Issues running on CrossOver/wine (Mac)

[ct1989]

Writing a post on here to see if anyone has had the same problems as I have when running MGS2 Master Collection via CrossOver (24.0.5 and 25 Preview) on a Mac, as I've been doing a lot of searching online and found nothing. Here are some of the major issues I have with my copy of the game:

- Snakes model does not does not render during the Tanker episode (but does in CG cutscenes), with exception to his ammo clips and bandana,
- FMV's just show a green screen (these become visible if I turn 'Graphics' in the Advanced Settings to "Default", however no audio plays),
- Codec sequences have a loud sound playing over them so the voices are barely audible (if I do the 'fix' for the FMV's above, all sound is removed from codec sequences including voices 🤷🏼‍♂️),
- Text in the game, including text shown on the load screen, in the item/weapon windows and in codec calls does not render all all (unless I do the 'fix' above for FMV's),
- Some stages, such as the deck area before the Olga fight and Strut E Parcel Room barely render (sometimes the floor or walls are invisible. and sometimes its just a large dark grey texture covering everything),
- Some NPC's have missing limbs when held up in first-person view, such as their hands,
- Music in the game, especially the main menu music sounds just awful; almost like the different segments of the track are being played in random order or in a different sequence (though the core, main theme of the track can be heard).

All of the above happen with and without mods applied. I have read that downloading a copy of xaudio2_9.dll and placing it in the games directory (and presumably making an override for the dll too, of native, builtin) would fix most of the audio issues but it's done nothing for me unfortunately.

Can anyone help me please? MGS2 is my favourite game of the MGS series, and I was really looking forward to re-playing it again when it was re-released in the Master Collection, so it's pretty gutting to have so many issues with it.

(Serious suggestions comments please/no trolls telling to buy a PC...)

Running on a Mac Studio M2 Max, 64GB RAM, macOS Sequoia

UPDATE: I managed to do some testing on a different Mac - a MacBook Air with the standard M2 CPU, and despite all of the graphical issues I reported earlier still being present, all music and background sounds have been "fixed" - that is, they all play perfectly normally but I did nothing to resolve this issue (and this works with and without the xaudio2_9 DLL override) so there is a difference between how the base M2 and M2 Max CPU's are processing the game. There does seem to be another issue though: nobody has a voice now! 😅 Guards do not speak, there are no voiceovers on the cutscenes and dialogue cannot be heard in codec calls.
All these issues reported above for MGS2 are also present in MGS3.

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UPDATE 2: Managed to get voices working for NPC’s and codec calls by re-applying the BetterAudio mod; audio in the game now is almost perfect with the exception to still no audio in FMV’s (but I can live with that!). Just graphical issues remain now.
FYI, my testing rig is still a MacBook Air running with a standard M2 chip.

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UPDATE 3: I'm pleased to share that since the release of CrossOver 25, this game is largely playable now. However, the experience is not seamless and does bug out/crash under certain situations. The Tanker episode plays just fine and I have not experienced any crashing on there, however on the Plant episode these are the conditions I've found where is always crashes:
- Using a Book to distract an enemy (when the enemy sees the aforementioned book)
- When doing the retinal scanner section with the BDU equipped
- When identifying Aimes with the BDU equipped
- Choosing Continue on the Game Over screen (Plant only)
- Choosing Quit on the Game Over screen and then loading a game (Plant only)

As well as the above conditions where the game will always crash, it is prone to crash randomly too - so save (very) frequently if you don't want to lose progress!
It is also worth noting that you do still have to download a copy of XAudio2_9, place it in the games root directory, and make an override for this file (native, builtin) in order for audio to work.

[VisciousFishes]

Are you using DXVK?

[ct1989]

Originally posted by VisciousFishes:

Are you using DXVK?

No I'm not using DXVK. If I choose the "DXVK" Graphics setting in the Advanced Settings of my bottle and launch MGS2, it fails to load and I am presented with an error message "The program METAL GEAR SOLID2.exe has encountered a serious problem and needs to close".
The other Graphics option I have is D3DMetal, but the same happens with this as with DXVK selected, so I keep the Graphics set to "Default" - as mentioned in my original post.

[VisciousFishes]

That's a surprise. I assumed it was having issues with DirectX due to compatability.

I found this:- https://search.app?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamingonlinux.com%2F2023%2F10%2Fheres-how-to-fix-metal-gear-solid-2-and-3-on-steam-deck-linux%2F&utm_campaign=aga&utm_source=agsadl1%2Cagsadl4%2Csh%2Fx%2Fgs%2Fm2%2F4

Possible solutions in the article. I don't use Linux so I can't be much help.

[ct1989]

Originally posted by VisciousFishes:

That's a surprise. I assumed it was having issues with DirectX due to compatability.

I found this:- https://search.app?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamingonlinux.com%2F2023%2F10%2Fheres-how-to-fix-metal-gear-solid-2-and-3-on-steam-deck-linux%2F&utm_campaign=aga&utm_source=agsadl1%2Cagsadl4%2Csh%2Fx%2Fgs%2Fm2%2F4

Possible solutions in the article. I don't use Linux so I can't be much help.

Just to note, I’m not using using Linux so these steps don’t necessarily apply (but thanks for the suggestion!).
Setting the Launch Options like this won’t work for me, but looking at the command it looks like it sets the xaudio2_9 override to just “native” rather than “native, builtin”. I changed my overrides in my bottle to reflect this, with the “DXVK” Graphics option set, and the game still fails to launch but I don’t get the “serious problem” error anymore. So… progress??? 😂

[VisciousFishes]

I have been looking into compatibility with Wine and DXVK. A thread I just read mentioned turning off DXVK and getting the game to load but the player character was invisible.

This is the website I got that information from.[search.app] So, it is an existing problem that someone else has had using the same/similar set up.

Perhaps turning off DXVK resolves a conflict between Wine and the game? Does Wine have a translation layer to enable DirectX compatibility in other games? Or do you still use DXVK for all DirectX / Windows games?

I am at a loss. I don't use the platform you do as I use Windows PC's.

[ct1989]

Originally posted by VisciousFishes:

I have been looking into compatibility with Wine and DXVK. A thread I just read mentioned turning off DXVK and getting the game to load but the player character was invisible.

This is the website I got that information from.[search.app] So, it is an existing problem that someone else has had using the same/similar set up.

Perhaps turning off DXVK resolves a conflict between Wine and the game? Does Wine have a translation layer to enable DirectX compatibility in other games? Or do you still use DXVK for all DirectX / Windows games?

I am at a loss. I don't use the platform you do as I use Windows PC's.

No worries; thanks for taking a shot at trying to help with this issue. Hopefully someday, I, somebody else or CodeWeavers will find a way to make this game run properly. But for now, like yourself I’m at odds with what else to try.

In terms of your translation layer question, my knowledge is limited in this regard but basically DX instruction calls ultimately need to be translated to Apple’s equivalent graphics instruction set called Metal. Crossover/wine handles all this under the hood by various means, such as MoltenVK for the Vulkan rendering engine (this is what the DXVK option does) and Apple’s proprietary Game Porting Toolkit (GPT).
There will be CPU architecture translations going on too - again handled under the hood in wine and Apple’s Rosetta - to translate x86/x64 instructions to ARM/Apple Silicon instructions.

I have managed to play various games through CrossOver/wine though, going back to old DirectX 9 games like Max Payne all the way to DirectX 12 games like Resident Evil Village. So it is possible, but can sometimes be patchy.

[VisciousFishes]

This is one of my favourite games ever, so I understand why you are playing it. Just a shame I couldn't help out.