Starcraft on Intel Macs

[CANEHDN]

I've just got my new 20" Intel iMac w/ 2GB RAM and 256VRAM. I installed and tried Starcraft on it. Runs perfect. Just thought every would like to know. And one more thing. You have to get one of these. I've never seen a Mac run so fast. It's so awesome, it gives me shivers.

[ReanimationLP]

Thanks for the info! :) Glad to see a fellow SC lover.

[Gatorman]

That's awesome to know! I was hoping that Starcraft wouldn't end up collecting dust when I get my MBP......come on grad school accceptance!

[Compatiblepoker]

It's so awesome, it gives me shivers.


They are awesome huh. I was in the Apple store the other day and I was trying them out. Pretty darn nice.

Roger

[csubear]

how did you get it to install? I thought the install for sc was OS 9? And rosetta doesn't run OS 9 app?

[yippy]

Blizzard released a Mac OS X installer so you can install and play it without needing any OS 9 support.

Good to hear, I love Starcraft. Any word on if Diablo II works on Intel Macs?

[jared_kipe]

Havn't installed starcraft since I first got a mac. I just keep copying my backup off my external hard drive.

[Macmaniac]

Starcraft is still one of the best games out there. There are still over 10,000 active users on Battle.net at anyone time. I am glad to hear that it will run on Intel Macs. Its one of the best games ever, and I have no problems saying that.

Hopefully Blizzard will get off its WoW ass, and make starcraft II

[ezekielrage_99]

I love Starcraft it is still one of the best games out there, glad to hear that it works on an Intel Mac.

I glad to hear Blizzard is actually bringing out some Apple support because it always seems that Windows users get all there issues fixed way before any Apple people do.

[gamestriker]

I had actually made a post about this and they linked me here. Great to know Starcraft works well on Intel Macs.

Hopefully Blizzard will get off its WoW ass, and make starcraft II

YES! Please!

I've been dying for them to make another Starcraft. It's one of the most balanced RTS games ever, one of the best storylines, and like you said, its very active still. My only worry is that Blizzard will screw it up since, from what I've been told, a lot of the original Starcraft guys have left Blizzard.

That aside, I have a huge list of things that I believe could (and need to) be improved upon, as SC has so much potential by itself. If they could bring out that potential in a sequel without screwing it up, we could have an RTS Renaissance in the gaming world on both PC and Mac.

[jerisbrisk]

So Starcraft works fine (from CD or from a CD image made with the Disk Utility).

Brood War, however, does not. 2 reasons:
1) Imaging. You cannot image it successfully as either read-only or compressed via Disk Utility or command line. (It throws an "invalid argument" error towards the end of the process). You can image it as a CD/DVD Master, but Brood War fails to recognize it as the actual CD. There are two possible causes that I can divine from direct comparison:

the image's mount name is different from the CD's (the CD mounts as '/Volumes/Brood War CD 1' whereas the image mounts as '/Volumes/Brood War CD'. I renamed the volume after mounting it (using 'disktool -n [old] [new]'), but that didn't fix the problem, so that leaves...
the image is not read-only. i've done some digging but haven't figured out a way to convert the mounted volume to read-only. doubtless, someone will suggest using the Disk Utility to convert the CD/DVD Master image to a read-only one, but that fails in the exact same manner as trying to create a read-only image directly does...


2) Networking. So, what, i'll just play with the disc, you say? Fair enough. Except that the game crashes regularly when attempting to play over the local network. (I haven't tried battle.net yet as my friend and i were itching to beat up on the computer). In any event, as soon as i would select his game in the menu, my Brood War would hang (sometimes badly enough to lock up my MacBook altogether, being that it was stuck in full-screen mode). We were able to play once but my MacBook locked up within 30 seconds of game start.

I truly hope they release a universal binary or a patch ASAP... I love playing Starcraft, but Brood War is so much better!

(I may just give in and play Warcraft III... also a good game, but it's just not the same. ;)

-jer

[Rocksaurus]

So Brood War multiplayer doesn't work on Intel Macs??? I'm anxious to hear if battle.net does... Honestly as it stands now if Starcraft can't go Intel then there's no reason for me to go intel. Unless Starcraft 2 comes out :)

[WinterMute]

Blizzard released a Mac OS X installer so you can install and play it without needing any OS 9 support.

Good to hear, I love Starcraft. Any word on if Diablo II works on Intel Macs?

I'll let you know....

My iMac should be here on Thursday, and as Diablo II is a fixture on my machines as a quick WoW antidote then it'll be installed quick sharp.

[t0ast]

Brood War, however, does not. 2 reasons:
1) Imaging. You cannot image it successfully as either read-only or compressed via Disk Utility or command line. (It throws an "invalid argument" error towards the end of the process). You can image it as a CD/DVD Master, but Brood War fails to recognize it as the actual CD. There are two possible causes that I can divine from direct comparison:

the image's mount name is different from the CD's (the CD mounts as '/Volumes/Brood War CD 1' whereas the image mounts as '/Volumes/Brood War CD'. I renamed the volume after mounting it (using 'disktool -n [old] [new]'), but that didn't fix the problem, so that leaves...
the image is not read-only. i've done some digging but haven't figured out a way to convert the mounted volume to read-only. doubtless, someone will suggest using the Disk Utility to convert the CD/DVD Master image to a read-only one, but that fails in the exact same manner as trying to create a read-only image directly does...

Did you try locking it? That used to work for a lot of CD images.
If that doesn't work, try using Toast Titanium, excellent application for burning and creating disk-images. By the way: my CD-image mounts as "Brood War CD", and it works. (mounted by toast)

2) Networking. So, what, i'll just play with the disc, you say? Fair enough. Except that the game crashes regularly when attempting to play over the local network. (I haven't tried battle.net yet as my friend and i were itching to beat up on the computer). In any event, as soon as i would select his game in the menu, my Brood War would hang (sometimes badly enough to lock up my MacBook altogether, being that it was stuck in full-screen mode). We were able to play once but my MacBook locked up within 30 seconds of game start.

I had a similar problem with Starcraft some time ago, and still have from time to time, reinstalling SC helped, although its still too slow. I've been pondering about what could be causing that, but I haven't been able to put my finger on anything, my guess would be that SC and Os X networking doesn't go along very well.

[DougTheImpaler]

I am very glad to hear that at least the single-player stuff works with StarCraft. I posted the contents of a letter I got from Blizzard on the OSX86Project forums back when the iMac and MBP were released and Blizzard said they worked fine under Rosetta. I'm concerned that multiplayer isn't working properly and if that's the case, Intel-based Mac owners need to let Blizz know...maybe if enough people complain of multiplayer issues or game issues, they'll compile it as a UB. I'm very interested in getting a new Mini, as they're certainly down into my price range, and I love StarCraft. I play it fine in OS X now, but I don't want to lose that software (or Diablo II) going to Intel. When I get a Mini, I'll try it out but you can guarantee that Blizz will find out about it if I have problems, and you should tell them too.

[Haoshiro]

I had no problem creating an image of Brood War... I did it right after I got my Intel iMac, 02/04/2006. Image is 556.6MB

I have yet to try a LAN game with other people. I started a game and had the other player slots on CPU - THAT worked fine.

[jerisbrisk]

So Brood War multiplayer doesn't work on Intel Macs??? I'm anxious to hear if battle.net does... Honestly as it stands now if Starcraft can't go Intel then there's no reason for me to go intel. Unless Starcraft 2 comes out :)


To clarify... Battle.net's lobby seemed to work fine. It's the Brood War local network lobby that consistently crashes / hangs.

The Starcraft local network lobby and local network gameplay worked flawlessly every time.

My best guess is that there is some incompatability introduced by the Rosetta translation of the Brood War UDP/IP socket communications.

-jer

[jerisbrisk]

I had no problem creating an image of Brood War... I did it right after I got my Intel iMac, 02/04/2006. Image is 556.6MB

I have yet to try a LAN game with other people. I started a game and had the other player slots on CPU - THAT worked fine.

What kind of image?

Read-only?
Compressed?
CD/DVD Master?

As i said, CD/DVD Master images create successfully, but Brood War won't recognize it for some reason (no use rehashing that here).

As to why your machine had no troubles... the iMac is a different machine. Same processor, yes. But it has a different disc drive (a double-layer one), so that could be part of it.

Interestingly enough, i've read other online accounts from last fall where people had the exact same issue as me on older iMacs, which i believe also had single-layer drives.

[jerisbrisk]

Did you try locking it? That used to work for a lot of CD images.
If that doesn't work, try using Toast Titanium, excellent application for burning and creating disk-images. By the way: my CD-image mounts as "Brood War CD", and it works. (mounted by toast)


Good tips, t0ast! I locked the CD/DVD Image (.cdr) file and re-named its mounted volume back to "Brood War CD" and voila! (And I didn't have to use Toast at all)! Thanks :)

I also tried hosting a localhost Brood War network game, which worked fine. However, that likely circumvents whatever the hardware conflict is that causes the crash in actual LAN games.

[Rocksaurus]

To clarify... Battle.net's lobby seemed to work fine. It's the Brood War local network lobby that consistently crashes / hangs.

The Starcraft local network lobby and local network gameplay worked flawlessly every time.

My best guess is that there is some incompatability introduced by the Rosetta translation of the Brood War UDP/IP socket communications.

-jer

What about battle.net games?

[Mechcozmo]

the image is not read-only. i've done some digging but haven't figured out a way to convert the mounted volume to read-only. doubtless, someone will suggest using the Disk Utility to convert the CD/DVD Master image to a read-only one, but that fails in the exact same manner as trying to create a read-only image directly does...

Select the image in the Finder. Get Info on it. Check the "Locked" box. Magic, instant read-only disk image.

As to why your machine had no troubles... the iMac is a different machine. Same processor, yes. But it has a different disc drive (a double-layer one), so that could be part of it.

Hate to break it to you, but the MacBook Pro has a dual-layer drive too. That is, it can read dual-layer discs. It can't burn them. But CDs haven't ever been dual-layered anyways (DVDs are though).

[jerisbrisk]

Hate to break it to you, but the MacBook Pro has a dual-layer drive too. That is, it can read dual-layer discs. It can't burn them. But CDs haven't ever been dual-layered anyways (DVDs are though).

Thanks for underscoring my point. The dual-layer drive in the iMac is has different electronics and therefore different firmware than the super-slim single-layer drive in the MacBook... therefore it may not throw the same errors that mine does when burning a read-only or compressed dmg.

Anyone else encounter LAN (non-Battle.net) game crashes in Brood War?

[DougTheImpaler]

Anyone else encounter LAN (non-Battle.net) game crashes in Brood War?

I plan on ordering a 17" iMac later this week, so I hope to get them soon...

...errrrr...:eek:

[jerisbrisk]

So now that the disc image is working I tried a Brood War LAN game with my friend and lo and behold... it seemed to work fine, as long as I hosted.

Strange stuff.

[Zorn]

I tried this on my Macbook Pro 2Ghz with 2GB RAM, after running the installer, and putting in the CD Key, then selecting where to install it, it spits out the CD and says "Please insert the CD labeled Starcraft"

Anyone run into this?

[jerisbrisk]

I tried this on my Macbook Pro 2Ghz with 2GB RAM, after running the installer, and putting in the CD Key, then selecting where to install it, it spits out the CD and says "Please insert the CD labeled Starcraft"

Anyone run into this?

If memory serves, i ran into that when I tried installing off of my ancient version 1.0 Starcraft PC CD-ROM, the one before they had the PC / Mac Hybrid disc.

I had to go out and drop $20 to get a recent copy of the Starcraft Battlechest with the hybrid discs.

[Mechcozmo]

I tried this on my Macbook Pro 2Ghz with 2GB RAM, after running the installer, and putting in the CD Key, then selecting where to install it, it spits out the CD and says "Please insert the CD labeled Starcraft"

Anyone run into this?


Did you choose the Brood War install option or the StarCraft option? IIRC, it throws the same error for both install CDs.

[OraclePhoenix]

I have a Intel Mac Mini with a 20' Apple cinema display. but when I play starcraft in full screen mode with crop it to a 600X800 window. Does anyone have a solution for this problem?

[Nermal]

I had to go out and drop $20 to get a recent copy of the Starcraft Battlechest with the hybrid discs.

Back in 2003 Blizzard would swap the discs for $10. I have no idea whether they still will.

[iProd]

It's one of the most balanced RTS games ever, one of the best storylines, and like you said, its very active still. My only worry is that Blizzard will screw it up since, from what I've been told, a lot of the original Starcraft guys have left Blizzard.


That's why I think they should just release expansion packs and leave everything else alone :D

[cyberdogl2]

i love starcraft to death and im glad it runs well on intel macs. if it didn't i wouldn't get one. the game is that good.

[Haoshiro]

Nope, sounds like you might have one of the very rare Windows-only discs!

Speaking of Starcraft, has anyone seen "Project Revolution"? It's a Starcraft: Broodwar total conversion for Warcraft 3! For some reason it really excites me, maybe just because it is "activity" in regards to SC! heh.

[DougTheImpaler]

The other problem I've seen with the OS X installer on at least one Intel-based Mac is that if you're doing both StarCraft and BroodWars, you have to put the BW CD in first, then it apparently ejects the BW CD but it also ejects the DMG with the installer on it, and you have to re-mount the installer before inserting the CD.

[caseybruns]

I just got a new Mac Book Pro and before I had an old iMac with OS 9.x. I ried to install my star craft gae on there and it said I couldn't install it. Is there anyway I can get it to work?

[Doraemon]

Starcraft patches and OS X installer.

http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=msc0411p

[Miguey]

Go starcraft!

[Agathon]

I love Starcraft it is still one of the best games out there, glad to hear that it works on an Intel Mac.

I glad to hear Blizzard is actually bringing out some Apple support because it always seems that Windows users get all there issues fixed way before any Apple people do.

You should really not say that.

Blizzard is hands down the best Mac game developer. They release everything for both platforms simultaneously and their Mac tech support is better than their Windows tech support in my experience.

Case in point: Blizzard was incredibly quick in releasing a UB of WoW.

[fansub]

one thing that people have failed to mention is that the cinematics dont work properly in starcraft while playing on an intel, the gameplay its self is fine though and ive never had any problems installing it or playing LAN games either. maybe some peoples disks are just wearing a bit thin these days?