Upgrade to Catalina or stick with Mojave?

[c4bl3fl4m3 405]

Hey folks, too long, no talk.

I'm about to get a new Macbook. I was planning on downgrading it from Catalina to Mojave, in part because of SC4 (also because of other 32-bit games & programs). But I was wondering... how is the 64-bit release of SimCity 4? The last I checked was when it first came out and it was having issues with certain mods. Have those issues been worked out? What are the current issues with the 64-bit release? Also, does the 64-bit release have any advantages over the 32 bit? Have any of the 32 bit/"Mac release" problems (too many files issue, no nightlighting, transit capacity bug, etc.) been worked out for the 64-bit release? As well, I use Wineskin to run EXEs to get the data out of them. Is there a 64-bit release for that? Or would I be forced to buy File Juicer?

Is it worth it to do the trouble to downgrade to Mojave? Is it worth it to upgrade to Catalina? What did you do? Do you regret it?

Thanks, folks. You're the best.

[rsc204 21,870]

Having recently moved to Catalina myself, it’s been pretty trouble free for me, but I don’t play SC4 on a Mac. I also don’t have any legacy Apps to worry about, there will be likely no solution but to find 64-BIT replacements for any current 32-BIT apps you need.

Catalina/64-BIT update kills support for SC4 MacInjector, so no more .dll mods on Mac, including SC4Fix. It also has some quirks with TAB-Rings, you need to use an extra modifier key to avoid skipping items. In addition save files made with it are no longer compatible with Windows versions of SC4.

The new version of SC4 also has no fixes of note from previous Mac versions I’ve seen reported. It just converts the code to 64-BIT so it can run under MacOS in future. Some teething troubles with NAM 36 content that needed modifying to work with changes made in the updated game, are all resolved as of NAM 37. Incidentally, the new NAM installer from v37 onwards is multi-platform and runs without workarounds on MacOS. You just need to have Java installed, but otherwise it’s a huge step forwards for Mac users.

[countermoon 46]

I follow the Mac world closely almost every day. The impression I have gotten (I'm on Sierra) is that Catalina has more problems than Mojave. Many more. Until last week I have been running SimCity 4 without any problems at all. Then I had crashes to desktop and had to start all over again. I have no explanation for why the crashes occurred and no idea whether they will happen again. My experience with Apple computers goes back to 1980, and I have never seen any benefits from having The Latest OS. On the contrary, I usually stay several years behind to benefit from the experience of others. Only change what you are doing if there is a compelling reason.

There were problems with NAM 36, but NAM 37 works well and allows me to play the game the way it should be played.

[c4bl3fl4m3 405]

2 hours ago, countermoon said:

Only change what you are doing if there is a compelling reason.

The compelling reason would be that Catalina would come with the new computer and I'd have to go through hassle to bring it back to Mojave, because I'd be buying a new laptop and it would (unfortunately) have Catalina already installed on it.

[countermoon 46]

Well, that's different. I've heard of people downgrading the OS from the installed version, but I don't know it if it's a good idea. Operating system installation is much more complicated than it used to be, thanks to Apple. I guess you know about the big transition Apple computers are involved in during the next year, with Big Sur and Apple Silicon. That will of course affect everything.

I've had trouble running SimCity 4 in Sierra, so I'm experimenting with Boot Camp to see if I can use the Windows version.

[c4bl3fl4m3 405]

On 10/21/2020 at 2:01 PM, countermoon said:

Well, that's different. I've heard of people downgrading the OS from the installed version, but I don't know it if it's a good idea. Operating system installation is much more complicated than it used to be, thanks to Apple. I guess you know about the big transition Apple computers are involved in during the next year, with Big Sur and Apple Silicon. That will of course affect everything.

I've had trouble running SimCity 4 in Sierra, so I'm experimenting with Boot Camp to see if I can use the Windows version.

Yeah, that big transition is yet another reason I want to upgrade now, because who knows if they'll update SC4 for those.

[rsc204 21,870]

On 21/10/2020 at 8:01 PM, countermoon said:

Operating system installation is much more complicated than it used to be, thanks to Apple.

LOL, you are kidding me, right?

So a few weeks back, I'm tearing my Mac into it's component pieces, to upgrade it's Fusion drive of a 128GB SSD/512GB HDD to a 512GB SSD/2TB HDD. I'm fairly new to Macs and so wasn't sure about how this would work with Fusion drive. Sure enough, there is no way to Clone one, so I put the new drives in, switched on the computer and figured I could restore the OS from there.

But, of course I had no OS, cue the computer, from the BIOS!!!, connecting to Apple and downloading Mac OS for me. It also popped up a little message, which ultimately create a new Fusion drive with one click for my new disks. Sadly, I couldn't install the latest version of OSX this way, which caused me a few headaches. I guess this process installs the originally shipped version of OSX? So I had to install Mavericks, then upgrade that to Catalina when it installed. After that, the Catalina installer, as I believe is now pretty standard, had automatically re-created a recovery partition with Catalina on it. I boot into recovery mode, clean the drive with Mac OS, and then install a fresh version of Catalina, using my Time Machine drive to restore my previous system.

What I learnt? If you just have a USB Stick with the Catalina installer on it, I could have booted from that and saved two OS downloads/installs.

On 16/09/2020 at 2:06 AM, c4bl3fl4m3 said:

The compelling reason would be that Catalina would come with the new computer and I'd have to go through hassle to bring it back to Mojave, because I'd be buying a new laptop and it would (unfortunately) have Catalina already installed on it.

So the point I'm trying to get to here, just have a suitable USB Stick (bootable), with Mojave setup beforehand. Sure, making that isn't easy for everyone, neither is getting the installer, only 6 months ago they could still be easily download from Apple, but seemingly no more. However, you should be able to download it from the App Store, if your current Mac is using Mojave. If you've never previously downloaded a particular version of MacOS, getting a copy of it is trickier, since you need its 'purchase' tied to your AppleID.

But here's the instructions I used to create the USB stick. Personally I've only done this for Yosemite and El Capitan, but a bootable installer is a useful thing to have. I'm just shocked how resilient Macs are, if you have nothing, it will get you out of trouble and install a functioning OS for you. It is one of the things I love about Macs, backups and the system itself are all so easy to work with.

I would urge you to give Catalina a try, like all MacOS updates, it doesn't feel particularly new. Personally, I'm not having any major issues with it having previously ran El Capitan for 9 months and Snow Leopard for a long time before that. SC4 runs just fine under Catalina, in fact any SC4 problems you may be having, are unlikely to have anything to do with the OS. Since the 64-bit version was specifically designed for use with Catalina and would have been tested as such. Mods are another matter altogether, but those problems too won't be different unless you have access to the older 32-bit version of SC4, since it's the 64-bit update behind them,

[countermoon 46]

Apple has centralized power into their oval mothership like the Kremlin in the 1930s. The OS has more and more strings attached. The simple act of using a saved installer is now difficult. I won't go into it, but I have a lot of complaints about Apple's behavior over the past five years, the way it's been destroying the Mac and thumbing its nose at the very people who supported the platform when it was nearly bankrupt. No good deed goes unpunished. But for me it wasn't a good deed. I used the Mac because Windows sucks. It still does. I have a 10 year-old iMac that I bought used. I'm afraid to open it! I would like to put an SSD in it, but I watched a video on how to do it and...are you effing kidding me?

I don't know if the program Hackintool would help you or the web site https://www.tonymacx86.com/

That site gets into the nuts and bolts of the Mac in a way that other sites don't.

Serious gamers build their own PCs and use sites like PC Picker. Casual gamers...I don't know, I guess they buy cheaper PCs that they can upgrade. Or they buy a Playstation. Anyone with a semi-serious interest in games should probably stick with Windows. I have often kicked around the idea of building a PC or even a hackintosh. You don't save money by building your own, but it gives you much more freedom, something that gets taken away from us every day. As of this writing, AMD is the direction I would go, both CPU and GPU. You can't really build your own laptop, but desktop computers are becoming more portable all the time, so I keep an eye on that market, too. It's difficult to find a system with some longevity for less than $1000.

 

[c4bl3fl4m3 405]

Thanks for everyone's input so far. While I think I've made my decision, I'd still love to hear more feedback from anyone else who wants to chime in.

I've decided to downgrade back from Catalina (or Big Sur at this point!), but my catalyst isn't (solely) SC4. It's also that half of the games I have on Steam are 32 bit only and can only take Mojave and back. (FWIW, if it was just SC4 at this point, y'all convinced me to give Catalina or Big Sur a shot.)

Re: Hackintoshes, I had a Hackintosh laptop as my main computer for a while. I had some friends set it up for me. When it works, it's great, but I had to use all USB peripherals, and anytime I wanted to make a major change (like update the OS), it was either a hassle or I had to have them do it.

[AndyBlue 21]

On 12/4/2020 at 7:38 PM, c4bl3fl4m3 said:

Thanks for everyone's input so far. While I think I've made my decision, I'd still love to hear more feedback from anyone else who wants to chime in.

 

I originally had the 32 bit version of SimCity 4 installed on my Mac, purchased from the App Store in 2015.  I'm currently running High Sierra 10.13.6 on a Mid 2015 MacBook Pro. I have several other 32 bit games and programs that won't run on the newest version of OSX, so I decided not to upgrade to a newer OSX version.

I stopped playing SimCity for a couple of years and restarted playing a few months ago.  I surprisingly found that SimCity was auto-updated at some point to the 64 bit version of the game, and I don't remember giving permission for the update.  In any event, I haven't noticed any change whatsoever in the game play between the 32 and 64 bit versions.  The 32 bit and 64 bit versions of SimCity 4 are equally stable on my computer so I don't have any hesitation in recommending the upgrade to the 64 bit version.