[GUIDE] Running WoW-Mania on Mac OS X

[Janitor]

Here are some quick tips on how to get WoW-Mania's client on Mac.

1. Download the WoW_Mania Windows client.
2. Download the World of Warcraft 3.3.5a .app file from here: World of Warcraft - Mac.zip
3. Extract the .zip file and move the World of Warcraft.app file into the World of Warcraft folder alongside wow.exe
4. Delete the Launcher.exe file as you will not be able to use it.

Now the game will run by just double clicking the World of Warcraft.app file however there is one tweak we can make to significantly improve performance. This section of the guide can be applied to Linux, however on Linux you must use the WINE program compatibility layer.

Changing the following settings in Mac and Linux will give a noticeable performance increase as it will be rendering WoW using OpenGL which is native to Mac and Linux.

I can confirm that on Linux (Running Arch 64-Bit) using wine 1.7.3 and OpenGL settings, performance is increased by approximately 10-20 FPS.

1. Navigate to your WTF folder and open config.wtf with TextEdit or a similar program (Do not use Microsoft Office).
2. Scroll to the bottom of the file and adding this to the end: SET gxApi "OpenGL"
3. Save the file and close.

And that's it! I only have access to 10.10.2 but this should work on Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks as well.

[Paran]

I am running macOS 10.12.3 (aka Sierra) on recent Apple hardware (a 15 month old MacBook Pro 13, 3 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM, Intel Iris 1536 MB Graphics), and cannot get the app file you posted to work.

I have a working configuration both through WINE, and through PlayOnMac (which is also effectively a WINE front end). When I initially tried to integrate your .App into my WINE-intalled WoW folder, I got an error on launch that my WTF files were damaged. I renamed my WTF folder and relaunched, which created a fresh copy, but the .App file then only results in a plain black screen, and crashes with any keyboard/mouse interaction.

Sierra's SysLog leaves a lot to be desired, but the one message I can capture is:
Jan 6 12:35:54 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000004.World of Warcraft[1465]): Service exited due to signal: Killed: 9 sent by CoreServicesUIAgent[679]

[Janitor]

Thank you very much for the feedback.
Did you get it working OK with WINE then?

[Paran]

Yeah, I have it running both through WINE and through PlayOnMac. The Launcher doesn't work, so I have some mild concern that I'm not getting patches, but I can log in and play just fine.

Play on Mac is the easier solution to setup, as it automates the install of the WINE components, like Gecko. But it's also the more finicky (you can select from a myriad of WINE versions to fine what works the best, etc.). That said, if I had to install from WoW discs, this would be the way to go.

WINE itself takes a little more to setup, they provide macOS packaged installers but but they generally assume you are comfortable with Terminal (aka "the command line") for setup. So it takes a touch more effort to get installed, but then once you do, you can just double-click on the .exe and WINEdev just launches it; you even get the familair WoW icon in your dock. If you have access to Transmission or another torrent client, and can download the WoW-Mania build, this may be the easier overall choice.

If you are running a recent version of OS X/macOS, then my suggestion would be to set WoW to run in Windowed mode, and then use the OSes built in full screen app mode (clicking the green zoom/mazimize widget in the upper left) to go full screen. Not only does this seem to eek out a little more performance, but it's the on'y way I've gotten WoW to run full screen on a secondary display (in my case I have a much bigger and better monitor connected to my MabBook).

If you have any other questions about getting WoW-Mania to run on a MAc, I'm more than happy to help.

[EdwardN]

Was talking to Janitor this afternoon, who suggested I post here how I use the Windows Client on my Mac.

First I must stress that I use a standard Mac Client for 3.3.5a, which I downloaded off Pirate Bay and setting the realmlist.wtf file up for the wow-mania servers. For me it works just fine, but does not include any of the special wow-mania features found in their Windows Client. The most annoying feature missing is the currency screen for Manic Points. To see how many you have you need the Windows Client.

I have a bootcamp partition setup on my mac, which runs Windows 8.1. This is fine if all I want to do is play WoW - but I often dit about between WoW and other things, for which I need OSX.

Bootcamp is what Mac users call having a separate Disk partition for Windows - Normally when when you boot the machine you can choose either Windows or OSX.

One application I have installed is Parallels Desktop - a commercial virtualisation software platform. Parallels will let you setup a virtual machine for any operating system. One great standout feature is, if you have bootcamp setup on your mac, it will recognise this and allow you to run Bootcamp and OSX at the same time. It has a feature called Coherence, which will also run any windows application automatically, by starting Bootcamp in the background. The application running in coherence looks and works like any standard mac app.

I have found that the Wow-media client is very playable using this - not as good as the native client - but if I want to check out things like my Manic Points, without the need to reboot my machine - it is just fine for that.

Parallels Desktop is available from here:

https://www.parallels.com/uk/products/desktop/

The spec on my Mac is:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)
2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB

You can specify what Parallels will let a virtual machine use - I limit it to 4 CPU cores and 4GB Memory, and get plenty good performance for wow-mania from that.

[wcslanker]

WINE is totally awful. My game crashes multiple times a day.

[EdwardN]

Wine is challenging to set up and like you I have found it too unstable for any type of reliable game play.