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thanoulas

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 13, 2013
29
3
Is it your intention that the reviews are primarily a place to review how the game performs with Barrel/Wine? Is that an appropriate place to list added steps for trouble free installation? I wasn't sure if they were meant to review the game itself or how the game runs with Barrel.
Well, the reviews should show the general experience the user had playing the game on his Mac. So I wouldn't expect to see a good review if the game had 5 FPS, but if a game performed well, it would make sense that a user would rate it 5 stars and comment on what a good game it was, if you understand what I mean. Both are acceptable.

I'll hold off on a review (do those upload yet?) until I hear from you about the best way to communicate the info I'm talking about here for other users.
Yes, they do upload fine. There is just no interface for showing them yet.

I did upload the wrapper. I keep forgetting the term you use for them! I'll remember eventually... Creating the account and doing that worked fine. I noticed some options there but I don't see how to get back to them now. It seems like once you upload the option to do so and the rest that goes with it disappears? I forget now what options I saw there with the login. Maybe they only apply when there doing that?
"Recipes", as the wrapper is not actually uploaded anywhere. Just information on how you made it run. You can go to the preferences by going to the application's menu at the top and clicking "Barrel > Preferences"

The only thing I had to do before running it, it was to install via winetricks the dx9. Which brings me to my question: The game's installer offered the option to install dx9 included in the game media, but I didn't check it during install. Do you recommend (generally) to choose the dx9 bundled in the game's media or is it better to skip it and install it via winetricks ?
Thanks a lot! You should generally avoid installing the native windows directx libraries, if possible. A game will generally perform better with wine's internal .dll's if they successfully work. Of course, if the game doesn't work with wine's libraries, you should then try native ones.
 

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
System specs? Any chance you have an ATI graphics card?

MacBook Pro
15-inch, Mid 2010
2.4 GHz Intel Core i5
8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M

Odd thing is that the cut scene which is rendered with the game engine, worked beautifully.

Update : Also tried it with TF2 and that played kinda poorly as well. About 80% of the normal OSX TF2.
 
Last edited:

thanoulas

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 13, 2013
29
3
MacBook Pro
15-inch, Mid 2010
2.4 GHz Intel Core i5
8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M

Odd thing is that the cut scene which is rendered with the game engine, worked beautifully.

Update : Also tried it with TF2 and that played kinda poorly as well. About 80% of the normal OSX TF2.
Unfortunately, our graphics cards (I've got the same mbp) are not exactly cut-out for gaming. Just make sure you don't install directx during the installation. If you don't have a choice and the game automatically installs this for you, go to Advanced Settings > Winetricks > Settings, select alldlls=builtin and run winetricks, and take it from there. And, do lower your graphics settings, wine's 3d performance is normally lower than either native windows or native mac applications
 

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
Unfortunately, our graphics cards (I've got the same mbp) are not exactly cut-out for gaming. Just make sure you don't install directx during the installation. If you don't have a choice and the game automatically installs this for you, go to Advanced Settings > Winetricks > Settings, select alldlls=builtin and run winetricks, and take it from there. And, do lower your graphics settings, wine's 3d performance is normally lower than either native windows or native mac applications

Tried that and now it starts to launch and then gives me a quick white screen and back to Steam. :( Yes, it did install direct-x, I'm sure of that. I'll look at WineHQ and see if I can figure out some settings to make it work.
 

thanoulas

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 13, 2013
29
3
Barrel updated

Barrel 0.9 Beta 6 is now available! With Wineskin/Cider/Native support! Put all your games in one place!

New Features:
  • Your games are no longer organised in genres. They were dropped in favour of multiple bundle type support! Which means...
  • Barrel now supports Wineskin, Cider and Native bundles! All your games in one place!
  • The new bundle types also have their own icons in the sidebar now!
  • Launch the Wineskin config tool from within Barrel
  • You can now change the active Wine engine in a bundle!
  • NOTICE!!!! Please close and restart Barrel after the update! It is important so that your library is properly converted!
Bugfixes:
  • Fixed a bug that would cause Barrel to stay unresponsive when cancelling an import and starting a new one
  • Fixed a bug that wouldn't allow the Wine engines to be cached locally
  • Fixed a conflict on macs that also had OpenEmu installed
  • Other minor bugfixes and speed impovements
 

Paulyboy

macrumors 6502
Jan 26, 2007
361
17
Is there a way to get a game working with Barrel without the installation executable? I have a few games already installed on my computer in Wine wrappers that no longer work and thought I could get them to work again with Barrel. Could I remove the games from their respective wrappers and then just use them with Barrel somehow?

Great app by the way and keep up the good work!

-PN
 

thanoulas

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 13, 2013
29
3
What kind of wrappers are they? I plan on adding support to convert wineskin wrappers to Barrel.

You could also try creating an empty wrapper, then moving the game's directory inside Barrel's program files. Then point the executable to the game's executable and give it a try!
 

Paulyboy

macrumors 6502
Jan 26, 2007
361
17
What kind of wrappers are they? I plan on adding support to convert wineskin wrappers to Barrel.

You could also try creating an empty wrapper, then moving the game's directory inside Barrel's program files. Then point the executable to the game's executable and give it a try!

I think they are Wineskin wrappers. I will give that a try when I get a chance and report back here. Thanks.

-PN
 

atarria

macrumors member
Oct 4, 2009
38
0
about RIFT in Barrel

The Rift's hardware detector meets a fatal error.

It is possible to put Rift into Barrel but when it runs there is a graphics error asking for an update to the AMD driver. The screen remains black while music plays.

So close, but yet so far away.
 

thanoulas

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 13, 2013
29
3

Boobsandbacon

macrumors newbie
Jan 16, 2013
10
12
Thanks for this app, hoping it will get better in due time. I'm just having problems installing games. When I install it either fails or it does install but nothing shows up. I'm on the latest version as of November 19th
 

moondynejoe

macrumors newbie
Dec 18, 2010
5
0
Thanks for this app, hoping it will get better in due time. I'm just having problems installing games. When I install it either fails or it does install but nothing shows up. I'm on the latest version as of November 19th

I am having a similar problem i installed raptor (from gog) and it seemed to go ok but nothing is showing up in the library. I also dragged and dropped a few native games but they dont show up either but hey went somewhere because they arent in my app folder anymore. Am i missing something obvious?

In any case this is a great idea and i am looking forward to seeing it elvolve.

Ps. I am using mavericks on a 27" imac with i7 and 680mx in case that info is useful.
 

Lord Hamsa

macrumors 6502a
Jul 16, 2013
698
675
I tried Barrel last night, but what I was trying to port in were GOG downloads, which really don't seem to fit the model of disk image or EXE, but rather a collection of installer files. Is there something else I should do, like maybe make an .ISO of the installer files before dropping it into Barrel?
 

Lord Hamsa

macrumors 6502a
Jul 16, 2013
698
675
Still no dice with GOG downloads (trying Neverwinter Nights as my test application) - I point Barrel to the installer .exe (with the .bin files in the same folder) and I get a message to the effect of no application files to install found.

Also, a second issue - I got a handful of PopCap games to install and run using the manual settings (specifically, using the NoFlicker engine) but when I copy the generated applications to my Applications folder, other accounts on the same machine see them, but they don't work when launched from those accounts. Maybe a permissions issue of some sort?
 
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