Things I'll Forget In A Month Tech scratchpad and musings

Planescape: Torment in Crossover

Update (July 2010): This method appears to have been broken by Crossover Games 9.0.0, and remains broken in the beta of Crossover Games 9.1.0, because switching the resolution with SwitchResX causes Crossover to freak out. It remains working flawlessly in Crossover Games 8.1.4, so stick to that version for now (I've filed a ticket with Codeweavers on this issue so hopefully it'll get fixed). Downgrading from 9.0.0 to 8.1.4 was as simple as replacing the application for me.

Ever since Macs made the switch to Intel processors and made it easily possible to run Windows applications, I've taken the opportunity to play some classic PC games that never made it to the Mac. One of these is Planescape: Torment, an RPG with a unique setting and great story (a feature sadly often lacking from more modern titles). I started playing it around a year and a half ago through Crossover Games, which in addition to not requiring a reboot, doesn't even need Windows. PS:T worked flawlessly in Crossover (both on my iMac and MacBook) until Apple issued the Mac OS X 10.5.6 update, which included new graphics drivers that completely broke the game -- I (and everyone else playing through Crossover) couldn't even get to the title screen without the game complaining about a bad resolution or color depth and crashing.

Seeing as I was only about a third of the way into the game when this happened, I tried pretty extensively to get the game running again. My Boot Camp installation (Vista at the time) ran the game but had weird graphical glitches on the spell effects as a result of modern graphics drivers, and I didn't really want to have to reboot anyways. VMware Fusion 3 running either Windows 7 or XP also runs the game but exhibits an extremely annoying cursor and animation flicker (I've encountered this flicker in other apps on Fusion 3 that worked great in Fusion 2, and it's one of the reasons I'm not very impressed with v.3 compared to v.2 -- but that's a rant for another time). I also tried in Parallels, which thankfully didn't have any of the aforementioned graphical glitches, but unfortunately also exhibited constant sound glitches including pops and crackles.

Last night I came across my CDs again, decided to take one more whack at it, and, to my suprise, managed to get the game running perfectly in an up-to-date Crossover Games (8.1.4) on a brand-new 27" iMac running Mac OS X 10.6.2. For anyone else frustrated by being unable to get this game running, here's how I did it:

First, we have to install the game and a whole bunch of community mods. These mods do a variety of nice things like making the game run in modern widescreen resolutions, fixing a pile of bugs not fixed by the official patch, and both adding and expanding game content. All good stuff that you should be installing anyways because it gives PS:T a lot of much-needed polish, but in this case, we'll also need them to get the game to run at all. To do the installation and modding, follow this very detailed PS:T installation guide, with a few caveats:

• While installation of the base game works perfectly in Crossover, the mod installations didn't seem to work. I worked around this by performing only the base installation in Crossover, then firing up a Windows XP virtual machine in Fusion to do the full installation (base installation again, then all mod installations as described in the install guide). Once that was done, I copied the modded "Planescape - Torment" folder back to my Mac and replaced the unmodded folder that Crossover had installed in the Program Files folder. The .app file that Crossover installs still works fine for launching the replaced application. For performing the full PC installation, any VM or native installation should do (Fusion, Parallels, Boot Camp, a separate PC, etc).
• When installing the widescreen mod, make sure you use the exact native resolution of the Mac that you'll be playing on, even if you think it's overkill for a game that was released at 640x480. In my case, that was 2560x1440 for my 27" iMac. This is where the larger text mod comes in handy -- I installed the 80% increase. I think if you don't install the native resolution, you won't be able to get the game to launch at all.
  I've discovered that the above is actually not true -- you can use any resolution as long as it's natively supported by your monitor. I've also found that running at very high resolutions like 2560x1440 causes some graphical jerkiness, particularly in text scrolling, which is distracting considering the extensive dialogs in the game. I settled on using 1600x900 on my 27" iMac, which is perfectly smooth and still looks great. On a 13" laptop, I'd recommend using the native 1280x800, which is perfectly smooth on an aluminum MacBook.

One you've gotten your modded installation set up in Crossover, there's one more obstacle to overcome -- you have to set your monitor to thousands of colors or Planescape will error out on launch. The problem here is that the Displays preference pane in Snow Leopard no longer lets you change the color depth from Millions. To fix this, we need to install the SwitchResX tool, which will let us change to thousands of colors. The option we want in this utility is a bit hidden -- first go to the Menus tab of the SwitchResX Preferences, then activate the Menu Extra by checking the box. This makes a SwitchResX menu appear in the Mac OS X top toolbar, which should allow you to select Thousands of Colors.

Almost there. To launch the game, switch to thousands of colors before launching Crossover Games. If Crossover is already open when you switch, it won't work. If you're not running Torment at your monitor's native resolution, you shouldn't need to switch that manually -- the game seems to be able to switch the resolution itself, just not the bit depth. After switching to thousands of colors and then launching Crossover, you should be able to start Torment from the programs menu, and (fingers crossed) assuming everything worked, Torment should launch to the intro videos successfully. If you don't have the physical CD in the drive, the game may demand CD 2 -- I worked around that by mounting a disk image of disc 2, which was accepted without complaint.

I've only tried actually playing the game for a few minutes since getting it running again, but it seems to be perfect -- runs smoothly and no apparent graphical or sound glitches. The one issue I have on my iMac is that the very bottom of the screen is clipped in-game. I suspect that's a result of the UI mods expecting a typical 16x10 resolution rather than the 16x9 resolution of the new iMacs, but I'll either find a workaround or just play on my 16x10 MacBook. After installing on my MacBook, I found that the screen clipping issue was still present -- it doesn't look to be a symptom of any particular resolution. Luckily, I played around a bit and found a very easy one-time fix. In Crossover Games, go to Configure -> Manage Bottles, then select the bottle that Torment's installed in (in my case, that's TORMENT_1). Select the Control Panel tab and launch winecfg. In the Wine configuration window, select the Graphics tab and deselect "Allow the window manager to decorate the windows" and "Allow the window manager to control the windows". That is, none of the four "Window Settings" boxes should be checked. After you've done that and hit Apply, go back to the Control Panel and reboot the bottle by launching the reboot item. Now launch Planescape...no clipping!

If you've gone to all the trouble of setting this up, you probably already know what a great game Planescape: Torment is, but regardless -- have fun!