Skyrim On Mac Help? Bootcamp or Wine?

[AlphaPlum]

Im trying to play skyrim on a mac (i know macs suck for gaming yada yada) But the online one sucks granny slong so i though of using Wine or Bootcamp to play it and i was wondering if anyone else uses this method to play the game and if it works well.

[slxpress]

I'm not affiliated with this guy at all, but there's a dude who has made something called the Porting Kit where he's made Wine applications for a bunch of different Windows games that basically configures the Wine wrap for you. Skyrim is one of the games he's done, although it onlly shows the Legendary Edition currently.

Here's a link to the website: http://portingkit.com/en/

While I haven't played Skyrim, I have played a number of games, and they've all worked great. I was especially pleased to play the Fallouts 1-3+New Vegas. It's free. I think he must be compensated when you buy the game through his link, because he mentions GOG.com a bunch (which is a good company, IMO). He also promotes Crossover, which does cost money. Dunno. I've donated to him, but otherwise I haven't had to pay anything for Porting Kit, and it's helped me a bunch. Try it out and let me know if it works for you.

[Pilieser]

To be sure things works fine best is to go for Bootcamp, you just run native Windows on your mac hardware at that point. The negative thing is you have to dual boot each time, so you have to reboot and boot into Windows and next time you have to reboot and boot in to OSX.

Wine can be great, but also a pain in the ass. Lukcy enough Skyrim works flawless on Wine and runs very very well on my Imac with a i5 processor and only 512 video memory. Each game your going to buy just google "WineHQ %gamename%. You'll see then reports how good a game runs on Wine and also how bad or doesn't work at all, so you don't waste all your money. Arma II for example won't work at all on Wine even the game menu is a mess.

I personaly don't like Bootcamp so I select my games to run on Wine. I have been using Bootcamp in the past and did also many tests. Also if you are going to play around with both you will sometimes hit games and Skyrim is one of them where my feeling is that the game performance is much beter on Wine then on Windows native. I can't explain it, maybe it's isnt' real but just a feeling but some games seems to work much better and better fps on Wine for my feeling.

Just a little reminder if your playing around with Wine it can be very time consuming and also requires some technical insight to troubleshoot. With Bootcamp you won't have this at all as it's native Windows expect just everything to work without many issues the only limit is your current sys specs basicly.

If you have any further questions let me know,

[AlphaPlum]

Originally posted by Pilieser:

To be sure things works fine best is to go for Bootcamp, you just run native Windows on your mac hardware at that point. The negative thing is you have to dual boot each time, so you have to reboot and boot into Windows and next time you have to reboot and boot in to OSX.

Wine can be great, but also a pain in the ass. Lukcy enough Skyrim works flawless on Wine and runs very very well on my Imac with a i5 processor and only 512 video memory. Each game your going to buy just google "WineHQ %gamename%. You'll see then reports how good a game runs on Wine and also how bad or doesn't work at all, so you don't waste all your money. Arma II for example won't work at all on Wine even the game menu is a mess.

I personaly don't like Bootcamp so I select my games to run on Wine. I have been using Bootcamp in the past and did also many tests. Also if you are going to play around with both you will sometimes hit games and Skyrim is one of them where my feeling is that the game performance is much beter on Wine then on Windows native. I can't explain it, maybe it's isnt' real but just a feeling but some games seems to work much better and better fps on Wine for my feeling.

Just a little reminder if your playing around with Wine it can be very time consuming and also requires some technical insight to troubleshoot. With Bootcamp you won't have this at all as it's native Windows expect just everything to work without many issues the only limit is your current sys specs basicly.

If you have any further questions let me know,

So you would recommend wine? my mac can run Csgo, Dead Island, Bo1, Tamriel Online, and a few other games very well at around max graphics(using 22" display) So wine would be better as bootcamp takes a while to load up. Is it pretty easy to use wine? Just download it, buy the game on steam, and then i realy dont know what to do next. I tried youtubing it but they all confused the ♥♥♥♥ out of me.

[slxpress]

I'm telling you, look at that porting kit site. The guy makes custom wine wraps for each game he works on, including skyrim. The porting kit is free. He's done all the work. You just have to make sure you have a legitimate copy of the game to run.

[AlphaPlum]

Originally posted by slxpress:

I'm telling you, look at that porting kit site. The guy makes custom wine wraps for each game he works on, including skyrim. The porting kit is free. He's done all the work. You just have to make sure you have a legitimate copy of the game to run.

Can i buy the copy of skyrim through steam? Or do i have to buy it off of bethesdas website or something like that?

[slxpress]

No, they actually prefer you buy it off steam or gog.com. That's how I've bought all the games I used through the service. They've got video walkthroughs for both steam and gog. Which I needed.

But when I play, I end up executing the game through the porting kit portal.

It's easier just to download it, then walkthrough the process. After that first time it's been a breeze. But I have to admit, the first time I felt a little lost.

[AlphaPlum]

Originally posted by slxpress:

No, they actually prefer you buy it off steam or gog.com. That's how I've bought all the games I used through the service. They've got video walkthroughs for both steam and gog. Which I needed.

But when I play, I end up executing the game through the porting kit portal.

It's easier just to download it, then walkthrough the process. After that first time it's been a breeze. But I have to admit, the first time I felt a little lost.

ok so it still plays the game through steams servers or however the hell that ♥♥♥♥ works but you play the game through the porting kit portal? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this is confusing #MacGamerLivesMatter

[slxpress]

The porting kit thingy just runs the specific Wine setup for whichever game you choose. And yes, it goes through the steam server. Or not, if you choose gog to buy the game. But the choice is left up to you. There's no connection through a portal kit server or anything. It's just software on your computer.

[AlphaPlum]

Originally posted by slxpress:

The porting kit thingy just runs the specific Wine setup for whichever game you choose. And yes, it goes through the steam server. Or not, if you choose gog to buy the game. But the choice is left up to you. There's no connection through a portal kit server or anything. It's just software on your computer.

so what do i do, download it, open it up, run my game through it and thats it?

[slxpress]

Download it and follow the instructions.

Basically the porting kit itself is a lightweight download. Then you go into the menu, find the game you want. In the specific game tab you'll find the option to install or play. If you don't have the game you go to the install tab, and that will give you the choice of which service you want to buy the game from.

But honestly you're better off following their instructions than mine. There's a link to a youtube video to watch. Just follow that.

It's going to take some time. The download itself will take a bit. Then there's the process of creating the wine wrapper. If there's any special instructions they'll be listed in the page where the game is listed. Just follow the instructions. All I know is that the whole process is a heck of a lot easier than trying to get the current Wine wrapper for each game myself. Because that was not fun for me when I was trying to do it that way. This is so much easier. But just go to the website and download the porting kit yourself, and try it out. And come back and reply whether it works or it doesn't.