For most of the summer holidays, I was a little bored with the rather slim pickings available for gamers using Macs. I’m a MacBook (later 2006) user, and my Intel GMA950 isn’t really that great for games. But I still should be able to have some fun! So I went back. Way back. To 1994. Now, I have Doom 1 & 2, Quake 1 & 2 and Duke Nukem 3D running wonderfully, in widescreen glory, on my Macbook. With Doom 3, Quake 4 and UT2004 all here as well (running quite well - more on how I did that later!), I’m quite set up as a mobile gamer.
Everything in this guide was made possible due to the release of the source code by the developers. This has allowed much smarted people than I to make these classic games run on modern computers and platforms. Someone has even converted Doom to the iPod!
Read more after the jump.
Doom 1 & 2
Doom was the first game I ever played. At seven, I remember waiting for my Dad to come home with his company laptop and our Sound Blaster speakers every night so I could play Doom on the dining room table. I still remember when we were out and purchased Doom 2. Joyous occasion!
The best way (and I’ve tried them all!) to run Doom 1 & 2 on your Mac is with Doomsday. Doomsday is a regularly updated Mac OS X native port of the jDoom engine. It provides an easy to use GUI to launch Doom 1 & 2 (and Heretic, Hexen, TNT and Plutonium). All you need to give it is the WAD files from these games.
For legal reasons, I (nor can anyone else) provide the WAD files for these games - they contain all the artwork, music, levels, etc. - and are protected by copyright. So either find them lying around your house or some handy Googling should provide less-than-legal means to obtain them. All you need to do is download Doomsday, run it and point it in the direction of the WAD files. For ease of use, I have a “WAD Files” folder in the same place as the Doomsday application.
It gets better! But how? A bunch of dedicated fans have re-rextured most of the game. What this means is they have worked very, very hard to recreate the textures and graphics in the game to bring it up to date with modern times. It makes the game look that just little bit better! Visit this website and download the .pk3 file for Doomsday (make sure it is Doomsday!) and put it into the same folder as the Doomsday application. Then just load up Doomsday, click on “Shared Settings”, then “Addons” and click “My Folders” and add the Doomsday folder. Then go to Doom 1 & 2 and select “Addons” and enable the .pk3 file.
Also, don’t forget to set your resolution as high as your Mac can handle it. Then all you need to do is select Doom 1 or Doom 2 and hit “Play” and the game will load! Too easy!
Quake
Quake was a little bit more complicated. I originally tried the Fruits of Dojo engine (which we use for Quake 2), but found that it looked awful (as it rendered it in software, not OpenGL). To fix that, I used Mac ProQuake . This includes an application called GL ProQuake. Get the ID1 folder from your original Quake 1 install (or Google again…) and put it in the same directory as GL ProQuake. Then just run GL ProQuake and you’re away!
If you need to install Quake 1 and you have a Windows disc, and you have an Intel Mac, download the free trial of Crossover Mac and use that to install Quake, then copy the ID1 folder back to Mac OS X. PowerPC users will need a friend or another computer with Windows.
As a side note, I tried TenebraeQuake from Fruits of Dojo, but found it ran slowly and also ruined the original Quake 1 feel with fancy effects and whatnot.
Quake 2
Quake 2 is easy! All you need to do is download Fruits of Dojo Quake 2 1.1 from here. Then just get the “baseq2″ folder from the original Quake 2 (see my note above about using Crossover Mac) and copy it to the same directory as the Fruits of Dojo Quake 2 application and run!
Quake 3
Quake 3 was ported to Mac OS X but hasn’t been officially updated in years, and it isn’t a Universal Binary, which means that Intel Mac owners will suffer poor performance. Never fear! Simply download ioquake3 from here.
Then copy the “baseq3″ folder to the same directory as the downloaded application and away you go! Full-speed, high resolution gaming for all!
Duke Nukem 3D
I was initially surprised by the seeming lack of Mac OS X support for Duke Nukem 3D. It is certainly nowhere near the same level as the games mentioned above. That said, one of the original developers has released a port for Mac. You can download it here. All you need to do with this one is insert your original Duke3d Atomic Edition disc (Windows or Mac Classic) and it will install it for you!
A few side notes on this one though. It lacks many of the modern options that the others have.
Resolution
Run the game once, then quit at the menu. Set your resolution by going into the “Library/Application Support/Duke Nukem 3D” folder in your home (user) directory. Then open the duke3d.cfg file there with TextEdit (or any other text editor) and find “ScreenWidth = 640″ and “ScreenHeight = 480″. Change these two settings to your desired resolution. For MacBook users, this will be “ScreenWidth = 1280″ and “ScreenHeight = 800″. Once you have made the changes, save the file and run the game again.
Mouse Look
The game is, by default, set up to use the mouse to move. Change this by launching the game, going into “Options”, then “Controls” then “Movement” and changed MOUSEAIM to the CAPS Lock key. When you are playing the game, press the CAPS Lock key and that will keep mouse look/aim enabled for the whole game.
End Notes
Before you ask “Why don’t you just use Boot Camp/Parallels/CrossOver?”, it is much better and a whole lot easier to run them natively in Mac OS X. Just how I prefer it…the less to do with Windows the better.
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