mtasa-macos.md

MTA:SA on macOS instructions

This does not work on macOS Catalina.

macOS Catalina removes support for 32bit software. A 64bit version of Wine does exist, but it's not easy to make 32bit software run inside 64bit Wine — at least not on macOS.

Other options include:

• Install Windows in a Virtual Machine (using e.g. VirtualBox), and install MTA in there
• Downgrading Catalina to an earlier version
• Hacking Catalina to support 32 bit software

Preparation

1. Download mtasa-1.5.6.exe
2. Make sure you have the GTA San Andreas folder copied to your computer.
   • You might need a GTA SA 1.00 No CD crack - any HOODLUM release will do.

Install Wine

1. Make sure you have Homebrew installed.
2. Get the latest staging version of Wine, you can do this by running the following commands:
   • brew tap homebrew/cask-versions: import the Homebrew repository for alternate cask versions
   • brew cask install wine-staging: install wine-staging
3. Run wine start explorer.exe and press "Install" if prompted about Wine Mono.
   • Tip: if you are not prompted about Wine Mono now, make sure you select Install if you are ever prompted to install it in the future.
   • Help the developers: if you are not prompted about Wine Mono, or if you are prompted about it in the future, please tell us in #development on the MTA Discord.

Tips:

• Your macOS user folder is in the Z: drive. Note that can find your Downloads folder at Z:\Users\<username>\Downloads.

Play GTA

1. Run wine start explorer.exe and navigate to gta_sa.exe.
2. Verify that the game works properly.

Gotchas:

• If you get stuck after the NVIDIA logo, just hit Space to skip the Rockstar logo videos that would ordinarily play.

Tips:

• You can use Cmd+Tab to minimise GTA San Andreas.
• Start GTA from the Terminal like this: wine start /unix ~/Documents/Projects/mtasa/macos/Rockstar\ Games/GTA\ San\ Andreas/gta_sa.exe

Install MTA

1. Navigate and run mtasa-1.5.6.exe using your preferred method (from explorer.exe or from the Terminal, as above).
2. Install MTA normally.

Verify MTA works

1. Start MTA (from the installer, or by navigating through C:\Program Files (x86)\)
2. Hit Map Editor
3. Make sure you can fly around the GTA map!
4. Process to test CEF (see below)

Running MTA in the future

You can run MTA in the future by:

1. Opening Terminal.app
2. Running wine start /unix ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/MTA\ San\ Andreas\ 1.5/Multi\ Theft\ Auto.exe

CEF (web browsers)

CEF stands for Chromium Embedded Framework. It is essential that this works for you.

This section has been copied to the following AppDB entries: 1.5.6

Test CEF

1. Open the console by hitting the backtick key (to the left of the 1 key)
2. Enter start webbrowser
3. Close the console using the same key, and press the Chromium icon in the bottom left corner.
4. If you do NOT see the MTA website, please see the "Fix CEF" section below.
5. Help the developers: If you see the MTA website (without the need to fix CEF), please tell us in #development on the MTA Discord.

Fix CEF

1. Open Terminal.app

2. Type cd "~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/MTA San Andreas 1.5/MTA" and hit Enter

3. Type ln -s libcef.dll chrome_elf.dll icudtl.dat natives_blob.bin v8_context_snapshot.bin snapshot_blob.bin CEF/

   If you previously followed an earlier version of these instructions and this line complains about File exists, first run the following commands, then reattempt the above command:

   cd CEF
   rm libcef.dll chrome_elf.dll icudtl.dat natives_blob.bin v8_context_snapshot.bin snapshot_blob.bin
   cd ../
   # Now you may run the `ln -s` command above.

4. Test this feature as described above.

5. If it does not work, cry. Help the developers: please tell us in #development on the MTA Discord

Other tricks

Enable EAX

1. Type winecfg into a Terminal
2. Navigate to "Staging"
3. Enable EAX for mysterious improvements

This works for Mac M1?

Probably not.