Not upgrading to Catalina

[GetRidOfWires]

I think I won’t upgrade to MacOS Catalina on the Mac I use for CoH if it means losing my favorite game. I’ve tried Parallels, VMWare Fusion, and Virtual Box and none of them run CoH well or even at all. I know I could boot into Boot Camp, but that means buying a copy of Windows for me and another one for my wife, and she dislikes Boot Camp maybe more than I do.

 

Is anyone else thinking along these lines?

[ed_anger]

You have no other choice right now. I personally always keep a couple versions behind to let Apple iron out the kinks, but with a dev-less game i don’t know how this problem will be solved.

[MunkiLord]

You have no other choice right now. I personally always keep a couple versions behind to let Apple iron out the kinks, but with a dev-less game i don’t know how this problem will be solved.

 

I have an iPhone, but not a Mac, and I've started doing that too the last year.

[WanderingAries]

There are existing threads talking about this and I'd suggest you keep an eye on them. That said, you don't Have to upgrade the OS unless there's a functional reason to do so (an app reqs it, etc).

[Call Me Awesome]

Well, the Mac version (Island Rum loader) works fine on Mojave on both of my MacBook Pro's.

[Rokkeb]

You have no other choice right now. I personally always keep a couple versions behind to let Apple iron out the kinks, but with a dev-less game i don’t know how this problem will be solved.

 

I have an iPhone, but not a Mac, and I've started doing that too the last year.

 

Samsung just starts auto downloading and installing updates now. Its really annoying.

[pauper_ill]

I’m a bit confused at this topic. I started doing some research a couple of weeks ago and discovered that Wine has been 64-bit for a while now. Has someone installed the Catalina public beta and confirmed that Wine won’t run?

 

Or, if the problem is that the Island Rum updater isn’t 64-bit, isn’t that something the devs have time to deal with before Catalina goes live.

 

Genuinely concerned here, as I concluded that upgrading to. Catalina should be a non-issue, and I can’t figure out why that would be wrong.

[Six-Six]

You don't have to do anything you don't want to.

 

I'm playing on El Capitan on a mac mini beast right now primarily because it's very stable. Also because the apps I use for my work has bugs on Mojave and Sierra. I have another macbook that's on the latest just to see what the changes are. I don't think I'm missing a lot. Of course, there are some security issues that I've foregone because of not upgrading the OS, but I think it's a fair trade between keeping my paid apps (adobe CS suite) running vs a potential security threat that might never happen (knock on wood).

[THEDarkTyger]

I mean, there's always the options of getting real computers and never having to worry about MacOS again.

 

*Cackles and flees*

[Laufeyjarson]

There's a lot of concern and misunderstanding going on around this issue.  Here's what I know:

 

The current City of Heroes client is a 32-bit application.  The tool used to run it, wine, is also currently a 32-bit application.  MacOS's next version "Catalina" will be dropping support for 32-bit applications.

 

This means - and this has been tested - that the CoH client will not run on Catalina.

 

In the Linux world, there is a 64-bit Wine.  Sadly, Windows uses CPU registers differently in 64-bit apps than OSX uses the CPU registers.  Windows regularly has applications use a register that is reserved for the OS to use on OSX.  Since Wine works by allowing the application to run natively, the Windows client would use that CPU register, which is not allowed by MacOS, so the app can't run.

 

In short: The 32-bit CoH client isn't supported any more, and the 64-bit CoH client isn't compatible with OSX.

 

What can you do?

 

1: Stay on Mojave.  As long as what you have works, you can stay there.  This will not be possible if you have apps that require an upgrade, or buy a new Mac that requires Catalina.

 

2: Run under Boot Camp.  The reboot to Windows is annoying, and having to buy Windows is annoying, but the game does run very well under Boot Camp.

 

3: VMWare Fusion does run the game acceptably.  I have personally tested this, and it allows CoH to run fine.  It requires purchase of VMWare and of Windows, though.  It does not run as well as Boot Camp, but is playable.  I have not tried VMWare running a Linux running Wine to run the client, but that might avoid the need for a Windows license, but will be more complex to make happen.

 

The person responsible for Island Rum is working on a solution, too, but hasn't got it working yet.  It will likely be a little bit complicated and have some overhead, but he is hoping to have CoH running under a Virtual Machine.  This solves the CPU Register problem by virtualizing the CPU and uses Linux as the operating system so he can include it without needing a Windows license.  But it means a lot of moving parts: Virtual Machine software running Linux running the Wine windows replacement to run the 32-bit Windows CoH client.  Hopefully Soon^tm, but there's not word on a success of this yet.

 

That's the latest I know.  Hopefully there will be a usable solution, and the folks who made Island Rum are actively looking at it.  But that's all it is now, is a plan.  Until then, it's don't upgrade to Catalina, run Boot Camp, or run VMWare.