Getting Avernum 4-6 to work on Parallels for Mac

[Istara]

I think I have finally cracked how to do this. This assumes you have the latest version of Parallels installed with Windows Steam in it (make sure you're running Windows Steam and not the Mac Steam and "streaming it" from Parallels).

 

For Avernum 4, 5 and 6:

 

1. Go to the Parallels menu bar icon and select Control Center. When the Windows 10 Control Centre window comes up, click the gear icon.

 

2. Select Graphics

 

3. If you get a yellow warning bar telling you that you can't make changes "until the virtual machine is shut down" you need to Force Quit it via the Mac Activity Monitor app (see here: https://kb.parallels.com/en/112016)

 

4. Once you can make changes, select Resolution: Scaled.

 

5. Click the triangle/arrow by Advanced Settings and DESELECT (so the square is empty) "Always use high-performance graphics" - you DON'T want it doing this. This was a new change I had to make after the recent Parallels update (September 2020) - Avernum 6 had been working, then suddenly went all screwy on me!

 

6. This should get Avernum 5 and Avernum 6 working flawlessly.

 

For Avernum 4:

 

7. Avernum 4 needs an extra step. It's detailed in this Steam Community thread here: (https://steamcommunity.com/app/206020/discussions/0/1742229167187268587/). Open up the Windows Microsoft web browser, navigate to this link: http://bitpatch.com/ddwrapper.html and download it. Then do as instructed:

 

Quote

Unpacking and opening the folder and open aqrit.cfg and setting ForceDirectDrawEmulation to 1 and copying the files inside the wrapper folder to the root folder where the avernum4.exe is and it should run without any noticiable frame lag as before.

 

8. To open aqrit.cfg, right click and from the Open With menu, select Notepad. It works just like Mac OS Textedit. Change the 0 to 1, save.

 

9. Put the aqrit.cfg file and ddraw.dll in the folder with avernum4.exe in it. On my computer this was: This PC -> Local DiskC:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Avernum 4

 

10. SUCCESS! (hopefully)

 

So far this is working for me, but I have only just started Avernum 4 (after successfully playing both Avernum 5 and 6 - it took me a while to discover the fix for 4).

 

Best of luck! Trust me, it is well worth the effort. There are literally hours and hours of great Spiderweb RPG-gaming to be had, and you soon get used to the more "retro" feel compared to the upgraded Avernum 1-3 series.