Banshie's Lab

From my workbench, This time not on fire

[banshielab]

School of Dragons for Mac OS X

Today I revitalise my Lab with School of Dragons MMO as a native port to Mac OS X.

You can even sign in on Safari and you will be automatically signed in on the App.

Keep Reading for download link.

This Mac OS X port of School of Dragons requires OS X 10.7 or later and the Unity Web Player that can be downloaded here

Simply download the attached .dmg and drag the app to your Applications Folder (or anywhere) and Play!

Download School of Dragons for Mac OS X

[banshielab]

I have updated my Façade wrapper, in the past I have provided wrappers in the form of a Wineskin bundle/app. I am now providing the wrapper as a Crossover Bottle.

This has the dissadvantage of requiring Crossover.

I crated this wrapper with Crossover 13.1.3, this may not be a hard requirement for the bottle to install and run however I wont be providing backwards compatibility testing.

For Façade I am providing the full wrapper, meaning this download and Crossover is all you need to enjoy Façade on your Intel Mac.

[banshielab]

Windows 7 vs 8.1 DX9 & DX10 in Parallels Desktop 9

Well it is 6 months later, and I've found some time to stair blankly at benchmarks and watch Hearthstone streams on my iPad.

It isn't the first time that I've seen lower results with newer software and operating system but there is no time effective way to determine the culprit to these lower scores, and as much as I'd like to blame Windows that's just a guess at this point.

What is clear is that Windows 8.1 seems to not be a whole lot different (possibly worse) than Windows 7 on performance, and continues to either be a total disaster on design or a workable disaster.

As with every test, I will update if I find a more conclusive/better test.

Also I've discovered that EFI is now an option in Virtual Machines (new outside of OS X VMs at least) and if there is any noticeable performance improvements I will report.

Update: I believe I've discovered the reason for the lower scores, the previous tests were conducted without AA or Vsync I'll amend the results  if this proves to be the issue.

[banshielab]

A Thing I Found: CamTwist in Virtual Machines

While testing OpenBroadcaster in a VM I discovered that CamTwist from the host mac registers a video capture device.

I'm yet to find a practical use for this as Cocoasplit and FLME are viable native software, but perhaps this could be used for some creative trolling on Omegle or Skype.

[banshielab]

Loadout Mac/Lin Wine Fix

For me under Crossover 13 all I had todo was install Steam via the install software wizard, download Loadout via Steam and add "-DX11:0" to the Launch Options.

Having so much fun, and now I don't even have to reboot!

[banshielab]

Here's the direct link to the "Basic Content" which is a required download upon launching Logic Pro X for the first time.

The link resolves to a ProAudioCoreContent10.pkg which can be installed offline/locally, having direct access to this package can save a lot of time if you are installing Logic Pro X on a lot of machines or machines that have a capped download quota (the package is nearly 2GB!)

Like with my Garage Band iOS Compatability Update post I wish Apple had posted this package to their public Support Downloads portal.

As always, Apple may change, remove or update the above link in the future, if that does indeed happen you should be able to use Wireshark and sniff out the location on new installations of Logic Pro X.

[banshielab]

Windows 7 vs 8 DX9 Parallels Desktop 8

Well I had sometime free today to do some benchmarks and this the first VM benchmark I've done with Windows 8.

I had done some basic benchmarks with Windows 8 during the Developer Previews and i found that it performed slightly worse than Windows Vista in 3DMark06.

So with over a year of patches I had hoped that the system had been optimised to 10% better than its predecessor which is how all versions of Windows have been.

Now with clear results in hand it is good that Windows 8 is now performing better than Windows 7, However the performance increase is so meaningless that for me Windows 8 is still to boast a single improvement or feature over that of Windows 7.

Windows 8 only scored 41 points higher than Windows 7 under a DX9 benchmark, at many costs to what I consider crucial aspects of a Windows Operating System.

Windows 7 weighed in at 11GB where Windows 8 was a strikingly fat 22GB. This additional software at a guess I would say is the Metro Modern UI for use on Touch Devices and Hipsters on Traditional Desktops.

Windows 8 boot times have been noticeably improved and this is directly related to the recent EFI support however if Windows 7 was installed in EFI mode there is a good chance that the times would be very comparable. The biggest issue with EFI is that not all hardware drivers are compatible, such as nvidia graphics cards, This is likely to change with the industry push towards the UEFI standard.

In the recent months I have finally needed to use Windows Applications that no longer support DX9, however these still remain as a minority, more and more titles continue to support DX9, and some applications are now starting to support OpenGL (and support Non-Windows platforms) Hopefully this will be a trend that continues.

[banshielab]

Virtual Machine Benchmark (PD7vsPD8vsVMW5 on Win7)

[banshielab]

Steam Tools

Today I Present 3 Apps

These Apps are Platypus'ed scripts that I used everyday to get Steam doing what it ought to be doing, but that's life.

Steam Switch Library

This App lets you switch between two Steam Installations or Libraries.

This can be useful if you have two steam accounts and one has content that conflicts with your main due to customisations or silly laws.

Steam Shortcut Backup & Steam Shortcut Restore

These two Apps work together to get around the occasional issue that Steam has where it suddenly forgets all of your Non-Steam Game shortcuts.

Current Issues

All though I have worked hard to fix all logic errors and bugs some glaring holes are still present in this release however they should not affect most users.

Steam Switch Library expects that Steam.app is in your /Applications/ folder.

Steam Shortcut Backup & Store do not handle multiple Steam Users, if you share your computer and use the same OS X User Account for both Steam User Accounts it may not function as intended.

Future Development

Beyond fixing the above issues, in the future I'd like to;

Combine Steam Shortcut Backup & Restore.

Make Steam more TimeMachine friendly.

[banshielab]

I noticed that in Google's recent (and continuing) redesign of Youtube.

They have completely removed all links to the old subscription view (grid and list view).

This view has long been my only view into Youtube and luckily I've kept it bookmarked.

  I hope it can be of some use.

[banshielab]

I've put together a working Feed The Beast Launcher in a "native" .app

The app comes with a new dock icon, and an easy to use DMG installer (just click and drag)

The app still requires Java as does everything Minecraft related, however since the launcher is now a native .app it will show up in Spotlight and Launchpad like other OS X apps.

[banshielab]

EDIT: I have now switched over to a solution by Industrious One called Musicality

Musicality not only provides the below solution in one dead simple to use app, but also Last.FM Scrobbling it is great app!

Since my last post I now have unlimited Internet, and with that I can join the rest of the world with enjoying the wonders of streaming media.

However I wanted these great new services I find my self using to be as great as the Offline media systems I all ready use (iTunes).

This was realised with OS X Mountain Lion's built in support for Airplay and Yuaoki's (I think that's his name) ChromeLauncherWithExtraAudio.

In OS X MLion Airplay is implemented into the system as a sound device that is accessible by all OS X applications that allow for sound device selection, by default Chrome will only use  the "System Default" sound device, this is where Yuaoki's app comes into play, it allows you to choose any system sound device.

Just launch Chrome with Yuaoki's launcher, select Airplay and brows to your Radio site (or any site, Youtube ect) and all audio will be streamed to your Airplay device, with It Just Works™ magic.

[banshielab]

I support multiple macs in my home, so I like to keep software on a network share. This is done mainly because I have a limited quota (110GB/per month), however my home network will almost always be faster than the Internet.

What really annoys me is applications that downloads additional system resources, such as updates and plugins and then provides no way to back up said resources.

One of the most annoying is the iOS compatibility update for GarageBand, this update is not in Software Update or on Apple's Support Downloads Page.

Using Wireshark, I was able to find the download source, which results in a .pkg file, a OS X Software Package file. This should work for any mac, however Apple may change the location of the file in the future.

What would be better if Apple makes this update accessible via their Support Downloads page, but I wouldn't hold out for that.

[banshielab]

Skype, I Payed For These Speakers.

A Short How to get Skype to output sound to both speakers on Mac Book Pros.

This can be achieved very quickly if you grab SoundFlower, it is a great "Inter-Application Audio Router Utility".

Once you download and install the app, simply set Skype's Speakers to Soundflower (2ch), then open the application Soundflowerbed.app and using the menu bar and select "Built-in output" under the Soundflower (2ch).

I do also recommend setting the Soundflowerbed.app as a startup item as if the app isn't open then it won't pass audio to the built-in output.

  Enjoy using those speakers you payed for.

[banshielab]

OS X FTP Clients Compared (Speed)

Benchmarking network tools, especially internet tools is difficult.

So much relies on your ISP and the infrastructure between.

That being said these benchmarks were done in a very limited way.

  My test was a 100mb test file hosted by my ISP (for the purpose of testing network speed) downloaded three times by each application and averaged.

These tests may not apply to your situation, also I did not test the full gambit of features offered by each application. This test was to determine which application was the fastest consistently.

  All tests are recorded in seconds, and rounded.

  Transmit

Results;

  Test 1: 203

Test 2: 198

Test 3: 197

Average: 199

  Notes:

Transmit was the first application to be tested, and its first result was 284, this was inconsistently larger then all other tests.

I am not sure of the exact reason but it would seem that the first connection to my ISP server and attempt to download a file was slower, as such the first result was replaced with a new test.

  Forklift

Results;

  Test 1: 197

Test 2: 204

Test 3: 197

Average: 199

  Finder

Results;

  Test 1: 200

  Notes:

I had wanted to test Finder, however it appears that it fully caches all files locally.

  Speed Download

Results;

  Test 1: 197

Test 2: 197

Test 3: 196

Average: 197

  The clear winner is Speed Download with the quickest time and the lowest average time, Speed Download was the only client that maintained a constant high speed. While not an FTP Client in the vain of Forklift or Transmit it keeps up with its name.

In the future I would like to test Flow it has received an Apple Design Award.

[banshielab]

I don't like Java, Not at all. I've spent many hours testing a wide arrange of solutions to improve the state of Minecraft on OS X.

I think I've cracked it, at least the best that I can do, I've tested RAMDisks... Third Party Mods... Updated Java Virtual Machines... Updated game frameworks...

None of the above improved the performance of Minecraft in either any noticeable way or with out major draw backs.

The best solution I have now, uses the info.plist file, and the JavaApplicationStub

The first thing to do is open up your Minecraft.app (if you don't have this yet download Minecraft and launch it up at least once) you can do this by right clicking Minecraft and selecting "Show Package Contents" open the Contents folder.

Now, go up to the menu bar (top of the screen) and select the Go menu and select Go to Folder or press ⇧⌘ G (shift command g) and copy paste the following

/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/A/Resources/MacOS/

Once there copy the JavaApplicationStub and press back in Finder, then open the MacOS folder and paste the file replacing the existing file. This one is outdated and cannot start the 64 bit Java included in most Macs.

Go back once again in Finder, and you should see an info.plist, you need to replace this one with the one I am providing in the post title link. Simply download the file, unzip it, and copy it replacing the existing one.

Once you have both the updated Info.plist and the updated JavaApplicationStub you are set to launch up Minecraft.app as you would normally and everything should be running much better.

Extra Notes:

My guide above is what has improved my Minecraft and I have had no problems, however these improvements were designed for the Vanilla Minecraft and I do not have the god powers to make sure it will work for you, please make sure to backup your existing Minecraft before trying my improvements, for any further questions please consult my warranty page

A lot of the above linked rejected solutions did all yield performance enhancements, but they did not improve performance in conjunction and they all had draw backs, such as glitchy visuals, decreased FPS (while yielding faster world loading) or were just beyond my interest in making it just work.

[banshielab]

.COMMAND

UPDATE

I now have some a version of my start.command that can work with /spaced file/directories/

#!/bin/bash

echo "pwd: `pwd`"

echo "\$0: $0"

echo "basename: `basename "$0"`"

echo "dirname: `dirname "$0"`"

cd "`dirname "$0"`"

Pro tip, if you are looking for the OS X friendly .sh or .bat .command is the extension of choice.

Start your .command with the following code;

#!/bin/sh

cd $(dirname "$0")

The first line tells terminal which interpreter to use, and the second line instructs the terminal to change directory to where the script was launched.

The Working Directory can mean a lot to a shell script, for example without changing the working directory my CraftBukkit server will start using my home directory, this will leave it to assume a new server must be generated.

Some examples;

My CraftBukkit Server start.command

#!/bin/sh

cd $(dirname "$0")

java -Xincgc -Xmx256M -jar ./CraftBukkit.jar

My Source Server start.command

#!/bin/sh

cd $(dirname "$0")

./orangebox/srcds_run -console -replay -game tf +map ctf_2fort +maxplayers 33