The Parallels What Games Work Thread (**NOT DIRECT3D**)

M

mrploddy

Bit poster
Ok,

I've searched this forum and I can't really seem to find anything which resembles what I'm about to write. I thought we should have a thread about Games Support in Parallels.

First things first and I'll make this absolutely crystal clear

THIS IS NOT A THREAD FOR GAMES WHICH *REQUIRE* DIRECT3D. THESE ARE STILL UNSUPPORTED AND WILL NOT WORK. THIS IS ONLY FOR GAMES WHICH DO NOT REQUIRE DIRECT3D TO FUNCTION. If you want Direct 3D games then bootcamp is your only option

I literally tried this just as a punt to see whether it would work and it at least to me seems that if a game doesnt require Direct3D Parallels will run it silky smooth. If you have any pre 2002 games before the onset of Direct3D as a requirement not an optional extra try them out and see if they work!!!!

My setup ->
Macbook 2Ghz with 2GB of RAM
60GB hard drive
Parallels Windows 98 SE Machine with 4GB HDD and 512MB Ram
Windows 98 has been Windozed Updated to the hilt with every available update and DirectX 9


Games That I've personally Tested So Far - I'll try out more as I have time.

Blade Runner - Has a whinge about unsupported hardware but works fine silky smooth
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Deus Ex - Works a charm. Surprsingly it detects the Parallels Video Adapator as having Direct3D support o.O. But anyhow it works a charm. You might want to resize your screen before launch if you want full screen play.
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Dungeon Keeper - Opening Movie runs a bit choppy but in game play is silky smooth and fast
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Final Fantasy 7 - Squaresoft/Chocobo logo's are a bit choppy but the opening movie is fine. Game is playable bar some control issues.
STATUS : PLAYABLE
Final Fantasy 8 - Opening Movie runs silky smooth, in game play rocks, theres some control issues which I think can be resolved by reassigning the controls for the game
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Grim Fandango - Loads straight up, no graphical corruption, silky smooth
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Jedi Knight 2 - Silky smooth at 1024x768. Only minor graphical corruption on loading screens.
STATUS: PLAYABLE
MDK- Silky smooth and fully playable.
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Monkey Island 4 - Escape from Monkey Island - Works silky smooth but you have to in the advanced config change to OpenGL and 32bit colour and before you launch the game switch to 640x480 to get it full screen.
STATUS: PLAYABLE WITH CONFIG ALTERATION
Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh - Works fine, you might wanna lower the vid res before launching tho if you want full screen fids.
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Quake 2- Opening ID Logo a bit choppy and CD soundtrack doesnt play but exceptiong that silky smooth on software renderer at 1024x768
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Wing Commander Prophecy - Movies are a bit jumpy every now and again but otherwise silky smooth and fast
STATUS: PLAYABLE

Games that other people have tested
Baldurs Gate I - Minor user interface corruption and map doesnt autoscroll but perfectly playable.
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Baldurs Game II - Map doesnt autoscroll but perfectly playable.
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Bicycle Casino - Works fine
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Civilization 3 - Game Installs but fails on copy protection
STATUS: NOT playable
CSi - Perfectly playable
STATUS: PLAYABLE
NHL '97 - Works fine
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Quake 2 - Works fine at 800x600 on XP SP2
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 - Works
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 - Opening Movies dont work but in game is fine albeit perhaps slightly jittery
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Sim Tower - Speeded up play is too speedy but without that playable
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Windows Spider Solitaire - Works fine
STATUS: PLAYABLE


Regards


-mrploddy
 
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Runaway 2

I just tested the (German) Runaway 2 Demo in Parallels Beta 3036, WinXP on my MacBook.

Everything works fine except for the mouse. Whereever I move it, the cursor only moves to the bottom right corner. Has anyone else experienced this problem somewhere and knows how to fix it?
 
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I have the same problem with all the games i have tested so far, Starcraft and Baldurs Gate. (Running parallels beta 3036 with xp sp2, macbook). Connecting a usb mouse did not help, but uninstalling the parallels tools did. Bit, without the tools, the mouse is very "choppy", so the games are quite unplayable.
 
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Warcraft II BNE edition works okay for me. I use the arrows for scrolling. Now that there's no Classic for installing on the Mac side, I've got to keep it in my mind that this is a PC game, now (FWIW, the "Mac" version of Warcraft II BNE is really a dual session disk with both versions on it).
 
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Microsoft Flight Simulator 95 - Works flawlessly, and is, in fact, faster in Parallels than Flight Simulator X (the newest one,) is in Boot Camp on a MacBook Pro Core Duo 2.0/256VRAM.
STATUS: PLAYABLE
 
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For games that require a CD for copy protection checkout Daemon Tools here http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/announcements.php, I believe this will let you use the images from game CDs.

I'd be interested to know if Sim City 4 works, I can't remember if it needs any DirectX or not. I don't really want to pay another $50 for a Mac version, but I'm afraid to install the beta as I use Parallels for work daily.
 
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AlanH said:
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon has been made available for free download from 2K Games. Being cheap, I thought I'd try it in Parallels as it's an old DOS-based game. It downloads and installs, and when I try to run it the intro movie plays. But then it dies, trying to make a web browser connection, and leaving a DOS window on screen saying it can't find a file.

Has anyone had better luck with this? Am I missing something stupid?

It's available here for anyone who wants to try it out.
Click to expand...

Alan - for anything from the DOS era, the best bet is to install DosBox ( http://dosbox.sourceforge.net ) in your Parallels VM. There is a version of DosBox for OS X, but it's PPC and doesn't perform as well as running under a Parallels VM does (at least for me). I got SpeedBall 2 (which is a DOS game from ~1991 - I originally played it on an Amiga 2000) working quite well this way.

So, to be clear: I'm running a 15-year-old DOS game under a DOS emulator inside a Windows XP SP2 Virtual Machine, running on top of Mac OS X.

That is COOL :)

Rick
 
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Hm. I had installed Grim Fandango under Boot Camp, and after reading this post tried to play it in Parallels with 3036... No joy.

So I uninstalled and reinstalled directly in Parallels. I can begin to play in windowed mode from the GF Launcher (haven't got far yet... and I noticed I can't use the 'options' menu) but I can't play in fullscreen.

Confirmed as not working (again, at least on a Boot Camp VM): Syberia and Longest Journey. I guess they need hardware 3D.

If Quake 2 works, does that mean Quake 1 should work?

And, the question of the year: if Quake 1 works, does that mean Half-life should work??? That would be huge.
 
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ost004 said:
I have the same problem with all the games i have tested so far, Starcraft and Baldurs Gate. (Running parallels beta 3036 with xp sp2, macbook). Connecting a usb mouse did not help, but uninstalling the parallels tools did. Bit, without the tools, the mouse is very "choppy", so the games are quite unplayable.
Click to expand...

even the same with "Tony Tough and the Night of roasted moths" :(

greets
Simon
 
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ehurtley said:
Microsoft Flight Simulator 95 - Works flawlessly, and is, in fact, faster in Parallels than Flight Simulator X (the newest one,) is in Boot Camp on a MacBook Pro Core Duo 2.0/256VRAM.
STATUS: PLAYABLE
Click to expand...
Oh, that is interesting - obviously DirectX didn't exist in those days. How about FS 98 - any experiences with this version too??
 
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I got UT2004 to work by changing the config files to use software rendering. Stupid Mighty Mouse makes it not very good playing though. Still...I was able to get my UT fix. :)
 
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I got Worms 2 to work on Parallels 2.2. I removed Parallels Tools and re-installed them without the mouse driver. I also patched up Worms 2 to the latest version. Works like a charm now!
 
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nschum said:
1602 AD/Anno 1602 works, but drives the system up to 100% CPU usage.
Click to expand...

How did you get it to work with the mouse?
Did you run the VM in Windowed mode?

I can't get the screen to scroll when the mouse reaches the edge of the screen,
it switchs back to the Finder.
 
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RailRoads

K, newb here...but I can't get Sid Meyer's RailRoads to work in XP

Have tried various permutation's...including a no-cd crack...but I just get a message that my machine doesn't meet specifications.
 
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Carphunter said:
K, newb here...but I can't get Sid Meyer's RailRoads to work in XP

Have tried various permutation's...including a no-cd crack...but I just get a message that my machine doesn't meet specifications.
Click to expand...

In what way -- video specifications? I found some problems with programs requiring what they called "video overlays".
 
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JEDI KNIGHT: Dark Forces II

Status: PLAYABLE but significant mouse input problems

Issues:
-Needs a noCD workaround.
-Mouse problems similar to those described above - without Parallels Tools it is choppy (esp. when moving mouse forward) and with Parallels Tools you cannot move the view beyond the point where the mouse cursor (which is sometimes visible during gameplay) reaches the edge of the screen.
-generally crashes if you change something such as mouse input or screen resolution

more info at this thread:

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?p=46657#post46657
 
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Planescape Torment.
Playable with some minor mouse cursor corruption (does a "mouse trails" effect).

BUT the game runs at 640x480 and parallels won't let me go to full screen (even with the "resize osx desktop" option selected), so its like playing it on a beer coaster sized rectangle in the middle of a mostly empty screen.

If anyone knows how to fix this, apart from making my osx desktop 640x480 before running it, please let us know in this thread.
http://forum.parallels.com/thread9191.html
 
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Mouse input in old games

Hi

If I disable the Parallels mouse synchronization driver in WinXP, then plug in two mice, and assign one of them to Parallels (clicking on USB icon, then the mouse I wish to use for Parallels), then everything seems to run smoothly with the old games (mouse movement is not jerky).

Results in having one mouse for OSX and one for Windows, but it works...

Brent
 
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