Posted June 08, 2013
I searched this whole forum for some help in getting the GOG version of Unreal Gold to work on Mac OS X but I didn't see anything helpful so maybe the following can help anyone trying to run this game. I have most of the bugs worked out, although not all.
First up, this is a Windows-only game and you will need Wine. There are basically two choices for a Wine front-end: Wineskin or Crossover. Wineskin is free and Crossover costs money. I have gotten better results with Crossover (trial version) but I am going to give the steps for Wineskin here.
1) with Wineskin, running the app opens something called Wineskin Winery. From here, you can hit the + icon to install the newest Wine engine. As of the time of this writing that is WS9Wine1.6-rc1X. Then, you click "Create New Blank Wrapper" to start the process of creating a Mac OS X wrapper around a Windows app.
2) Give the wrapper a name (Unreal Gold.app). Click OK and wait kind of a ridiculously long time for it to finish. You might get a prompt from the firewall to allow incoming connections -- it doesn't seem to hurt to deny this. When it finishes, go ahead and say "View in Finder". If you clicked to dismiss on accident, you can find the file in /Users/yourname/Applications/Wineskin.
3) Double-Click on the application wrapper you created in the last step. This starts the Wineskin menu. Click "Install Software" then "Choose Setup Executable" and give it the GOG installer exe you downloaded for Unreal Gold. Click "Options" and de-select the "Install Adobe Reader" and the "Create desktop icons" because these are meaningless steps if you're not really on Windows. When the install has finished, select the executable that will be run by this Wineskin: Unreal.exe.
4) Before you're done, I've found that a really important step to avoiding graphical problems, is to click "Screen Options" in Wineskin, and then change the following settings:
* Override
* Extra Gamma Correction: move it about 70% of the way to the right.
* Check the box for "Use Mac Driver instead of X11"
* Uncheck the box for "Decorate Windows"
* Under override settings select "Fullscreen"
* Resolution: Current Resolution
* Installer Options: Force normal windows
* Click Done.
If you ever need to go back to the Wineskin configuration settings, right click on your "Unreal Gold.app" and select "Show Package Contents" and you will see Wineskin.app there. Run that. Every "Wineskin" works this way, and is configured individually.
One more tip:
* When you run Unreal for the first time you might think Direct3D won't work and that you want OpenGL because Mac OS X doesn't have Direct3D drivers. Well Direct3D actually works fine thanks to Wine, so select that.
I had hoped I would be able to install the fan-made 227i patch but this seems to break my install under Wineskin. It successfully installs under Crossover, though. This patch adds OpenGL and a ton of other configuration options, but it breaks the Return to Na Pali campaign. Yes, I triple-checked that I was getting the version of the patch made for people with GOG Unreal Gold. It is either a bug by the patch developer or it is an effect of running this stuff under Wine. Either way, you might want to stick with the base GOG version if you're interested in playing the RTNP campaign.
First up, this is a Windows-only game and you will need Wine. There are basically two choices for a Wine front-end: Wineskin or Crossover. Wineskin is free and Crossover costs money. I have gotten better results with Crossover (trial version) but I am going to give the steps for Wineskin here.
1) with Wineskin, running the app opens something called Wineskin Winery. From here, you can hit the + icon to install the newest Wine engine. As of the time of this writing that is WS9Wine1.6-rc1X. Then, you click "Create New Blank Wrapper" to start the process of creating a Mac OS X wrapper around a Windows app.
2) Give the wrapper a name (Unreal Gold.app). Click OK and wait kind of a ridiculously long time for it to finish. You might get a prompt from the firewall to allow incoming connections -- it doesn't seem to hurt to deny this. When it finishes, go ahead and say "View in Finder". If you clicked to dismiss on accident, you can find the file in /Users/yourname/Applications/Wineskin.
3) Double-Click on the application wrapper you created in the last step. This starts the Wineskin menu. Click "Install Software" then "Choose Setup Executable" and give it the GOG installer exe you downloaded for Unreal Gold. Click "Options" and de-select the "Install Adobe Reader" and the "Create desktop icons" because these are meaningless steps if you're not really on Windows. When the install has finished, select the executable that will be run by this Wineskin: Unreal.exe.
4) Before you're done, I've found that a really important step to avoiding graphical problems, is to click "Screen Options" in Wineskin, and then change the following settings:
* Override
* Extra Gamma Correction: move it about 70% of the way to the right.
* Check the box for "Use Mac Driver instead of X11"
* Uncheck the box for "Decorate Windows"
* Under override settings select "Fullscreen"
* Resolution: Current Resolution
* Installer Options: Force normal windows
* Click Done.
If you ever need to go back to the Wineskin configuration settings, right click on your "Unreal Gold.app" and select "Show Package Contents" and you will see Wineskin.app there. Run that. Every "Wineskin" works this way, and is configured individually.
One more tip:
* When you run Unreal for the first time you might think Direct3D won't work and that you want OpenGL because Mac OS X doesn't have Direct3D drivers. Well Direct3D actually works fine thanks to Wine, so select that.
I had hoped I would be able to install the fan-made 227i patch but this seems to break my install under Wineskin. It successfully installs under Crossover, though. This patch adds OpenGL and a ton of other configuration options, but it breaks the Return to Na Pali campaign. Yes, I triple-checked that I was getting the version of the patch made for people with GOG Unreal Gold. It is either a bug by the patch developer or it is an effect of running this stuff under Wine. Either way, you might want to stick with the base GOG version if you're interested in playing the RTNP campaign.