Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: 551262 on August 28, 2013, 09:58:12 PM

Title: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on August 28, 2013, 09:58:12 PM
Here is the thread where the Mac users of SMAC and SMAC-X can congregate and discuss things.

Let's start by asking how do you play SMAC on your Mac? Do you play it under Mac OS 7.6.1 on a old 9600/350? Do you play it on a iMac G3 500MHz with 9.2 on it? Or do you play it under OS X with the Carbon apps?

As for me, I play it under OS X 10.4.11 on an Intel Mac mini at this time, but I'll be soon playing it instead on an iMac G4 800MHz under 10.4.11. I could play it under 9.2.2 on the iMac but then the CD has to be inserted.

We ought to work out some special games for us to play together.  ;b;
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 28, 2013, 10:04:34 PM
If this conversation takes off, I could always make a Mac user's subforum...
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on August 29, 2013, 03:28:53 AM
I think we're small enough in number that a thread alone might suffice. We'll see!
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on September 01, 2013, 03:06:57 PM
Well...

I suppose it'll be a one man army.

I'll have to rig up my two Macs to test out some questions I have.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on September 04, 2013, 10:30:04 PM
Test complete, can't make it work without Netsprocket 1.7. In OS X I'd have to get OpenPlay, which is practically unobtainable.

The question I had was whether mobile airbases offer defense bonuses (like Aerospace Complex: +100%) and the answer is no. Solved with the scenario editor.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 07, 2013, 05:42:32 AM
Say, are you aware of the mac patches we host in Downloads? http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;cat=5 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=downloads;cat=5)
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on September 09, 2013, 04:37:17 AM
Yeah, I found them on the way here. Downloaded them all, haven't tried any of them yet.

vyeh has yet to respond. I think it's definitely a case of "one-man-army". I'll go and hide so that I won't look like the odd one out. :P
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 09, 2013, 05:04:41 AM
...We'd love to have more Mac-specific stuff in Downloads if there is such a thing...
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: andydog on April 26, 2014, 07:43:11 AM
Hi guys, I've just installed a copy of SMAC and SMAX on my Mac.

I'm using Windows versions of the game and have installed them on Windows 7 within Bootcamp.  The games work fine.

I did consider installing Mac versions of the game, but wasn't sure about mod & multiplayer compatibility with Windows versions so decided not to.  ;b;
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on April 30, 2014, 02:27:07 AM
OOOOO LLOOOK another Mac user!

*high fives*

Tell me -- have you tried it under OS 9? Seeing that you mentioned Parallels, I think HAHAHAAA no Parallels will not run on a G3 or G4.

I'm going to be honest. I uninstalled SMAC and SMAC-X. But I didn't delete the ~50 maps I saved (ideal starting locations, unique situations, etc).

Why? Because the game was getting too much of me. I found that I was constantly searching for that euphoria moment, where I got a decent starting location and the A.I. wasn't bogged down so far that I was on top of the charts without having invaded anybody in any real capacity before Doctrine: Air Power. So either I was stuck with a crummy map, driven to frustration, or frustrated by the lack of a challenge. I don't like the harder difficulties because they're too hard but I'm looking for a rather narrow range of difficulty which is too difficult to reliably obtain.

I haven't fired up the iMac G4 in a little bit because of extenuating circumstances but I should soon. It wouldn't take much to reinstall it and play a warm up game if I get word that there will be some enthusiasm in response. I, for one, would be delighted to play a game as Sparta pacted with a University mate who took on some hard-knuckled A.I all together. You research, I conquer. I like conquering and getting dirty in the field.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on April 30, 2014, 10:27:03 PM
Hello Mac SMACers!

I'm asking for your help here: I'm providing translations packs to turn an English version of SMAC to French, and have already done the Linux and the Windows one.
But I need some infos to finalize the Mac one.

So, here's what I need:
_the list of the contents of the SMAC install folder
_if everything is under a data subfolder (like the Linux version): the list of the contents of data/voice, data/fx and data/movies
_if everything is in the root SMAC folder (like the Windows version): the list of the contents of voice, fx and movies

Thank you in advance!

-----

You can find what has already been done here:
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=8446.0 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=8446.0)
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on May 01, 2014, 01:09:04 AM
Just OS X or Mac OS 9 too?

The only thing different from them is the app itself. The OS X one is called "SMAC Carbon" or "SMAX Carbon" while ... gee I forgot the OS 9 version's name. I think it's just "Alpha Centauri" and...not sure about the SMAC-X one.

I can certainly help, but I don't know any French and the Mac is out of service for a short time. If nobody helps out in the next week or so I'll definiately hook up with a simple ls -R listing dumped to a text file.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 01, 2014, 02:51:07 AM
If nobody helps out in the next week or so I'll definiately hook up with a simple ls -R listing dumped to a text file.
That's everything I need ;)
The name of the binaries doesn't matter, because they should be strictly the same between English and French version.
All the relevant parts for translation are in text files and audio files.

(about Mac OS X and Mac OS 9, I couldn't tell one from the other even if my life was depending on it)
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on May 03, 2014, 08:18:04 PM
Okay.

I whipped out the iMac G4 and unpacked SMAC from the package. (hah)

Fired up Terminal and typed ls -alR > ~/Desktop/foo.txt for each one: root, Data, Add-on Data and the Temp folder. The photo shows you what it looks like to me. The only things that I changed is I changed the Spartan background music to be like the University one and relocated the tech breakthrough voices somewhere else (because I don't need to hear them any more thank you).

Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 04, 2014, 08:40:35 AM
Looks like none of the other versions, nice!

I should be able to do something working on Mac, but it will cost me a headache…
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 04, 2014, 06:31:39 PM
Before I start to work on it, I need one last information: is Mac OS file system case-sensitive?
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on May 04, 2014, 10:57:33 PM
Short answer: Can be.

Long answer: Sort of. When you format a disk with Disk Utility (in OS X, Drive Setup in OS 9 I don't think has that option) you can format a disk as "Mac OS Extended, Journaled" which is what thought I chose.

Mac OS Extended is the same thing as HFS+. Mac OS Standard is plain HFS, used from ... oh, I think System 3.1, Finder 5.something, you had to have the HD20 INIT to use HFS, unless it came in ROM, as with the 512Ke onwards. HFS+ first came out with Mac OS 8.1 by default. It's a really good thing to use for OS 8.1 and I believe it is mandatory with 8.6+. The only thing which may be of concern is somebody using SMAC on a 604e CPU machine with 7.5.5, which if I recall correctly, 7.5.3 is the minimum to run SMAC, but I think there is practically zero people actually doing that.

For OS X, you can read this (http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/71357/how-to-check-if-my-hd-is-case-sensitive-or-not).

If you want, I can sort of help you out, starting in, oh, a week or so. I have an iMac G4 800MHz box with OS X 10.4.11, 10.2.8, and 9.2.2. Because my system is a triple boot I'd have to look at the filesystem profile and report yes/no. To be honest I don't actually know what it is right now.

P.S. Have some free cash? Buy an iMac G4 800MHz machine. They're good machines for older versions of Mac OS. They're kind of slow online though, and they are hampered a bit by their ATA/66 bus. But if you're never played with a Mac much...you ought to try one.

EDIT: Oh, and this one (http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/22297/is-bash-in-osx-case-insensitive).
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 05, 2014, 08:05:01 PM
Short answer: Can be.

Long answer: Sort of.

Okay, I'll make the archive with a case-sensitive filesystem in mind, it will take a little bit longer but at least I'm sure it'll work.

Quote from: 551262
When you format a disk with Disk Utility (in OS X, Drive Setup in OS 9 I don't think has that option) you can format a disk as "Mac OS Extended, Journaled" which is what thought I chose.

Mac OS Extended is the same thing as HFS+. Mac OS Standard is plain HFS, used from ... oh, I think System 3.1, Finder 5.something, you had to have the HD20 INIT to use HFS, unless it came in ROM, as with the 512Ke onwards. HFS+ first came out with Mac OS 8.1 by default. It's a really good thing to use for OS 8.1 and I believe it is mandatory with 8.6+. The only thing which may be of concern is somebody using SMAC on a 604e CPU machine with 7.5.5, which if I recall correctly, 7.5.3 is the minimum to run SMAC, but I think there is practically zero people actually doing that.

For OS X, you can read this (http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/71357/how-to-check-if-my-hd-is-case-sensitive-or-not).

If you want, I can sort of help you out, starting in, oh, a week or so. I have an iMac G4 800MHz box with OS X 10.4.11, 10.2.8, and 9.2.2. Because my system is a triple boot I'd have to look at the filesystem profile and report yes/no. To be honest I don't actually know what it is right now.


Okay, I'm lost!

Don't bother with it anyway, if Mac OS may use a case-sensitive filesystem, it is better to assume it is when building this kind of archive.

Quote from: 551262
P.S. Have some free cash? Buy an iMac G4 800MHz machine. They're good machines for older versions of Mac OS. They're kind of slow online though, and they are hampered a bit by their ATA/66 bus. But if you're never played with a Mac much...you ought to try one.

Well, I'm more than happy with my Debian.
If I buy a Mac, I won't even try Mac OS before putting a Debian on it, so I don't think it would be wisely spent money ;)

I may try a Mac OS in a virtual machine, but it will wait until I've enough projects to test in it, to make the investment in a license worth of it.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 05, 2014, 10:29:16 PM
Just noticed I need the files list for the two followings dirs: "Movies" & "Add-On Movies".

Thank you in advance!
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on May 06, 2014, 02:20:43 AM
Really? Ahh...thought I could skip those. I'll pass those along sometime when I get a chance. Definitely by this Saturday.

P.S. Yes you can put Linux on a PPC Mac but I have never tried it because I figure it doesn't offer any advantage over an x86 box...As for running OS X in a VM...well, that's kind of murky to say the least.

P.P.S. I've tried Debian 6.0.7 but felt that it might be too nerdy for me. I run Ubuntu 10.04.4LTS on another machine, and love GNOME 2 with passion. Wasn't anything wrong with it, from the user perspective...

P.P.P.S. Time to catch up with the trend and change your terminal font to the one like mine in the last image...hehe
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on May 10, 2014, 08:21:42 PM
Here you go, release 2 with all of the previous .txts with the Movies and Add-on Movies directories.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 10, 2014, 08:36:04 PM
Thank you!
Now I've no excuse to not start working on it!

Sadly I won't be able to test it once it's done…
Are you going to volunteer for that? (you don't need to understand French, if the game doesn't crash after applying the translation archive and everything is in a strange language, it means it worked ;))

Won't force you anyway, if you don't have the time or the motivation, I can understand it.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on May 12, 2014, 12:54:23 AM
Sure. I suppose I can figure something out, as I will be making extensive use of the machine in awhile to hurry up and finish a large Mac write up.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 12, 2014, 01:11:04 PM
551262, you rocks!!

I'm going to work on it starting tonight, and I should be able to post something here in a couple days.
But I don't want to rush you, you should take all the time you want before testing it and reporting crashes and bugs…

Because I'm not modifying binary files in any way, there should be about zero risk of anything other than game interface messed up or game not launching.
Your OS will be safe, whatever I could do wrong.

Once again: Thank you for your help!
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on May 16, 2014, 01:38:29 AM
Yeah. No big.

I don't check in here very often but if all else just pop me a PM and it'll show up in my email inbox and I should respond within a day.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Buster's Uncle on May 16, 2014, 01:41:05 AM
You DO rock, you know.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 18, 2014, 09:35:40 PM
Thank you BUncle, but here is my confession: I'm mostly doing this for my own pleasure, and if it pleases other people it is a side effect ;)
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Buster's Uncle on May 18, 2014, 09:45:41 PM
That's exactly what I've been doing for years, except luring in more friends to talk to through pleasing and serving is the goal, not the side-effect.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on May 21, 2014, 01:26:04 AM
Today's Special: Nerdy Dish.

Have a look.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 21, 2014, 02:00:48 PM
I guess you have to be a techy Mac user to understand what's going here…
There must be more in your screenshot than a partition scheme but I don't see it :D
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on May 22, 2014, 03:07:52 AM
If the file system was case-sensitive, you'd've seen it as "HFS Extended, Journaled (Case sensitive).

It's all elemental grade information there, really. 
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on May 22, 2014, 08:43:24 PM
Learning one more thing every day is one of my goals in life.
Thanks to you I may go back to non-productive things today ;)
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on June 23, 2014, 03:39:15 PM
Mac OS version is ALIVE!!

Here you can find it:
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=8446.msg47624#msg47624 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=8446.msg47624#msg47624)

Please test, I've nothing here to do it by myself.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on June 23, 2014, 11:39:23 PM
I'm not up to speed with magnet links.

What would be better for me is something I can download with a download manager, like DownthemAll which I have to use because of my limited internet access.

Other than that, I could definitely fiddle with it. What am I supposed to be looking for? I can't read French at all.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on June 24, 2014, 10:08:27 AM
I can give you a FTP link via private mail if you like.
If you've a limited Internet access, I can compress the archive for you too.

Because you're the first one to test it, I think it would be advisable to backup your SMAC installation before anything.

I don't need you to understand French, what I'd like to know mostly is:
_are the videos (especially the intro ones) still in English or not?
_are the main menu texts still in English?
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on June 25, 2014, 12:29:34 AM
Righto. Could you pass me a SHA1 sum or MD5?

I can start downloading it tomorrow I suppose, it'll take a couple of days to get it. Once I do I'll find out how it works in Mac OS 9 and OS X.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on June 26, 2014, 06:52:47 AM
SHA1:
328505783714e32f0fee44ace8daa844cbdf030e

MD5:
bb691695a155f8f8dd3f5c3ffcb25cf3
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on June 28, 2014, 10:31:14 PM
Excellent. I'll report back once I have a machine ready to go. I have a 2nd iMac G4 which just needs a HDD, I'll work something out for it.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on July 01, 2014, 03:03:39 AM
Program quits after loading the red Firaxis logo.

Haven't tried it in OS 9 yet though. I think we may have either 1) a simple error or 2) a Class A Malfunction.

I could perform careful isolation to try and find out what could be causing the issue.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on July 07, 2014, 06:32:45 PM
Program quits after loading the red Firaxis logo.
Right when it should load one of the videos my translation archive do modify, maybe the encoding is not the same between the Windows and Mac OS version.
Well, I have to admit I’m a bit lost here.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on July 07, 2014, 09:25:59 PM
I think I enabled videos. Usually I disable them because they run the risk of crashing the program in OS X. OS 9 -- I don't usually run SMAC or SMAC-X in OS 9 because then I have put the CD in.

I also by default skip Interludes and Monuments, but I'll check those.

Right now I'm held up because of Panther. The other iMac G4 I using for this test has 10.2.8 and 9.2.2. I have 10.3 Panther but my Install Disc 1 has a pit on it which makes it so I can't install/upgrade to 10.3. I'm going to see if I can solve that issue today.

If you're talking about text encoding, there is a difference between Mac OS text encoding and Windows/MS-DOS and Linux/UNIX.

I'll come back to this in a bit.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on July 09, 2014, 06:07:23 PM
If you're talking about text encoding, there is a difference between Mac OS text encoding and Windows/MS-DOS and Linux/UNIX.
I am talking about the video encoding, with some strange proprietary codec:
Code: [Select]
$ avprobe ASCETICVIRTUES.WVE
(…)
Input #0, ea, from 'ASCETICVIRTUES.WVE':
  Duration: 00:06:09.99, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 176 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: eatqi, yuv420p, 400x192, 15 fps, 90k tbn, 15 tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: adpcm_ea, 22050 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 176 kb/s
# avprobe output
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on July 16, 2014, 11:55:06 PM
You are right, it is weird. However most of the mid-90s to early 2000s Mac games with any video usually had some weird format that was unique. Probably to dodge MPEG2 licensing hassles but also it wasn't until the G3 that video became even remotely useful.

Even the first iMac, which a lot of people remember somewhat fondly, was horrendously slow at video. But Apple promised it would play DVDs, but the end product, a 233 or 266MHz G3 (practically equivalent to a similar Pentium III, and even then I'd give the advantage to the Pentium processor) was too feeble. So they threw in a MPEG2 decoder chip onboard and wrapped up the burrito.

I have a 800MHz G4. It's about equivalent to a 700MHz-ish Pentium III. (I have a PIII 900MHz laptop on hand, so I can compare it easily.) It'll do MPEG2 video fine, FLV is choppy, H.264 is a mess. The Intel Core Duo 2.16GHz Mac mini I had was WAAAY better at video.

Did you apply any kind of translation to the movies?

EDIT: Sometime soon I'll need to get some work done on it. Since you're much more famariliar with the workings of the game, perhaps a list of the top 10 most important things needed to run the game? I'll also have to analyze the difference between the included files and the translated ones.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on August 04, 2014, 03:18:15 PM
Did you apply any kind of translation to the movies?
Movies included in the translation archive are a basic copy-paste of the movies included in the Windows French version of SMAC. (audio in French, video identical to the English ones)
I assumed they would work, using the same file extension I thought the encoding would be similar. I guess it won’t be that easy.

Sometime soon I'll need to get some work done on it. Since you're much more famariliar with the workings of the game, perhaps a list of the top 10 most important things needed to run the game? I'll also have to analyze the difference between the included files and the translated ones.
Honestly, I don’t know.
What I’ve done is running a diff between a French and English version of the game to spot the translated files, and make an archive from them. I don’t know anything about the game inner workings…
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on September 13, 2014, 01:35:23 AM
Yes I'm still here...

...eventually I'll get back to this project. I expect that time to be November, December at the latest. Hopefully you'll be hot the draw because I'll be devoting some time every day to figure out what's going on, so there'll be rapid-fire postings/updates.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on September 13, 2014, 02:12:28 AM
...eventually I'll get back to this project. I expect that time to be November, December at the latest.
That’s perfect, I’m currently on other projects that should take me roughly to November~December ;)
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on September 30, 2014, 02:13:09 AM
I recently went on a spending spree ($21 total) at the local Goodwill and with it, came a somewhat-beatup boxed copy of SMAC PC version.

Woo hoo! No longer will I have to be skittish about kicking out 50+ trawlers to harvest the Freshwater Sea or Geothermal Shallows by reason of laggy framerate! On the contrary, I'll have to turn off the toggles for fast unit movement because it's so fast that I risk loosing out on certain opportunities.

Actually the game plays almost identical on the late 2.16GHz Core Duo Mac mini compared to the current iMac G4 800MHz. Haven't tried it much under OS 9 though.

Hey BUncle, shall I sometime in the future make a post that describes the difference in the PC and Mac versions? One thing I noticed was the music wasn't the same, and that mind worm "sound" when Psi combat is engaged in doesn't escalate in pitch on the Mac version: it remains steady.

I take it there are just about zero other Mac players onboard? Started a game just the other day, Gaian, Huge random map, tech stagnation. I think we're in the late 2200s and still nobody has Fusion Power.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 30, 2014, 02:16:51 AM
I think that sounds like a great idea - not enough info is out there about the Mac version.  I hate that those guys have so much trouble finding each other.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on October 03, 2014, 05:33:51 PM
Hey BUncle, shall I sometime in the future make a post that describes the difference in the PC and Mac versions? One thing I noticed was the music wasn't the same, and that mind worm "sound" when Psi combat is engaged in doesn't escalate in pitch on the Mac version: it remains steady.
Yeah, you really should do this!
It would help me greatly in my translation attempts for the Mac OS version of the game.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on November 22, 2014, 04:10:58 PM
I have completed the one-year-project and will be coming back to work on SMAC here for a little bit.

vv let me know if you're still in.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on November 25, 2014, 06:19:14 AM
vv let me know if you're still in.
I’m still in ;)

What would help me greatly is an upload of a video sample from the Mac OS version.
I think LOGO.WVE (from the "Add-On Movies" directory) is the lightest one.

Or if you have ffmpeg or libav-tools on your setup, the result of "ffprobe LOGO.WVE" / "avprobe LOGO.WVE" should be enough for me to try to spot the differences between the Mac OS encoding and the Windows one.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on November 28, 2014, 07:18:22 PM
Righto, I'll see what I can do this weekend.

I don't think I have ffmpegX installed because the ffmpeg video encoder that was similar but not quite like SUPER for Windows didn't work. Since I'll be testing it on an alternate but identical iMac G4 I don't see a problem with tossing in ffmpeg libraries.

Normally I disable movies because I've seen them all before (the CBA movie is my favorite, along with the Living Refinery SP) and they tend to cause crashes.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on December 06, 2014, 01:40:31 AM
Well then...

Today I fiddled with it a little bit. Last time I dropped all the stuff from the smac-fr Data folder into my Data folder, started up. I believe I reported that it didn't work.

So here I wanted to try it in piecemeal. First I started with alpha.txt, since that is generally the "critical" one. I don't know much about SMAC innards but I think it's a good place to start. Program would launch, then quit. Okay well maybe it's a fluke. Let's try faction.txt. Nope, same thing. mmmh what about help.txt?  See the attached image for what it looks like.

Here's what I can do: Mac OS X is not easy to run inside emulators. Generally, you need at least 10.4 Tiger because that was the first release that had support for Intel processors but 10.5+ is probably better. So what I can do is cook up a SheepShaver disk image for you, walk you through the process of getting it going (it's not that difficult) and armed with a .iso of SMAC, you should be able to look at what I see. I don't know how well SMAC will play inside SheepShaver but I can give it a shot if you want.

Or, seeing that most of the data files are simple .txt files, I can send you all of the ones to look at. Oh yeah. That movie thing. None of the movies work. (I tried the Scenario Editor -> View SP movie) and did a trial run of the WP.) I toss in a image of MediaInfo which is for OS X, I think you'll gather what it does. Also I attached the THEYTRANSCEND.WVE in a .zip archive. It's about 3.4MB, which shouldn't hurt BUncle's server budget too much (It's for great justice anyways, I don't think he'd mind).
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: ete on December 08, 2014, 09:59:42 PM
You guys may be interested in what's going on in the patches forum:
On a side note, one of my goals with SMAC/X decompilation projection would be to create a native mac version that runs without the need for wine or emulation.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on December 08, 2014, 10:13:53 PM
Noted and replied.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on December 11, 2014, 02:09:37 AM
Well, first thank you 551262 for all that new matter for me to dig in ;)
The .WVE file will be especially useful!

So even the simple .txt files don’t work?
Might be something about encoding or end-of-line character varying between Linux, Mac OS and Windows versions…
Could you send me a copy of your original alpha.txt?

-----

Just ran a test, and the encoding is the strictly the same between the Windows movies and the Mac OS ones.
I might have been following the wrong trail thinking they were the cause for your crashes, and not the .txt files.

Which would be good news: I couldn’t have done a lot with the movies (commercial encoder), but text files are easier to mess with.

EDIT: Woops, I missed the part in your message where the movies don’t work at all…
Well, I guess it means my work is still far from done.

-----

I had a look on SheepSaver…
If you can help me to get that running, it will be a huge step toward a working French translation for Mac OS.

-----

ete: Thank you for the head up, I’m going to have a curious look at scient’s project ;)
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on December 12, 2014, 05:13:04 PM
The plain text files don't work.

If you do the movies...ugh let's say I am strongly in favor of subtitles rather than voiceovers. Voiceovers spook me. When I watch foreign movies, the foreign language becomes part of the atmosphere, for me at least. Also the native voice of the actors will be preserved...

The problem with SheepShaver is that you'll need to first get the Alpha Centauri copy for Mac. Only with SMAC and SMAC-X Carbon is the need for the CD skipped: and of that, only in OS X. SheepShaver cannot run OS X. I can do a trial run to see if it'll work though, that will save you from having to download an .iso plus a 300+ MB disk image.

The plain basic install of SMAC is about 220MB. A suitable install of Mac OS 9 that has the essentials is about 40-120MB, not sure precisely. (Mine on my iMac is 303MB, but it has Stuffit extensions, ...actually there isn't that much I installed over the default, but there is a lot that can be removed.)

I attached a zip file of every text file that comes in the /Alpha Centarui/Data/ folder.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on December 15, 2014, 05:26:43 AM
If you do the movies...ugh let's say I am strongly in favor of subtitles rather than voiceovers. Voiceovers spook me. When I watch foreign movies, the foreign language becomes part of the atmosphere, for me at least. Also the native voice of the actors will be preserved...
No way to add subtitles to the movies without the original encoder, and I don’t think it can be found today.
Plus the French voice-overs are of very high quality, on of those really well done professional translations.

Quote
The problem with SheepShaver is that you'll need to first get the Alpha Centauri copy for Mac. Only with SMAC and SMAC-X Carbon is the need for the CD skipped: and of that, only in OS X. SheepShaver cannot run OS X. I can do a trial run to see if it'll work though, that will save you from having to download an .iso plus a 300+ MB disk image.

The plain basic install of SMAC is about 220MB. A suitable install of Mac OS 9 that has the essentials is about 40-120MB, not sure precisely. (Mine on my iMac is 303MB, but it has Stuffit extensions, ...actually there isn't that much I installed over the default, but there is a lot that can be removed.)
Bandwidth and disk space are not a problem for me ;)

Quote
I attached a zip file of every text file that comes in the /Alpha Centarui/Data/ folder.
Thank you, I’m going to have a look on this.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on December 20, 2014, 05:35:18 AM
Let me know if you plan to investigate SheepShaver. I can't get the CD drive (external USB 2.0) to be recognized by SheepShaver or Basilisk II: it just spits it back out. I know I did use CDs with OS X and SheepShaver because I used to play Bolo under SheepShaver.

I think if we sort out the text files and that stuff, we might be okay. I don't know if the menu texts will be changed and stuff like the "COMMLINK". I doubt it.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on December 20, 2014, 03:43:53 PM
Let me know if you plan to investigate SheepShaver. I can't get the CD drive (external USB 2.0) to be recognized by SheepShaver or Basilisk II: it just spits it back out. I know I did use CDs with OS X and SheepShaver because I used to play Bolo under SheepShaver.
Do you have a link to some place explaining how to use SheepShaver?

Quote
I think if we sort out the text files and that stuff, we might be okay. I don't know if the menu texts will be changed and stuff like the "COMMLINK". I doubt it.
On Windows and Linux, my translation archive takes care of these too.
Nearly everything in SMAC is defined via text files!
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on December 22, 2014, 06:32:35 AM
Look on the left side. (http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/sheepshaver_setup)

You'll have to get the SMAC CD to play it under OS 9. You can get SMAC at Macintosh Garden. You'll probably want to get Mac OS 9 whilst you're there -- I'd go for 9.0.4, I heard about some incompatibility with 9.1 or 9.2. Both of the latter two won't contribute anything significant for our purposes here over 9.0.4.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: vv221 on December 23, 2014, 01:24:31 AM
Thank you, I’ll report here as soon as I manage to get something working ;)
Okay for focusing on a text translation first, voices when we get the texts working, and movies as the finishing touch when everything else is fully working?
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: 551262 on December 23, 2014, 01:53:36 AM
It's not really that hard to get going. I have yet to use SheepShaver on my X200 because the iMac G4 is on the same desk and it natively boots 9.2.2. No real problems with it on the Mac mini but Windows & Mac differ enough to make it interesting.

As for progression, some slight experience in programming has indicated that yes, work on the easiest stuff first. :) Text, voices are just MP3s, and then movies -- makes sense to me.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 16, 2015, 04:19:02 PM
Bumped for MallaxOZ.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Vishniac on December 25, 2015, 01:06:14 PM
Hello!

I wish to buy SMAC for someone with a Mac.
His computer is a Macbook Air with OSX El Capitan

Which version to buy?
Where to find it?
Will it be a digital download or a physical CD with paper manual and tech tree?
Does it need tweaking to be playable? I am aware of the thread http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=17032.0 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=17032.0)

Make a good deed for Christmas: help create a fellow SMACer!  8)



Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Mart on December 25, 2015, 01:44:05 PM
On gog site:
http://www.gog.com/game/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri (http://www.gog.com/game/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri)

they say: "Works on: Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10) and Mac OS X (10.6.8 ) "
It is DRM free, by download. I never tried any Mac version, but this seems a good solution.
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: Vishniac on December 25, 2015, 04:17:58 PM
Seems simple, cheap and even with digital manuals.
Thanks, I'll forward him to it.  ;b;
Title: Re: The Unofficial Official Mac Users Group
Post by: MercantileInterest on February 06, 2016, 10:15:28 PM
Any idea how to take a screenshot using the GOG version?
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