11 replies to this topic

[EricP]

Hello,

 

If this has been addressed elsewhere, please point me in the right direction for enlightenment.

 

I just got a Mac Pro (my first Intel Mac), with Mac OS X 10.9.4 installed (Mavericks). I'd like to know if it's possible (and if so, how) to install and run BG2 on this system.

 

I don't yet have Windows installed on this computer, but I'm contemplating either Boot Camp or Parallels for that, and running Windows in virtual mode. Quite a bit to learn, as I've never attempted this before, but that's a separate issue.

 

Any and all advice welcome!

 

Thanks,

Eric

 

[Almateria]

OH MY GOD FINALLY WELCOME TO THE 21ST CENTURY BASK IN JONY IVE'S GLORY AND GENIUS

of course you can install it, except you need to do it through Wine or a full wineskinned game (that's what GOG uses)

don't do windows

in the finder side bar, enable the home folder and hard disks

install tinkertool

dont install yosemite

[subtledoctor]

If it's just for running BG/IWD/PST etc, might I suggest running TinyXP in Virtualbox. I find it easier to deal with, especially for mods and Shadowkeeper and stuff, than WINE. And VirtualBox is free, no need to shell out cash for Parallels.

Boot Camp (with a more modern Win OS, I like 7) is what I use for more modern games. It's serious overkill for BG2.

[Eric P.]

For the time being, I've made a Windows 7 Ultimate virtual machine, (with Windows on its own internal HD) under Parallels Desktop 10, and installed the Windows versions of BG1/ToSC and BG2 - SoA/ToB from GoG. I've installed several BG1 mods, and the game appears to play as it should. Now building a long, multimod installation for BG2.

 

It's truly amazing how fast and smooth everything moves on-screen in these games under Windows! It never behaves that way on the Mac; even the vanilla games feel kinda slowed down and stretched out in time on the Mac, for the way everything moves on-screen under Mac OS X. This is my first experience with any BG games under Windows in over a decade.

 

Too bad I didn't see the advice here until now, but that's just my luck *LOL* I still want to explore the possibilities of Mac OS X BG games on the Mac Pro, but anything that requires spending more $$ will have to wait a couple months or so.

[Eric P.]

Almateria, on 30 Jul 2014 - 21:30, said:

OH MY GOD FINALLY WELCOME TO THE 21ST CENTURY BASK IN JONY IVE'S GLORY AND GENIUS

of course you can install it, except you need to do it through Wine or a full wineskinned game (that's what GOG uses)

don't do windows

in the finder side bar, enable the home folder and hard disks

install tinkertool

dont install yosemite

Thanks for the welcome *LOL* No clue who that person is who you referenced, but that shouldn't surprise you at this point

 

If Wine or Wineskin is necessary here, I'll check into that again. I started looking into it before, but lost patience and went with Parallels Desktop. No reason I can't do both, since I want the game accessible on both platforms.

 

I haven't used Tinkertool in a long time, and then only on my PPC Macs. Lately, the maintenance programs I like are MainMenu and OnyX, DiskWarrior, and iDefrag.

[Eric P.]

My conclusion is that only the Windows version of BG/BG2 can be played on an Intel Mac, through a virtual machine. If this is so, then I suppose I should keep things the way they are on my Mac Pro. I still have the Mac version of BG2 installed on my Quicksilver PPC Mac. Game performance delays are maddening, but the game is playable. At least this allows me to have "the best of both worlds," and I'll be able to test my own mods under both platforms.

[subtledoctor]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Eric P." data-cid="572094" data-time="1410793068">
It's truly amazing how fast and smooth everything moves on-screen in these games under Windows! It never behaves that way on the Mac; even the vanilla games feel kinda slowed down and stretched out in time on the Mac, for the way everything moves on-screen under Mac OS X. </blockquote>

I was going to ask about this until I saw you moved from a G4 Quicksilver. Welcome to the 21st century indeed! I think you're going to be very happy with the performance of modern Macs sporting Intel's best processors...

Edited by subtledoctor, 15 September 2014 - 10:47 AM.

[Eric P.]

Yes, I must admit I'm thrilled by the differences in performance with this Mac Pro. 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon is a vastly superior brain to the single 1.47 GHz PPC processor in the G4, and 32 GB RAM is infinitely preferable to 1.5 GB

 

Even the mod install process (and indeed, installing anything) moves along like lightning, and under Windows, I'm not seeing the warnings and error messages I'm used to seeing when I install mods under Mac OS X. It's a whole new world!

Edited by Eric P., 17 September 2014 - 06:28 AM.

[Yovaneth]

If you get any trouble with VirtualBox then consider moving to VMware instead; there's downloadable VMPlayer images from their website. RL means that I either see or daily use very many virtualisation products and of all of them, VirtualBox has given the most trouble.

[Eric P.]

Yovaneth, on 17 Sept 2014 - 10:10, said:

If you get any trouble with VirtualBox then consider moving to VMware instead; there's downloadable VMPlayer images from their website. RL means that I either see or daily use very many virtualisation products and of all of them, VirtualBox has given the most trouble.

Learning how to first properly install and configure Parallels Desktop, and which way to install and configure Windows, was a challenging experience, but I got everything situated just right for my needs. Currently in the middle of installing mods for BG2 (already handled BG1/ToSC), about to install kits and NPCs, then continue from there to finish installing and start playing.

[The Imp]

Eric P. said:

Learning how to first properly install and configure Parallels Desktop, and which way to install and configure Windows, was a challenging experience, but I got everything situated just right for my needs. Currently in the middle of installing mods for BG2 (already handled BG1/ToSC), about to install kits and NPCs, then continue from there to finish installing and start playing.

You did install he game outside the Programs Files folder ? As you will be using Windows...

[subtledoctor]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Yovaneth" data-cid="572126" data-time="1410948622"><p>
If you get any trouble with VirtualBox then consider moving to VMware instead; there's downloadable VMPlayer images from their website. RL means that I either see or daily use very many virtualisation products and of all of them, VirtualBox has given the most trouble.</p></blockquote>

Oh yeah VMWare is a far, far superior product. I just think that for the sole purpose of playing IE games, VMWare and Parallels are overkill.

Edit: I don't know why my quotes don't appear nicely... I just hit the "quote" button

Edited by subtledoctor, 03 November 2014 - 10:06 AM.