Age of Empires III for Mac (MacSoft Version)

[Dan08]

Hello Everyone,

With the recent update to Catalina, I am no longer able to play my old copy of Age of Empires III since it is 32-bit software. I saw that some folks are installing older versions of macOS on as virtual machines to use their old 32-bit apps, so I figured I would give that a try. Unfortunately I keep getting an error whenever I launch the game, and I think it is related to the way the game checks for the computer's graphics card. Basically, it is not playing friendly with the virtual machine. The error message I get when trying to launch it says, "An unrecoverable error has occurred, and Age of Empires III cannot continue." I have tried this on two of my Macs, one MacMini running Movave in VMWare, and also on a MacBook Air running Lion on Parallels. I think there must be a way I can edit some of the game's XML files to trick it into "passing" the graphics inspection it does on startup, but I'm not sure how. Are there any other fan's of Age of Empires out there who have run into this problem and solved it? I would just buy and play the Windows version on Steam, but that would cost more money and also I would lose all of my saved progress! Thanks for reading this and any thoughts you may have!

 

[Plutonius]

Why are you running VMWare or Parallels for the macOS game ?

You should be able to install Mojave natively on an external drive and install / run your macOS version of the game from there.

My recommendation though is to run any 32 bit games in steam under bootcamp.

If you own the macOS version in Steam, you also own the Windows version in Steam.

I'm not sure about this game but many games also allow you to manually copy saved games to transfer them between macOS and Windows.

 

[Dan08]

Why are you running VMWare or Parallels for the macOS game ?

You should be able to install Mojave natively on an external drive and install / run your macOS version of the game from there.

My recommendation though is to run any 32 bit games in steam under bootcamp.

If you own the macOS version in Steam, you also own the Windows version in Steam.

I'm not sure about this game but many games also allow you to manually copy saved games to transfer them between macOS and Windows.

That's definitely a great idea. I will install Mojave on an external drive connected to my MacMini and try running the game that way. I'll update this thread with the results.

The only issue I may have is running it that way on my MacBook Air. The MacBook Air shipped with Catalina (it is one if the latest ones), and my understanding is that it won't run an operating system that is older than the one it shipped with. I could be wrong though, so I'll try it.

Ideally I would like to be able to play the game multiplayer between the two computers.

Using Windows like you mentioned is always another option, and I may end up doing that. I think I have figured out how I would theoretically transfer the save files. Unfortunately the Mac version of the game is not on Steam, so I would still need to purchase that. But regardless, its always another option.

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll try them and see how it works.

 

[Dan08]

Unfortunately I kept getting the prohibitory symbol whenever I would start up either of my computers from the external drive running Mojave.

I kinda gave up and just ended up running Windows 10 on the VM and getting the Windows version of the game on steam. It has worked fine on my MacBook Air running Parallels so far, but crashed a few times on my Mac Mini with VM Ware. I think that my base MacMini model doesn’t quite have the resources to keep up with running the game in the VM (even with the graphics options in the game set to the minimums).

 

[jackerin]

Unfortunately I kept getting the prohibitory symbol whenever I would start up either of my computers from the external drive running Mojave.

Just to check, did you enable external booting in the T2 settings?

 

[Dan08]

Just to check, did you enable external booting in the T2 settings?

Thanks for the troubleshooting tip!

In order to create the bootable drive, I first created a USB stick with the Mojave installer on it. I already ran into the issue of not being able to boot the installer off of the USB stick without changing these settings at that point. So I disabled all the security settings in order to install Mojave on the external drive (from an external drive). But you just reminded me that I should probably re-enable the settings, so thanks!

 

[Jack Neill]

Why external? just make another container and install Mojave.

 

[KALLT]

I don’t think multiplayer is an option anymore. It used to work with GameRanger, but that stopped working even before Mojave.

 

[Dan08]

Why external? just make another container and install Mojave.

Unfortunately, the base model MacMini I wanted to run it on has a tiny HD that was almost full.

I don’t think multiplayer is an option anymore. It used to work with GameRanger, but that stopped working even before Mojave.

Yeah, GameRanger stopped working a long time ago. I was just hoping to play on LAN with a friend between my two computers.

 

[Jack Neill]

Unfortunately, the base model MacMini I wanted to run it on has a tiny HD that was almost full.



Yeah, GameRanger stopped working a long time ago. I was just hoping to play on LAN with a friend between my two computers.

I was so close to pulling the trigger on a new mini a few months ago but that 128 drive was not going to cut and I decided to just buy an even bigger SSD for my MBP 9,2 instead. Hope you get your game working working AOE3 was a good one. I hope there's a definitive edition coming on 10 soon. I enjoyed the DE of 1/2

 

[ceokev69]

Hello Everyone,

With the recent update to Catalina, I am no longer able to play my old copy of Age of Empires III since it is 32-bit software. I saw that some folks are installing older versions of macOS on as virtual machines to use their old 32-bit apps, so I figured I would give that a try. Unfortunately I keep getting an error whenever I launch the game, and I think it is related to the way the game checks for the computer's graphics card. Basically, it is not playing friendly with the virtual machine. The error message I get when trying to launch it says, "An unrecoverable error has occurred, and Age of Empires III cannot continue." I have tried this on two of my Macs, one MacMini running Movave in VMWare, and also on a MacBook Air running Lion on Parallels. I think there must be a way I can edit some of the game's XML files to trick it into "passing" the graphics inspection it does on startup, but I'm not sure how. Are there any other fan's of Age of Empires out there who have run into this problem and solved it? I would just buy and play the Windows version on Steam, but that would cost more money and also I would lose all of my saved progress! Thanks for reading this and any thoughts you may have!

Hi, I have the same issues, did you find a way to play AOE 3? Im close to buying a 2011 iMac just to play the game