FOTRS Ultimate .9 on Mac
 

Hello,

My first post here: I'm running SH4 on my 2019 iMac, including stock v1.5 and FOTRS 1.3, with no problem by using a Wineskin wrapper. Just started using FOTRS Ultimate .9 and am very impressed with it, it's like a whole new game. That said, .9 is having performance issues (including freezing up) and I think some of that is that I'm not using Large Address Aware. I realize that that installation instructions for FOTRS Ultimate .9 call for running Large Address Aware, however since I'm using SH4 with Wineskin on my Mac, I'm not sure if there is a way to use Large Address Aware. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it run better? I really like this version and would love to really dig in and play it more.

Thanks in advance!

Welcome aboard!
 

A Warm Welcome To The Subsim Community > MrNishino
Subsim <> Make A Donation <> See The Benefits <> Support The Community
SH3 – 4 - 5 Tutorials > Downloads > Other Useful Information > See Links in My Signature Below

Our resident Wine expert is MIA, and Rockin Robbins who does Linux and Wine is not around as much, but we'll see if he knows anything about the Mac Wineskin. Don't hold your breath though. Have you tried to find any info on playing old DirectX v9 games in any of the Wineskin documentation - if there is any?... Also, "Welcome to SubSim!" :subsim:
:salute:

Welcome aboard, MrNishino. Happy to have you with us. :salute:

Thanks for the welcome all!

No, I don't know much about Wine at all, I followed a tutorial and used a porting kit which did the work for me. I could try to do more research, though I must admit I'm not very comfortable with this stuff. Part of me is thinking maybe it would just be easier to run Windows 10 via Bootcamp. I even have a retired Mac laying around that I could use just for that. Maybe this would be easier and work more efficiently?

Would you by chance be refering to me?

I'm here, I'm just not logging in every time I stop by.
I just wave as I roll by... :D








If memory serves, I could not get the SH4 specific Large Address Aware patch to work with the steam version, on WINE, running Linux...
Or maybe that was Fallout: New Vegas? :hmmm:


HOWEVER!


I did find a generic LAA patch program that simply changes the right 'bits' in the exe file header for most exe files, and it worked for FO:NV and also for SH4 I think...:hmmm:


It's been a while and I've been playing a bunch of other games (Kerbal Space Program, Fallout 4, etc.)


But, if you want to try to patch it, I can try to help.


Well I'm off to give this another go and refresh my memory on how to do this.




Barracuda

:har: :lurk: why - yes, I was! :yeah:


You might be referring to the NTCore 4gig Patch? It doesn't use the MS netFramework :salute:

Yeah, I think that's the one.

Just checked my Steam install folder for the "Win 7 64 bit" prefix (aka bottle), and I did indeed patch it with the generic 4gb patch.

Just ran a quick test, at the terminal type: wine 4gb_patch.exe sh4.exe


I had the file manager (Dolphin in KDE) open so I could see the changes as they happened...
4gb_patch.exe made a copy of sh4.exe named sh4.exe.Backup, then patched sh4.exe


I tried running SH4 and it kept complaining about missing .dll files, so... I'm reinstalling SH4.


I modded that one several times and I might have had issues.
Plus, it'll re-install directx, etc. since it will technically be the "first run", so that might fix it.
I've had this Steam install for a few years, occasionally Wine seems to 'reset' a prefix when it upgrades.


I'll post up how it goes once I've had a chance to test both un-patched and patched SH4.



EDIT: It's still complaining (and including some of the SH4 game files), so I'm trying my 32bit Win7 (formerly XP) install of the Windows Steam client.




Barracuda

And it works...




I tried the 32bit prefix where I had installed dx9 many moons ago, and sh4 worked (finally).
Both BEFORE, and AFTER the LAA patch.


Just for clarity...
At a terminal:

wine 4gb_patch.exe sh4.exe


And it should patch it with no issues.


Barracuda

Noice... now for MrNishino to tell us if that works on a Mac... :salute:

Just gave it a try, didn't work. Got a message "Couldn't open executable".

I don't remember how the file attributes (sharing & permissions??) work on a Mac, been too long, but in Windows, there is a Read-only attribute that prevents anything from altering an executable file, unless you have administrator rights. Since the NTCore applet, and others like it, flip 2 bits in the header of the "target" file, if you don't have write permission, you might get that message... :salute:

Did you just (double) Click the 4gb_patch.exe?


If I do that in my file manager it gives me the same error.
To patch it I must use the terminal..



Does a Mac have a "terminal", i.e. a command line interface (like DOS was)?


I'm thinking it should, since Apples OS is (was) based on Unix...


I'll do some checking... Which OS version are you running?
Might help narrow it down a bit!:up:




I'll be back again... hopefully sooner this time.:D


Barracuda

So it does... found a few links here that walks you through how to access it.
This page is from 2012, and it's for OSX...
https://blog.teamtreehouse.com/intro...x-command-line


Scroll down the page in the link to:


"How to open the Command Line"
That should get you started, and give you a basic idea.


-------------------------------


IF you have a newer version of MacOS (when did it change?), then this link from 2017 may be more helpful.
https://www.taniarascia.com/how-to-u...cos-and-linux/


It goes into a bit more detail, but it still will tell you how to find it, and then gives more info.

Main area to focus on (for now) would be the Sections:
"What is the Command Line?"

until you reach the section "Creating Files and Directories".


You can skip the rest (for now), as it is not necessary to know to use the patch.

Either will give you the basic commands (they are the same), but appearently accessing the terminal is different.

Then we just need find your SH4 Directory/Folder and then we can get sh4.exe patched.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you want to check WINDOWS file permissions, i.e. "read only"...
In the Terminal type:


wine winefile


This will start a Win95/98 style file manager.
Find your SH4 folder
"Right-click" on sh4.exe (I'm not sure how you do that on a Mac...)

Select "Properties"
Then look for the "Read Only" check-box at the bottom.
IF it is 'checked', click the box to 'uncheck' it and then click OK.


Exit "winefile" by clicking "File" in the top left corner
Then Click "Exit".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Barracuda

Just tried the terminal and got the message "cannot execute binary file". And my OS is 10.14.6. Thanks!

Ok, a quick search on this shows that the file is either,


A: not compiled (unlikely)
or
B: A Linux executable (that would be WINE).

So, since WINE is compiled and running, and we know it is because you could play SH4...

That leaves me with a few questions:

1: Where you in the SH4 folder in the terminal?

2: Is the 4gb_patch.exe in the SH4 folder?

and last and possibly most important:

3: Where is WINE installed???


I'm thinking 1 and 2 are "yes", given the error message, but just to confirm. :up:
I'll investigate the last question.


EDIT: Quick test, can you open a terminal and type:
wine --version


It should print out the version that you have, this will let me confirm it is talking about WINE.
On my system I get this:

wine-4.12.1 (Staging)

Yours should be similar.
END EDIT.



Barracuda

Yes to 1 & 2. This is running on a Wineskin Wrapper. As far as location, I have a directory I named Silent Hunter Fall of the Rising Sun, which contains three folders: Contents, drive_c, and Wineskin.

The folder "drive_c" contains the Ubisoft SH4 files, buried under a couple layers.

The "Contents" folder contains some Wine files, including a Wineskin launcher and Unix executable called winetricks.

In the "Wineskin" folder, where I ran Terminal, this is what I could find so far: Wineskin 2.9.0.2, Engine: WS10WineCX64Bit18.5.0.

I saw you post earlier, but just got a chance to reply...


I'm digging, but just wanted to let you know I'm still looking...:Kaleun_Binocular:






Barracuda

BTW, if you haven't already guessed,
I haven't used a Apple/Mac in years. So I'm trying to figure out where it all goes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, I *THINK* I know why it gave an error last time... It might not know where the WINE executable file is.


Or maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree... :hmmm:

However this site gives the rundown on how to setup several things...

I'm NOT suggesting you do all of this, I'm just referencing it so you know where I'm getting all my Mac info... :doh:

http://www.speedofmac.com/tutorials/...-use-wine.html

The top box under "Before", gives me a clue as to where WINE itself is located.

But a few lines later it listed as:

Try those in a terminal, and see what it spits out.

If it's not there, then it should give an error, otherwise -IF IT WORKS- you should get WINE giving you something like this:


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


When you get a chance to check it and post back, then we'll have a better idea what to do next.

Barracuda