Shmups in OSX

[NuclearPotato]

Wise fwom your etc.

Been trying to get Touhou 10 working on my Mac. It runs, but the framerate is all wonky. Using the Mac Driver, it's locked at around 30 FPS full screen. Switching to X11 unlocks the cap, but the game doesn't want to run at a stable 60 FPS, instead dropping frames all over the place (even on menus)!

Update: I switched screen settings to fullscreen override. Framerate became a lot more stable, but I got hit with a massive frame drop on the Stage 2 boss.

[zakk]

Wise fwom your etc.

Been trying to get Touhou 10 working on my Mac. It runs, but the framerate is all wonky. Using the Mac Driver, it's locked at around 30 FPS full screen. Switching to X11 unlocks the cap, but the game doesn't want to run at a stable 60 FPS, instead dropping frames all over the place (even on menus)!

Update: I switched screen settings to fullscreen override. Framerate became a lot more stable, but I got hit with a massive frame drop on the Stage 2 boss.

My MoF wrapper is using the WS9Wine1.5.31X engine, Automatic for the screen settings, and use mac driver instead of X11. Seems to do 60fps pretty consistently, and I remember it being fine back when I played through all the Touhou games in wine.

I haven't tried any of the newer engines to see if they cause problems with touhou stuff. See if that engine works for you.

[ExitPlanetDust]

I upgraded to OSX 10.8 recently and Wine doesn't seem to like that at all. Games that were stable and smooth are a jittery mess now.

I'm not sure if this can be fixed. OSX 10.8 also doesn't seem to like running anything software or sprite based. It runs Open GL better but that's about it.

[NuclearPotato]

Wise fwom your etc.

Been trying to get Touhou 10 working on my Mac. It runs, but the framerate is all wonky. Using the Mac Driver, it's locked at around 30 FPS full screen. Switching to X11 unlocks the cap, but the game doesn't want to run at a stable 60 FPS, instead dropping frames all over the place (even on menus)!

Update: I switched screen settings to fullscreen override. Framerate became a lot more stable, but I got hit with a massive frame drop on the Stage 2 boss.

My MoF wrapper is using the WS9Wine1.5.31X engine, Automatic for the screen settings, and use mac driver instead of X11. Seems to do 60fps pretty consistently, and I remember it being fine back when I played through all the Touhou games in wine.

I haven't tried any of the newer engines to see if they cause problems with touhou stuff. See if that engine works for you.

Tried this; it acted practically the same as the newer engine.

I upgraded to OSX 10.8 recently and Wine doesn't seem to like that at all. Games that were stable and smooth are a jittery mess now.

I'm not sure if this can be fixed. OSX 10.8 also doesn't seem to like running anything software or sprite based. It runs Open GL better but that's about it.

I'm on OSX 10.9. Still not sure what the problem here is though; all the other Touhou games I'm running through Wine work fine (7-9, 12..

That said, I have trouble running the new english patcher for 14. Every time I try to run it, the command window bugs the fuck out.

[wuxy]

Hi

Can somebody tell me how to adjust the config file for edens aegis so it would run at a normal frame rate? Can't find it anywhere, help would be much appreciated

Thanks in advance!

[ExitPlanetDust]

I upgraded to OSX 10.8 recently and Wine doesn't seem to like that at all. Games that were stable and smooth are a jittery mess now.

I'm not sure if this can be fixed. OSX 10.8 also doesn't seem to like running anything software or sprite based. It runs Open GL better but that's about it.

I'm on OSX 10.9. Still not sure what the problem here is though; all the other Touhou games I'm running through Wine work fine (7-9, 12..

That said, I have trouble running the new english patcher for 14. Every time I try to run it, the command window bugs the fuck out.

It's probably my hardware more than anything. I'm running on a late 2009 white Macbook unibody. It shares most of its guts with the Pros of that era but it's still 5 years old.

I would move to 10.9, but I think I'm pushing it with 10.8 as it is.

[zakk]

In light of recent releases, here's something that might be of interest.

http://krylon.rsdio.com/zakk/osxshmups/Eschatos.zip

http://krylon.rsdio.com/zakk/osxshmups/ ... rsword.zip

preconfigured wineskin wrappers for Eschatos and Judgement Silversword/Cardinal Sins.

I was going to pre-install Steam into them but a bare steam install is 500M these days...

Download the Windows steam installer from here: http://store.steampowered.com/about/

Launch the wrapper, click 'Install Software' and point it at the steam installer exe. It'll install Steam. Go ahead and run steam and let it update itself. Then you can login with your steam account and install the actual game. Just run the game now!

You might think you can save some space/effort by installing both games into the same wrapper, but unfortunately Eschatos crashes on video resolution changes under non-Crossover engines and JSS/CS seems to crash randomly when using those engines so...

[qmish]

My friend asked me what Steam shmups work on Mac OS.

Any way to auto-compile list?

[Shepardus]

My friend asked me what Steam shmups work on Mac OS.

Any way to auto-compile list?

Mac OS X + "Bullet Hell" tag
Mac OS X + "Shoot 'em Up" tag
Mac OS X + "Twin Stick Shooter" tag

Note that this doesn't include games without official macOS support that work in Wine.

[donluca]

My friend asked me what Steam shmups work on Mac OS.

Any way to auto-compile list?

Thanks to Wine most (if not all) shmups title work fine on Mac OS.

And if Wine fails, using a virtual machine will work 100% as most shmups don't have eccessive hardware requirements.

So, yeah, combining those two you can get every single shmup released work without issues.

[kog3100_edw]

I'm not having too much trouble with Touhou either.
I have a late 2015 5K iMac, configured at purchase with the highest graphics options at that time. I am updated to the newest version of OS X High Sierra.

In general, I use older Wineskin engines (1.5 to 1.9 versions) and during the process I uncheck the 3D option (second choice usually) under screen options, and under the options tab past the Advanced button, make sure the wineskin is using the native mac option and not X11.

This has gotten ALL Windows-based Touhou games to run. The latest ones have trouble running in fullscreen mode (on my machine), so I just choose the recommended resolution in Windowed mode, and then change the screen resolution from the Apple Preferences menu or this free monitor-res adjustment app that I have up in my status bar.

No frame drops, no sound issues. In each game's options menu you can set the buttons for a controller (in my case a HRAP V4 joystick for PS4), but I've found I need an app like Controllers for it to read the joystick itself. I open Controllers, click the slider to on, and leave it up open on the desktop. Then run whatever Touhou game.

Essentially if you get one Wineskin wrapper set to run one of 'em, it'll run all of 'em. Just find the latest engine that works and stick with that on all subsequent games.

I am currently fussing with a OS X version of Neko Project II trying to get the PC-98 games to work. They show Zun's logo at the beginning but then hang up.

[kog3100_edw]

Sorry if that sounds confusing or like a lot of hassle. There is just a little bit of work flipping switches in each skin (from the base version) to get them running. Then with your controller active, set the buttons you want in the option screen. The games save your settings. The app Controllers is also a one-time setup. My last step is to find a cover for each game and convert it to an icon and save it over the generic Wineskin icon each wrapper generates.

So with the effort of about 15 minutes per game, I have a folder with all Touhou games (EoSD and later actually), appropriate icons. With a stick plugged in and Controllers slid to 'on', the games all just fire up.

[KingSOF]

Hello everyone,

Any update on this forum?

I have been testing a few (Windows) Steam shmups on Mac Book Pro (M3 Pro 18G RAM) using Whisky and/or CrossOver:
- Mushihimesama runs fine using Whisky (but does not work in CrossOver)
- Crimzon Clover WE runs bad on Whisky and has (rather serious) framerate drops with CrossOver.
- Ikaruga runs bad using Whisky but seems to run fine using CrossOver.

Whisky config: DXVK + DXVK Async + MSync (Windows 10)
CrossOver config: D3DMetal + MSync (Windows 10)

Would appreciate any feedback as I would really like to find a way to run CCWE at solid 60FPS on this hardware and/or know about Steam shmups that could run without any problem on an M3.

Thanks !

[KingSOF]

Hello everyone,

I made some progress today in my quest for the best settings to play CCWE on a Mac Book Pro M3 Pro.

I went back to Whisky via which the game was initially running badly and had a clean reinstall of its most recent version. And it seems to run fine even apparently at 144Hz ! EDIT: it is unfortunately locked at 60 FPS.

Here are my settings:

Whisky (2.3.3):

• Windows 10
• Build 19043
• Retina mode off
• DXVK on
• DXVK Async on
• Msync on

Windows Steam port of Crimzon Clover WE (v1.13f), in game options:

• Game resolution HD+(1600x900)
• Borderless window
• Scaling bilinear

Monitor LG Ultragear:

• Default res 2560x1440
• Refresh rate 144Hz
• Game mode (144Hz, extended FreeSync, HDR on, Faster response time, Motion Blur Reduction off)

With these settings the game seems to run very well. I cannot say if it was the update to the most recent version of Whisky or the use of Borderless window (or both) that significantly improved the result. Should play more with the various options but the present result is satisfactory with a rather robust framerate.

So I have 2 beautiful shmups (Mushi and CCWE) running very well with the free Whisky app on an M3 MBP. I may invest in more Steam shmups in the future.

As I paid for a 1 year subscription to CrossOver, I will try to improve the running of CCWE through it and post about it later.

Edit: following the classification established at the beginning of this thread
Wh - Whisky
Seq - Sequoia

Crimzon Clover v1.13f - Wh/Seq/H/W (slight dips in framerate for demanding sections but overall working very well and highscore viable)
Mushihimesama v1.1.9.2 - Wh/Seq/H/W (running flawlessly)

[waiwainl]

What works out of the box on steam, which I happen to have is:

• Blue Revolver
  Crisis Wing
  Cuphead
  Pawarumi
  Rym 9000
  Schildmaid MX
  Sky Force Reloaded
  Steredenn

Though Blue Revolver and Steredenn are the only two which are really good. The rest is fun to play.
The rest of the SHMUPS I am interested in trying your solution as well.

[KingSOF]

Thanks. It's good to have a list because so many games have tags such as bullet hell but are in fact unrelated.

I'm definitely interested in Blue Revolver. Will get it at the next sale. Otherwise, I'm interest in Cave shmups such as DDP DFK and Deathsmiles that are only available as Windows ports... Really hope more will be ported especially for those that have some CPU/blitter issues within MAME.

[donluca]

On my M1 Mac Mini, I just use my Win11 ARM Parallels virtual machine which works surprisingly well and with very low overhead.
Crimzon Clover, at least, works perfectly as Dariusburst and many others.

I wrote a small guide for Dariusburst if you're interested, you can apply those steps to any other games: https://donluca.theclassicgamer.net/pla ... c-mini-m1/

[KingSOF]

Nice setup you have Thanks for the guide; I should check Dariusburst at some point.

Did not try Parallels. Already paid a 1 year subscription to CrossOver and it turns out Whisky works better... What is your framerate for CCWE? Do you get a solid 60 all the way?

With Whisky it is good but not rock solid, see, eg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPV2JeLLbA&t=30s

[donluca]

Nice setup you have Thanks for the guide; I should check Dariusburst at some point.

Did not try Parallels. Already paid a 1 year subscription to CrossOver and it turns out Whisky works better... What is your framerate for CCWE? Do you get a solid 60 all the way?

With Whisky it is good but not rock solid, see, eg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPV2JeLLbA&t=30s

Thanks.

I haven't been paying lots of attention to the frame rate (read: eyes glued to the frame counter), but as far as I can tell, from my own feel and the occasional looks I gave to the counter, I never saw it dropping below 60.

[KingSOF]

If I understand correctly, the problem is at the level of DirectX librairies. These shmups use old DirectX 9 and even 9.0c for Mushi. On the other hand Whisky and CrossOver tend to implement more modern DirectX 11 and 12.

CrossOver fails to even launch Mushi as a pop-up error message appears when trying to launch the game. It is a wine debugger window saying that "the program default.exe has a serious problem and should shut down". I asked Codeweavers Support team about it (even including the report) but they did not answer. I am no expert but it may be that 9.0c is not supported at all by CO.

If this is correct, it makes sense as your post suggests to use a VM fine tuned (with DirectX9) to run such games. I am quite curious to try it and see if I can get solid 60.

By the way, I did have another try at CrossOver to run CCWE. I was using D3DMetal. My bad, it should run with DXVK. Then the game runs pretty well. It is not solid as rock 60 but it is (at least) as good as Whisky (might be a bit better but I would need a more refined comparison).

So, with CrossOver 24.0.5 with DXVK on, MSync on (D3DMetal off and high resolution off), I get:
CO - CrossOver

Crimzon Clover v1.13f - CO/Seq/H/W (slight dips in framerate for demanding sections but overall working very well and highscore viable)
Mushihimesama v1.1.9.2 - CO/Seq/NW (game does not even launch)

[KingSOF]

So I tested Parallels and... it works great !

Crimzon Clover runs at a solid 60 even in the Arrange Unlimited mode that is the most demanding (in this mode, CrossOver and Whisky have annoying dips in fps though runs are still viable for scoring). No problem to run Mushi either and possibly all dx 9 and 9.0c shmups. Virtual machine is still the way to go in 2024.

The only problem is the rather expensive subscription to Parallels (I used the trial version for the tests). I'll try VMware Fusion in the near future that is free for personal use. Might be enough for shmupping.

[1040STF]

For all those who use Parallels, did you notice an audio delay?
I tried the 14-Days Trial version and the audio delay in games was awful. It's a shame as some games ran much better than on Whisky or Crossover (Ultra Street Fighter IV for exemple). But the audio delay ruined it for me.

I was using Whisky for a few months and now I'm using Crossover. I took advantage of the Black Friday deal 20 bucks instead of 70 for a year). Crossover's game compatibility list is a little wider than Whisky's. For exemple, neither Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga run well on Whisky but they run great in Crossover.
Crossover's compatibility list should even increase with the release of Wine 10 in January. I don't think Whisky will use it as it's still a few versions of Wine behind.

Anyway. I still regret there's audio delay in Parallels. If it wasn't for that bug, Parallels would be my preferred way to play PC games on my Macbook.

[KingSOF]

@1040STF I did not experience such an issue with Parallels. It works great for me. I ran it again today and was surprised I got another 14 days trial (possibly because there is an updated version). You may need to configure the settings before launching Parallels.

I also agree that Ikaruga runs well on Crossover but not on Whisky. But Steam Cave ports run well with Whisky (at least so far) and crash with Crossover.

I tried a few more shmups that I got on sale:

- Blue Revolver Double Action has a native MacOS Steam port. It was mentioned previously in this thread but it is so good that I feel like advertising it again.

- Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours (Windows Steam port):

• Crossover: this game crashes from start with Crossover.

• Whisky: it runs with Whisky but at 120 fps (double speed) and is unplayable (possibly because of that, ranking does not work); I played with Whisky settings but could not solve the problem.

• Parallels: it runs great with Parallels (need to fix refresh rate of screen at 60 fps and I also disabled FreeSync). Ranking works.

- Deathsmiles (Windows Steam port): seems to work great with Whisky (just like Mushihimesama). Did not play much so this needs to be confirmed.

- DDP DFK (Windows Steam port): seems to work great with Whisky (just like Mushihimesama). Did not play much so this needs to be confirmed.

- Eschatos (Windows Steam port): seems to work great with Whisky. Did not play much so this needs to be confirmed.

- TouHou Makuka Sai ~ Fantastic Danmaku Festival Part II (Windows Steam port): seems to work great with Whisky (beta v 1.01). Did not play much so this needs to be confirmed.

[donluca]

There is a little audio delay in Parallels indeed, but it is in line with all the other lag due to the virtualization, so it doesn't bother me.

What I mean, is that even if audio lags, it is still in sync with video and inputs.

But that's a price I'm willing to pay to have an otherwise perfect gaming experience on my Mac Mini M1.

As for Parallels being expensive... eh.

[dai jou bu]

You can run the App Store version of deathsmiles on an apple silicon mac. It has controller support, so you don’t need to use the touchscreen/mouse to play the game.

Just, uh, don’t play the special mode that uses the touchscreen for obvious reasons lol.

For those that want to use a virtual machine, VMWare Fusion has been free for consumers for a little bit over a year now. You used to have to pay for it every time they did a major update, and a lot of games work fine, although a lot of people say parallels is better optimized for gaming. Only thing you have to worry about is the the VM prefers wired controllers, and that the Mac goes to sleep if the only signals it’s receiving are button presses from a gamepad-like device, so use an app like amphetamine to prevent that from happening if you don’t want to tweak the sleep timer on system settings.


I’ll test some of the gog.com shmups later. I think blazing star works fine.

You can also get blue revolver on itch.io if you want a drm free version. You’ll also get a steam key on there as well, so there’s your double action.