Options for Mac Users running the Sims
1. A Windows box
This is likely the simplest and cheapest solution if all you need Windows for is sim-related activities: most TS2/TS3 modding tools will run on everything that can run Windows, even a very old machine. Depending on where you live, you may be able to get an outdated Windows desktop for free or very cheap (likely for less than a new Windows license alone would cost you), and the only other thing you need is a network cable.
Networking OS X to Windows is very simple: in the Finder menu, select Go > Connect to Server and choose the Windows machine – it’ll mount like an external drive. In my experience (which is limited to TS2 meshes/recolours, fiddling with TS2 lots/neighbourhoods, and a quick look at some TS3 tools), you don’t have to actually install the game on the same machine as SimPE/s3pe – pointing those at a copy of some game files is all that’s needed.
Pro:
– You can work on both machines in parallel, speeding things up quite a bit (and you also have two screens at your disposal, which can be very handy)
– You're not going to break your real computer – whatever happens when you make a mistake, it happens on the other machine.
– Minimal security concerns (unless you do something stupid, like download a questionable exe on your mac and transfer that to the Windows box): since you can continue to work on your OS X machine, you can keep using that for web browsing etc too.
Contra:
– A clunky old desktop machine takes up space and is not very portable (but used laptops aren't all that expensive – the one I have cost EUR 80 which I think is perfectly reasonable).
– The initial setup can be a bit tedious: you will likely need to download a bunch of things to your mac (DirectX, various .NET versions, the tools themselves), then copy them over, then install. However, you only need to do this once (or whenever you get a new toy to play with). I would *not* recommend that longtime OS X users connect a Windows machine to the internet – security under Windows is a can of worms that you don’t want to open. If you absolutely have to, read this first.
– Second-hand computers typically come with no warranty and are more likely to pass out than your brand new mac – make backups of what you're working on, and make sure you know where the next recycling ward is.
Price: 0$ if you’re lucky – it depends on what you buy.
2. BootCamp
You can use BootCamp to set aside a partition on your OS X machine, then install Windows on that. BootCamp is included with OS X 10.5 and up, but you will still have to buy Windows (check the requirements on apple.com before you buy). Setup should be uncomplicated – I haven’t done it personally, but it comes with the usual shiny wizard. Tiger users would have to resort to the Beta which is meanwhile discontinued, but I’d strongly recommend upgrading to Leopard instead.
Apple Support: BootCamp Overview
Apple Support: BootCamp FAQ
Pro:
– You have all the processing power and shinyness of your OS X machine at your disposal. TS3 users could also install the actual game under Windows while you're at it (this will most likely result in improved graphics, and makes it much easier to playtest the content you make).
Contra:
– Requires a reboot every time you want to do anything under OS X or access files on the OS X partition. This can get old very fast, and will be time consuming (don’t expect Windows to boot up as fast as OS X does).
– You need to set aside a considerable chunk of HD space, particularly when you also want to run the game under Windows. Be aware that you cannot easily resize that partition anymore once Windows is installed, so plan accordingly.
– Since you can’t easily switch from one OS to the other, you’re not going to want to reboot every time you want to check mail or google something, so you’ll likely end up connecting to the internet under Windows. Read this guidefor a quick overview of the risks involved. Also, be aware that Windows may not be as stable as OS X and you may be working with highly experimental / beta tools (not to mention a notoriously buggy game) – save early, save often.
Price: 140$–220$ for a Windows license of your choice – if you buy a used version, it's obviously going to be cheaper. See post #12 of this thread for some info on Windows licensing.
For completeness’ sake: BootCamp is not the only way to set up a multi boot machine, but for OS X/Windows it’s by far the most hassle free and well documented way.
3. Virtual machines (Emulators)
You can install a virtual machine under OS X that simulates a Windows computer. The two major commercial solutions are Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion at the moment.
VirtualBox is an open-source emulator; binary downloads are available here. This is very simple to install (just click through the wizard); see post #12 of this thread for a more in-depth review (it seems to kick ass, but possibly not for running TS3). Another open-source emulator would be Q, an OS X port of QEMU. See post #13 of this thread (robotguy) for more info.
Sun: VirtualBox
Q: About
Q: Main page
Parallels: Desktop 4.0 for Mac
VMWare: Fusion
wikipedia: Comparison of VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop
wikipedia: Comparison of Platform Virtual Machines
Pro/Contra:
LifeHacker: Dual booting vs. virtual machines – slightly outdated, but I believe this is quite a good overview nevertheless. You can also do both things at the same time for additional flexibility.
Stanford Uni: Windows on a Mac – another overview of various options. There's more of these if you google a bit.
Here is a thread (TS3/CAS Parts) where a few people talk about their experience with various emulators as well as BootCamp; a Google search will provide you with many more hours of reading material. Whichever solution you try, be aware that no emulator will run anything with the same speed and performance as it'd run natively (which shouldn't be an issue for most TS3/TS3 tools since they're mostly very small and lightweight to begin with).
Price: VMWare and Parallels are about 80$ for a single user license, VirtualBox is free for personal use, Q is free as well. You will still need to buy and install Windows (140$–220$ new) – an emulator simulates only the machine, not the OS. See post #12 of this thread for some info on Windows licensing.
4. Wine and its relatives
Wine
Wine is a free software that allows Unix-like systems to run Windows programs – instead of emulating the hardware *for* Windows, it is an alternative implementation of Windows itself. Setting it up on vanilla OS X is a rather complex undertaking: the whole thing has to be built from scratch which takes several hours even on a powerful machine, you need to have Apple’s developer tools and some other stuff installed beforehand, and you will need to RTFM quite a bit and be able to use a console with a modicum of confidence. On the other hand, it doesn’t cost anything but time.
Wine/X11 starts within seconds on my MBP; I don’t know how this compares to an emulator – I haven’t tried to run anything big but for small utilities it’s definitely useful. I have seen a Linux user running TS3 in Wine (cary123 in this thread) – this might work on OS X too, it may or may not circumvent the graphical borkiness of the OS X version (seeing as the EA wrapper is also Wine-based).
WineHQ: OS X FAQ
WineHQ: Installing Wine under OS X
WineHQ: Building Wine under OS X
Some of the caveats in these FAQs are apparently a little outdated (Apple’s X11 works for me; I’m on 10.5.7 with XCode 3.1.2). Parallels Desktop (see above) is partly based on Wine, and so is Cider (the wrapper that the OS X version of TS3 is using). See also post #13 of this thread (robotguy) for some links on how to (possibly/potentially) get cider to run other things than TS3 under OS X.
I haven't gotten any of the TS2/TS3 tools I tested to work in Wine, so far – some will start, but not work as in "actually work". I only tested a fraction of what's available though, and other Windows programs work fine for me.
Milkshape 3D seems to run perfectly fine in Wine; I didn't test it very extensively but it was stable and fast for me. One issue I had was not being able to save with the trial version because the "this is only a trial" popup went into a loop; I'm pretty sure this must be a bug since I've used MS under Windows so I know the trial is full-featured (i.e. you're supposed to be able to save). This was in wine-1.1.24, ms3d185beta1.
You can also get Wine for OS X via Winebottler; see post #13 of this thread (robotguy) for some info on that.
Pro/Contra:
– Will run Windows programs in parallel to your regular OS X environment, so switching between applications is a non-issue
– Windows programs that rely on proprietary drivers will not run in Wine (see the app database on winehq.org for details)
– Swapping files between OS X and Wine applications may require unhiding invisible files/folders in the Finder – this can be risky (they’re hidden for a reason)
– The developer tools plus X11 plus Wine take up quite a lot of HD space, on the other hand you don’t need a separate partition and the overhead (CPU load, memory) is minimal otherwise
Price: 0$ (and a lot of time)
CrossOver
There is a commercial distribution of Wine called CrossOver that is available as a binary download (so installation under OS X is very simple); however, the free trial lasts only 30 days so it may be of limited usefulness for content creators. I haven't tested running any Windows stuff in CrossOver.
CodeWeavers: CrossOver Mac
CodeWeavers: CrossOver Games
Pro/Contra:
I’ve quickly tested it and personally don’t like it, but YMMV – it can’t hurt to test a free trial. There is a comparison chart on codeweavers.com with a quick overview/differentiation between dual-booting, emulators, and various Wine-based solutions, but be aware that it is somewhat biased (they want you to buy one of their products, after all). CodeWeavers are actively supporting the Wine project.
Price: 0$ for the trial, 40$–70$ for a license
5. Cross-platform solutions
Mono
Mono is an open-source .NET development framework that's available for several platforms (OS X among others). You can run some TS2/TS3 tools in it, see list below (most likely incomplete).
Installing mono is very simple (download, mount, click through the wizard). You need to have X11 installed beforehand. Go here if you want the most current release.
Tiger 10.4.x users could get it from their 10.4 install DVD (but should probably upgrade your OSX instead).
Leopard 10.5.x users should have it already (/Applications/Utilities/X11), last supported version for Leopard 10.5.8 isX11 ver 2.6.3
Snow Leopard 10.6.x machines already have X11 built-in, so there's no additional steps. You'd need version 2.5.0 and higher if you want to update.
Lion 10.7.x machines already have X11 built-in, so there's no additional steps. You'd need version X11 ver 2.7.2 and higher.
Mountain Lion 10.8.x machinesdo nothave this by default as perthis article, you need version 2.7.2 and higher.
Depending on your exact setup, you may have to explicitely tell mono to use X11 for drawing operations (this is not enabled by default), like so:
- open the Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)
- type export MONO_MWF_MAC_FORCE_X11=1 and hit enter (ella) [eta start]no longer needed for Mono 2.10.8 onwards (I'm not entirely sure the last Mono version that requires this step, but current release version has been confirmed to not need this, so go and update if you have not. The beta 2.10.9 crashed on me, BTW.[eta end]
- type mono /path/to/your/exe (or the easy way: type mono and a space, then drop the exe onto the terminal window) and hit enter
To reset it, type unset MONO_MWF_MAC_FORCE_X11 and hit enter (then it'll use the default driver again).
http://www.mono-project.com/
Tools that run (or should run) in mono:
TS3
s3pe
(pljones)– requires mono 2.6.1 or later; in 2.6.1/OS X 10.5.7 I need to run it with X11 or it's extremely sluggish; in 2.6.4/OS X 10.5.8 it seems to be working nicely with the Carbon driver (this was a QA version though, not the release)
(ella) [etastart]current .Net 4.x versions don't work, as Mono has limited support for .Net4.x ; use the last non-.net4 version ie:s3pe_11-1216-1651[eta end]
(pljones)– seems to work fine in mono 2.6.4/OS X 10.5.8 (as in run) but the file paths popup has issues. These can be circumvented by editing s3oc-ini.ttl manually, says Inge
(ella) [etastart]current .Net 4.x versions don't work, as Mono has limited support for .Net4.x ; use the last non-.net4 version. it is crash-ville though. ie:s3oc_11-1113-1118[eta end]
Dashboard Tool (Delphy) – runs only with X11 according to download post
PatternPackager (Delphy) – intermediate build (not published yet)
Neighbourhood Workshop (TigerM)
Smooth Jazz Animation Script Editor (TigerM) untested
Sims3Pack Multi-Extracter (Delphy)
CAS Texture+Unitool
(Delphy)– I need to run this with x11 (OS X 10.5.7), otherwise I'm having redraw issues. YMMV.
(ella) [etastart]Some other info inhttp://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=470372[eta end]
Little LOTte Lot editor – "Beautiful Vista" buff adjustment (TigerM) I need to run this with the Carbon driver, top menus won't work right in x11 for me
SimpleDXTCompress (TigerM)
TS2:
TS2GridAdjuster (Mootilda)
ConvertiWall (Mootilda)
LotAdjuster 2.7/LotAdjuster 3.0 (Mootilda)
HoodReplace (Mootilda) untested
This list is not complete, it's only the stuff I tested myself or that other people posted about in this thread. If you've tested anything else, post with specs and I'll edit.
Note that I can't test the output of the TS2 tools, since I don't have TS2 installed anymore. But I can run the tools themselves.
With X11 (OS X 10.5.7), I'm having issues with dropdown menus in mono 2.6.1 (see below). This does not affect any of Mootilda's tools or the Sims3Pack Multi-Extracter, since those do not have any popup menus. The menus *do* work in mono/Linux, so as a workaround one could get a live CD or an image and use that. I believe this may be fixed by upgrading to 10.5.8/X112.4.0.
The uninstall script for mono-2.4.2.3 *is not* on the .dmg (like it says on the tin) – you can find it in /Library/Receipts/MonoFramework-2.4.2.3_3.macos10.novell.x86.pkg/Contents/Resources/uninstallMono.sh or copy it from this page. Copy it to somewhere else, then in Terminal sudo /path/to/your/uninstallMono.sh.
For people who use the Carbon driver: in mono-2.6.1 there is a bug involving System.Windows.Forms.XplatUICarbon.AudibleAlert – see post #32 of this thread for a workaround.
Price: 0$
Java
Some TS3 tools are written in Java, those will work on any platform that has the Java Runtime Environmentinstalled. If your OS X is up to date, then you already have that, you just need to make sure it is activated: open /Applications/Utilities/Java Preferences and drag SE 6 to the top of the second list. Here is a little guide with pretty pictures, as well. Be aware that other Java-based applications may depend on the default settings – make sure you don't forget that this is changed, it'll lead to unnecessary troubleshooting attempts.
Apple: System Updates (Leopard)
Tools that are written in Java:
TS3
Postal Package Editor (Echo)
3viewer (jfade)
TS3 STBL editor (Namethief)
There are probably others as well.
Price: 0$ (payware may also exist, I don’t know)
6. Native OS X tools
Obviously you don't need to do or install anything to run those.
TS3
TS3 Framework Installer – Installs the framework needed to use .package mods (Marhis)
TS2
filenameTooltip – Add tooltips to recolours automatically (CatOfEvilGenius)
3D and image editing
blender – a very powerful 3D editor, free/open source
Aorta – a tool for creating DDS textures
SquishDDS – another DDS converter
Acorn – simple image editor (has a free version with less features, which seems sufficient for simple tasks)
Pixen – image editor
emhpb also wrote a tutorial on CAS retexturing specifically for OS X users using Gimp and Aorta, see here.
Whatever you do: please do not bitch and whine at the developers of TS2/TS3 tools just because they write stuff for the platform they’re most comfortable with. This is their choice, not yours. Complaining that "nobody thinks of us!" acheives nothing – it only gives OS X users a bad name for acting like incompetent, self-centered asshats.
This overview is most certainly not complete – please post if you have anything to add/correct/clarify, and I'll edit. Just because something isn’t mentioned above, that doesn’t mean it’s not a good solution (I may have forgotten it, never tested it, or just not know about it myself).
If you post in this thread with a technical question/observation, please remember to include the exact version of all software involved. If you post error logs or somesuch, please wrap them in [ spoiler] spoiler tags [ /spoiler].