How can I salvage my 32 bit games with Catalina? Partition my drive? External drive?

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So I have run into a problem. I have a ton of Dos box games and GOG classics all on my Mac. With the new Catalina update they no longer work. Typical Apple. So rather then waiting for updates or such for dos box can I run them on an external drive with Mojave or have a separate partition on my drive for this? What is the best and easiest way to get around all this.

Thanks
 
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So I have run into a problem. I have a ton of Dos box games and GOG classics all on my Mac. With the new Catalina update they no longer work. Typical Apple. So rather then waiting for updates or such for dos box can I run them on an external drive with Mojave or have a separate partition on my drive for this? What is the best and easiest way to get around all this.

Thanks

Don’t blame Apple. They’ve long been firing warning shots about dropping 32-bit compatibility for over 2 years now. The communities for DOSBox and Wineskin/Crossover have been warning people all this time also.

Luckily, there is hope on the horizon for Windows-based games, and solutions NOW for DOS-based games. You can get 64-bit versions of DOSBox and Boxer (which is based on DOSBox but is more Mac-like) that will run DOS games under Catalina just fine. I use Boxer and can attest to that. Link below to where to download Boxer 64-bit.
64-bit Version of Boxer for OSX Catalina 10.15 – thec0de.com

As for Windows games, Codeweavers now has a beta version of Crossover 19 that has support for running 32-bit processes in a 64-bit wrapper. Their blog talks about what they are doing to make it work. Once they are out of beta, we’ll see their work trickle out to Wineskin and Porting Kit.
CodeWeavers Blogs | Jeremy White | CrossOver 19 is progressing well and is now in beta! | CodeWeavers

For now, you can dual-boot either Windows or Mojave. Or purchase Crossover and get the beta.

EDIT: I wouldn’t dual boot off an external drive unless it’s USB-C or Thunderbolt. The performance would be very poor.
 

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I'm on the Codeweavers mailing list and am also waiting for CrossOver 19 to get out of beta. However, Codeweavers prices are way too high considering they will only provide support for the current version for one year. And it looks like they're going to a subscription model.

As for Wineskin and other wine porting kits to pick up on the CrossOver work, I'm not holding my breath. ;)
 
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What is the best and easiest way to get around all this.

Simple IMHO, don't "upgrade" to Catalina.

Is there really some special feature or features that you just must have in Catalina that is not available otherwise??? Or what reasons do you have for upgrading to Catalina???


- Patrick
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Because Patrick.....

Lots of folks did not do their homework and jumped on the Catalina bandwagon. But like we already know, Apple has been warning of the demise of 32 bit apps now for 2 years.

But I agree with you, the simple solution is to stick with Mojave.
 
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I'm on the Codeweavers mailing list and am also waiting for CrossOver 19 to get out of beta. However, Codeweavers prices are way too high considering they will only provide support for the current version for one year. And it looks like they're going to a subscription model.

As for Wineskin and other wine porting kits to pick up on the CrossOver work, I'm not holding my breath. ;)

I used to be an advocate for a few games so i got Crossover for free, but ditched it long ago for Wineskin. I have no doubt they intend to go subscription... it’s what all the cool kids are doing these days.

The Porting Kit guys are expecting to implement what Codeweavers is doing. They certainly mention it periodically and have long worked with them and promoted Crossover as an option.
 
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So is there anyway to revert back to Mojave once I have upgraded? Also how can I dual boot from Mojave to Catalina?
 

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So is there anyway to revert back to Mojave once I have upgraded? Also how can I dual boot from Mojave to Catalina?

So what about creating a Mojave partition on my drive?

Before these questions can be properly addressed, can you tell us if you have any Backups made before you Upgraded?

For example, Time Machine? - better still any cloned Backups, such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! ?

Ian
 
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No backups just stuff Ive moved over manually to a external backup. Im thinking its best just to get a usb3. Put Mojave on it and reboot and play off it?
 
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So is there anyway to revert back to Mojave once I have upgraded? Also how can I dual boot from Mojave to Catalina?


Not trying to be glib but rather than trying to reinvent the wheel and reproduce whatever has already been written, just do a Google search. Tons of Articles explaining how.

As for the boot process, System Preferences -> StartUp Disk gives you options as does holding down the option key during a boot up or restart.



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No backups just stuff Ive moved over manually to a external backup. Im thinking its best just to get a usb3. Put Mojave on it and reboot and play off it?

That would be the easiest thing to do. An external SSD on USB-C is just as responsive as an internal SSD. I trust your Mac does have a Thunderbolt/USB-C port?

Before you do this, you really should revisit your backup strategy. If you accidentally format the wrong drive, or wrong partition, you'll have lost everything except what you have manually backed up.
 
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I have a ton of Dos box games and GOG classics all on my Mac. With the new Catalina update they no longer work. Typical Apple.

Do you know of another OS that is never updated?
 
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paulwgrabe said:
I have a ton of Dos box games and GOG classics all on my Mac. With the new Catalina update they no longer work. Typical Apple.


Hmmm...??? I don't really ever recall Apple supporting DOS natively unless you include their very old Apple-DOS Floppy disk format, so I don't see what's "typically Apple" with your problem or their recent OS change.

Just saying... :Smirk:



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paulwgrabe said:



Hmmm...??? I don't really ever recall Apple supporting DOS natively unless you include their very old Apple-DOS Floppy disk format, so I don't see what's "typically Apple" with your problem or their recent OS change.

Just saying... :Smirk:

Pushing technology forward is pretty typical of Apple. :Cool:
 
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Pushing technology forward is pretty typical of Apple. :Cool:


True, but the DOS operating system was never part of any of their technology. Thank God and one of the main reasons I bought my first LC, and one of the first color Macs, actually one of the first affordable colour PCs I believe.



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I have a 32-bit program that I need (The author says it won't be updated until mid 2020). One way to use it is to have Mojave in a VM. I tried VM-Fusion but I needed the ability to access external monitors from within it, and it didn't work. I'm told Parallels handles that feature better. So I next created a Mojave partition, and am able to reboot into Mojave to run my program. That works. I don't even need the program nor the data on that drive, as I use aliases to point to them on my Catalina drive.

But I'm planning on buying an External SSD and moving Mojave to it. I read this article Save $1,000 Or More On A New iMac - Part 1: Solid State Storage Blues, and see its advantages. My current Mac has Thunderbolt 1 and USB 3, so I want a drive that does both. I'm thinking of getting LaCie 2TB Mobile SSD drive. When I buy my new Mac next year, I'll be able to use its Thunderbolt 3 port, and when I can upgrade that drive to Catalina, I can have the speed of SSD, even if my new Mac has a Fusion drive. (A cheaper alternative is to make your external drive HDD, but I want to test to see if I can save money on my next iMac).
 
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Hey everyone, Crossover 19 just dropped, supporting 32-bit Windows apps in Catalina. According to Codeweaver's blog, it's performing well and they are not seeing the performance hits that they feared this workaround would cause. I perused their forums and there's some feedback that it is indeed working as advertised, with one glaring problem: some AV software for Mac (BitDefender and a couple others) are erroneously flagging parts of Crossover as infected and deleting those parts. So something to be aware of.

CodeWeavers Blogs | Jeremy White | Celebrating the difficult; the release of CrossOver 19 | CodeWeavers

Community Forums | CrossOver Support | CodeWeavers
 

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I can verify what "Life" stated above about CrossOver 19. I installed it last night both to my Mojave system and my Catalina 10.15.2 system and it works as advertised. However, as I've stated before, CrossOver is not free and can be sort of expensive if you're buying it for the first time. I believe they're asking $69.00 for a license and it seems they going to a subscription system later next year.

A better option and one that is free is to install VirtualBox (the latest version is Catalina ready) and use it to install the free ReactOS.
 
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I can verify what "Life" stated above about CrossOver 19. I installed it last night both to my Mojave system and my Catalina 10.15.2 system and it works as advertised. However, as I've stated before, CrossOver is not free and can be sort of expensive if you're buying it for the first time. I believe they're asking $69.00 for a license and it seems they going to a subscription system later next year.

A better option and one that is free is to install VirtualBox (the latest version is Catalina ready) and use it to install the free ReactOS.

It's on sale for 40% off for the next few days. That brings it from $60 to $36 for the version with a year of support. For those of us who can make do on our own, you can get it with no support for $24 (normally $40). I'm holding out for Wineskin/PortingKit to catch up, but I may bite for $24, if for no reason other than to support their efforts.
 

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