How to Play AoE II HD on Mac using Wine (easy/complete guide)

[hot_gril]

This thread has been closed because I have moved the instructions to a Steam guide here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=247537337

Please do not comment on this thread. Leave comments on the Steam guide.

[hot_gril]

İlk olarak sbmeiniv tarafından gönderildi:

Hey Aeneas and everyone on this forum,

So everything installed correctly and I can play single player mode and multiplayer mode against human players...BUT when my friends and I try to play an online multiplayer game against computer players, i sync out after 10 seconds...every time...Any ideas? Is anyone else having this problem?

Thanks

You're not playing The Forgotten, right? It sounds like some file, maybe the AI, is missing or corrupted on your end. You could try verifying the game's cache in Steam (the Steam running in WINE, that is), but I'm pretty sure that will re-create the _CommonRedist folder and will force you to rename the launcher.exe again.

[hot_gril]

İlk olarak emhoffman tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Vergil Aeneas tarafından gönderildi:

Here is a totally Mac-specific guide to running this in WINE. It is meant to be a comprehensive guide for anyone to use, so it is not short, but it should be easy to follow. I've found that following other tutorials, especially ones involving installing WINE from MacPorts or WineBottler or compiling it, have problems. If you want a Linux tutorial, this is the Linux thread: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/2/828935361270250345/

List of tested Mac OS X versions:
Works in 10.6.8 "Snow Leopard"
Works in 10.8.4-5 "Mountain Lion"
Works in 10.9 "Mavericks"

1. Getting WINE
Download PlayOnMac. It walks you through an install process. Even though I have X11 already, I chose to install XQuartz when it asked. Install all the optional libraries and stuff it asks you about; might as well. This is the easiest way to get WINE on the Mac. WineBottler is outdated; don't use it!

2. Installing Steam
I don't remember where, but there's a button to install new software. Press it. You'll get a search. Search for Steam, and install it. Again, it walks you through. Call the prefix (or virtual hard drive, whatever it calls it) "Steam" for convenience.

3. Configuring WINE
Now you should have a window with Steam on it and a configure button somewhere. Press Steam, then hit configure. Go to the Wine tab, and press "Configure Wine". After a delay, a window for configuration should show up. Under the Applications tab, set the Windows version to Windows 7 (not sure if it matters, but do it anyway). Under its Graphics tab, enable "Emulate a virtual desktop", and set it to a resolution a bit lower than your regular Mac screen resolution. I cannot get this game to run full screen, only in a window. For my 1920x1080 screen, I think 1742x980 is good. Press OK.

4. Starting Steam
Now you're ready to run Steam. Click on it, and press run. It will take unusually long to update, and then because Steam is dumb, it'll check for updates again after it updates, which for some reason takes a while in WINE. Don't worry too much about it because it only takes this long the first time. For the login, for some reason, it has trouble on some systems and gets stuck logging in if you make it remember your password. I found that telling it not to remember the password then the next time telling it to remember it works fine.

5. Making AoE II HD Work Properly in WINE {
Once you've logged in and verified the machine, download AoE II HD from your library like you normally would. This doesn't seem to take any extra time. Right-click the game in Steam, and go to "properties". Set launch options. Add "-nostartup" as a parameter.

Now, you will have to modify the game files a little. However, I have a report that this is not necessary, but it only works for me if I do this. It's a mystery for now.

If you named your prefix "Steam" when PlayOnMac was setting up Steam, here is the full path for pasting into the CMD+SHIFT+G window in Finder: ~/Library/PlayOnMac/wineprefix/Steam/drive_c/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/Age2HD

Otherwise, go into your home folder (~/). Open the PlayOnMac alias there. Open the Steam prefix folder you made in the folder it takes you to (should be ~/Library/PlayOnMac/wineprefix). Navigate into drive_c, then Program Files, then Steam, then SteamApps, then common, then Age2HD.

Rename Launcher.exe to Launcher.bak and AoK HD.exe to Launcher.exe. Thanks to this thread for that: http://steamcommunity.com/app/221380/discussions/2/828935361270250345/
}

6. First Run and Dealing with MSVC
Start the game already (in Steam)! It'll have to install the Microsoft VC whatever junk before it starts, as usual. The game should work fine except for 2 things: There's a slight performance hit, but I always get non-laggy games, and when you type anything, you don't see what you're typing (at least I don't). Once you're done playing, go back into the Age2HD folder mentioned earlier. Delete or rename _CommonRedist. This way, Steam won't reinstall Microsoft VC every time you start the game.

7. Playing Afterwards
You can open PlayOnMac every time you want to play this game, or you can click Steam on it and press "Create a shortcut" to make a script you can open like a normal app to launch it. It takes some extra time launch Steam in WINE, but I find that it's more convenient than running Windows in a VM or booting into Windows.

============================================
KNOWN ISSUES - Please speak up if you know a solution:

1. I may be doing something wrong, and it may have to do with renaming the launcher (which Aquana has said does not need to be done, but I always need to do it), but updating the game sometimes has trouble and requires you to just clear the local game files, re-install, and re-modify the files.

2. The Steam interface and game interface are laggy for me but not too bad usually. The actual game works fine for me despite the unsettlingly high ping that I sometimes get in lobbies.

3. When I type in any text box, I can't see the text as I type. Chances are there's a Winetricks item you can install to fix this, but I don't know how and don't find this that big of a problem.

4. I can't figure out how to make WINE run the game fullscreen, only in a window. But I also like it better in a window.

Best of luck with this process. This thread remains here as the most helpful guide I can put together given my limited time, not a battleground for OS wars, so please do not have OS wars in the comments ;)

First Off Thanks for this,

I cant seem to log into steam. I have configured it with windows 7, a smaller resolution and emulated virtual desktop. I also added the steam hack and disable crash dialogue and its still not working. I can enter my username and password, but once I do it crashes.

Any tips?

Have you tried disabling the checkbox for remembering the password? The first few times I played, it didn't log in unless I disabled that.

[DrQuicksilver]

İlk olarak seran47_91 tarafından gönderildi:

Hello again,

Apparently there is a steam update or something, and when I run it on playonmac it updates and when the update is complete it gives an error saying "the program steam.exe has encountered a serious problem..." . Does anyone have any idea how to fix this ?

İlk olarak seran47_91 tarafından gönderildi:

Actually it gives that error when logging in to Steam, so the Steam login window appears and after it asks me to type the computer authorization code I press OK and then it says steam working... and then it crashes...

İlk olarak bshenley tarafından gönderildi:

I've got exactly the same problem as seran47_91.

Following the steps you laid out I got to play one game earlier after downloading, but when I came back to it a few hours later the steam update totally crashed everything.

After going through the debugger tool I got a message along these lines:
unhandled exception 0x00000 write access for 32-bit

Thats not it exactly but i am currently trying to reinstall everything after trying various different fixes (such as deletion of the steam files, except for the .exe and steamapps) and some terminal steps.

I am also getting the error 1 steam message, which I've read is with regards to not closing steam correctly and a file still being run. I tried the terminal find and kill steps but to no avail.

If you have any suggestions on how to work round this I'd really appreciate it, sorry about the long post.

Cheers

I'm having the exact same problem as both of this guys. Please let me know if there is a way to fix it.

[blaaat]

Wine 1.7.8 is released (I don't see it in my download manger in playonmac). But this update should fix the issue.

35030 Steam Client update from Dec. 3, 2013 breaks Wine (Steam Client/Service crash after update, login fails)

[telekinetick]

İlk olarak blaaat tarafından gönderildi:

Wine 1.7.8 is released (I don't see it in my download manger in playonmac). But this update should fix the issue.

35030 Steam Client update from Dec. 3, 2013 breaks Wine (Steam Client/Service crash after update, login fails)

Possibly stupid question: do we need to wait for playonmac to add Wine 1.7.8? The only one I have the option to add is Wine 1.7.7. Or, can we download it from elsewhere and add it into playonmac?

[donaldini]

Yes i'm also wondering how to get it, cause it says on the PlayOnMac site that the Mac built is ready.

[hot_gril]

İlk olarak blaaat tarafından gönderildi:

Wine 1.7.8 is released (I don't see it in my download manger in playonmac). But this update should fix the issue.

35030 Steam Client update from Dec. 3, 2013 breaks Wine (Steam Client/Service crash after update, login fails)

Yep! Thanks for shedding some light on this problem. The last update just broke mine as well. It's very recent. So I guess we just have to wait for the WINE update.

[Is it?]

İlk olarak Vergil Aeneas tarafından gönderildi:

4. I can't figure out how to make WINE run the game fullscreen, only in a window. But I also like it better in a window.

You just need to use the Mac quartz driver instead of the X11 driver.

With winetricks all you have to do is

winetricks macdriver=mac

For me at least, this allowed full-screen to work. If you prefer windowed mode, you can still enable this in the Age of Empires options pane, just as you would on Windows.

Another thing I found helpful is to have a library override for "gameoverlayrenderer" in winecfg, to disable it. I found having the Steam game overlay was causing a lot of problems, and often when I accidentally used the overlay I couldn't get back into the game.

Now Age 2 HD is working perfectly for me, with the Forgotten expansion. (Except for the issue where you can't see text in input boxes..)

[hot_gril]

İlk olarak Lauren tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Vergil Aeneas tarafından gönderildi:

4. I can't figure out how to make WINE run the game fullscreen, only in a window. But I also like it better in a window.

You just need to use the Mac quartz driver instead of the X11 driver.

With winetricks all you have to do is

winetricks macdriver=mac

For me at least, this allowed full-screen to work. If you prefer windowed mode, you can still enable this in the Age of Empires options pane, just as you would on Windows.

Another thing I found helpful is to have a library override for "gameoverlayrenderer" in winecfg, to disable it. I found having the Steam game overlay was causing a lot of problems, and often when I accidentally used the overlay I couldn't get back into the game.

Now Age 2 HD is working perfectly for me, with the Forgotten expansion. (Except for the issue where you can't see text in input boxes..)

Wine 1.7.8 actually made the full screen mode work for me, I think, but maybe I did the winetricks command and forgot about it. It also fixed the problem of Steam crashing, and Steam launches much more quickly now. Thanks for the input. I've pinned your info about the gameoverlayrenderer and have done the override myself.

[BLADE]

Hey guys I can't get past step 6, I click "Play" and my game installs the Microsoft VC stuff but then it never launches, does anyone know how to fix this?

[hot_gril]

İlk olarak *BLADE™ tarafından gönderildi:

Hey guys I can't get past step 6, I click "Play" and my game installs the Microsoft VC stuff but then it never launches, does anyone know how to fix this?

Sorry I don't have the answer yet, but I remember a guy named BLADE™ with a panda avatar on the Mac GameRanger. Is that you?

[Ars3nalPL]

İlk olarak Vergil Aeneas tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak *BLADE™ tarafından gönderildi:

Hey guys I can't get past step 6, I click "Play" and my game installs the Microsoft VC stuff but then it never launches, does anyone know how to fix this?

Sorry I don't have the answer yet, but I remember a guy named BLADE™ with a panda avatar on the Mac GameRanger. Is that you?

Having the same problem unfortunately, let me know if you guys find anything!

[BLADE]

İlk olarak Vergil Aeneas tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak *BLADE™ tarafından gönderildi:

Hey guys I can't get past step 6, I click "Play" and my game installs the Microsoft VC stuff but then it never launches, does anyone know how to fix this?

Sorry I don't have the answer yet, but I remember a guy named BLADE™ with a panda avatar on the Mac GameRanger. Is that you?

Yes thats me! I wonder could this problem be related to the AoE2 HD 3.1 patch that was just released on Dec. 5th?

[hot_gril]

İlk olarak *BLADE™ tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Vergil Aeneas tarafından gönderildi:

Sorry I don't have the answer yet, but I remember a guy named BLADE™ with a panda avatar on the Mac GameRanger. Is that you?

Yes thats me! I wonder could this problem be related to the AoE2 HD 3.1 patch that was just released on Dec. 5th?

İlk olarak Ars3nalPL tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Vergil Aeneas tarafından gönderildi:

Sorry I don't have the answer yet, but I remember a guy named BLADE™ with a panda avatar on the Mac GameRanger. Is that you?

Having the same problem unfortunately, let me know if you guys find anything!

It's working for me on the latest version of AoE2 HD. I've deleted my Wine prefix, and I'm going back to make sure I didn't mess something up in the guide since I haven't been able to test a fresh installation in a while.

I don't know if you remember me, but I used to be Gladius or BomB on GameRanger, and I sucked at RM and rarely played it.

[BLADE]

I'm also running OSX 10.6.8, not sure if anyone else on here is using that.