My PC games are out for Mac, do I have to buy them again ?

[davrouk]

I have the following "play all the time" games for my PC

Quake III : Arena
Civ III
The Sims (with all expansion packs)
Sim City 4
Championship Manager 4

Now obviously these set me back a bit, and I dont want to have to buy them all again when I switch to an iMac.

I assume Quake III will be the easiest to re-use, as if I download the OS X demo surely I can just copy my PC ver. pak3 file across and use the same CD-Key ? Can anyone confirm/deny this?

Also, any way of me getting the others across without having to buy them again? The iMac is gonna clear me out, and I'll need some games to keep me going!

Cheers

[Jaykay]

Originally posted by davrouk
I have the following "play all the time" games for my PC

Quake III : Arena
Civ III
The Sims (with all expansion packs)
Sim City 4
Championship Manager 4

Now obviously these set me back a bit, and I dont want to have to buy them all again when I switch to an iMac.

I assume Quake III will be the easiest to re-use, as if I download the OS X demo surely I can just copy my PC ver. pak3 file across and use the same CD-Key ? Can anyone confirm/deny this?

Also, any way of me getting the others across without having to buy them again? The iMac is gonna clear me out, and I'll need some games to keep me going!

Cheers

No, i dont think its possible even if you have the pak3 file and the os x face. Most games for the mac have a lot of different code. The only thing i have ever got to work like this (and i have tried) are saved games. The engine is written quite differently on the mac so that may make it quite difficult (if it is at all possible).

[Xero]

Originally posted by Jaykay
No, i dont think its possible even if you have the pak3 file and the os x face. Most games for the mac have a lot of different code. The only thing i have ever got to work like this (and i have tried) are saved games. The engine is written quite differently on the mac so that may make it quite difficult (if it is at all possible).

Wrong, quake 3 is one of the games that will actually convert to Mac REALLY easily. just copy all your pack files over [i copied my whole quake 3 directory just to be safe] and download the latest _retail_ update/patch. just throw the patch files into the quake 3 directory and your good to go. even Q3F worked fine for me. :)

as for other games, you probably wont be so lucky. but anything using the quake3 engine [in theory] _should_ convert over fine with a recent mac patch thrown in the directory.

[CubeHacker]

I'm really curious about this too. I have a ton of PC games that also have Mac versions - Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, UT2k3, Deus Ex, Neverwinter Nights, and I do not want to have to repurchase the games over again.

Most of these games are identical except the Mac versions have different executable files and use different library files and API's. All the sounds, textures, maps, etc are exactly the same for both platforms. Technically for a game like UT, i should just be able to get a copy of the Mac /unrealtournament/system folder and then just copy the maps and the rest from my UT CD, and it should work. At least I hope so. Has anyone tried this to see if it works?

[MOFS]

You'll almost certainly need to get a new version of CM4. I have CM4 and none of the updates (which are almost identical to the PC ones) work on my copy. Try www.feral.co.uk for the official site for CM4 on the Mac, and www.macmend.com/cmformacforum/ for Mac related CM4 news.

Quake 3 will definitely work on the Mac - it works beautifully on my 600 Mhz iBook. The OS X patch is available from the Apple website - just search for Quake 3 on it. For the others, try www.macgold.co.uk for general enquiries - they generally point you in the general direction, and always have special offers - even on new games!

Hope this was useful.

mofs

[Brad Oliver]

Originally posted by davrouk
II assume Quake III will be the easiest to re-use, as if I download the OS X demo surely I can just copy my PC ver. pak3 file across and use the same CD-Key ? Can anyone confirm/deny this?

Typically, you can do this with games with the same developer and publisher on both sides of the fence. Of the list you mentioned, Quake 3 is the only one.

To do so with the others would be illegal - you're basically causing the development of the Mac port to lose money for the Mac publisher. When that happens, it affects the possibility of future ports from said publisher.

[rhpenguin]

Here is a direct link to the Apple site regarding Q3A.

Hope its a help.

Q3A Apple Site (http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2000/03/quake/)

[sethwerkheiser]

Originally posted by davrouk
I have the following "play all the time" games for my PC
The Sims (with all expansion packs)

You have to buy the whole new Sims packs. Sorry. My wife ran into this problem - we had every expansion pack and a TON of downloads from the internet. We had to buy everything all over again, and carefully pick through the downloaded items (some had filenames that didn't work on the Mac).

While it may be a pain, consider this. One day I took our iBook to work so my wife played the Sims at home on our Compaq (700mhz AMD, 320meg, XP Pro) and it crashed THREE times in like 4 hours (she plays the Sims while she cleans the house and stuff - at least that what she tells me ;) ). Since then she's played The Sims on the Mac and its been "up" for almost 7 days now. No crashes at all.

[jxyama]

i don't want to be like "well... duh" but this is sort of like asking if i can use the games i bought for ps2 on xbox...

be glad some of them can be ported to mac.

good luck.

[ZildjianKX]

Originally posted by jxyama
i don't want to be like "well... duh" but this is sort of like asking if i can use the games i bought for ps2 on xbox...

be glad some of them can be ported to mac.

good luck.

Well, the only difference is there are some games that work for the mac and PC... and dual formatted discs too :)

[deadpoet]

Originally posted by Xero
Wrong, quake 3 is one of the games that will actually convert to Mac REALLY easily. just copy all your pack files over [i copied my whole quake 3 directory just to be safe] and download the latest _retail_ update/patch. just throw the patch files into the quake 3 directory and your good to go. even Q3F worked fine for me. :)


I can confirm this. Quake 3 Arena for PC can be played on Mac OS X... you just need to download the latest patch for Mac OS X... you then copy the installed game directory on your PC over to your Mac. Then apply the game's patch. Bingo! Working copy :)

[Schiffi]

I had to download the patch recently so I'll provide a quick link for v1.3.2.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games_demoupdates/quakeiiiarenax.html