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Mac OS Update - Will Geneforge Work?


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Hello,

 

I'm going to likely have to update my OS on my MacBook Pro. Someone mentioned to me that older programs may not work. I would like to update but I don't want to lose Geneforge.

 

Current:

Mac OS 10.9.5

 

Idea is to:

Update to Mac OS 10.13 (High Sierra)

 

Is this good? I'm told Geneforge is "32 bit" and won't work with newer systems and that OS 10.13 is the highest I can go. Please confirm.

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I can confirm that all* Spiderweb Software games will work on Mac OS High Sierra and Mojave. However, the older games will not launch when you double-click on the application, as you would normally do to launch a program on Mac OS. You'll have to launch the executable module located inside the application bundle. Do do so, right-click on 'Geneforge v1.2.app' and select 'Show package contents'. Navigate to 'Contents/MacOS'. Then, double-click on 'Geneforge Univ'. A terminal window will show up and Geneforge should launch correctly.

If you don't want do to this every time you would like to play Geneforge, you can create a shell script with the following code:

 

#!/bin/bash
DIR=$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )
cd "${DIR}"/Geneforge\ v1.2.app/Contents/MacOS
open Geneforge\ Univ

 

Place the shell script inside the 'Geneforge v1.2 ƒ' folder and double-clicking on the script will launch Geneforge for you.

Some new 'features' introduced with Apple's new filesystem 'APFS' cause alot of issues for many older programs, not just Geneforge. A workaround is to have a partition with the good old HFS+ filesystem (choose 'Mac OS extended (Journaled)' as the 'Structure' in Disk Utility) and run your programs from that partition. If reformatting your harddisk is not an option for you, you can also create an empty read/write disk image in Disk Utility with 'Mac OS extended (Journaled)' as Structure on your current system. Put Geneforge inside that disk image, run it from that disk image, and Geneforge will run on Mac OS 10.13/10.14 just as it did on 10.9 without any issues whatsoever.

* Any Spiderweb game that can natively run on an Intel Mac.

Edited by Unbound Servile
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