PC games on a mac

[OCSpersonel]

I am trying to convert to a mac fully and totally ditch my PC but i dont want to get new versions of my old pc games and i dont want to portion my hard drive and install windows via bootcamp just to play some games. is there any way i can convert my old pc games to run on my mac? im not talking pirating but maybe a software to use or a crack

[spinnerlys]

Depending on the graphic intensity you could try running windows games via a virtual machine like vmware or parallels.


And I don't know of a simple translator software, as it is Mac OS differs from Windows in a lot of ways under the hood.

[palebluedot]

Try Crossover Games

[OCSpersonel]

whats crossover games

[jmaquarry]

http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxgames/

created with the sole purpose of playing PC games on the Mac OS or linux
not compatible with all games - check their list of known compatible games first

:)

[uaecasher]

crossover is great :)

[MacRumorUser]

crossover is great :)

If you have the two or three games it actually plays reasonably well ;)

You could also try CIDER'ing your own, again with generally mixed results (but mostly poor).

Unless your only interested in playing older pc titles and still don't mind the odd bit of unstability / graphics corruption / sound issues, then unfortunetly the reality is...... if playing the pc game is important to you, then you may as well just keep a small portion of your computer open to bootcamp, the many 'solutions' to pc gaming (crossover/cider/parallels etc..) on a mac are really nothing to write home about.

[Rodus]

CrossOver plays some games great and others badly or not at all, the CodeWeavers site isnt the best place to check as sometimes they are out of date or wrong. Often best to do a google search to check compatibility.

[bob81]

i've still got a copy of mad gog mcree2 for the pc, dos version. i downloaded a dos emulator and couldnt get it to work. are there multiple versions of dos, as in a pc dos and a mac dos and thats why i couldnt get it to work, or am i just doing something wrong? when i put the disc in, it recognizes it and an icon that says mad dog mcree2 pops up. any advice?

[7031]

i've still got a copy of mad gog mcree2 for the pc, dos version. i downloaded a dos emulator and couldnt get it to work. are there multiple versions of dos, as in a pc dos and a mac dos and thats why i couldnt get it to work, or am i just doing something wrong? when i put the disc in, it recognizes it and an icon that says mad dog mcree2 pops up. any advice?
So have you tried DOSBox?

[OCSpersonel]

I looked into the crossover games, they only support one game i was looken for, EE2.

mabe i should add more specifics:
i have PC versions of:
COD4
COD5 WAW (nazi zombies mostly of coarse :)
The sims 2
sim city 4
Battlefield 2 & 2142

These are some basic games, probably not either sim game since ill just buy the next one that comes out and get the mac version, but definatly the shooters.

If Boot strapping is my only option please let me know, willing to try anything!

[eXan]

Bootcamp is really the best way to play Windows games.

[bob81]

So have you tried DOSBox?

yeah, dosbox is what i was using. most likely i was just doing something wrong. i am having a hell of a time finding some good step by step instructions on how to get it going if anyone has any suggestions or links?

[spencecb]

yeah, dosbox is what i was using. most likely i was just doing something wrong. i am having a hell of a time finding some good step by step instructions on how to get it going if anyone has any suggestions or links?

I haven't done much research into this, as I posted about an old game I'd like to play when I get a new Mac this summer, and someone suggested that DOSbox would do wonders. I might see if I can dig something up about it, work is kinda slow right now :eek:

[Huntn]

Bootcamp is really the best way to play Windows games.

He all ready has the games and mostly like has Windows too. Sounds like a plan to me.

[OCSpersonel]

yes i could find myself a copy of windows and the games although its going to be alot of work just to play games on my mac since i have no idea where my copy of windows xp is and i have no idea where my game codes are :(

is it really possible that no one has developed a program/method of getting pc games converted to mac OSX?

[Yotabyte]

yes i could find myself a copy of windows and the games although its going to be alot of work just to play games on my mac since i have no idea where my copy of windows xp is and i have no idea where my game codes are :(

is it really possible that no one has developed a program/method of getting pc games converted to mac OSX?

Not quite as easy as it sounds. The PC games are designed for Windows. Boot camp is your only real option as a gamer.

[techfreak85]

Bootcamp is really the best way to play Windows games.

it really is. With games you want it to be pretty native. Better preference etc.

OP, sounds like he has windows disks and games you dont have to make a big partition. Just big enough. How big is your harddrive?

[OCSpersonel]

well im either getting a new 24" mac with 500 gb. hard drive or a macbook with a 320gb. hard drive. but im also a graphic designer so im gona be running the adobe suite on it and using alot of space for that stuff

[Macguy1138]

I'd also love to play windows games on my mac. :D Crossover looks great it's just I don't wanna have to pay for it, cause there really is only one game that I'd wanna use it for. ;) And the trial only goes for 7 days. :(

[Dagless]

Bootcamp is the best method, try Crossover if you want to play with much lower settings. Or if you play Source games you need to drop a DirectX generation or 2 to get a comparable FPS rate compared to XP or Vista.

I used to partition off 32gb to XP when I had a small 160gb drive. I kept all my Windows games on an external drive (all Steam games) so they were portable and I could play them on any other PC. Now I have 500gb so I split the 2. Install the NTFS drivers for OSX and MacDrive for Windows and you can read/write to each drive from either OS.

[motoxpress]

I have almost every Video/Design application you can think of installed on my MBP (320gig) and I have a bootcamp partition for testing websites on IE and running games. It's not a problem at all. If it were, I would simply pop in a $100 500gig drive and be perfectly fine.

BTW I have tried Crossover and found it to be problematic. I couldn't even get it to play Age of Empires2, which is a 5-7 year old game. In Bootcamp, I can run any game I like very well.

-mx