Today I wanted to try the now-free original game of Grand Theft Auto, but then without having to boot up my Windows XP virtual machine each time. I was about to compile Wine, when I realized that by upgrading my laptop to Mac OS X 10.8 MacPorts would effectively have to recompile everything. I wondered if there was a precompiled version of Wine I could use on my Mac...
And I found the aptly named Wineskin. It is not only a precompiled version of Wine for Mac OS X, but also a way to wrap a game within what effectively looks like a normal Mac app. Wineskin has everything it needs to run, including its own version of XQuartz.
Of course, like Wine, not all games will run perfectly. In the case of GTA, the game needed to detect screen resolutions from Direct3D to run at full quality, but then this causes the game to run in full screen with visual glitches. Exiting full screen with command-alt-a fixes the problem.
Running GTA in a window actually gave me the great advantage of being able to use a map while playing. The game can be like a maze without a map, which is why a map game with the game's instruction manual. No wonder that game frustrated me so much over the years. And today I was finally able to get through the first level! You can stop laughing at me now...
Published on August 25, 2012 at 21:21 EDT
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