AGS 2.72 for Mac?

[Sherry Haibara]

Is there any chance that it will be seriously ported for Mac OS X?
2.71 beta isn't too good... It still crash almost everytime, and actually it's not developed.
I think there's a lot of people that want a Mac OS X port of the engine.
Editor is not a problem, it runs very well in Darwine, but we really need the engine.
Please listen us.
Anyway, good job guys
Sherry Haibara

[Joe Carl]

Hi Sherry, I'm not sure if we should appeal this but there are other Windows emulators for MacOS which maybe could help, AFAIK they let you run windows programs in MacOS, if this doesnt help, sorry.
another interesting link: http://www.tuaw.com/2005/08/15/whats-the-best-windows-emulator-for-mac/

[Sherry Haibara]

Yup, I know. Actually, because I have a MacBook (Intel based) I can run Windows inside Parallels (it's like VMWare). But a port of the engine it's surely better, because virtualization (and emulation) needs a lot of resources, and so the game doesn't run well at all. Plus, Parallels it's not free, and Windows it's not free too. So, why don't port AGS' engine to Mac OS X? I know a little bit of programming, but I think that if you can port it for Linux, you can port it for Mac OS X too.
Sherry Haibara

[strazer]

Sorry, there is no current or planned support for the Mac.

The feasability of a Mac port is currently under investigation. As you mention, because of the recent announcement that Mac is moving to Intel, it may well become much simpler to do a port for the new Intel Macs.

Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, there is now a beta version of a Mac OSX port of the AGS engine here, and testing would be appreciated:
http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=21531

So it seems CJ doesn't have any plans for porting it himself, if that's what you're asking.
But you could help to improve the existing Mac port by reporting any issues you have with it to its thread.

[SonOfALink]

Yup, I know. Actually, because I have a MacBook (Intel based) I can run Windows inside Parallels (it's like VMWare). But a port of the engine it's surely better, because virtualization (and emulation) needs a lot of resources, and so the game doesn't run well at all. Plus, Parallels it's not free, and Windows it's not free too. So, why don't port AGS' engine to Mac OS X? I know a little bit of programming, but I think that if you can port it for Linux, you can port it for Mac OS X too.
Sherry Haibara

I've posted this elsewhere, but I cannot get the runtime to work in Parallels.

Oddly enough, the Mac runtime works fine for me though.

[SteveMcCrea]

The mac runtime was developed to run on a PPC mac, and goes through an emulation layer on an Intel mac, which is (I presume) why it doesn't work very well.
On the other hand, Parallels is going to work better on an Intel mac.

It's going to be difficult to make a fat binary for the AGS runtime, because there's no support for it in the Allegro libraries that I have compiled.

2.72 for mac will arrive eventually. I don't have a lot of spare time to work on it right now. Sorry about that.

[SonOfALink]

(Edit by strazer: No need to quote the whole post directly above yours!)

I can get the Mac runtime to work on my iMac, its the PC version under Parallels that I can't get to work correctly.

I've tried it with every possible configuration that I could think of, and none of them work (under Parallels)

[Sherry Haibara]

Yes, I know there is a Mac Port of the engine, but it's very limited. Windows and Linux editions of the engine are working more and more well than the mac port, and I think that's because a lot of new 2.71/2.72 AGS functions aren't implemented yet in the Mac version of the engine.
Anyway, just because I'm running on an Intel Mac, I can confirm that the PPC binary works great for games that doesn't use advanced 2.71 functions like the new strings implementation. And I ask to you, Steve: maybe, if you tell me what's the problem in the porting, I can help you... Just an idea, considering that I've got an Intel Mac where we can do tests.
Tell me how I can help you, and I'll do
Sherry Haibara

[SonOfALink]

I'd be open to helping port/test too if help is needed.  I think this style of homebrew games would be quite appreciated on the Mac.  We don't get many adventure games, the few ports we have are of FPS games.

I have gotten the editor to work on the Mac using Darwine, by the way.  Of course the engine doesn't however.