rMactor

Welcome to the rMac development blog.  This project started as an effort to enable the racing sim rFactor to run on Mac OS X installed on Intel-based hardware, in order not to have to install and boot to MS Windows to experience a top-notch multiplayer racing game. This is typically done using some flavour of WINE, a windows compatibility layer that Is Not an Emulator. Let's do a taste test:

WINE: It's free, it's continually updated. It's got pages of instructions just to install and set it up. You have to compile it from source code. Yikes.

Darwine: Also free. It started as a project to port wine to PPC (G3,G4,G5) Macs. This effort was abandoned, only to be revived as a binary install package for Intel Macs. I tried it. I got confused. I left it alone for now.

Cider is a commercial package, originally based on wine but split from the tree with closed code and aimed at commercial game developers, which I'm not. There's no price listed on their website that I can see. If I have to ask.. you know the answer.

Crossover is another commercial package with a free trial period. I tried it, it seems to make sense. There's even some humour built in. This company employs the many WINE programmers, including the lead developers. They take from wine builds, and give much development work back to the project, and even seem to be its main financiers. I'm not sure how this makes business sense, but that's not my concern.

Having picked a favourite, I got to playing with it. With some basic tweaking and installation of some extra programs, I was able to get the rFactor demo (as I want others to be able to try it out, at least) up and running with Crossover. In the current version (7.1) it has serious graphics issues and no USB controller support. With Crossover Games (7.2), it will not load the demo in an XP or Win2K bottle (of wine, get it?) and performance in a Win98 bottle is lacking. Their application Advocate program was brought to my attention, however, and I was accepted, and allowed to try their latest development versions.

The Good: I am happy to report that I've had it working with excellent performance (read on par with Windows or better) and USB Steering Wheel support through a developmental version of Crossover Games. The only minor quibbles I've had were a slight difference in keyboard mapping (the Apple Pro Keyboard's help key, used in the Windows version as a default camera switcher, registers as ALT, while number pad and number keys both map as the latter), and I have yet to discover a way to switch away from the application when running in full screen mode. The former I don't consider important, the latter is an annoyance, though the app will run fine in windowed mode.

The Bad: Only the publishers have any idea when the developmental version will be mature enough to release as an update. When this does happen, the product, insofar as compatibility with this particular game goes, will be worth supporting, especially if the customer wants to play more than one game. Both Games and Pro versions already support many apps, and are definitely worth checking out in trial mode for those who are interested.

Where to go from here? I had visions of creating a ready-made wine-ported app to run with a simple double-click, and approaching ISI with it for distribution, but alas, this would require Internet Explorer 6 to be included. While it's a free download, it still requires a license to install and run, which pretty much kills that idea. 

   Given these obstacles, it's time to revisit another flavour of wine. The latest versions support USB controllers in OS X, and form the basis of the aforementioned developmental Crossover and Darwine builds. I'll now attempt to discover and document the process of installing and running this particular sim on OS X, with a view to opening the cellar door to those who would be adventurous enough, or impatient enough, to try something new. To keep it as simple as possible, I'll start with Darwine, and keep you posted.

Or, you can take the Blue Pill.

Cheers,
DANDY