Age of Empires II Definitive Edition on Macbook M2 pro

[Luke]

Hey Guys,
is anyone playing aoe2 multiplayer on macbook m2 pro?

This game is so great and i just want to get it running on my new macbook. Previously i used an old windows laptop which had an issue too, the game sometimes ran smooth but also often crashed suddenly because of graphic issues.

I tried different ways and i would prefer the first one because it's free.
1. VM Ware; I installed windows 11 in VM ware and this is the smoothest way aoe 2 runs on my mac without any stuttering or lagg issues. But the problem here is that the multiplayer game gets out of sync after a few minutes.

2. Parallels Desktop; same issue as in vm ware, multiplayer game gets out of sync after a few minutes. And a problem with fullscreen: if i move my mouse to the top of the screen, the gameplay doesn't scroll upwards, because the mouse moves out of the parallels screen.

3. Crossover; this would also be a nice option because no VM is needed. Game and graphics are best in this option, but the problem is that i get stuttering every few seconds. This is very annoying and makes it unplayable.

Does anyone have a fix for any of the problems? How do you play AOE2 on mac?

[TheOrangeBox]

Best solution is to have a dedicated Windows machine. You could even consider to buy a Mac Intel (dirty cheap these days) and boot solely in Windows.
The new Apple ARM chip will not install WinOS natively like the Mac Intel was possible.
-
On the Mac M2 you could consider to instal Linux on a partition. Then use Steam Proton to run Age of Empire II in Linux. There's also fixes if you encounter any de-sync in multiplayer.

Good luck

[grraf]

Its because of ucrtbase.dll(being a place holder/outdated file) find that one (usually in a windows install it would be somewhere in the system32 folder) and replace it with a more recent one...

I know its bad common practice to get random files from strangers on the internet but if you cant find a working version of that file from a reputable source then give this one a try: https://ufile.io/calaidon <-- its the version i'm using on linux to make sure the game don't desynch in multiplayer.

PS: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1930722784 this^ is my linux guide to get the game up&running and at step 3 of the process I specifically mention how to get multiplayer working without desynch.

[Luke]

Originally posted by grraf:

PS: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1930722784 this^ is my linux guide to get the game up&running and at step 3 of the process I specifically mention how to get multiplayer working without desynch.

Nice, i will try this. I don't mind if i play in windows or linux. Both would be ok. What linux version do you have?

[Luke]

Originally posted by TheOrangeBox:

Best solution is to have a dedicated Windows machine. You could even consider to buy a Mac Intel (dirty cheap these days) and boot solely in Windows.
The new Apple ARM chip will not install WinOS natively like the Mac Intel was possible.
-
On the Mac M2 you could consider to instal Linux on a partition. Then use Steam Proton to run Age of Empire II in Linux. There's also fixes if you encounter any de-sync in multiplayer.

Good luck

Actually i have an intel mac from 2014 which runs AOE2 2013 version fine but it gets killed by aoe2 definitive edition...

[TheOrangeBox]

Originally posted by Luke:

Actually i have an intel mac from 2014 which runs AOE2 2013 version fine but it gets killed by aoe2 definitive edition...

If you have an Intel Mac then you can install natively both Windows and Linux - not sure about AoE2DE killing AoE2, maybe some conflicts with the game files.

On the Apple M2 you will need to install the ARM distribution of Linux, not the commonly used ones. The Apple M2 is an ARM base chip.

[Seth Dresden]

It runs fine single-player on my M2 Pro Mac Mini using Parallels V19.2.1 and Windows 11.
Not sure if the Linux file mentioned above will fix anything running multiplayer in Windows through Parallels, though. I also run AoEIIDE via Bootcamp on a higher-end Intel Mac, Windows10, and it runs great 95% of the time multiplayer. Every once in awhile, it'll crash on that one, too.
People have mentioned it to the Parallels developers - about AoEIIDE specifically - so they know about it. A lot of folks have chimed in with a waive of their hands, saying this port needs to be opened, or that one, but they never give guidance on how. It's not as easy as they think when going through a shell program. So, if you're looking for multiplayer on the arm64 chipset, you might have a bit of a wait ahead of you. Some interesting news, though, is that there is a version of Windows being developed - not for M1, M2, M3 - but for generic arm64 architecture, due to the efficiency of the chipset. I doubt that Apple will be quick to release a version of Bootcamp that will work with that version of Windows, but stranger things have happened.