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I have been saying that we need a “dosbox for the next generation”. Wine is great but due to Apple dropping 64 bit support it’s been decidedly less useful for m

I have been saying that we need a “dosbox for the next generation”. Wine is great but due to Apple dropping 64 bit support it’s been decidedly less useful for me. DosBox works well enough for most pre-Windows stuff, DosBox-X can handle the Windows 95 era well enough, but Windows 2000-Windows 7 stuff is actually kind of hard to get fully working on modern computers, and I feel emulation has not been able to keep up. I wish a lot of success on this project. It would be great to get Jazz Jackrabbit 2 working on my Mac without mucking with VMWare.

my123 4y ago
Apple does support Wine on modern macOS, with specific segmentation support to run 32-bit apps in that environment.
- tombert 4y ago
  How do I go about doing that? Whenever I try and run Wine it gives me weird errors.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    I have no idea what's happening under the hood, but PlayOnMac[0] seems to poke WINE the right way to make it work as expected on newer macOS. [0]: https://www.playonmac.com/en/ https://www.playonmac.com/en/
zamadatix 4y ago
I use CrossOver to run a 32 bit Windows app designed in the early 2000s on my M1 Mac, works great. Used to use Parallels but found it to just not be as good, plus they got really spammy with the marketing emails for a while so I just cut it out.
TheDesolate0 4y ago
There's a pretty easy, cheap, and straight forward fix for this. Stop using apple products. They are luke-warm in design and terrible in execution. Get a PC: Supports Linux, windows, all your games (ALL) and has a mouse with more than one button.
- tombert 4y ago
  That’s really great advice and I think you’re very smart and intelligent for having such a brave opinion, but that does not help me as I already have a MacBook, and moreover it really doesn’t actually affect my comment. > all your games (ALL) This is measurably untrue; modern computers have trouble with the Windows XP era of games a lot of the time. Many games require tinkering and some will just crash after a minute.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure MacBooks have extremely high resale values; it should be possible to sell yours and get a PC without spending an extra dime if you want to follow the OP's advice.
  - mopsi 4y ago
    > This is measurably untrue; modern computers have trouble with the Windows XP era of games a lot of the time. Many games require tinkering and some will just crash after a minute. This is mostly the fault of games and not Windows. Software usually breaks because of unfounded assumptions, for example, that user documents are always at a specific location or that CPU frequency is always constant. Instead of using Windows API functions to retrieve the path or keep track of frequency, lazy developers often halfass the implementation, hardcode values into their code and that breaks sometime in the future when those API functions become meaningful.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      That CPU frequency could change after boot, was once an insane proposition.
      - casselc 4y ago
        My first computer had a button to do it whenever you felt like.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
disruptiveink 4y ago
Wine can run 32 bit Windows applications on the latest versions of macOS just fine these days - easiest way to do this is via the (paid) Crossover, who actually wrote the insane code to make it work and contributed it back to Wine as usual, but forks of Wineskin work too. Both on Intel and M1. Unfortunately 16 bit Windows applications no longer work. I don't believe that is being actively worked on.
ceceron 4y ago
Try `gcenx` distribution of wine with crossover patches (https://github.com/Gcenx/homebrew-wine https://github.com/Gcenx/homebrew-wine). Work fine on M1, enough to play Heroes of Might and Magic III with various mods. I haven't tried playing the Jazz2 though.
goosedragons 4y ago
There is 86Box and PCBox which are emulators with retro PC gaming in mind. PCBox has Pentium III support which would be good for Windows 2000 or XP. They don't support ARM or macOS though.
- einherjae 4y ago
  They do, at least 86box

my123 4y ago

Apple does support Wine on modern macOS, with specific segmentation support to run 32-bit apps in that environment.

tombert 4y ago
How do I go about doing that? Whenever I try and run Wine it gives me weird errors.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  I have no idea what's happening under the hood, but PlayOnMac[0] seems to poke WINE the right way to make it work as expected on newer macOS. [0]: https://www.playonmac.com/en/ https://www.playonmac.com/en/

zamadatix 4y ago

I use CrossOver to run a 32 bit Windows app designed in the early 2000s on my M1 Mac, works great. Used to use Parallels but found it to just not be as good, plus they got really spammy with the marketing emails for a while so I just cut it out.

TheDesolate0 4y ago

There's a pretty easy, cheap, and straight forward fix for this. Stop using apple products. They are luke-warm in design and terrible in execution. Get a PC: Supports Linux, windows, all your games (ALL) and has a mouse with more than one button.

tombert 4y ago
That’s really great advice and I think you’re very smart and intelligent for having such a brave opinion, but that does not help me as I already have a MacBook, and moreover it really doesn’t actually affect my comment. > all your games (ALL) This is measurably untrue; modern computers have trouble with the Windows XP era of games a lot of the time. Many games require tinkering and some will just crash after a minute.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure MacBooks have extremely high resale values; it should be possible to sell yours and get a PC without spending an extra dime if you want to follow the OP's advice.
- mopsi 4y ago
  > This is measurably untrue; modern computers have trouble with the Windows XP era of games a lot of the time. Many games require tinkering and some will just crash after a minute. This is mostly the fault of games and not Windows. Software usually breaks because of unfounded assumptions, for example, that user documents are always at a specific location or that CPU frequency is always constant. Instead of using Windows API functions to retrieve the path or keep track of frequency, lazy developers often halfass the implementation, hardcode values into their code and that breaks sometime in the future when those API functions become meaningful.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    That CPU frequency could change after boot, was once an insane proposition.
    - casselc 4y ago
      My first computer had a button to do it whenever you felt like.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

disruptiveink 4y ago

Wine can run 32 bit Windows applications on the latest versions of macOS just fine these days - easiest way to do this is via the (paid) Crossover, who actually wrote the insane code to make it work and contributed it back to Wine as usual, but forks of Wineskin work too. Both on Intel and M1. Unfortunately 16 bit Windows applications no longer work. I don't believe that is being actively worked on.

ceceron 4y ago

Try `gcenx` distribution of wine with crossover patches (https://github.com/Gcenx/homebrew-wine https://github.com/Gcenx/homebrew-wine). Work fine on M1, enough to play Heroes of Might and Magic III with various mods. I haven't tried playing the Jazz2 though.

goosedragons 4y ago

There is 86Box and PCBox which are emulators with retro PC gaming in mind. PCBox has Pentium III support which would be good for Windows 2000 or XP. They don't support ARM or macOS though.

einherjae 4y ago
They do, at least 86box