The problem is that the bundle I created is a Steam app so if I upload the bundle, the people who download it will automatically log into my own Steam account...
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Barrel - Play Windows games on OS X
- Thread starter thanoulas
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
The problem is that the bundle I created is a Steam app so if I upload the bundle, the people who download it will automatically log into my own Steam account...
Nope, don't worry about that! Barrel doesn't upload the actual Bundle on the server, just information on what you used to make the game run! So when a user installs the game you uploaded, Barrel gets a new copy of Steam for him, asks him to login and download the game with their own account, and then installs any winetricks you used to make the game play! Simple as that!
No steam login info and no password, are EVER captured by Barrel, or transferred to a remote server. Never.
I went and found the info on Steamguard too after posting where I was curious. I guess that solves that problem well enough. Good to know.
I grabbed Barrel and am presently working on Fallout 3 GOTY from Steam. I need to learn how/where to enter bugs for you. I bookmarked your page for the app but I guess i need to find the github page again and become familiar with how that works.
I tried to add a new steam game and did a search for Fallout 3 when prompted. It returned there is no such entry, etc. I figured it wouldn't be in there but just for the hell of it, I tried next to search on Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition. The app didn't like that. It searched endlessly until I terminated it and started over. Next try, I searched for Fallout 3 GOTY as by now I'd looked it up on AppDB for info and they list it as such there. Not in the database yet so I went for the manual option.
So far so good, Winetricks did its thing and installed Steam. Next, I downloaded Fallout 3 GOTY and then exited Steam. Stole a pic from Amazon.com and set it up. Fired up the game again which launched Steam. So I chose the game and hit Play to begin the install process Steam runs.
Right now it seems to be hung on step 4, installing .NET but it might just be slow. I'll wait it out for a while as from what I've read there's no known issue with this for this game.
I seemed to have picked something of a winner here judging by AppDB but I wonder how much of the messing around is really necessary. We'll see. One thing that dawned on me so far doing this where it is manual and I may need to install a foreign DLL downloaded from elsewhere on the net is that is kind of a problem for uploading a working wrapper - what about any DLLs it depends on that you have to get from who knows where, like in this case?
The DLL in question is said to be needed by Games for Windows Live but I am going to see if that is really true and try starting up without it. If it does need it though, will there be some way to add additional instructions to an uploaded wrapper? I did need to use Winecfg to make one edit for the mouse but otherwise the tweaks are related to the game itself rather than Wine.
I grabbed Barrel and am presently working on Fallout 3 GOTY from Steam. I need to learn how/where to enter bugs for you. I bookmarked your page for the app but I guess i need to find the github page again and become familiar with how that works.
I tried to add a new steam game and did a search for Fallout 3 when prompted. It returned there is no such entry, etc. I figured it wouldn't be in there but just for the hell of it, I tried next to search on Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition. The app didn't like that. It searched endlessly until I terminated it and started over. Next try, I searched for Fallout 3 GOTY as by now I'd looked it up on AppDB for info and they list it as such there. Not in the database yet so I went for the manual option.
So far so good, Winetricks did its thing and installed Steam. Next, I downloaded Fallout 3 GOTY and then exited Steam. Stole a pic from Amazon.com and set it up. Fired up the game again which launched Steam. So I chose the game and hit Play to begin the install process Steam runs.
Right now it seems to be hung on step 4, installing .NET but it might just be slow. I'll wait it out for a while as from what I've read there's no known issue with this for this game.
I seemed to have picked something of a winner here judging by AppDB but I wonder how much of the messing around is really necessary. We'll see. One thing that dawned on me so far doing this where it is manual and I may need to install a foreign DLL downloaded from elsewhere on the net is that is kind of a problem for uploading a working wrapper - what about any DLLs it depends on that you have to get from who knows where, like in this case?
The DLL in question is said to be needed by Games for Windows Live but I am going to see if that is really true and try starting up without it. If it does need it though, will there be some way to add additional instructions to an uploaded wrapper? I did need to use Winecfg to make one edit for the mouse but otherwise the tweaks are related to the game itself rather than Wine.
Last edited:
I can't see why Fallout 3 would need .Net? I have the standard DVD version, and I didn't run into any issues like that. Must be some Steam dependancy for some reason. If it doesn't finish, try installing it first from Winetricks. GFWL, is another thing that wasn't needed for me, especially for steam games.
An easy way to find the github page is through Barrel's website, there's a "Report Bug" link at the top!
Edit: I just saw the appdb guide. Man that looks complicated!
These are instructions on how to install the game on Wine, without winetricks. You should be ok without doing all these. Install the game, try and run it first, before going to the next step. If it doesn't work, and the guide says you should install some kind of dll, look in Advanced > Winetricks first. Install it from there and try again!
Last edited:
I can't see why Fallout 3 would need .Net? I have the standard DVD version, and I didn't run into any issues like that. Must be some Steam dependancy for some reason. If it doesn't finish, try installing it first from Winetricks. GFWL, is another thing that wasn't needed for me, especially for steam games.
An easy way to find the github page is through Barrel's website, there's a "Report Bug" link at the top!
Edit: I just saw the appdb guide. Man that looks complicated!
These are instructions on how to install the game on Wine, without winetricks. You should be ok without doing all these. Install the game, try and run it first, before going to the next step. If it doesn't work, and the guide says you should install some kind of dll, look in Advanced > Winetricks first. Install it from there and try again!
The game does require .NET and it does require Games for Windows Live, at least the Steam version does. GFWL integrated right into it. I have it installed in bootcamp. I own over a dozen Steam games that also need GFWL. I just installed them all because GFWL is going away July 1st, 2014 so best to play them now...
Thanks for the info on how to easily find github.
.NET was just slow. It did complete in its own good time.
I got as far as seeing the game's launcher and configuring settings using it and enabling the DLC. Once I choose Play to actually fire up the game itself though, nothing happens.
I am a little confused about whether Wine by default is set to be 32 bit or 64 bit and I perused Winetricks Settings but did not see anything there allowing me to configure that. This matters because they are wanting me to put that DLL in syswow64 within Windows so I presume it is a 64 bit DLL. By default, I noticed there is no syswow64 in Windows. So I created it for the hell of it and put the file there. No joy. I took it back out. No joy.
At this point I am thinking an attempt to install GFWL manually might be a good idea but I don't see any straightforward way to run the installer within the Fallout 3 app now. Which leads me to wonder, how would one install a patch file to an older game or any game for that matter if need be manually? How would you execute it within the same environment as the game using Barrel? The answer to this would tell me how to run the GFWL installer in the Fallout 3 app so I can manually install it there to see if that is the issue here.
Slight functionality issue that I just experienced. I went to test the steam games. First thing it comes up with is "select genre" prompt. Ok, that's fine but some games I'm not sure of. But I selected "Action" to get started (doesn't seem to matter I always get the same list of games to select from). But on the next prompt where you select the game name. If you don't see the name of the game do you select "Steam Box" type thing? Second, is the CANCEL button doesn't work. And third, please put a BACK button in case someone selects the wrong Genre.
Hi,
just downloaded Barrel how do I manually instal a Steam Game how do I get the game from steam on my mac so i can add it to barrel or whatever, Cheers
just downloaded Barrel how do I manually instal a Steam Game how do I get the game from steam on my mac so i can add it to barrel or whatever, Cheers
Success! At least it appears to be so far for Fallout 3 GOTY Steam.
At the end of the day you only need to make one tweak with Winecfg related to the mouse and you do need the DLL I mentioned earlier which is linked in the AppDB instructions for the game, the rest of which for a Mac user can be safely ignored. Lastly, the DLL can go in Windows\System32 where it will be found and then all is wonderful. The game starts right up from the launcher and does so quickly I might add.
I intend to play this game now start to finish and will contribute a review on Barrel when I've completed it about the game itself as well as how well it runs with Wine, Barrel, any issues, etc. I guess there is a place I can mention how easy it is to setup (once you figure it out!) for other's benefit. I can't see uploading the wrapper because it is missing that critical DLL file and currently Barrel offers me no way to warn someone it isn't going to work without it, where to get it, where to put it, etc.
So, some tough going related to Fallout 3 itself with Wine but Barrel was fine overall. The only thing I'd like to see after this experience is a way to run a patch or whatnot on an installed game, using Barrel, something along the lines of "Install Additional Software" as an advanced option would be goodness.
I'll go poke around github soon as I assume that is where you really want bugs and other feedback probably rather than here. I just wanted to stick to here for my first adventure with Barrel.
Thanks for making this. I think it has a great deal of potential. I can see from various questions here that it's really going to need some good docs and hopefully their content within online help especially for those who've never messed with any of this before. This stuff really isn't rocket science at all but for people who've never really tinkered with any of it I'm sure it can be completely bewildering.
I'm so pleased I can play Fallout 3 now in OS X! Yay!!! And I've got it running at maximal settings at 1440p too. Nicenesss.
At the end of the day you only need to make one tweak with Winecfg related to the mouse and you do need the DLL I mentioned earlier which is linked in the AppDB instructions for the game, the rest of which for a Mac user can be safely ignored. Lastly, the DLL can go in Windows\System32 where it will be found and then all is wonderful. The game starts right up from the launcher and does so quickly I might add.
I intend to play this game now start to finish and will contribute a review on Barrel when I've completed it about the game itself as well as how well it runs with Wine, Barrel, any issues, etc. I guess there is a place I can mention how easy it is to setup (once you figure it out!) for other's benefit. I can't see uploading the wrapper because it is missing that critical DLL file and currently Barrel offers me no way to warn someone it isn't going to work without it, where to get it, where to put it, etc.
So, some tough going related to Fallout 3 itself with Wine but Barrel was fine overall. The only thing I'd like to see after this experience is a way to run a patch or whatnot on an installed game, using Barrel, something along the lines of "Install Additional Software" as an advanced option would be goodness.
I'll go poke around github soon as I assume that is where you really want bugs and other feedback probably rather than here. I just wanted to stick to here for my first adventure with Barrel.
Thanks for making this. I think it has a great deal of potential. I can see from various questions here that it's really going to need some good docs and hopefully their content within online help especially for those who've never messed with any of this before. This stuff really isn't rocket science at all but for people who've never really tinkered with any of it I'm sure it can be completely bewildering.
I'm so pleased I can play Fallout 3 now in OS X! Yay!!! And I've got it running at maximal settings at 1440p too. Nicenesss.
I have Barrel installed now but can't figure out if there's some sort of catalog of downloadable games Barrel can install for you. Does such a thing exist?
I'm so pleased I can play Fallout 3 now in OS X! Yay!!! And I've got it running at maximal settings at 1440p too. Nicenesss.
Great to hear! I guess I could add a function to warn users about missing files that need to be (externally) downloaded. Unfortunately it is not legal to redistribute .dll components of Windows, unless it is done via winetricks (where they bend the rules to allow for this by extracting from their installers)
May I ask which was the .dll that was missing?
Edit: Scratch that. I see that it was missing msasn1.dll
msasn1.dll is included in Winetricks. If you want to share your bundle, so others will be able to do an automatic install, all you need to do is:
1. Remove the .dll you moved inside Windows/System32
2. On the game, on Barrel, go to Advanced > Winetricks
3. Choose dll > msasn1 and click "Execute Winetricks"
4. When it's done, close winetricks manager and test your game. It should be working
5. Quit the game, right click on the game and select "Upload Bundle"
Last edited:
I'm currently working on a database, but it's not ready yet. The games are not provided by Barrel, you need to own a game in order to install it on Barrel, whether it's on Steam for Windows, downloaded from GOG or on a physical disk.
Can you describe the problem? You need to go to File > Add steam game to Library.
I got steam to install using "install steam game." I had to select manual install because it couldn't find "Alan Wake". No big deal. Steam went smooth. But then it said installing "Winetricks". That thing too almost 30 minutes. I don't think it should take that long should it? Or was it because both Steam and Winetricks were trying to install at the same time. Eventually, after steam was done, I just waited... 30 minutes. Then I quit Steam and about a minute or two later winetricks finished. Not sure if this is right. Now to install Alan Wake and give it a shot.
Steam tends to get stuck after the first installation. After you're done installing Steam and your game inside it, you can close steam (do it from the menu! not the x button as this minimizes it in the taskbar!), safely force-terminate the steam icon, and Barrel will pick this up and stop waiting for steam.
Well, I got it working. Alan Wake ran. Something about 2 to 3 seconds per frame. Thus, not quite playable.
I got steam to install skyrim and it ran pretty well. The only downside was that since I was using a previous wrap from someone else, non of my currents saves were available. It was weird how it had a save from the 18th. It still crashes when I quit the game also lol. But its playable
Edit:
Well as I was exploring, I found out that it seems each wrap stored the data on the cloud specific to that steam app used I believe. I peeked at the wrap and I'm using 144mb of the 1 gb of cloud storage. When I checked portal 2 it said 0mb was used. When I fired up the mac native steam app, I got 8mb used out of 1 gb. It makes me wonder if that storage is based if a game is installed or not, or the steam app you use.
Edit:
Well as I was exploring, I found out that it seems each wrap stored the data on the cloud specific to that steam app used I believe. I peeked at the wrap and I'm using 144mb of the 1 gb of cloud storage. When I checked portal 2 it said 0mb was used. When I fired up the mac native steam app, I got 8mb used out of 1 gb. It makes me wonder if that storage is based if a game is installed or not, or the steam app you use.
Last edited:
Well, I got it working. Alan Wake ran. Something about 2 to 3 seconds per frame. Thus, not quite playable.
System specs? Any chance you have an ATI graphics card?
It could be a different place for Mac and PC for cloud saves. Why don't you try saving the game locally on the previous wrapper, and then move the save files to where Barrel has saved them? They should both probably be somewhere in your Documents folderI got steam to install skyrim and it ran pretty well. The only downside was that since I was using a previous wrap from someone else, non of my currents saves were available. It was weird how it had a save from the 18th. It still crashes when I quit the game also lol. But its playable
Edit:
Well as I was exploring, I found out that it seems each wrap stored the data on the cloud specific to that steam app used I believe. I peeked at the wrap and I'm using 144mb of the 1 gb of cloud storage. When I checked portal 2 it said 0mb was used. When I fired up the mac native steam app, I got 8mb used out of 1 gb. It makes me wonder if that storage is based if a game is installed or not, or the steam app you use.
Ah, OK, makes more sense now. Thank you, I have some games I could try with this thing. I'll report back on how well they work.
Well, I got it working. Alan Wake ran. Something about 2 to 3 seconds per frame. Thus, not quite playable.
For future reference (someone correct me if I am wrong but I don't think so):
When you run Winetricks to install Steam you need to exit Steam once it has completed installing. I find it most convenient to login first, take care of Steamguard validation and have it remember my login, etc. Then I exit. After this, you can fire it up again and continue on with what you are doing.
Once you exit Steam, control returns to Winetricks which spawned it and it knows it has completed which then leads to Winetricks exiting.
I think if you run Winetricks to install Steam and leave Steam running indefinitely, you could wait forever for Winetricks to exit because it is waiting for Steam to exit.
This is the sort of stuff that calls for good documentation in the form of a well laid out help system. In this particular case, a message box that can be dismissed after reading this helpful little bit of info would be a good idea. An end user may not think to go looking in the help system at a point like this.
I am basing this on supposition though. I don't recall the behavior when I did this with Wineskin. It is conceivable that Winetricks could download and launch the Steam installer and then exit without waiting for it to complete. Maybe it does? I do know this: when I did this with Barrel I got the same thing. The progress bar indicator (which is non-standard btw - UI no-no). It makes sense to me as normally when you spawn a process in a situation like this, you wait for it to return and then you continue even if it is just to exit yourself.
To offer some more detail on my UI comment just now:
The UI problem with the progress bar in which the bar moves back and forth constantly is that it is a little confusing in the context of a GUI that does not do this as a standard thing to indicate a process is running but it is a process who's progress cannot actually be measured by the section of code in question. There is no way for Barrel or Winetricks to know the progress or even completion of the Steam installation. The best you can do there is put up something to tell the user that something is indeed happening so they are not left wondering if the process failed, crashed, never ran or whatnot.
As I recall, in the Windows world, the SDK provided helpful documentation on user interface conventions. I assume such documentation exists for OS X developers. It would be good to get a hold if this if you don't already have it and consult it whenever the unusual UI situation arises. I don't know if there is an established standard method put forth by Apple for the case where a process who's actual progress cannot be known is running but you want to let the end user know it is in fact running and that all is at least presumably well.
The best thing to do in this situation in my opinion (unless Apple has a published standard to follow) is put up a message box with a generic indicator of progress: a serious of dots or even some other graphic element as desired "for looks" that displays one element or dot at a time in a sequence, is then cleared after drawing x number of "dots" and then repeats itself indefinitely until the running task completes and the messagebox can then be terminated.
The problem I have with the "dancing bar" is that it looks like a standard progress bar but it does not behave like one and is therefore a potential source of confusion to end users which defeats its purpose to inform them that all is well.
I need to stop doing this here me thinks and use github. Sorry about that! I was prompted by what I was reading here, etc. Anyway, I just made an account and will transfer over the substance of this UI feedback there under issues.
Last edited:
Alrighty then. I spent some hours this morning working on some real evaluation and feedback on github. I hope you find it helpful.
I would encourage everybody else trying this out to take just a few minutes to follow the link on the Barrel website to report a bug if you encounter one. I forget if it was linked earlier in the thread or not but there is very nice online manual you can read there too and it isn't overly long but it does explain a lot for those new to doing this stuff and especially of course, doing it with Barrel.
This will take you right to the online manual for this very cool app:
http://barrelapp.co.uk/user-manual.html
I would encourage everybody else trying this out to take just a few minutes to follow the link on the Barrel website to report a bug if you encounter one. I forget if it was linked earlier in the thread or not but there is very nice online manual you can read there too and it isn't overly long but it does explain a lot for those new to doing this stuff and especially of course, doing it with Barrel.
This will take you right to the online manual for this very cool app:
http://barrelapp.co.uk/user-manual.html
Cheers DirtyHarry50, really appreciate the feedback.
You'll notice that your points have already been approved as a feature request and will be implemented in the near future!
Rift in Barrel
I have been attempting to install Rift into Barrel. I got as far as starting the game but the screen is black and only the music works. Do I need Crossover to install? it is always intruding with a request for payment.
Has anyone been successful with Rift?
I have been attempting to install Rift into Barrel. I got as far as starting the game but the screen is black and only the music works. Do I need Crossover to install? it is always intruding with a request for payment.
Has anyone been successful with Rift?
I haven't looked but did you try consulting the entry for Rift in AppDB?
http://appdb.winehq.org
You may find some helpful or at least informative info there. Just do a search on "Rift"
----------
That's nice to hear. Thank you.
I did another go around with Fallout 3 GOTY Steam version today as well. I deleted the old barrel and started fresh where I wanted to just do a little testing as I went and also do the steps needed completely within Barrel to get it up and running. That all went fine. I also went further in finding a utility someone made to strip out Games for Windows live altogether, including the LIVE link on the main Fallout opening screen. This worked like a charm using the Barrel feature to run the exe. Very handy. This is also very good because I found that otherwise, if you click on "LIVE" on the main screen you lose control and have to force quit to get it back. Of course, this is just a one time lesson but best to make the option go away altogether I'd say. I also made some edits for Fallout.ini to correct an issue well known in the Windows version of the game which is mouse acceleration to drive at least some of us mad. The addition of 4 lines in the right place removes that and gives you a normal feeling mouse response. I initially thought this was a Wine issue it was so bad. The cursor was flying everywhere with the slightest movement of the mouse. All better now.
I'm looking forward to having the means to include helpful info like that for others so they can have a pain free install process and enjoy the game with minimal fuss. A short note in a review about those added steps would work hopefully although I worry a review would get buried in other reviews and people would not easily know about those simple fixes to make it pretty much perfect.
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.
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.
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?
Last edited:
First of all, congratulations for this very well done work. It is a great utility and it will really bring more Mac gamers closer to running their games without the annoying bootcamp procedure.
I was able to run Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning, a 3D RPG/Action game in the style of "The Witcher 2", without problems (it actually runs pretty fast), using the manual procedure: created an empty Bundle and executed manually the setup.exe, then pointed executable to the runtime game's executable, within bundle c: drive.
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 again.
I was able to run Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning, a 3D RPG/Action game in the style of "The Witcher 2", without problems (it actually runs pretty fast), using the manual procedure: created an empty Bundle and executed manually the setup.exe, then pointed executable to the runtime game's executable, within bundle c: drive.
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 again.
Yay! Got a game installed, working, and uploaded to the server so everyone else can play it easily.
The game in question is LaserTank, and lives here: http://perso.cgocable.ca/lasertank/ltank_en.html
The game in question is LaserTank, and lives here: http://perso.cgocable.ca/lasertank/ltank_en.html