Hackintosh : Sharing core Horror files between OSes

[LMahesa]

I installed OSX in a 15Gb logical partition last friday, so I'm now quad booting DOS/XP/Gentoo/OSX. Under XP, I have TS3 installed on an NTFS partition, which is visible with full RW capability under OSX using Paragon's NTFS driver.

Now that I'm fully patched up to 10.5.7, I want to take some games for a spin - starting with TS3. However, I only have 3Gb left on the HFS+ drive.

What I want to know is, is it possible, even theoretically, to have TS3 read the data files from the TS3 folder in my Games partition? I noticed that, after examining the contents of the Mac-side TS3 installer it is effectively a Wine wrapper (BAD, Lazy EA!). Can I unpack this manually and edit whatever config files necessary?

Alternatively, as it uses Wine anyway, is there a way to make Crossover run it direct without going through the whole installation-in-a-bottle process again?

[Marhis]

Actually, pretty much ALL the data files are inside the .app, wineserver and stuff included, so I'm afraid it's pretty much impossible to split them. The Sims™ 3.app is 5,91 Gb.

Elaborating more: AFAIK, the binary executable links directly to the data inside the .app; the .app itself is a sort of bottle, I didn't find anything to configure which could lead cider (the executable) to launch stuff located in a different path.

[LMahesa]

Thanks Marhis, your explanation's helped me form an idea actually.

I'll mess around with it when I get back from work, and post the results should I be successful.

[J. M. Pescado]

Elaborating more: AFAIK, the binary executable links directly to the data inside the .app; the .app itself is a sort of bottle, I didn't find anything to configure which could lead cider (the executable) to launch stuff located in a different path.

ln -sf?

[Marhis]

ln -sf?

Heh, I'm actually doing experiments on links, both symbolic and hard, but with no much success. There's something weird about those; I think it's also because of Mac OS X refuses to consider .app directories like proper directories in any way, and acts weird with the files included, linked or not. Plus, windows shortcuts are different - no way the two systems recognize their link files each other properly.
I'm in the process of trying to sort out something useful - I made an installer similar to Delphy's Monkey, but for Mac - but it's harder than I expected to.
Well, I'm also not the best in these matters, but that's another story .

[LMahesa]

ln -sf?

Heh, I'm actually doing experiments on links, both symbolic and hard, but with no much success.

Heh, well that's pretty much killed my primary idea.

[LMahesa]

Semi success!

Totally ignoring the installer, I unpacked The Sims3.app folder, dragged it to the Applications folder, and edited the following files :

\Applications\The Sims3.app\Contents\Info.plist

Code:

	<key>CedegaGameDir</key>
	<string>D:\The Sims 3/Game/Bin</string>
	<key>CedegaGameName</key>
	<string>D:\The Sims 3/Game/Bin/TS3.exe</string>

\Applications\The Sims3.app\Contents\Resources\Preferences\config

Code:

[Drive D]
"Path" = "\Volumes\Games"
"Type" = "hd"
"Label" = "Games"
"Filesystem" = "win95"

By double-clicking the app, the Launcher appears. When I click Launch Game, it asks for a CD.

I went to the terminal, navigated to \Applications\The Sims3.app\Contents\MacOS and ran .\cider

A window appeared with the green plumbob. Then the screen went blank, and I got roughly 5 seconds of the loading game music. Then nothing. I had to reset the computer because, being a n00b, I didn't/still don't know the keyboard combination to restart.

Now, the drive I have it installed on is actually NTFS, and currently read only. I wasn't expecting TS3 to demand write privs, so perhaps that's the problem.

Anyway, I'll go back to OSX a bit later once I finish chatting to some birds.