Rayzoon Technologies LLC

Jono-60 · Jammer Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 33

I have just discovered I can run some simple Windows VSTis on a Mac using Darwine and it works great.

I was wondering if anyone has tried it with Jamstix and if you got it to work.

I will probably give it a go today.

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

I have not been 100% successful. I am able to get Jamstix2 running under "CrossOver Games", which is a commercial version of Darwine. Almost everything works 100%. The only thing that is weird is that the Options dialog has some dropdown combo boxes that open up BEHIND the dialog itself. So I can't change anything in the options dialog that is configured with a dropdown combo box.

When using EnergyXT 1.4 as the VST host, I also could not get the QWERTY keyboard to function for anything in Jamstix, though it would function with the rest of EnergyXT and everywhere else. However the keyboard works fine with EnergyXT2 and Cantabile as the host with Jamstix2. What is wierd is that it worked the first time when I had to enter the license key. However, after that when I needed to enter the metalpak key, it would not function, nor would it function for any other text entry fields in Jamstix...of which there are few. Works fine with the other two hosts though.

So the only thing that does not appear to work at the moment is the dropdown comboboxes.

My feeling is that Jamstix must rely on some library that is not being well represented by Darwine. I think if we could find out what are the dependent libraries that Jamstix depends on for these GUI things, then I could attempt to install and use the Native versions of some things instead of the Wine "emulations" of such to see if Jamstix will run a little better that way.

Rayzoon?

Ralph [RZ] · Site Admin Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 13332

The drop-down boxes are standard Windows elements wrapped by the Delphi VCL. The only thing extra is custom draw handling. We'll see if we can do something about that but it may take a bit.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

Ah cool. Well at least it basically works now and I can move forward with my switch to OSX without concern about a couple win32 VST's I own, Jamstix being one of them. They all function under wine. Thanks again for taking the time to make your product work with Wine...!!

Jono-60 · Jammer Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 33

Thanks all,

Ideally Id like to run under Darwine, so I wont have to purchase Crossover. Do you think this will be possible?

Ralph, is this what you are looking into or simply the options dialog problem dewdman42 is facing?

Ralph [RZ] · Site Admin Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 13332

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

Theoretically, it should work under Darwine just the same as it does under crossover. But you may have to figure out how to figure Darwine properly to make it happen and fiddle around with it. Darwine and crossover are essentially the same thing at the core. but Crossover provides a GUI for configuration that is a bit easier. Also, Darwine is a more advanced version of the Wine sourcecode. So actually, with Darwine, in theory, you have MORE chance that it will work, then if you use Crossover. But the advantage of Crossover is that there is support to help you figure it out and its a more "tested" solution. But I also really like the bottle managment of crossover. Also, Crossover apparantly has its own built in X11 server that works propertly, which supposedly the normal X11 distribution for OSX is flawed in some way as to not be 100% compatible with Wine. I'm not sure of the details.

I didn't get a chance to fool around with Darwine long enough to get Jamstix2 working 100%, but it should work. Go hang out on the winehq forums for a while and perhaps some people will help you get it sorted out.

Jono-60 · Jammer Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 33

Ok Jamstix2 completely crashed before.

Now I tried this Darwine build - http://www.kronenberg.org/darwine/

And Jamstix loads in eXT2 but it hammers the CPU.

So the interface is slow, i dont know if its actually "working". But everything seems to respond to my mouseclick.

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

I did not have these problems using the crossover product. I never got around to trying Jamstix with the free Darwine. Please let us know if you get it working propertly under Darwine. Darwine often requires a lot of fiddling to get it setup to work correctly.

Jono-60 · Jammer Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 33

Do you know what Xquartz is?

Says its recommended I install it when using Darwine.

I cant really say if JS2 is working for two reasons.

1) Its so slow it takes ages to do anything.

2) I dont actually know how to use JS2!! I haven't installed it since I switched to Mac.

I see theres Crossover and Crossovr Games. You mentioned JS2 works on the latter, what kind of problems do you face with the regular Crossover?

Jono-60 · Jammer Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 33

I'm going to have a go at installing JS1 for Darwine tonight.

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

XQuartz is the OSX version of the X11 server, needed for all X-window based apps. Wine is coded as an X11 based application, so you need an X11 server installed, which is provided with OSX Leopard, by the way.

The Crossover products provide their own custom made X11 server. My understanding is that there are some bugs in the OSX build of the X11 open source server that everyone uses on linux. These bugs make Darwine occasionally incompatible with the OSX X11 server. So the crossover guys created their own X11 server which is built into the crossover product. That is what I have heard, I don't know how true it is.

If you buy Crossover mac now, they give you a crossover games license for free for the time being, but that is a temporary offer. Crossover Mac is at version 6.2.1 (soon to be v7) and Crossover Games is already at version 7.0. So their Games product is a little more advanced and up to date with the latest darwine code in it. But I was told by them that when the Crossover mac v7 version comes out, it will be even more advanced than games and more appropriate for most people. I bought the Mac version but am using the Games version for the time being.

They have trial versions too if you want to try it out.

When I tried to run J2 under Crossover mac, it would not even start the app at all. I now know that I probably could have figured out which DLL was missing and make it work, but I did not go back to try it because Games 7.0 is working fine for me.

Also, Ralph has posted some information in this forum about using the BlockMouseMove=1 trick into the J2 ini file to avoid some windowing problems. Make sure you do that before trying to run J2 under Darwine.

Jono-60 · Jammer Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 33

Thanks.

Where is this promotion for a free copy of Crossover Games? I can't see it on their site.

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

I never could find an official page on their site, but if you email them they will confirm that this is in effect, but only until Crossover mac 7.0 is released. Basically they are doing this because a number of people have not been able to get certain things to work under the 6.2.1 release, but they are able to run with the Games version. But once the Mac version comes out, it should run just about everything....except for tricky games that require fancy DirectX graphics optimizations, etc. Just send them an email.

I really think you are going to be better off with crossover if you want to run Jamstix on OSX. Darwine may be able to work, but with crossover, it just works and they will support you to figure it out if you can't get something to work.

Jono-60 · Jammer Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 33

Thank you. I have just emailed them.

If what you say is true, about the offer. Would it be better to wait for version 7.0?

I dont want to pay now and then find I need to pay an upgrade fee to 7.0. I dont play games on my Mac, I simply want it for Music apps. So its Crossover Mac I need really.