AGS Editor on macOS

[eri0o]

So I am on macOS Ventura with a Mac mini 2023 with m2 chip.

AGS Editor depends on .NET Framework 4.6 and installing it on a recent macOS requires wine 8.3 or above, which aren't stable yet, meaning one can't install them with Homebrew yet.

So if you want to run on Wine the only current way of doing outside of building wine by hand is using Crossover - I used the trial version for testing.

On Crossover, I created a bottle (the way it names a wine prefix) where I installed .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5.2 and then .NET 4.6.2 (had to use the offline installer). I already had Rosetta enabled too, not sure what happens when one doesn't have it. After this I run the AGS Editor installer from the latest 3.6.0.48 version in the bottle using crossover interface.

After the install it looks like AGS Editor runs normally, I have only built for windows and web with it. Differently from my previous Linux experience, it looks like I can press F5 and debug an AGS game, so not sure if something was fixed in Wine in meanwhile or the wine build for macOS had no issue with this.

I will update here some months from now when a new wine version is stable.

[abstauber]

CrossOver 23 was just released and it runs the AGS Editor really well - at least on an intel Mac (test AGS 3.6.1 on Ventura and BigSur)
It's very nice finally being able to start up AGS again without digging up the old Windows Notebook.

[eri0o]

Managed to build the Editor and the Engine for Windows x64, and installing .NET using latest winetricks with latest wine makes things apparently work - in wine64! Still depends on Rosetta, but I am assuming it will exist for a while.

[Gal Shemesh]

Hi guys,

I wasn't aware of the existence of this CrossOver solution. I just installed the trial along with AGS and the latest .Net Framework and can't believe my eyes! I'm running AGS on my M1 Mac and no virtualization is involved! This is insane!

The only thing I'm trying to figuring out is why the CPU and memory jump to the skies even when there's no app running, and when I launch AGS it kind of slow and has cracking sound problems. I tried building a Wine environment manually but failed to doing so...

If anyone had encountered this CPU and memory peak problem in CrossOver and found a solution, kindly let me know.

Thanks

[eri0o]

Nope I didn't, it ran without issues, I tested on a Mac Mini 2023 with M2 and 8GB RAM, using macOS Ventura and Crossover.

Wine is working in a Wow64 solution that hopefully at some point will enable using 32-bit in 64-bit OS, when I tested this wasn't yet working great macOS - it is working alright in Linux though. So both a Editor and Engine would have to be 64-bit for it to work currently in macOS pure wine (without crossover). Although, using pure wine requires understanding a few things of it's details since there aren't any graphic interfaces for it on macOS that I am aware.

[Gal Shemesh]

Thanks @eri0o for the info.

Yep, I tried installing Wine manually and got lost... I wonder what's the issue with CrossOver is. I sent them an email asking about it as I didn't found any recent info about it online - only old discussions which are irrelevant to the current version. My Mac runs Sonoma 14.4.1 by the way. Trying to update it to the latest 14.5 and see if it makes any difference. Will update shortly if it does.

UPDATE:
No change. Still CPU and memory peak with nothing running... I tried to re-launch AGS and to load my game in it anyway but same slowness and cracking sound problems. I guess it is related to the CPU and memory peak.

UPDATE2:
After testing back and forth, I noticed that the AGS editor actually works completely fine, and that it's only the cracking audio that makes everything feel slugish. However, after installing a different audio program and found that the audio actually plays without any problem, I figured that it has to be something with how the AGS game plays its audio, and I managed to put my finger on the problem!

It appears that when running the game via F5 uses the default audio driver - whatever that driver may be, it was what caused the cracking audio. I run the game setup, went to Advanced and manually tested all audio drivers. I found that only when it is set to DirectSound that it works smooth without any cracking in the background.



As for the CPU and memory peak that the Task Manager in the CrossOver shows, this may be incorrect as this is not an entire Windows machine with resources to give and get, but some sort of a container that runs specific apps and utilizes the maximum amount of resources it needs from the host that it runs upon. To my understanding this is why it shows almost 100% of usage. I may be wrong, but what I do know for sure is that when I hit on the battery icon at my Mac's top bar, it shows that no apps using significant energy. Unlike when I run an entire Windows environment virtually.

So now I'm very pleased with how this CrossOver works and I can finally run AGS on my M1 Mac along with other companion Windows tools that I use on my PC when working on AGS.

Thanks again @eri0o for opening my eyes for a whole new world of possibilities.