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betman

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 15, 2013
272
5
Back in the day I would use Boxer and some sort of Power PC emulator (or something like that, can't remember...) which allowed me to play the Windows (95) version of Civilization II on my (old) Mac.

Fast-forward to today and I'm on MacOS 13 and Boxer seems to have been abandoned and my old way of playing Civ II stopped working many versions of MacOS ago...

What is currently the easiest way to play both DOS and old Windows version games on the latest MacOS?
 

bogdanw

macrumors 603
Mar 10, 2009
5,695
2,729

sracer

macrumors G4
Apr 9, 2010
10,292
13,027
where hip is spoken
Your options depend upon the Mac you have. If it is Intel-based, then you have a lot of options. If it is Apple Silicon-based, then your options are limited.

I recommend taking a look at this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/windows-for-workgroups-3-11-on-m2-mac-mini.2390518/

in a nutshell... for DOS and Windows games up to Windows 3.11 for workgroups, use DOSBox. Any game/app requiring a newer version of Windows, VirtualBox.
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
sracer asks the key question in #3. If you have an:
  • Intel Mac, you've got a great Windows computer too. Explore the bootcamp option and set yourself up.
  • Silicon Mac, there is a variety of emulation options for Windows but my advice is to add an actual PC.
Pricing for a relatively great PC is nothing close to Macs, especially if you jack up the storage and RAM (there's lots of competition for those key parts on the PC side, so prices are driven way down vs. the SOLE supplier on the Apple side being able to charge many times for equivalent storage and RAM for Mac).

Go this way and you can play ANY game for either platform to your hearts content.

I call this option "old fashioned bootcamp" and went that way myself. For under the budget of what Apple charges to upgrade to 8TB of storage in Silicon Macs, I got a fairly potent gaming PC with 10TB of SSD storage and 32GB of RAM.

I also chose a (not Apple) 5K2K monitor with multiple inputs so that both my Mac and the PC can share the same screen (even at the same time if I like). It has a hub so that both can also share the same keyboard, mouse and various accessories.

A not-so-well documented bonus to select PCs is that you can get one with a Nvidia graphics card, which can then share the game to your television (and probably best speakers) through AppleTV and the free Moonlight app. I pessimistically assumed this would NOT work well but I was wrong about that: it really works well! Now all TVs in the house with AppleTVs are able to be used for PC-quality games.
 
Last edited:

Eric Idle

macrumors 6502a
Jan 4, 2020
509
348
Can any of these options be used to play Grand Prix Legends on a Mac? That game had special video requirements so was hard even to play on a PC.
 

betman

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 15, 2013
272
5
It's been a while and I've only tested RetroArch so far as I thought it could handle many things at once... though in reality I could get absolutely nothing running on it, regardless of the platform (best I could get is the spinning N64 logo before RetroArch crashed, no luck whatsoever with Amiga or DOS). Frustrating and counter-intuitive would be an understatement when describing the interface and overall experience.

Are the new Boxer and DosBox apps safe to install? The system keeps blocking me about being unable to verify their safety.

Also, what is the most intuitive and easiest to install & use Amiga emulator?
 
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