over the years.
 
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