O'Grady's PowerPage

Tag: Boot Camp

  • Valve celebrates Half-Life’s 25th anniversary by posting the original game to Steam storefront at 90 percent off

    Valve celebrates Half-Life’s 25th anniversary by posting the original game to Steam storefront at 90 percent off

    If you were looking for some amazing “Half-Life” retro goodness to run on an older Mac for next to nothing, you’re going to like this.

    Marking the 25th anniversary of the game’s release, Valve Software has made Half-Life next to free for a limited time, although you may need to use older hardware to actually play it on macOS.
    The famed PC game Half-Life was released to the world on November 19, 1998. The groundbreaking first-person shooter introduced many new technologies and concepts to the gaming industry and enabled Valve to become a major force by creating the Steam digital storefront.

    As of this writing, the game is available at 90 percent off. Although marked down to an incredibly low $0.99 price point, Valve has warned that the software is “not compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina or above,” due to Apple’s ending of 32-bit application support with that operating system release. Workarounds include playing the game on a Mac running macOS Mojave or earlier, installing Mojave on a separate APFS volume and booting to it, or using Boot Camp to launch the Windows version.

    The game is also available on Windows and Linux.

    The game places the player in the role of Gordon Freeman, a research scientist in the Black Mesa Research Facility. Following an accident, Gordon introduces an alien invasion to Earth, overrunning the facility and prompting a fight to escape. The game features incredibly immersive storytelling for a first-person shooter, as well as an in-game atmosphere and impressive visual effects. The story continued in Half-Life 2, a few episodic releases, and the VR game Half-Life Alyx.

    Half-Life requires mac OS X 10.6.3 Snow Leopard, 1GB of RAM, and 4GB of hard drive space to run. Graphics require an Nvidia GeForce 8 or higher, ATI X1600 or higher, or Intel HD 3000 or higher.

    If you’ve had a chance to download and play the game, please let us know what you think in the comments.

    Via AppleInsider and Valve

  • Developer Alex Graf successfully uses virtualization to run Windows build on M1-based Macs

    It took some tinkering, but it helps answer the question as to whether Windows will run cleanly under virtualization on an M1 Mac.

    Developer Alexander Graf has successfully virtualized the Arm version of Windows on an M1 Mac, proving that the ‌M1‌ chip is capable of running Microsoft’s operating system.

    At present, the M1-based Macs don’t support Windows and there’s no Boot Camp feature for this, as has been seen since 2006 with the Intel-based Macs. Windows support is also something many users would love to see. 

    Graf, who used the open-source QEMU virtualizer, was able to virtualize the ARM version of Windows on Apple’s M1 chip with no emulation. Given that the ‌M1‌ chip is a custom Arm SoC, it is no longer possible to install the x86 version of Windows or x86 Windows apps using Boot Camp, as was the case with previous Intel-based Macs. However, he said in a Tweet that when virtualized on an ‌M1‌ Mac, “Windows ARM64 can run x86 applications really well. It’s not as fast as Rosetta 2, but close.”

    Graf was able to run the Windows ARM64 Insider Preview after virtualizing it through the Hyperadvisor.framework software. Apple, in turn, has stated that this allows users to interact with virtualization technologies without having to write kernel extensions.

    Graf then applied a custom patch to the QEMU virtualizer, which is cited for “achieving near-native performance” by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. This allows the ARM version of Windows to be virtualized on M1 Macs with excellent performance.

    While Graf’s work is still in its early stages, he believes others could reproduced his results. “It’s early days for this. It’s definitely possible to reproduce my results – all patches are on the mailing list – but don’t expect a stable, fully functional system yet,” he said. Still, as a proof of concept, he he demonstrated that Windows can be run on M1 Macs.

    Apple’s software engineering chief Craig Federighi recently said that Windows coming to ‌M1‌ Macs is “up to Microsoft.” The ‌M1‌ chip contains the core technologies needed to run Windows, but Microsoft has to decide whether to license its Arm version of Windows to Mac users.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via MacRumors, the 8-Bit, @_AlexGraf, and developer.apple.com

  • Parallels voices support for Apple Silicon-based Macs, cites “tremendous progress” made on WWDC 2020 tech demo

    If you live and die by Parallels Desktop, you’re going to like this.

    Parallels on Wednesday announced that the company is actively working on a new version of its virtualization software that will be compatible with Apple Silicon and M1 machines, the company said on Tuesday.

    The company stated that it is “excited to see the performance, power efficiency, and virtualization features” that Apple’s new M1 chip brings to the Mac and MacBook lineups. It also noted that current versions of Parallels Desktop won’t be compatible on the new devices.

    An Apple Silicon-compatible version of Parallels was demoed at WWDC 2020, and Parallels has stated that it has made “tremendous progress” since then, having switched Parallels Desktop to a universal binary and optimized its virtualization code.

    To date, no other major virtualization company has made a similar announcement as to its compatibility with Apple Silicon. As of June, VMWare announced a macOS Big Sur-compatible “tech preview” of its software, but remains vague about how it will support Apple-designed chips.

    Virtualization, along with Rosetta 2, is one of several initiatives that Apple says will make the switch to Apple Silicon smoother for developers and consumers. Boot Camp, long a way for users to run Windows on Mac hardware, will not make the transition.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via AppleInsider

  • Apple Boot Camp 6.1.13 update references unreleased, updated 16-inch MacBook Pro notebook

    Once again, it’s the developer notes that indicate hardware coming down the road.

    Last week, Apple released a Boot Camp update. Following its release, several users noticed the release notes referenced an unreleased model of the company’s 16-inch MacBook Pro notebook.

    While this could be a mistake, Apple released a new high-end graphics option for the 16-inch MacBook Pro in June, but it still refers to all configurations of the notebook as 2019 models on its website.

    Apple offered the following release notes for Boot Camp 6.1.13:

    • Improves audio recording quality when using the built-in microphone
    • Fixes a stability issue that could occur during heavy CPU load on 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019 and 2020) and 13-inch MacBook Pro (2020)

    The 16-inch MacBook Pro, which was introduced in November 2019, and features slimmer bezels, a Magic Keyboard with a more reliable scissor mechanism, 9th-generation Intel Core processors, up to 64GB of RAM, up to 8TB of SSD storage, AMD Radeon Pro 5000M series graphics, and upgraded speakers and microphones. Pricing starts at $2,399.

    Rumors have indicated that Apple could be planning to host another media event on November 17 to introduce its first Mac with an Apple Silicon processor. It’s also believed that this transition will begin at the lower end for notebooks, such as the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, or possibly even the return of an ultra-portable 12-inch MacBook.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via MacRumors

  • AMD releases Boot Camp drivers for the Radeon Pro 5600M graphics card on the 16-inch MacBook Pro

    This could come in handy.

    AMD has released Boot Camp drivers for the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the Radeon Pro 5600M graphics card. The update provides full compatibility with Windows 10.

    The Radeon Pro 5600M was introduced earlier this month as a $700 upgrade, and Apple has cited that the 5600M graphics with 8GB of HBM2 memory are up to 75 percent faster than the 5500M graphics with 4GB of GDDR6 memory in the base model 16-inch MacBook Pro.

    In spite of Boot Camp’s popularity and the fact that Windows can be directly booted on Intel-based Macs, Apple has stated that it won’t be supported on future Arm-based Macs. Apple’s software engineering chief Craig Federighi has stated that “purely virtualization” will be the route going forward for running Windows.

    If you’ve had a chance to try the new driver on your 16-inch MacBook Pro, please let us know about your experience in the comments.

    Via MacRumors, Reddit, and AMD