Hey all,


I just downloaded System Shock 2 to my MacBook (2009) running 10.6.8. When I ran SS2, when the game loaded, all I saw was a giant pixelated poster from in the game, and then if I hit the movement keys, it shifted from blue/white screen, to weird colors, back to pixel poster. Essentially unuseable. Anyone had this issue?

Also wondering if anyone knows if it is possible to run non-Mac games on 10.6.8 (IE Baldur's Gate 2).

Thanks!

I can't help with your System Shock 2 issue, I just bought it a couple days ago and haven't tried it yet. I would suggest emailing support.

But for playing non-Mac games on 10.6.8, it is absolutely possible, I do it all the time. You just need to use Wine. You will want to get one of the "wrapper" programs which makes installing and setting up a game in Wine much easier. Two that come to mind:

Wineskin: http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/

PlayOnMac: http://www.playonmac.com/en/

I personally use PlayOnMac. A good site to check out is the Wine AppDB which contains user tests of tons of games under Wine and indicates how well they run. Though sometimes the tests are old and don't reflect the most recent versions of Wine. http://appdb.winehq.org/

You can also purchase virtual machine software such as VM Ware Fusion, Parallels, etc. which lets you run Windows within OS X without having to reboot into bootcamp.

Great info there. Thanks pal! Since I bought the game for PC I never saw the 10.7 Mac requirement... sad panda :(((

"Caveat Emptor" applies here; to some extent I can't really sympathize fully as the system requirements are pretty clear in what the "official" Mac version will run on.

That being said, in the case of SS2 (and other games with PC and Mac versions on GOG), the PC requirements can be a hint that you *may* be able to run the game on your Mac by downloading and installing the PC version in Wineskin or CrossOver. I've posted some comprehensive tutorials on the GOG forums on how to do just that.

For example, my primary Mac right now is a 2 Ghz GMA 950 Core 2 Duo MacBook (10.6.8). According to the official system requirements for the Mac OS X version, I can't play GOG's Mac version of SS2. However, using Wineskin I created my own "port" by installing the PC version of System Shock 2 (which according to the PC requirements should be able to run on my hardware) in a Wineskin wrapper.

My own custom port works absolutely flawlessly at full 32-bit 1280x800 resolution in 10.6.8, on both a 64-bit Core 2 Duo MacBook, and on a 32-bit Core Duo MacBook, running Intel integrated GMA 950 graphics. I can also play the game out of the box on the same settings, perfectly, in CrossOver too.

I've used Wineskin/CrossOver in the same way to run a games, including Baldur's Gate II.

I know this is old, but the only reason SS2 doesn't work for 10.6.8 is because gog created their own wineskin engine and compiled it for 10.7. Wineskin itself still supports 10.6 even now. You can easily download wineskin.app. Use it to download the Base and the latest wrapper on the list, then go to the SS2 .app open it up click on wineskin, and search for change engine to switch it out with the new one. Works with any wineskin based app.

Also any dos based game can easily be made to work on 10.6. Download your own version of dosbox and use that. Also I0.6 is still supported with the last version of boxer (not sure about the standalone version used by gog which is newer code) but you can download Boxer.app and install it wherever. Then take out game.boxer file buried in the game app. and then use that as the new "app" and will automatically launch with the installed version of boxer.

Gog may have put the artificial imposed limit for tech support simplicity. But the limitation is still artificial. 10.6 is still able to run a lot of the GoG catalog.