pauper_ill

OK, so weird problem -- the power supply on my M1 Mac mini went out, and Apple was kind enough to replace it and the logic board under AppleCare+ (whee!). They also nuked the drive, so I reinstalled from a Time Machine backup (whee!). Once completed, only two applications failed to launch as expected -- but one of them is Homecoming. I'm on Ventura, so it took a bit to find the privacy settings under the new Settings app, but I think I have them all in place, but I keep having the same problem -- launching 'Launch CoH' opens Wine Installer, it sits for about 15-20 seconds, then quits. No error message, just application ends. No real clue what to do at this point. Any advice? Edit: Think I stumbled onto the answer -- the restore-from-backup apparently didn't restore all of my Xcode command line tools properly. (Props to this page (https://www.davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/wine-mac/) put together by David Baumgold that pointed me at the 'brew doctor' command that clued me in.) Reinstalling Xcode command line tools, then reinstalling Homebrew appears to have fixed the issue, though the version of Homebrew I have now is 7.1 rather than the 6.1 that seems to be included with the Homecoming installer. (Not sure if that might cause issues down the road.) Update to Edit: Success! -- Pauper

I'm seeing the same, or at least a very similar issue, tho I haven't tried re-installing yet. I did decide to 'check for updates' given the above, and while the UI isn't 'frozen' as if I'd tried to launch, the 'checking for updates' process seems not to be making any progress. My version is listed as 27.2.4470, if that helps. -- Pauper

Pretty sure that all of these graphics hiccups are related to the difference in graphics frameworks between Windows and MacOS. (The audio issue seems weird and I have no insight on how you might fix that.) Windows uses DirectX as its graphics framework, and City of Heroes, as a Windows application, makes use of that framework. There is an alternate open-source graphics framework, OpenGL, and I've seen differing discussions on whether City of Heroes actually uses OpenGL for its graphics or not. Regardless, since you're likely running CoH inside a WINE wrapper to get it going on Mac, WINE contains functions to translate DirectX calls into OpenGL calls so that graphics, for the most part, run seamlessly. The real issue for you is that Apple deprecated OpenGL in MacOS in favor of its own Metal graphics framework -- OpenGL libraries still exist, but they haven't been updated since 2010 and won't be. This means that for some functions, WINE is likely expecting a more recent version of OpenGL than exists on your Mac, and as a result you see weirdness where others see normal stuff. You've got two main options that I can see to 'fix' this: 1. Since you're on an older MBPro that still uses an Intel processor, you could use Boot Camp (plus a licensed copy of Windows) to create a Windows environment that you could boot into. Since you'll be using DirectX while running Windows, you can just install the Windows version of CoH into that environment and you're good to go. 2. Pick up some form of emulation software such as Parallels or Crossover -- the plus side is that these commercial products have gone much farther toward converting DirectX calls into Metal calls so that the graphics stay seamless. (I'm using Crossover myself, and can swap into Cell Shader mode and back without any problems.) The down side is that, since your Mac is pretty old, the added overhead of running emulation software is going to give you a performance hit; not necessarily a huge one, but probably a noticeable one compared to the setup you're currently running. If for some reason you did decide to upgrade your MBP to one with an Apple Silicon processor, option 1 goes away, and option 2 becomes your only option.

Just wanted to chime in to say 'thanks' to WanderingAries and CheeseNinja for puzzling out the 'fix' to run the Mac version of CoH without spending extra cash. This is exactly what I meant when I noted earlier in the thread that the community can go a long way to help keep these sorts of situations from being too great of a headache for users. -- Pauper

It's not just Surface devices -- Microsoft has already gotten rid of 32-bit versions of Windows 10 in their OEM chain. As of May 2020, an OEM can't pre-install 32-bit Windows 10 on their machines. (This won't stop DIY enthusiasts, for now, but I suspect if you went to MicroCenter or Best Buy looking for a current gen laptop or workstation with 32-bit Windows pre-installed, it'd be very hard to find.) Not to mention that Apple has traditionally had no problem being the harbinger for other technological changes in the personal computer space, like the elimination of the floppy drive, the elimination of the CD/DVD drive, the replacement of the track pointer (still used on the classic ThinkPad) with touch pads (the aforementioned ThinkPad actually comes with both these days), the elimination of serial and parallel ports in favor of USB (the original iMac was the first personal computer to ship exclusively with USB ports), etc. It's sometimes frustrating to have to figure out work-arounds for these changes to new Macs, but the good news is that not only have there generally been work-arounds, they slowly become less necessary as the older software/hardware gets updated for the new technology, and where it's not possible to adapt the old, you figure out how to use something new and better. I can live with that. Edit: I don't want to start a platform war, either, but the fact that I was able to figure out how to keep CoH running by using Crossover is a point in favor of my argument above. I felt it was important to make that point, but now that I've made it as relevant to CoH as I can, I can bow out as GM Tahquitz did. -- Pauper

Today is the last day of my Crossover free trial, so I may try the 14-day Parallels free trial after to contrast and compare. Crossover is $39 with no support, $59 with support, but has been really spotty with other Windows based games thus far on my M1 Mac mini. I suspect Parallels will be a more consistently useful option, but the $79 price tag is a bit steeper for the privilege. (There's also a $99 per year license, but I doubt I'll use that one.) Good luck with Bootcamp -- as I noted above, when I tried to launch the BootCamp Assistant, I got a dialog: "BootCamp Assistant cannot be used. This Mac does not support BootCamp." -- Pauper

Yeah, I don't blame you for feeling like it's a return to the bad old days of Mac gaming -- though I will point out that Blizzard has already released an M1-native World of Warcraft client, so it's not as though everyone is abandoning the field. Eh, I'd say less 'stopgap' and more 'temporary utility to give developers time to develop native versions of their apps'. If a developer doesn't want to do an M1 native version (and get the performance benefits that entails), they are likely either not all that enthusiastic about the Mac platform, or their a group like Homecoming that's more volunteer-based and simply doesn't have the resources to do so despite the desire. In the latter case, the community can go far to develop work-arounds, as long as the devs are willing to support them. -- Pauper

Unfortunately, that's likely not going to happen, as Bootcamp as it exists now doesn't run on ARM (it's built for x86 processors), and Apple has already stated that if MS wants Windows to run on ARM, that's up to them: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-m1-bootcamp-windows-microsoft I can already confirm that I can't configure Bootcamp on my M1 Mac mini. -- Pauper

Rosetta 2 was one of the first things I ended up installing on my M1 Mac, so that's not an issue. When I tried to complete the install using the provided instructions for the Mac installer, I had no issue doing the install, but on launch, I get a minimized CoH window. I can hear the login music and I can hear the keystroke beep sounds if I type, but if I expand the minimized window, I get nothing but a black screen. I'm assuming this has to do with Rosetta not translating OpenGL to Metal, as there are a number of reports that OpenGL libraries are 'broken' on M1 Macs. (it's not specifically a Big Sur thing, but Big Sur is the only supported OS on Apple silicon -- the official dev document notes that OpenGL is 'available' but deprecated on Apple silicon-- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/porting_your_macos_apps_to_apple_silicon ) -- Pauper

Decided not to wait and tested this for myself -- downloaded the free 14-day trial of Crossover. Under Bottle menu, select 'New Bottle'. I named the new bottle City of Heroes and set it to Win 10 64-bit. (Edit: If you let Crossover create its own bottle, and it chooses to install into a Windows 7 bottle, you will likely encounter an installer error suggesting an anti-virus or other program is preventing the installer from working. Ignore this, delete the Win 7 bottle, and create a new Win 10 64-bit bottle to avoid this error.) Downloaded the Windows installer (not the Island Rum Mac installer). With the City of Heroes bottle selected, selected 'Install Software into City of Heroes Bottle' from the Bottle menu, then navigated to the CoH Windows installer. Waited for install to progress as normal. Once the install was complete, I was able to launch and run CoH on my M1 Mac mini. Buttons were a bit sluggish; fairly frequently I'd miss an animation for a power when selecting a button and occasionally a graphics artifact might persist, such as the orbiting selector that indicates a power is being activated, until that power was activated again, but the game was certainly playable. The big challenge in running the Island Rum installer directly is that the game will launch, but no graphics will display, which I assume is due to the inability of the base Wine package to translate OpenGL graphics commands into Apple's new Metal graphics language. Edit: Though I was able to launch CoH after installing, I found I wasn't able to launch after closing, as Crossover didn't create a launch icon for CoH in its bottle. To fix that, I double-clicked on 'Run Command', clicked the 'Browse' button next to the Command field, and navigated to drive_c/Games/Homecoming/HC Launcher.lnk That gives me an HC Launcher command that brings up the updater/launcher and allows me to get into the game again. -- Pauper

Any news on the verdict?

Should be noted for accuracy's sake that they're talking about running the portions of Wine that exist in Crossover, their commercial version of the product, not solely in Wine. (Note, the thread linked below also talks about the specific module in Crossover that allows it to use Rosetta 2 to run on the M1 chip, which module doesn't exist in 'base' Wine as it's considered a hack.) Haven't yet found much, even on the WineHQ forums, regarding Wine on the new M1 chips. Most info I've found is this thread (https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=32590&start=125) which starts out talking about the Catalina transition to 64-bit only apps, but by the last page has moved on to discussion of the M1 chip. Seems like you can buy Crossover and hope CoH runs on your M1 Mac, or wait for the official supported version of Wine on M1 processors.

For those who are not yet on Catalina and are Terminal-averse, note if you saw an alert about wine-preloader not being optimized for your Mac when you launched City of Heroes and noticed no sound. I noticed that, then noted that there wasn't any sound in my CoH -- when I quit, though, I noted that Island Rum had switched to trying to launch the 32-bit client. Changing that back to the 64-bit client got my sound back.

I had this issue as well, apparently because I was launching Island Rum from my Downloads directory rather than moving it into Applications as the directions indicate I should have done. I re-downloaded Island Rum and put it in Applications, and now I don't see that issue. Not sure if the same will work for you. My issue after finally getting the 64-bit client to run is that my sound is 'laggy'; I can hear definite echoes and other indications of sound lag, and most significantly, when I first zone into an area with music, the music will run at a decidedly slower tempo for about five seconds or so until something 'catches up'. I didn't notice this under the 32-bit client, so I'm curious if anyone else has seen this or knows a fix/workaround.

If you're adding a Windows-based utility to your CoH, you should know that the CoH application in MacOS is actually what's called a 'package'. If you right-click (or control-click, for those of you who are truly old-school and only have one mouse button) on your CoH application, select 'Show Package Contents', and you'll find yourself in a directory structure that appears to be 'inside' your application. You might have an alias to a 'drive_c' directory; if not, you can find it under Contents -> Resources. Treat the drive_c directory as the C:/ portion of a Windows file path, so assuming you want to put the data folder for vidiotmaps (as an example) in C:/Program Files/coh, you'd put that folder into the drive_c/Program Files/coh directory within the City of Heroes package. Hope that helps!