Running AOE II on Mavericks 10.9.5 Intel Mac Pro

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Hex
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Joined: Thu May 26, 2016 6:13 pm

Running AOE II on Mavericks 10.9.5 Intel Mac Pro

Post by Hex »

I was kind of curious if they could be done so here's what I did to get it to work:

I was able to get Age of Empires II running on a Intel Mac:

Mac Pro Mid 2010 2.8Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon with 48GB of RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB video Card, running Mavericks 10.9.5, and with two NEC professional grade 24" lcd monitors & a 3rd CRT monitor.

1. I downloaded Chubby Bunny 4.0.1 as mentioned on this site:

http://macvalley.blogspot.com/2013/09/a ... works.html

2. When I first started Classic there were two hard drives on the desktop:

Classic
Unix

The Classic icon is the OS 9 while Unix icon is a shared folder between Mac OS X and the OS 9. You can't install AOE on the Classic drive because its too small and you can't run AOE from the Unix drive.

I used Sheepsaver's preferences to install a optional 1200Meg hard drive. I shut Sheepshaver down and then restarted it and a new 1200Meg hard drive icon was visible on the desktop.

3. I renamed the new 1200Meg hard drive "Age of Empires II". Do not include the quote marks or extra spaces before or after. Do not include extra spaces or other characters between the words. Do not misspell the phrase. What you are doing here is fooling Age of Empires into thinking this hard drive is the CD that normally needs to be placed inside the CD drive to run.

4. I dragged content from my Age of Empires CD into the /Users/Shared/ folder on my Macintosh, which represents the Unix folder on the Classic desktop. This can take a minute or so. Don't drag the little picture icons used to form the large Age of Empires logo on the CD as they are not needed.

If Sheepshaver keeps wanting to eject or format the CD you may have to do this step first.

If you already have the Unix folder open on the Classic you may need to close it and reopen it to refresh its contents. You will now see items in the Unix folder that match the /Users/Shared/ folder on your Macintosh.

5. Now open the Age of Empires drive. Copy all the items you just installed on the Unix drive to the Age of Empires drive. If you already have the Age of Empires folder open you may have to close it and reopen it to refresh the contents.

6. If you start Age of Empires at this point you get a gamesprockets error and it will not run so now go to this Apple page and download it:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1237?locale=en_US

Your download will named GameSprockets_1.7.5.smi.bin

Double click that file on your Intel Mac to expand it and you will get a file named GameSprockets 1.7.5.smi

Drag the GameSprockets 1.7.5.smi file into your Mac's /Users/Shared/ folder. Refresh the Unix folder on the Classic desktop if its already opem by closing it and reopening it - otherwise just open it.

7. Copy the GameSprockets 1.7.5.smi file from the Unix folder to the Classic HD folder.

Once copied to the Classic HD double click the GameSprockets 1.7.5.smi folder and a icon will appear on the desktop. Double click the icon to run the installer. Follow the instructions to install it on the Classic HD. It will require a restart of the Classic HD. You can delete the desktop installer and the two GameSprockets 1.7.5.smi files afterward.

8. If you start Age of Empires at this time it will give you a message saying that it requires Quicktime 4.1.2 or later. If you agree to install it at this point you will get an error saying the Mac was unable to connect to Quicktime's updater. If you dismiss the Quicktime warning AEO will still run, but the next time you start it you will get this same message.

To get rid of this error simply use the Quicktime Installer that you also copied to the Age of Empires hard drive on the desktop. This will install 5.0.2 and will require a restart, but get rid of the Quicktime message.

9. Because most people use lcd monitors today the size at which AOE will be shown within the emulation may not agree to you. This is because LCDs have a fixed screen ratio and can only emulate a few other screen ratios. I would suggest finding a old CRT monitor to run this game on.

You might be able to get a CRT for for free since they geenrally require a fee at the dump as their tubes have lead in them - the same as old tube tvs do. I got a couple 22" at a school auction for $1.00 each.

In the case of my Mac Pro its video card is able to run two 1920 x 1200 NEC lcd displays plus a 3rd 20" CRT monitor. When I want to play AOE I temporarily switch the display arrangement and make the CRT my main monitor so when AOE plays it will run on that monitor. The CRT monitor does not have a fixed matrix like the lcd and can easily show numerous screen ratios that will better fit with AOE.

10. I have not tried using Gameranger with AOE yet. I also have not installed the AOE II 1.0.6 update.
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Cat_7
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Re: Running AOE II on Mavericks 10.9.5 Intel Mac Pro

Post by Cat_7 »

Hi, and thanks for the report.

I deleted you other, duplicate post.

Best,
Cat_7
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