Hi...I actually run linux on ix86, but to an extent, crossover's
challenges running windows {or in this case, DOS} software are
pretty much the same regardless of whether a Mac or linux is being
used at the time ; so I hope this helps you some (;
As best I can figure it (going by the SIAM website), the software
is some 20+ years old, and originally designed to run on M$_DOS.
There is a small natter about making it compatible/native with the
later windows variants, and a small demo is provided to this end,
but the rest (99%) of it is still firmly planted in DOS. Noting
your results using vmware, further indicated this situation...
In effect here, you've asked 2 questions -- 1. will this title run
in crossover? ; 2. if so, can it be run in fullscreen mode? I've
grabbed some demos from the SIAM site to check this...
- I don't think it will run natively in crossover, because this title
is DOS native, not windows native. Trying to start a demo with crossover
yields the error - "wine: Cannot start DOS application "PZ87SAMP.EXE"
because vm86 mode is not supported on this platform". That'll be DOS...
This said, you could get it to run in crossover, using a windows based
DOS emulator...or just go straignt to a Mac native DOS emulator instead,
and do away with the crossover layer altogether. Relative merits of either
approach? The windows based DOS emulators are said to be more advanced/better
maintained than the Mac versions/ports, but that statement is relative to
exactly which (DOS) game/app you're trying to run -- if there is no gain
running SIAM with crossover+windows DOS emulator, and it runs just as well
using a native Mac port of a DOS emulator, use the latter. An example of the
former is here ;
http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=5949
DOSbox is free software -- you can download the Mac port of DOSbox from
their homepage (see link above). You can download a free trial of crossover
games and the windows version of DOSbox, and directly compare results for
yourself. (note: if you only have crossover Mac, the windows port of DOSbox
may run fine with that crossover version, so getting crossover games may
be optional...I would try both, just in case :)
- Fullscreen...(or more precisely screen resolutions)...are victims of the
technological age. Most all DOS titles expect a 4:3 aspect display device,
capable of running in a native resolution of 640x480 (or 640x400 or lower),
whereas modern display hardwares today are mostly widescreen 16:9/10 units
with no native 4:3 screen modes/resolution at all. This is why, like in the
link above, you see things being run in 'windowed' mode, and a lot of older
windows games are run in crossover games like this too, for pretty much the
same reasons. This is likely what you saw in vmware too, but presented in
a different (windowsy) format...[and yes, although you can hack your xorg.conf
file to give you screenmodes your widescreen was never designed to do, once
the game output is scaled to those resolutions it looks horrific, because it
has no idea how to retarget 4:3->16:9/10 ;-]
The simplest workaround, is to have 4:3 display hardware inplace, that is capable
of displaying the native screenmodes/resolution the game requires. For example,
even DOSbox is probably going to want that to run this title in fullscreen mode,
I'm not sure...it wouldn't surprize me if this were the case however...
Anyhow, at least you can give this all a try, and see how it works out, long
before you settle on anything - hope this helps you out.
Cheers,
Don
