Source Engine Configurator - Play Source games on your PowerPC Mac (HL2, Portal, TF2, etc)

[srp]

Source Engine Configurator is a work-in-progress port of Source Engine games to PowerPC Mac.

This launcher patches existing, legally purchased copies of some Source games into versions that run natively on PowerPC Macs. The engine runs natively on PowerPC with no virtualization or emulation tricks. 14 Source titles are officially supported.

This initial release should be considered an early alpha and a foundation for future work. OpenGL 2.0 is recommended - older Macs used a fixed function pipeline which is still very experimental.

Download from Macintosh Garden: https://macintoshgarden.org/games/source-engine-configurator-ppc

Requirements
- Your own legal copy of the supported games
- PowerPC G4 or G5 Mac (1.2GHz+ recommended, G4 experience is very poor currently)
- 512MB RAM (2GB recommended)
- ~35GB available space (for all games)
- Mac OS X 10.5.4 or higher
- Also works on the PPC Snow Leopard alpha
- Dual-processor G5 strongly recommended

Supported Games
- Portal
- Half-Life: Source
- Half-Life Deathmatch: Source
- Half-Life 2
- Half-Life 2: Episode One
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two
- Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
- Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
- Counter-Strike: Source
- Day of Defeat: Source
- Portal 2
- Left 4 Dead 2
- The Stanley Parable
- Team Fortress 2

Not Supported
- Left 4 Dead 1
- CSGO
- DOTA 2
- Garry's Mod

Gameplay Video
Half-Life 2: Chapter 3 Gameplay
(PowerMac G5 Quad, ATI Radeon X1900 512MB, High 1920x1200)

Installation
1. Copy your desired game(s) to the Mac
2. Choose a game from the configurator
3. Select the game folder and install destination
4. Follow the install instructions
5. Configure and launch the generated .app

The configurator manages each game install, allows you to change video settings, and also supports updates so that future fixes to the engine can be applied as a quick patch.

This project does not include game assets or Source Engine source code. You must provide legally purchased copies of supported games.

Please do not redistribute or sell this tool. It is released free of charge for non-commercial use.

The launcher has the ability to update games in place. Future fixes and performance improvements to the engine will be made available through Macintosh Garden - the new launcher version will check your games and show you which ones have updates available.

Roadmap/Goals
- Expanded list of tested/working Source mods (Portal: Prelude, etc)
- Native dedicated server support (HL2DM, CSS)
- Source SDK support (Hammer etc)
- Additional PPC optimization (optimized physics, rendering, etc)
- Networking interoperability (play on PC servers)
- Additional game support (CS:GO and L4D1 are possible)

This project is still heavily work-in-progress, but it already opens the door to running a large collection of Source Engine content natively on PowerPC Macs for the first time. Hope you enjoy and watch out for future updates!

 

[z970]

Utterly revolutionary. Between this, AquaCenter, and PowerFox, the venerable G5 (and G4) has almost become a completely new platform altogether. This is like brand new homebrew for the XB360 or PS3, except vastly more practical.

Needless to say, I know what I’m doing this weekend! Thank you, @srp!

 

[srp]

Thanks a bunch to everybody who has tested this port out and reported issues so far. Today I have released an update to the Source Engine Configurator - it will ask you to update the next time you launch. If you have any issues with the auto-update process, you can just delete the old version and run the new version manually.

This update contains months of cumulative bug fixes, performance optimizations, and support for older Macs without OpenGL 2.0.

It also introduces initial support for the following games:
- Team Fortress 2
- Portal 2
- Left 4 Dead 2
- Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
- Counter-Strike: Source
- Day of Defeat: Source

And the first supported Source mod:
- The Stanley Parable

Left 4 Dead 2 and Portal 2 require OpenGL 2.0 for now.

Some more update info here:

Spoiler: OpenGL 1.x support + Serious Optimizations

OpenGL 2.0 is no longer a requirement. Compatibility has been tested as low as OpenGL 1.1 on a GeForce 4MX. This renderer pathway is still experimental and unoptimized - these cards will not be able to fully run these games yet, although they should at least boot up without crashing.

For GPUs that support OpenGL 2.0, we have fixed MSAA, HDR, motion blur, bloom, color correction, and refraction effects. DXT compression is fixed, and memory usage has been optimized. Character animations have been fixed - no more broken or distorted joints, no more side-stepping NPCs. These changes have had a real impact in how the game looks and plays!

Multicore rendering also now works as intended, resulting in some pretty nice performance gains for dual-core and dual-processor Macs.

These optimizations primarily benefit G5 hardware - G4 devices will still struggle to run most of these games. More optimizations are coming!

Keep in mind this project is still a work in progress and some hardware configurations may have issues that were not found on test machines.

Spoiler: New Coat of Paint

The Configurator has been redesigned with improved options selection and a reworked install/update flow.

Added compatibility notes, improved video settings selection, and fixed a bug with language selection.

Spoiler: Seven New Titles Now Supported

Seven new Source titles now launch and get "in-game" status. The latest versions of these games from Steam will work just fine.

Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 are still very unstable and incomplete, you will not be able to do much with these yet.

Team Fortress 2 lets you play offline with bots. Hopefully I will be able to host a community server - this takes the CPU work off of your client and improves performance a lot. I am working on a PPC economy shard with hat drops and persistent loadouts and other fun stuff. For now, you have a debug "account" with an inventory full of items to play around with.

Spoiler: Screenshots

All of these were taken on my G5 Quad:

View attachment 2645766

For reference, this is where we were just three months ago - one game, barely booting..

I have also uploaded a gameplay video, with more on the way - if you're wondering how the port might perform on your Mac, check it out:

Spoiler: Gameplay Video

Half-Life 2: Chapter 3 Gameplay
(PowerMac G5 Quad, ATI Radeon X1900 512MB, High 1920x1200)

This update may require you to re-install your games if they do not launch properly.

Overall I'm pretty happy with these changes, the port feels much more functional and some games are now playable from start to finish.

Download: https://github.com/doctashay/source...d/v0.0.7/Source.Engine.Configurator-0.0.7.dmg

Coming soon will be the option to login to Steam directly from your Mac and download your owned games, instead of having to copy them over locally.

I'll be updating all of the original posts with this information as well. Let me know if you have any issues, enjoy!