[HN Gopher] Mac Source Ports - Run old games on new Macs
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Mac Source Ports - Run old games on new Macs
Author : stared
Score : 146 points
Date : 2025-10-15 13:07 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macsourceports.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macsourceports.com)
| philistine wrote:
| THIS IS AN INSANE LIST! Well, there goes my productive day.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| Week*
| NoSalt wrote:
| Nice, but what I REALLY want is the old Ambrosia Software games
| like Apeiron and Avara. Oh, and I would prefer they be on Linux.
| magnetic wrote:
| You can find Maelstrom here:
| https://www.libsdl.org/projects/Maelstrom/
| Palomides wrote:
| https://github.com/avaraline/Avara
| NoSalt wrote:
| Woah, sweet ... THANK YOU!
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| Interesting, I hadn't heard of this one. I'll see if I can
| add it to the collection.
| HanClinto wrote:
| I loved O.G. Escape Velocity and would love to replay that.
| squeedles wrote:
| I played a ton of EV and EVO back in the day and still have
| them on a Basilisk II VM, but Endless Sky has really captured
| the spirit of EV (because everyone who made it also loved EV)
| and offered it up in a modern incarnation.
|
| https://endless-sky.github.io/
| NortySpock wrote:
| Endless Sky seemed like a nice refresh when I tried it a
| few years ago, did a few initial quest lines.
|
| It was interesting how the different faction technologies
| had different power/mass/volume/hardpoint production and
| consumption ratios, so there was a real nudge towards
| having tech all from one faction, and gently discouraging
| min-maxing the build using a Frankenstein of gear sourced
| from the far-flung-corners of the galaxy. At least that was
| my recollection.
| squeedles wrote:
| Well, if it was that way, it certainly isn't any longer.
| They keep adding new alien races, storylines, and sectors
| of the galaxy, and some of my best ships were franken
| monsters with tech from a half dozen races. There is a
| core storyline that is primarily human, but if you play
| to the end of that will suddenly discover that there is
| significantly more around you that becomes reachable with
| some interesting new technology (trying not to spoil
| anything)
|
| They have done a good job balancing the numbers so that
| everything requires some tradeoffs. More species/tech
| gives more choices and interesting variability. Some
| species make very efficient drives, others inefficient,
| more powerful but produce tons of excess heat, those
| folks also produce good passive cooling, others great
| active cooling but power hungry, etc. The ship hulls tend
| to match the sizes of the drives and weapon hardpoints of
| that race, but often work much better when outfitted with
| different kit (perhaps with some wasted space)
|
| Plus the fleet management is pretty good. You fly your
| flagship, but you can park ships and switch your flag to
| different ships. So I might fly a fast little scoutship,
| then switch to an armor-clad behemoth surrounded my 20 of
| my heavy-hitting henchmen for some different missions.
| stared wrote:
| I came there because I wanted to play Quake on Apple Silicon and
| looked for the best option - which turned out to be a cross-
| platform Vulkan engine https://github.com/Novum/vkQuake.
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| I've also added a build of DarkPlaces. I need to get a few more
| going like FTEQW and QuakeSpasm.
| herpdyderp wrote:
| Wish I could get Deimos Rising and Gridz working again, neither
| are on this list.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I'm absolutely impressed at how the M4 Mac Mini plays games -- if
| Apple were making a game console they could wipe the floor with
| XBOX and Sony.
| guestbest wrote:
| Every general purpose computer eventually becomes a game
| console.
| stared wrote:
| Games are the crabs of software
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| DOOM is the crabs of games.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| I'm hoping the rumored revision of the Apple TV can slot in as
| a game console. Apple has been pushing AAA games on iOS/iPadOS
| over the past few years, but there's no good user story if I
| want to have that traditional experience beyond playing Apple
| Arcade games on the existing (and outdated) Apple TV pucks.
|
| There's some irony in that the one thing they haven't figured
| out (the living room) is the one thing their competitors in the
| space (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) _have_ figured out.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Apple's in the tough spot (re [1]) that mobile games have
| already surpassed conventional PC and console games in terms
| of revenue. I don't know what fraction of that is the block
| crusher games that I see on everybody's phones and what
| fraction is the otaku who is serious about _Umamusume_ ,
| _FGO_ , _Arknights_ or _Genshin Impact_. Either way why would
| they want to jump onto what seems to be a sinking ship?
|
| My take on the living room is that streaming boxes _and_ most
| Blu-Ray players really suck these days (crappy little Sonys
| take 45 seconds to boot!) and if you want something to sit
| next to your TV to be a Plex client it should be a PS or
| XBOX.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
| snovymgodym wrote:
| Console success hasn't really been about performance for some
| time now.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| But arguably that's part of the problem. Not so much
| performance but for a long time you had improvement in the
| price/performance ratio and now you don't... except for Apple
| Silicon! The PS5 costs more, not less, than it cost at launch
| years ago. Studios are in deep trouble because several years
| ago they assumed the average gamer was going to have a better
| machine (be it PC or console) than they do so now everyone is
| complaining new games suck.
|
| X86 is going the way of the VAX and 68k but ARM ex. Apple is
| always underpowered at any price. If the rest of the industry
| was keeping up with Apple Silicon we would not be locked into
| what Apple thinks is fashionable we'd be seeing a lot of
| innovation.
| hedora wrote:
| Beelink's AMD mini-PCs are great console replacements. AMD
| $/perf and perf/watt is keeping up with Apple in the
| midrange (laptops, mini-pc's), and is winning at high-end
| (workstations + up).
| tjpnz wrote:
| I've been having a terrible time with Kerbal Space Program on
| my M4 based MBP. At the very least you could call it immersive
| when you're re-entering Kerbin and your knees are on fire.
|
| Still manages to stay cool with games like CP2077 though.
| walkabout wrote:
| I used to play that on an Intel i5 MacBook Pro (~2014 model?)
| with only embedded Intel graphics. It gave it a workout and
| the frame rate wasn't amazing, but it was playable. I'm
| surprised it strains an M4 at all.
| plmpsu wrote:
| FAQ says: "[...] a source port is just the
| executable code for the game, you still have to provide your own
| copy of the game's data. So for example, using Quake
| III: Arena again, the game consists of both an executable and a
| set of data files (pk3 files, in this case). The download for
| ioquake3 is an executable that is up to date and has been
| maintained to work on modern Macs, but you still need to acquire
| the pk3 files from a legal source, such as an existing
| installation of the game from disc or Steam or GOG."
| bsimpson wrote:
| I have original copies of a lot of these on CD, but even if it
| was easy to read CDs in 2025, that doesn't mean they're still
| in readable condition.
|
| A lot of abandonware games have ISOs posted on the Internet
| Archive. There's a glimmer of worry in the back of my head
| about the safety of downloading random executables, but it
| seems like they're usually the real deal.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| The executables are built from source if you use the
| OpenSource ports
| bsimpson wrote:
| That's a good point. I was thinking more generally about
| downloading binaries from unofficial sources.
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| In a lot of cases the easiest way is going to be to get the
| game from GOG and use my Extractor utility to get the data
| from the Windows installer
|
| https://www.macsourceports.com/utility/extractor
|
| Extractor is just a GUI-based version of innoextract, so if
| you prefer the command line you can use that.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| It's quite funny, because this page accidentally serves as a list
| of open source ports for gaming on Linux too. I used to look for
| ports of games I had played as a child (even for windows, because
| they sometimes no longer work there), and never got any global
| headquarters on games' ports (like the winehq db for example,
| which is another chapter of pain and sorrow to run them on linux)
| pmarreck wrote:
| I would like Linux to be "the" home for gaming. With those
| other 2 OS'es as "also supported on"'s.
|
| I think it's almost necessary that gaming's home needs to be on
| an open-source OS, where people make things work because they
| love to, not (necessarily) because they're paid to.
|
| I have already encountered games that no longer run on Windows
| but run fine (great even) on Proton.
|
| I wish Apple wasn't locking down their PC platform so much. I
| mean, Asahi exists, but they are given ZERO assistance except
| for what is essentially "Apple holding the door open for that
| and similar projects". Which can close at any time. Which is a
| serious problem (reminiscent of the ZFS situation with Oracle).
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| Yeah I'm not sure how many ports have a Mac build but no
| Windows build but generally I find that most of these have a
| Windows port because everyone has Windows, a Linux port because
| anyone with a spare PC can run Linux, but no Mac build because
| either no one on the team has a Mac or "the person who did the
| Mac build left/disappeared" so I'm trying to be that person for
| everyone, to some extent.
|
| But yeah if it can run on the Mac it can run on Linux and
| probably does. There's a few cases where it doesn't go the
| other way (Skin Deep uses OpenGL 4.3 and the Mac stopped at
| OpenGL 4.1, that sort of thing)
| WesleyJohnson wrote:
| Carmageddon, in part, paved the way for my Software Development
| career. Manipulating the text files to change a vehicles weight,
| speed, etc, just opened up a whole world for me. Awesome to see
| it here.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Having Carmageddon at the top is a good eye-catcher. My brother
| and I used to love driving around their open world and smashing
| into other drivers. I chose not to click through to see any of
| the media. I'm sure it's better looking in my memory.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Definitely. I want to determine what the best implementation of
| Carmageddon was and try to get that set-up -- which a steering
| wheel, pedals... Kind of my fantasy.
| bombcar wrote:
| There's a lot of money to be made here; just like how the
| current hotness in classic cars is always what the now late-
| middle aged dreamed of when they were teenagers - you could
| sell custom "best of" rigs for games when they were released.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Glider Pro [1] (called Airfoil?) is on the list. I guess posting
| the sources on Github made that an easy matter.
|
| I suppose I can point people to this when they ask me if there is
| a "Glider" on a modern platform. A lot easier than setting up
| emulators.
|
| [1] https://galeforcegames.itch.io/aerofoil
| asveikau wrote:
| This will be an off topic and kinda spammy comment, but thank
| you for that game. I played it a lot circa 1994. The level
| editor also kept it very fresh.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| (Hey, no problem. You're welcome.)
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| Thanks for releasing the source. Had you seen this source port
| before?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I am not sure. I definitely did not see it running in a
| browser, ha ha.
| asveikau wrote:
| Hadn't thought of Jazz Jackrabbit in a while.
|
| IIRC that game was pretty impressive when you consider that
| similar games on consoles were using custom sprite hardware, and
| doing it on a CPU would have been trickier, even despite having
| much better CPUs than the consoles.
| neckro23 wrote:
| Also one of the first DOS games that had Amiga-module-style
| music (mixed samples) instead of Adlib or MIDI. This later
| evolved into the UMX system used in Unreal and Deus Ex.
| dbalatero wrote:
| I wish there was a simple single page with all the game titles on
| it, so I could quickly scan thru the list without paginating. The
| `/games` page also doesn't have the filters that the root `/`
| page has.
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| Not the first time I've had this request, so try this thing I
| just hacked together and that's not listed anywhere yet
|
| https://www.macsourceports.com/games/list
| mrits wrote:
| Homm2. finally I can delete my Windows XP vm
| reactordev wrote:
| This site is difficult to navigate with just a paging list of
| entries with no order. Is there a search feature? Anyway to find
| old games without having to scroll through each page or write a
| python scraper? I love the effort. We should absolutely preserve
| old software and try to keep it working through various means. I
| just have a really hard time finding what I'm looking for on this
| site.
| galad87 wrote:
| Yup, just right in the upper half of the page there is a big
| search box and an "sort by" popup button.
| reactordev wrote:
| I don't see that on mobile. Just a list of games and a pager
| at the bottom that goes on for miles...
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| Yeah, I don't know why I've never added that, but you can
| filter games on the main page not the /games page.
| dbalatero wrote:
| The main page has the search box & sort by:
| https://www.macsourceports.com/
|
| The Games page does not: https://www.macsourceports.com/games
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| Try this, I just now added it.
|
| https://www.macsourceports.com/games/list
| reactordev wrote:
| Better! However, just including the filter could have solved
| this and other problems. Only having it on the main page was
| lost on me when initially viewing. Page on but let me filter.
| Also when clicking on a page, trigger a scroll to top. There
| were a couple times where I clicked on a pagination page
| number and it looked like nothing happened but the above
| content changed. Snappy but send me up. Little polish, little
| elbow grease, and bam. You got yourself an archive of the
| best of the best in old Mac software. Keep it up, for real, I
| kept telling kids about Bungie and Marathon but they still
| swear Halo is original.
| MacSourcePorts wrote:
| Yeah there's a glitch on scrolling up, I've never
| completely nailed it for some reason. I need to get on a
| real CMS just haven't had time.
|
| I originally omitted filtering on mobile for space reasons
| but then re-added it on the Home Screen.
| bombcar wrote:
| Heroes of Might and Magic III has some serious activity out
| there, still.
|
| Unfortunately, the best source port (VCMI) doesn't support Horn
| of the Abyss directly, but you can do things with Rosetta and
| friends: https://github.com/ponich/heroes3hota-mac-installer
| chb wrote:
| Would love to see Spaceward Ho! (Delta Tao Software,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceward_Ho!) in this list.
| wingworks wrote:
| Ahh bummer, couldn't find Blobbo on the list. It was the best old
| mac game!
| zeristor wrote:
| Is Terranova a thing?
|
| I was quite impressed with it back in the nineties, I don't think
| I got very far into it.
| catskull wrote:
| I love MacSourcePorts.com! If you're keen, I sat down with Tom a
| few months ago and we talked about the site and his passion for
| this stuff. Super interesting fella and a heck of a nice guy!
| https://catskull.net/podcast#episode-14-tom-macsourceports-m...
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