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Mac user's help with Snatcher compatibility issues.

Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 7:27 am
by Junker_05
I think I know what the answer's going to be, and I've Googled it myself many times, but are there ANY known SCD emulators that will work on Mac OS X? I've searched time and time again, almost as frequently as I look at pornography, which is very, and you guys seem to be in the know about this thing... Is there absolutely NO Mac SCD emulators?

Thanks for taking the time to help once again -
Jesse.

Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 12:47 pm
by 8bitsonic
Hiya, Jesse! Long time no talk. I haven't been on MSN lately, so that's why.

To answer your question: Regrettably, no. Being a Mac OS X user myself, as you know, I looked into this issue a while ago when I first discovered Snatcher, and there is no way to play it at all on a Mac, seeing as how there are no Sega CD, PCE Super CD-ROM2, or PC-88 emulators for Mac, not to mention that the MSX, PSX, and Saturn emulators we have don't run it at all. However, there are two ways to run Snatcher on Mac OS X, I've devised:

Run it under Virtual PC. It's a program that emulates a PC running Windows. Play the Sega CD version in Gens in Virtual PC and it'll work very well. You'd think the performance would be absolutely shitty but it's really not that bad. Heck, my computer will be three years old this July and the game runs fine under the PC emulation.

Another solution is to get yourself a new Mac. The latest models with Intel processors, as you might know, can dual-boot to Windows (gasp!) and Mac OS X, of course. If you get a new Mac, you can just run any of the versions in their Windows emulators which work so well. (Gaming on the Mac SUCKS, man. Thank god for this dual-booting stuff)

Yeah, I wish you luck. It's not as much of a dead end as it was just a few years ago, although it won't be as easy as it should be until the Mac gets a Sega CD emulator. (And an MSX emulator that can run the English Snatcher, dammit!)

Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 9:06 pm
by Junker_05
Joey! How ya doing?

Yeah, I would get Boot Camp or Virtual PC.. but Windows is the Devil-spawn.. and Bill Gates is a liar.. "Ooh, Windows 98 will be lightning fast!". It wasn't. Come Xp: "Oooh, Windows XP will be much much much faster than Windows 98!" And it wasn't much better. But if it'll run Snatcher, I'll give it a shot!

Incidentally, I recently e-mailed the author of GENs asking if she had plans to port it on OS X. She told me that there were no plans and to give Boot Camp a try...

Actually, we're getting a PC pretty soon. Mum needs another work computer (she runs her own business) and I want to play Counter-Strike: Source without going to my friends place who lives about a 45 minute drive away from me. :grin:

You should get on MSN sometime again!

Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 9:09 pm
by Junker_05
8bitsonic wrote:(Gaming on the Mac SUCKS, man. Thank god for this dual-booting stuff)
Heheh, don't we know it... Though my friend recently gave me Quake 4 on OS X, and it's surpsingly good! Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Doom III. :razz:

Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 5:57 pm
by HorseFactory
here is no way to play it at all on a Mac, seeing as how there are no Sega CD, PCE Super CD-ROM2
I wrote a guide to getting the PCE version working in OSX:

viewtopic.php?t=841

Image

:)

Unfortunately though there isn't an SCD emulator :( Hopefully this will change with the Intel stuff going on. It looks like 10.5 / Leopard will have some sort of Wine style action going on for running foreign apps.

Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 12:32 am
by Junker_05
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, THE SEGA CD VERISON ON A MAC..

HOW DID YOU DO THAT?!

Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 4:42 am
by Marc
He said it's the PC Engine version.

Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 1:31 pm
by 8bitsonic
I myself actually prefer the PCE version emulated at the moment, because I actually have a Sega CD, but not a Turbo Duo. And let me tell you, playing the game on the actual console and having the controller in your hands is far better than playing it emulated. Oh yes. Oh yes. Let's hope the Mac OS X version of fMSX will be able to run the English Snatcher MSX version soon, because I REALLY want to play that one on my Mac and not have use my sister's Vaio.

Now if only I knew where the hell my copies of PCE Snatcher are...

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 1:47 am
by Junker_05
You own an authentic Snatcher copy..?

You gotta be rich or lucky or something.

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:05 am
by 8bitsonic
Junker_05 wrote:You own an authentic Snatcher copy..?
Hell no. I downloaded it and burned it. Isn't it cool how you can do that now with CD burners? About half of my Sega CD collection is pirated. Heh.

And believe me, I would buy it if I could find a copy under a freakin' hundred bucks.

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:12 am
by Junker_05
Actually, I'm going to snipe a Mega CD of of eBay tonight. Fuck lost hopes of Mac emulation, I've already got 3 copies of the fucking thing. The only thing is, I'm not sure if a CD-R will work on a Mega CD because of copy protection laws and because of the region. I downloaded a Sega CD version, and I'm aware that the Mega CD is the PAL version of the consol and that Sega CD is used in the States, Canada and Mexico.

Will a Sega CD version of the game work on a non-modified Mega CD? If not, is their any way to work my way around the region problem?

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:13 am
by Junker_05
And get on MSN, Joey!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:57 am
by Marc
No, it won't work on the Mega CD like that. You'll either need an adaptor (I think there's one called CD Plus or something) or extract the ISO and burn it to a new disc after converting its format.

And yeah, nothing beats playing a game on the real hardware. :)

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:13 am
by Junker_05
Osiris, are you familiar with Toast Titanium? Or other burning programs? So you know, Toast is the Mac OS equivalent of Nero on PC. How do you extract the ISO? Though I'd rather buy the game, I don't have much money and every copy gets sold on eBay.com.au for over 50 British Pounds, not including postage, so that's a shitload of cash, even for a masterpiece such as Snatcher. So I downloaded it and I currently have the ISO files and MP3 files on my desktop.

Getting back to the point. By extracting the ISO files itself, I assume you mean duplicate/copy and burn to another blank CD-R. Which I can do no problems. But how would you convert its format? What am I even converting the format to? I'm so sorry for all of this, I'm so lost.

Thanks again, all of you, for your precious time to help out some computer-programming illiterate sod. :smile:

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:42 am
by HorseFactory
If you've got an Xbox at all, you could copy the ISO to that and run the xbox port of Gens, it'd be emulated, but you'd have your TV and controller :)

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:46 am
by Junker_05
Nope, PS2, chief. Doesn't help.

But thanks for the tip anyway. :smile:

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:49 am
by HorseFactory
ah, ok.
I don't have much/any experience with burning on my mac but what I think osiris is referring to is patching the ISO's region so it's PAL instead of NTSC and will work on a PAL MegaCD. I'm not sure how you'd go about doing that, but afterwards I'm sure you could burn it with Toast.

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:51 am
by Junker_05
Osiris and possibly 8bit, I know this is going to take up more of your time, but could you take me through step-by-step, how to convert the CD like you mentioned before? It'd really help me out, and it'd be much appreciated. Thanks again!
- Junker 05

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 12:54 pm
by Marc
You'd be converting the game's region so it will run on your European Mega CD. The only thing is, the only software I know of that will do this runs in either DOS or Windows. The best (the one with the highest compatibility rate) software is ConvSCD (which runs in Windows), and can be found at http://www.retrodev.com/convscd.html. Everything you need to know to get it to work can be found in the readme.

Once you've done that, just burn it to a CD and it'll run in your Mega CD just like a normal CD.

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 1:03 am
by Junker_05
Thanks again, for taking the time to help me out. Much appreciated!

Junker 05

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 4:38 am
by Marc
No problem.

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 11:30 pm
by Duo
HorseFactory wrote:If you've got an Xbox at all, you could copy the ISO to that and run the xbox port of Gens, it'd be emulated, but you'd have your TV and controller :)
Maybe you can help me. i burned the iso of Snatcher to a CD and tried running it on my modded xbox with Gens, but it wouldn't play. Does the ISO have to be installed on my xbox?

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 9:59 am
by Painaxl
Duo wrote:Maybe you can help me. i burned the iso of Snatcher to a CD and tried running it on my modded xbox with Gens, but it wouldn't play. Does the ISO have to be installed on my xbox?
Remember, even modded Xboxes have trouble running CD-Rs and some CD-RWs. I don't know if GENS for XBOX reads ISOs, but your best bet would probably be to put the ISO on a DVD-R that you know works on your Xbox or on your HD.

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 11:54 am
by Duo
I have a Samsung drive and those are supposedly the best... ah hell, i hate coasters, bu i guess i'll try burning it onto a dvd. Thanks.

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 1:28 pm
by Marc
Godspeed, Goodspeed.