Author Topic: Paintball (almost) natively on Intel Mac  (Read 1510 times)

inspiratron

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Paintball (almost) natively on Intel Mac
« on: January 28, 2008, 04:12:40 PM »
Hello all,

I have been trying to find a way to use Paintball 2 natively on a Mac for years, and I believe my search is over.  The solution, for Intel Macs at least, is a technology called Cider.  Cider is a technology that allows developers to run their Windows games on Macs, with little or no modification, by translating Windows executables on-the-fly into commands that Macs understand.  To use Cider, all a developer has to do is place a Windows game's folder within the Mac application that Cider is contained in, and tweak a preference file.  This gave me the idea that I could obtain a Ciderized game, open up it's application package, and replace the game's Windows program folder with the Paintball 2 program folder.

Therefore, I downloaded a Ciderized Mac demo of Myst Online: Uru, then opened up it's Mac application package and extracted Cider program's package (package within a package), and trashed the original package.  Next, I opened up the Cider package and navigated to the directory where Myst Online's game folder is, deleted the folder, and replaced it with the game folder from a fresh install of Paintball 2 build 20.  Finally, I went to the root of the package and changed the settings file to launch the "C:\Games\Paintball2\paintball2.exe" (although any folder should work) when I double-click the package.

Everything works the same as on a Windows machine, except when I try to use my FireWire audio interface, only the left channel produces any sound (however, the built-in speakers work fine in stereo).  In addition, there are some issues with switching resolutions.  However, the game itself runs, which is progress.

I'll post a link to a video soon...

Thanks,
Inspiratron
« Last Edit: January 29, 2008, 01:33:03 PM by inspiratron »

jitspoe

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Re: Paintball (almost) natively on Intel Mac
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2008, 11:51:26 AM »
Interesting.  Is Cider free or a commercial product?

XtremeBain

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Re: Paintball (almost) natively on Intel Mac
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2008, 12:00:48 PM »
http://www.transgaming.com/products/cider/

It sounds like he cleverly replaced the Myst Online demo that he downloaded free online with a paintball2 installation.  The redistribution of such a package probably wouldn't go over so well...

inspiratron

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Re: Paintball (almost) natively on Intel Mac
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2008, 12:01:37 PM »
In response to jitspoe:

Unfortunately, it is neither... it is made available, in theory, only to developers who will pay Transgaming (the company that made it) royalties., so there might be legal issues if it was posted on a web site.  You could, however, post a tutorial on converting a legal, free Mac demo game (such as Myst Online: Uru)  into a Paintball 2 program.  When I re-converted Paintball 2 when I got build 20, it only took about 5 minutes.


If you want to read about it, you can visit Transgaming's Cider page at http://www.transgaming.com/products/cider/.