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[Ploder]

For several years, I've happily played DF and used Dwarf Therapist on a PC. My laptop recently bit the dust, and I'm almost certain to make the move to Macs.

Do DF and Dwarf Therapist run as well on Mac as they do on PC? Any major compatibility issues? In particular, do updates to DF/Dwarf Therapist arrive on Macs in a timely fashion?

Thanks!

[klefenz]

Your dwarves may become elves on a Mac.

[BigD145]

Mac is often the last to update all around. This includes Toady, modders, and utility makers.

[Required Information]

DF itself isn't a problem, I'm not too sure now, but I don't think I had to wait longer for the last releases, but as mentioned above, the utilities will take a bit longer. Then again, I don't think it's a problem to use an outdated version of Therapist when the new version of DF will be released.

Mods are a different story, for the moment only regular Masterwork seems te be available (with limited features due to dated DF hack). Mac version is up to version 2f, Windows version to 4e.

I can recommend MacNewbie, which is (I think) a bit like the Lazy Newb Pack. Gives you a menu before you start the game to adjust settings easily and comes with newest versions of mac-compatible utilities.

[BigD145]

Old Therapist will not work at all. Any change in the exe changes where things are in memory. You'd still have to wait for offsets to be updated.

[MaGicBush]

Why would you switch to Mac lol(issues with every game, not as customizeable, restrictions on the OS, over-priced vs. performance, etc)? That seems an odd move, but to each his own I suppose.

[Raphite1]

My PC bit the dust a couple months ago and I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet, so I recently started trying to play DF on my Macbook from 2007.

To my surprise, it runs quite well. I play with a fps cap of 50, and in a ten-year-old fort with 100+ dwarves, the fps has never dropped below that, even with waterworks flowing and large sieges. I don't know how high it'd go if I took off the cap.

I don't use Therapist or DFHack, so missing out on those wasn't an issue.

[Required Information]

@BigD; In that case I might be mistaken. I'm used to playing the game without Therapist, so might be that I forgot because of that.

@MaGicBush; Let's not start that discussion again. Yes, there are restrictions and yes, the price of buying a Mac is higher. Then again, the machine doesn't seem to get outdated easily. I bought the most simple MacBook early 2010, so far an update with more RAM and a new battery (€80,- total), but it runs like a charm (and probably will for some more years). If you like a regular PC/netbook better, get one of those.

[Oort]

I had little trouble getting DF working on the family macbook. Macnewbie pack is nice to have for sure. I've had some minor glitches with therapist, but no real issues.

Oh, and for y'all detractors; I'm not an apple person at all, but DF runs better on a macbook that in theory has worse specs than my windows laptop. I guess people are bothered by the interface or something, but IMO osx runs more like linux than windows does.

[DarkArtemisFowl]

@Required, Custom-building a PC or a "Hackintosh" has always worked better, cheaper, and more efficient in my case. To each his own, though, and you're right, this thread isn't for that discussion.

Generally what others have said is correct; sometimes the Mac mods update slower or don't exist on Mac at all. If you go vanilla you shouldn't have any problems besides what you have already experienced on the PC.

[LionelR]

Good afternoon,

I have just joined as my first impression of DF is that I have found an excellent game. But as yet I know only very few things about it. Looking for solutions, I saw this thread and have a few questions myself.

I seem to have a few problems, but do not know much about the technical side of Pc's and Macs. I hope I am not discouraging Ploder as I think the Macbook Pro is an excellent device. 

I am trying to run DF on my Macbook Pro Retina 13’’ running OS X 10.9.1 (latest version)

When I had downloaded df_34_11_osx.tar-2.bz2, I copied it to the programs folder, but it would not start. I got a message I needed XQuartz.
I downloaded and installed XQuartz-2.7.5.dmg.

When running DF it now opens 2 windows. One with on top  ‘username-df-dwarfort.exe-80x24. The program-bar on the top says ‘Terminal’. In that window it says at the beginning ‘Last login:’ and then comes all kinds of technical language

The second window has the game in it, but in a small black screen with small characters. On the top-bar it says ‘dwarfort.exe’. The top line of text disappears under the top-bar of the window itself. Even when enlarging the window by pulling the right-bottom corner, that black game area does not enlarge. In a full-size window it only fills up 1 quarter of the window, ¾ stays white.

I tried to change the size by going to ‘system preferences’ / monitors / scaled, selecting: ‘bigger text’.
That helped somewhat, but 2 thirds of the screen are still not filled and the top line is still not visible. 

Does anyone know about this problem. Or did I do something wrong when installing?

Kind regards,
LionelR

[Trickman]

Why would you switch to Mac lol(issues with every game, not as customizeable, restrictions on the OS, over-priced vs. performance, etc)? That seems an odd move, but to each his own I suppose.

This.

I am a software engineer and, given the times we're in and how the software and hardware trends have shifted in the past few years, I see no reason in changing for a system that is inferior and more expensive.

Try linux if you want to go for something different. Windows 7 is still really good, though. Ignore everything else.

[CaptainArchmage]

For several years, I've happily played DF and used Dwarf Therapist on a PC. My laptop recently bit the dust, and I'm almost certain to make the move to Macs.

Do DF and Dwarf Therapist run as well on Mac as they do on PC? Any major compatibility issues? In particular, do updates to DF/Dwarf Therapist arrive on Macs in a timely fashion?

Thanks!

Mac: The hardware survival is pretty good. I also made the change from a windows laptop to a mac laptop and had none of the hardware issues, besides the chargers breaking. The only trouble you will have is the inability to upgrade the hardware besides RAM and hard drives without going out of your way (the logic board is soldered, it is change-able and there have been no changes to most of the port shapes and sizes in the past few years, but you have to go to ebay). Windows laptops may be upgrade-able but I've read some of them also have soldered components. Of course if your logic board goes out of date on any computer, you may have to change it to install a new processor.

For Dwarf Fortress, the mods will update slower or not at all for Mac. Masterwork is currently on 4g for Windows, but only on version 2something for Mac and Linux. Dfhack takes a while to update as well. Personally, I felt the unmodified Dwarf Fortress (no mods or hacks) game played more stable, though. There *may* be situations on each OS that will cause a crash on one but not on another.

You can buy a copy of Windows and download a copy of Linux, and install them on your Mac using the boot-camp utility. If you just got your Mac and you can do the partitions, I would recommend this.

[LionelR]

After hours of searching, I was able to get a more or less satisfying result (not completely full-screen, but 2/3). I used a special setting in the system screen settings: scale/large fonts. I then zoomed in is far as possible and now the letters can well be read.

As I also have 'Parallels' running, I did some comparing and noticed that the version on Mac is very stable and actually faster than on the parallel/windows version.

In creating an new world, I made the deployment box 5x5 instead of 4x4 and everything kept running very smoothly. Of course these are just 7 dwarfs, we'll have to see what it does when the game will be growing. I understood the game can get quite 'crowded' as it evolves.

[BigD145]

Without an i5 or i7 a 5x5 will slow down considerably once you're about 2 years in and had a couple 30-40+ immigrants in each of two waves.