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OS X Will these games work with Parallels or Wineskin?

Dirtyharry50

Dirtyharry50

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 17, 2012
1,769
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I'd really, really like to dump my bootcamp partition which is currently taking up one quarter of my iMac's disk space in favor of a smaller Parallels virtual machine with just enough room for a game or two at a time from the following list.

I am writing this to ask for feedback on whether I can expect these games to work with either Parallels or Wineskin. I am open to either solution on a game by game basis. I just want it to work well. I am okay with running at lesser settings than I'd get with rebooting.

Here is the system and software I have to work with:

mid 2011 27" iMac
Radeon 6970m GPU with 1 gig video ram
12 Gigs system ram
3.1 Quad core i5

Parallels 8 with Windows 7 Home Premium Edition
Wineskin - which I do know how to use and have ported some games with

If I could manage to run all or most of these games within OS X one way or another, I'd delete the bootcamp partition off my system. At this point I have a ton of great Mac games to play and just want to play these Windows games before making the switch to OS X completely.

Here's the list. These are all Steam versions:

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GoTY Deluxe Edition
Mass Effect
Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition
Risen
Arcania: Gothic 4
Neverwinter Nights 2 Platinum Edition
Fallout New Vegas
Mass Effect 2
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Mass Effect 3
Game of Thrones
Risen 2 Dark Waters
Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga
Dungeon Siege III
Disciples III Gold Edition
Warlock: Master of the Arcane
Elemental: Fallen Enchantress

Any help and comments about this would be most welcome and appreciated. As you can see above, there is a little theme there. It is primarily major RPGs that are lacking in the Mac world in my opinion. I really wish Feral and Aspyr would port some of these high quality RPG games to the Mac. I know I'd buy them. It's the only genre that seems underserved on the Mac to me and it is one I like a lot.
 
I feel your pain. I too wish that there were OSX versions of my favorite games. Out of desperation, I once used parallels to download and play Just Cause 2 on steam, and it didnt handle too well. Maybe if I had allocated more resources to parallels maybe it wouldve been better. The main issues was the graphics thought, every other 2 seconds the game would flash a black screen which was pretty annoying. But for now Im sticking to bootcamp.

I saw this thread about "Barrel" that lets you play PC games on your mac, but Im not sure if it works with steam, I havent tried it yet. I think its designed more for games with CD disks rather than utilizing steam, but wont now until we try.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1622378/
 
I've played Skyrim from day #1 that was available, from start to end (and still do occasionally) using wineskin. Porting team has a pre-made wrapper available, too.

For the other games, I don't know since most of them I've played them on a PC few years ago (like Oblivion), or haven't tried them at all. But as far as it goes with Parallels, most (if not all) of the games will work. The real question is how fast. So this is something you need to try and find out, since it is related with your h/w.
 
I guess I am probably just going to need to try these one at a time and play them however they'll work. The other Windows games I have are less important. If those ones just happen to work in Parallels or Wineskin then great but if not, oh, well.

Eventually, I am going to reach a point here where I am caught up with the large library of Windows titles I picked up on various big Steam sales, etc. and can ditch all manner of Windows from my Mac.

I do not buy Windows games anymore. It's Mac or bust from now on which for the most part I'm finding is more than fine. The only thing I wish got more attention was RPGs but sometime down the road perhaps I'll solve that problem when I come to it with a console.

I did some searching since posting this and was quite surprised at how much stuff does run on Parallels, titles I wouldn't expect to. I was disappointed to learn however that Origin titles like ME3 and Kingdoms of Amalur have serious issues.
 
Since you're interested in RPGs (Action RPGs too ? ) I can propose an old but one of the best (or maybe THE best) action RPG that played flawlessly in Parallels: Titan Quest (including exp.). It runs full speed, super smooth on my mid-2010 iMac.

It also runs on wineskin, but no need.
 
As sonicrobby said, you can give Barrel a try. I'm currently working on adding easy to use steam support, as the installation process for steam games is very different to normal (you can still use Steam with Barrel, I'm just trying to streamline the process). Most of the games you mentioned in your post work fine in Wine. I have personally played and finished Fallout 3, Fallout: NV and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning on my 2010 15" MPB. With decent framerate and good graphics.
 
antonis said:
Since you're interested in RPGs (Action RPGs too ? ) I can propose an old but one of the best (or maybe THE best) action RPG that played flawlessly in Parallels: Titan Quest (including exp.). It runs full speed, super smooth on my mid-2010 iMac.

It also runs on wineskin, but no need.
Click to expand...

I'm very glad to hear that. It's one of the games in the backlog. :)

----------
thanoulas said:
As sonicrobby said, you can give Barrel a try. I'm currently working on adding easy to use steam support, as the installation process for steam games is very different to normal (you can still use Steam with Barrel, I'm just trying to streamline the process). Most of the games you mentioned in your post work fine in Wine. I have personally played and finished Fallout 3, Fallout: NV and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning on my 2010 15" MPB. With decent framerate and good graphics.
Click to expand...

Glad to hear this. Thanks.

Which version of Amalur did you play? I've got the one from Origin which was on sale for dirt cheap at one point so I grabbed it with its DLC. I have experience setting up a Steam game with Wineskin but haven't yet tried an Origin game.

Also, anything special to know about configuring Wine for Fallout 3 and NV? Can I take the Wineskin defaults and most current engine?

I was actually planning on Fallout 3 next. I'd installed it on my bootcamp partition but was hoping it might run in a virtual machine using that install and if that failed then I could still reboot. If Wine is better though, maybe I should go that route.
 
Dirtyharry50 said:
I'm very glad to hear that. It's one of the games in the backlog. :)

----------



Glad to hear this. Thanks.

Which version of Amalur did you play? I've got the one from Origin which was on sale for dirt cheap at one point so I grabbed it with its DLC. I have experience setting up a Steam game with Wineskin but haven't yet tried an Origin game.

Also, anything special to know about configuring Wine for Fallout 3 and NV? Can I take the Wineskin defaults and most current engine?

I was actually planning on Fallout 3 next. I'd installed it on my bootcamp partition but was hoping it might run in a virtual machine using that install and if that failed then I could still reboot. If Wine is better though, maybe I should go that route.
Click to expand...

Fallout should be really straightforward. I haven't tried it with the latest wine version but I think you shouldn't have any issues. I plan to add support for it on Barrel later tonight either way, along with Fallout NV.

I got Kingdoms of Amalur on Steam. As far as I know there are some issues running Origin on Wine, but I do plan to add support for origin as well. Only after steam is fully implemented, though.
 
thanoulas said:
Fallout should be really straightforward. I haven't tried it with the latest wine version but I think you shouldn't have any issues. I plan to add support for it on Barrel later tonight either way, along with Fallout NV.

I got Kingdoms of Amalur on Steam. As far as I know there are some issues running Origin on Wine, but I do plan to add support for origin as well. Only after steam is fully implemented, though.
Click to expand...

I have a funny feeling Origin may be problematic in either Parallels or Wine unless you happen to be running Parallels accessing a bootcamp partition. Apparently from what I've read on the Parallels forums, Origin uses some licensing file as part of its DRM and for Amalur that was the problem. You could install Origin itself and run it and you could download and install Amalur but when you tried to run it, the DRM would not validate on virtual hardware. That was the gist of it at least. Some claimed to get around that by taking the license file from a Windows install and copying it to a VM install and then the game would run.
 
Just cause 2 works?

You said it would flicker black every few seconds (a reply stated) but what SPECS are you machine?

I have the exact same machine configuration as the original poster (Dirty Harry) and Just cause 2 is on sale on Steam. I hate buying to find they won't run.

I have parallels 9 and win8 on it. MOST run - but not all, and all that DO RUN run great. (on my specs)

I take that back - Crysis was weird - at times fast and smooth and other times sluggish.

So buy just cause2 on sale? I could always play it on my PC - but I hate using my PC since getting a Mac. (after 34 years of being a PC guru) I switched and will never go back.

DIRTY HARRY are you able to get bootcamp on your machine? I can't - tried for 3 days. But I have SSD boot drive and 2TB HD installed, my win8 disc is trying to install from external DVD. (some EFI problem - thing) that's for another topic. Anyway - waste 3.75 to test it?

I like when steam has free weekends - I can TRY a game and then buy if it runs. So far all my trial games have run great. Even HAWKEN online PC mech game runs great.
 
Dirtyharry50 said:
I'd really, really like to dump my bootcamp partition which is currently taking up one quarter of my iMac's disk space in favor of a smaller Parallels virtual machine with just enough room for a game or two at a time from the following list.

I am writing this to ask for feedback on whether I can expect these games to work with either Parallels or Wineskin. I am open to either solution on a game by game basis. I just want it to work well. I am okay with running at lesser settings than I'd get with rebooting.

Here is the system and software I have to work with:

mid 2011 27" iMac
Radeon 6970m GPU with 1 gig video ram
12 Gigs system ram
3.1 Quad core i5

Parallels 8 with Windows 7 Home Premium Edition
Wineskin - which I do know how to use and have ported some games with

If I could manage to run all or most of these games within OS X one way or another, I'd delete the bootcamp partition off my system. At this point I have a ton of great Mac games to play and just want to play these Windows games before making the switch to OS X completely.

Here's the list. These are all Steam versions:

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GoTY Deluxe Edition
Mass Effect
Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition
Risen
Arcania: Gothic 4
Neverwinter Nights 2 Platinum Edition
Fallout New Vegas
Mass Effect 2
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Mass Effect 3
Game of Thrones
Risen 2 Dark Waters
Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga
Dungeon Siege III
Disciples III Gold Edition
Warlock: Master of the Arcane
Elemental: Fallen Enchantress

Any help and comments about this would be most welcome and appreciated. As you can see above, there is a little theme there. It is primarily major RPGs that are lacking in the Mac world in my opinion. I really wish Feral and Aspyr would port some of these high quality RPG games to the Mac. I know I'd buy them. It's the only genre that seems underserved on the Mac to me and it is one I like a lot.
Click to expand...

I've been using CrossOver (just ordinary CrossOver, not CrossOver Games) to run a couple of games, including South Park Stick of Truth. I find it pretty handy as Codeweavers' website (company that makes CrossOver) maintains a decently up-to-date list of programs/games with info regarding how well they run. They also have "Crossties" available for free download which from what I can tell, provide CrossOver with some basic config information to help the installation happen correctly, including DirectX etc. installs that may be needed for things to run correctly.

You can see their library of software here: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name

Hope that helps!
 
Rojoyinc said:
DIRTY HARRY are you able to get bootcamp on your machine?
Click to expand...

I removed bootcamp and later reinstalled to a smaller partition because I still have some games needing it not the least of which is EverQuest. Although EQ would probably run fine in a Parallels virtual machine I read somewhere it could be seen incorrectly as being hacked or something and result in an account ban. How true that is I do not know but I am not risking an account that is over a decade old to find out nor do I trust a tech support person to answer an unusual question like that accurately. So it looks like bootcamp is here to stay after all and now I am more interested in making reboots less painful. The current plan is to get an external SSD and put Windows 7 via bootcamp on that for more space and nice fast boots and performance for Windows gaming when needed.

I still prefer OS X gaming but it is nice and useful to have the Windows option. I need to play EverQuest sometimes. ;)

So to answer your question yes, I did install it twice in total on this system and both times were not entirely smooth experiences but I got it done. I'm sorry but I forget now what the minor issues were but I worked it out and got it installed okay. This however was Windows 7 and not on the SSD yet. I got the impression that Windows 7 was the only Windows version supported for bootcamp (because of driver support I imagine) for a mid-2011 iMac.
 
Thanks for the other replies above related to Crossover, AppDB, Wine and The Porting Team, etc. That is all good stuff. I have been inclined to roll my own solutions with Wineskin so far although I've been tempted to check into Crossover to see how I like their way of doing things, support, etc.
 
FO3
FO:NV

will run in parallels.

Word of caution, if you want to access console make sure the keyboard in the windows guest is set to US english. Not parallels US english, you would see 2 and you the want the non paralles US english. Assuming you use US english ofc

This would probably apply to elder scrolls as well most likely.

Otherwise ~ will not work. Console use can be debated later. Its the only way I know to get diganostics like FPS displayed. So it has its uses besides the rigging the game. Hell if really lucky and you don't run some fix the game fixing mod projects you may need to fix/reset via console a bugged mission as well.
 
Gu1b0 said:
There is a Parallels working list?
Click to expand...

Not to my knowledge. There is/was a thread on their forums highlighting different titles that worked and I think mentioning some that didn't. I wasn't able to turn up any list with Google when I tried before but I could sometimes find info on individual games.

----------
hiddenmarkov said:
FO3
FO:NV

will run in parallels.
Click to expand...

I was able to get both of those setup with Wineskin, disabled GFWL in Fallout 3 and fixed an issue (which also exists in Windows) with crazy mouse acceleration defaults in both games by manually editing a settings file for each one. Details on this were found on AppDB as I recall. In limited testing both seemed to work just fine but I have yet to get around to playing either of them beyond that. I also was able to setup Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim with Wineskin and they seem fine also but again they are still on the back burner. I have played Morrowind before but wanted to play it again and actually do the main quest line and expansions this time.

Just as a general rule of thumb I expect I'd get better performance overall with Wine rather than a virtual machine with slower disk access times, etc. I have found though for older games Parallels with Windows XP works like a charm.
 
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