Matrix Games Forums

has anyone tried to install War Plan using WINE on a Mac?

Great to see a lot of good players from other WWII games on this board.

Hi Governato

I tried, but without success so far...


Regards

I don't know if the game uses any specifics from DirectX or other Windows libraries, but being developed in Unity I guess a port to Linux/Mac may be feasible.

I think one of the issues is directx10, yes...

Look for the Zovs post on installing on a Mac. He got it working.

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

Look for the Zovs post on installing on a Mac. He got it working.

Yes, but using a virtual machine. I am also playing it that way, with Parallels.

What we would like would be to be able to play using WINE (sort of a windows emulator), with better performance and speed.

Another point is that as the game uses Unity, one could expect that a true Mac version would be easy to have been done (but as usually Matrix does not care very much about Mac users...)

Regards

Try setting the graphics to simple. It doesn't make a difference on performance because the graphics is very low use in the game. Notice the nice scrolling.

So it could be, maybe the higher settings are using more GPU and causing slowdowns. I am just guessing here.

As for Mac. The issue is that Macs are too problematic with specific errors that are hard to solve. So many OS versions. So many different formats. I also know nothing about Mac.

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

Try setting the graphics to simple. It doesn't make a difference on performance because the graphics is very low use in the game. Notice the nice scrolling.

So it could be, maybe the higher settings are using more GPU and causing slowdowns. I am just guessing here.

As for Mac. The issue is that Macs are too problematic with specific errors that are hard to solve. So many OS versions. So many different formats. I also know nothing about Mac.

Macs are difficult ..but WINE is great and I use it to play PC games on my Mac...(Flashpoint Campaigns, Command Ops, TOAW) so it is a great resource...and it is free.

Hi
Just an update

Contacted CodeWeavers support (makers of Crossover), and the error log seems to indicate that the inability to launch WarPlan via with Wine is indeed because of the game exe requires directx 10. Which Wine does not support fully now...

They told me a better support for directx 10 is expected in the near future.

A pity that WarPlan requires directx 10...

Regards

Let me see if I can adjust the DIAX requirements in the game engine which is Unity.

Which one do you need? Will 9 do?

Yes, supposedly directx 9 would do.

But I was just giving feedback to other players interested, I am not asking nor presuming you should spend any time or effort trying to accommodate something that is not supposed to be supported in the first place!

Best regards

Hi

Just to report some good news and a question to Alvaro

I am a beta tester for Crossover and I am happy to report that with the release candidate of Crossover 19.01 WarPlan installs and runs perfect, natively, on my iMac 27 running Catalina (it needs a Windows 7, 8 or 10 bottle, 64 bits, and CoreFonts installed).

The question: For some reason I am not able to change the resolution on the initial screen - I change it, but it makes no effect, being always at 2048x1152) - is there any config file where the resolution can be changed manually ?

Regards

Just the initial screen. But you can grab the edges and move it. Or maybe you can change the resolution on the emulator. OR you can goto options and change the scale or using the [ or ] keys.

Can you list here what is needed to run WarPlan on Macs so I can share with others?

Thanks Alvaro

I will post everything for sure, but will wait for the official release of Crossover 19.01

Regards

Hi

With Official release of Crossover 19.01, I am happy to report that WarPlan works flawlessly on my iMac 27 2019 running Catalina, without Windows. [:D]

First, I should note that I have absolutely no financial interest on Crossover, I just love and support this software. Crossover is a paid application, based on WINE, with great support, that allows easy use of Windows-only software on Mac (or Linux), using WINE, without Windows, but with minimum hassle involved. Codeweavers (the makers of Crossover) are the main supporters of the continuing development of WINE.
This is not a virtual machine, and no Windows version is needed.

The crown of glory of Crossover was achieved last year, with the release of version 19, that allows the running of almost all 32 bit windows programs in a 64 bit-only OS (Catalina) [&o]

I use Crossover, and most of my games run fine on Mac, without Windows. Strategic Command, WITE, DC: Barbarossa, FOG2 and Empires, JTS games, and many more. And now WarPlan.

Crossover has a great feature, named crossties. Basically it is a pre-made "bottle" that allows a quick and easy installation. A crosstie is already created for Warplan [:)]

So, without further ado, if you want to play WarPlan on your Mac, you just have to:

- install Crossover (14-day free trial; after, you will have to buy a license)
- open Crossover and click "Install a Windows Application"
- type WarPlan and select it from the list.
- a premade "windows 7 64 bit" bottle with CoreFonts installed will be automatically created for you
- click Continue
- click to select the installer exe that you must of course download from Matrix. Have your SN available, as usually.
- if a warning window appears, just click Cancel (OSx security is a bit paranoid)
- Let the install process proceed, do not bother to install .Net.
- Enjoy [;)]

Turning "on" high resolution mode in the bottle settings permits to change resolution at will, just like a native windows installation.

If you want any further help, feel free to ask

Regards

Thanks buddy. I'll put this in the notes.

I added a note in another thread.

Essentially I am running as the base O/S iMac Catalina (the latest). I have 40 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. I also have the pro version of VMWare which is super easy to use and way more stable then Oracle VirtualBox. I allocated 2 CPU's, 8 GB of RAM and 200 GB of my 1 TB SSD.

Warplan (as well as GG WitE/WitW, WiF, DC: Barbarossa, DC: Blitzkreig from Warsaw to Paris, DC: Case Blue, SC3 (all of them), TOAW IV, Tigers on the Hunt, Panzer Corps, Desert War, John Tillers Campaign Series, Command Ops 2, CWIE2, World War II and Steel Panthers WW2/MBT all work splendidly!

ORIGINAL: Zovs

I added a note in another thread.

Essentially I am running as the base O/S iMac Catalina (the latest). I have 40 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD. I also have the pro version of VMWare which is super easy to use and way more stable then Oracle VirtualBox. I allocated 2 CPU's, 8 GB of RAM and 200 GB of my 1 TB SSD.

Warplan (as well as GG WitE/WitW, WiF, DC: Barbarossa, DC: Blitzkreig from Warsaw to Paris, DC: Case Blue, SC3 (all of them), TOAW IV, Tigers on the Hunt, Panzer Corps, Desert War, John Tillers Campaign Series, Command Ops 2, CWIE2, World War II and Steel Panthers WW2/MBT all work splendidly!

Yes, I also have a VM setup (I use Parallels) and almost all my games run well. BUT, for that we need to pay for a Virtual Machine (Oracle VirtualBox is free but very limited and at least for me didn't work at all) and for a copy of Windows 10.

With Crossover (WINE) all the RAM, VRAM and other resources of the Mac are used directly by the games, so at least theoretically they run more smoothly. At least to start the game using Crossover is as fast as any native Mac application, much faster than via Parallels. There are some games that do not run with Crossover, though (yet [;)])

To each it's own, it's great to have options [:)]

These are all great news! I am a fan of both VM and WINE, so I will give it a go. There should be a sticky post for Mac ports...

I have Ubuntu-Mate 18.04 with wine-devel. Warplan works, with a couple minor wonky issues:

If you alt-tab to another screen and then alt-tab back, the mouse is weird (can still play the game though). Similarly, if you play windowed and move the window, then it appears the cursor position reported to Warplan is bad. This smells like a wine issue and not a Warplan issue.

And, although my monitor is 1680x1050, Warplan wants to run with a max resolution of (I think) 1600x900.

Otherwise, it works (apparently) just fine.